Should Americans Be Allowed To (NRR)
Rockadelic
Out Digging 13,993 Posts
make films that denigrate and insult a religion?
Rockadelic
Out Digging 13,993 Posts
Comments
The title of this thread should be "Should ass hurt religious types be allowed to kill and maim innocent people?". I'll leave you good folks to work out the answer to that one
This is one of the biggest stories on earth right now....there is a debate on whether or not our society supports the denigration of religious beliefs......are you cutting these pages out of your newspaper so you don't have to see them or just don't want to see it be discussed?
I will say that there are probably several laws broken w/r/t the film, unrelated to the 1st amendment.
Like what?
If they have to.
no; I was just being a jerk.
anyone who doesn't think American's should have this right doesn't really understand this whole America thing.
well apparently the actors' dialogue was overdubbed without their consent or knowledge; they'd have grounds for a lawsuit I think. And the actual maker of the film (going under a pseudonym) was on parole for identity theft/fraud/passing bad checks and as a condition of his parole was supposed to stay off the internet. So he'd be in violation of his parole.
ETA: some have suggested that the families of the dead might be able to sue for damages. I'll repeat INAL but am interested to know how that would work.
At least he stands by the film he made.
This film was made by cowards who tricked people into making their trash.
Rock. You already know the answer. Of course they have the right. Extremely stupid & ignorant of them to make the film tho.
At heart, it's nothing to do with being American. Just ask Salman Rushdie or the Danish cartoonists.
I didn't ask "Do they have the right"...I asked "Should they have the right".
I've spoken to one person today IRL who said they thought it should be against the law.
sorry, but wasn't Rock's question about Americans?
Thanks...I thought you were inferring that actual content of the film broke the law.
yes, but I just guess went completely awol and expanded the frame of reference. Rock doesn't seem to bothered by this
thats why
expanded the frame of reference how? to other countries?
there are scores of countries in which the making of this dogshit "film" would have been illegal.
I don't think there's a debate there. do we really want to sit around and argue if Indonesians should have the right to denigrate a religion? French people? Zambians? who cares?
This is a home grown myth as American as apple pie. There are many other democratic countries that have as strong a sense of freedom as Americans. They express it differently, less stridently perhaps, but underneath it's no less strong. I could go on for a lot longer but I don't want to hijack the thread any further. If the thread's about American laws on freedom for expression etc, I'll respect that and bow out.
That one actually insults ALL religions, so it's not really within the call of the question. ;-)
But yes, we should. Now, if we do it with the purpose of incitement, and incitement occurs, property is damaged, or worse, that individual should be held accountable.
No screaming fire in a crowded theater, and such.
Let me add that it's bizarre to me why these mobs are attacking US embassies. The US government did not put this video out.
I think this video is ignorant and whoever made it is terrible, however killing people over being mocked is even worse.
Then again, I highly doubt this is an organic response just to this video and is really just believers being manipulated by people with other motives, as it has been throughout the history of organized religion and it's many many bloodbaths
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not but from all so called 1st world countries I've ever been to, the US feels the most restricted to me. I wasn't able to have titties on my party flyers, got stopped for having a beer on the street etc. I mean it's great if you're feeling all free and enjoying your freedom and so on but to everybody who's been around the world for a while the whole myth of the US being the "freest country of the world" is completely ridiculous. I mean I spent a total of 8 years living there and it's a incredibly big, diverse and beautiful country but it's also the closest thing to a police state that you can find outside of 3rd world dictatorships.
It indicates several different and very fundamental misunderstandings about how our country works. There have been calls from *within the gov'ts* of Egypt and Libya to prosecute the filmmakers (and not on some vicarious liability, proximate cause theory, but rather for the straight offense of denigrating Islam). These are gov't officials (of ostensibly allied gov'ts) who have seemingly no clue how the US works.
Also, there is likely a misconception on the part of many of these people that a movie such as this one reflects the will or opinions of our gov't because that's how things work in *their* countries (state-controlled media, etc.)
And whether we like it or not, there are likely those among these angry mobs who are just straight up mad at our country for allowing people the freedom to do what they did here. I'm not saying that's the majority of the angry folks ("they hate us for our freedom!"), but this sentiment does exist.
There's been some developments today that indicate that this was way more complicated just a visceral, spontaneous crowd response to the videos: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-libya-ambassador-battlebre88b1jg-20120912,0,7896457.story
That's because these mobs are steered... a mob doesn't have an intellect.
In Northern Nigeria when an attack against a christian church doesn't lead to a reprisal attack that then motivates a muslim mob to take even more revenge, Boko Haram have been known to shoot up mosques and kill a bunch of their own brethren to add more fuel to the fire.
Blaming art for violence is to excuse inexcusable human behavior.
Political propaganda (which this film clearly is - its promoter said as much) is not "art".
I've heard the argument that Piss Christ wasn't art either....or political cartoons....they are.