Kuwait’s parliament has passed the latest law limiting speech in the name of religion. The bill makes it a death penalty offense to curse God or the Prophet Muhammad or his wives.
The bill passes 41-6. Before you think that the six represented a core of civil libertarians, legislator Ahmad Lari said he voted against the law not because of the concern for free speech. He wants to punish blasphemers but thought the language was a bit ambiguous.
MP Faysal Al-Muslim notably proclaimed “Today, we lead the world through this law. It is a triumph for the Prophet to execute those who harm him and his wives, and especially Aisha the pure. Cursing them shames us all.”
Unfortunately, he may be right — with the help of the Obama Administration which is working on an international standard to allow for the prosecution of people who speak out about religion. The Administration has drawn a dangerous line with Muslim countries in first supporting the concept of an international blasphemy standard. As I have mentioned before, the efforts of the Obama Administration to work with countries like Egypt on an international blasphemy standard is a threat to free speech around the world. After first supporting an international blasphemy standard, the Administration sought to get Egypt and other countries to adopt the Brandenburg standard as the basis for such prosecutions. These cases show the mentality of countries pushing for a “balance” between free speech and religion. It also shows why the use of the Brandenburg standard is so dangerous in the hands of such officials who view free speech as the cause of imminent violence. Because any joke or image of the Prophet can trigger violence, the standard is immediately satisfied in countries like Egypt, which can then claim some legal legitimacy under the standard created with the United States. Free speech is under attack around the world and I view this effort as facilitating, rather than curtailing, such crackdowns on dissidents and intellectuals.
Kuwait is not viewed as the most radical country in this area and has obviously close ties to the United States (which liberated the nation). For that reason, this law is particularly chilling as to the potential of the international standard under development by the Obama Administration and Muslim countries.
Source: Times of Israel as first seen on Reddit.
His wives? Even the slutty one?
It is truly disturbing to hear that this country is giving any shelter to restrictions on speech.
There are those of us who believe that the more objectionable speech is, the more important to get it out into the public arena so that thoughtful individuals can engage it to show its deficiencies in fact and logic.
We cannot protect ourselves from objectionable speech by attempting to lock it away. Objectionable speech will take place. If we attempt to restrict it, the speech will take place in the dark, hidden places of our society.
We may never convince those who make objectionable speech of their error. But if the speech takes place in public, we have a chance to engage and convince those who are on the cusp, whose minds are not yet made up. If we force objectionable speech into the dark places, there are those who may decide without ever hearing our factual and logical response – and that is truly dangerous.
Mistake …
Think what a clever beast could do to a person on Facebook. Yo. Egyptians get the hell off of Facebook!
I keep getting an email, purportedly from WordPress and Turley which is very inarticulate (blame that part on WordPress) and asks to subscribe to something or another, possibly “comments” to my comments, possibly to a years supply of dishsoap. If someone on Turley post reads these comments please reply on this blog, not in an email and if the rest of you are getting this inane crap (sp) then chimne in with your take on it.
Muslims are as anti Christ as you can get. To kill a human is a sin all by its self. When will the Muslims see this?
There is a box below Leave a Reply about notification via email. Make sure there is no check in the box. It “remembers” your setting. You can change it with each reply.
artiewhitefox, I presume that the Muslims will see that “[t]o kill a human is a sin all by its self” around the same time Christians do…
@TalkinDog
The only thing I have been getting from Worldpress is an administrative note that allows me to confirm that I want new comments emailed.
I happens once when I enter a discussion and works well for me.
KJV, Romans 12 9Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. 10Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another; 11Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord; 12Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer; 13Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality.
The Muslims are known for being Deception from hiding the truth trying to act like something that they are not.
To demand death in any form or fashion is human sacrafic. Human sacrifice is what idol worshipers do. The Muslims have to come to grips that they are idol worshipers worshiping the name of Mohamed, and the Koran. Kill,and take Gods name in vain. That means the Muslims makinmg a consequence of death talks Gods name in vain swearing.. Repenting needs to take place.. God is the giver of justice, not us.
14Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not. 15Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. 16Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits. 17Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. 18If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. 19Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. 20Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. 21Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
Gods vengeance is the light of God when he alone chooses to shine it.
KJV, Romans 12 9Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. 10Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another; 11Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord; 12Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer; 13Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality.
The Muslims are known for being Deceptive hiding the truth trying to act like something that they are not.
To demand death in any form or fashion is human sacrafic. Human sacrifice is what idol worshipers do. The Muslims have to come to grips that they are idol worshipers worshiping the name of Mohamed, and the Koran. Kill,and take Gods name in vain. That means the Muslims makinmg a consequence of death talks Gods name in vain swearing.. Repenting needs to take place.. God is the giver of justice, not us.
14Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not. 15Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. 16Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits. 17Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. 18If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. 19Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. 20Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. 21Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
Gods vengeance is the light of God when he alone chooses to shine it.
TD,
Thanks for the distraction. Did part of JT’s thing seem a repeat? Guess even his mind as trouble keeping up with the demands of modern life. Or my brain’s prescient.
Soon we’ll realize this phenomenon has two basic causes. One good and one bad.
The good one is that even Arab politicians realize that they are subject to pressure in their so-called democracy. Now it is other’s heads they are paying with. Sound like Iraq and Af-stan?
The bad one is it’s all part of a CIA plot to keep the terror pot boiling, Keeping it carefully aligned where most of the oil is.
Hummmm. Something to call Obama’s attention or Dillarydock is a clock. Warren for President.
Jesus in humans did not kill. Jesus – Adoni. raised the dead. Jesus is the Lord God. Therefore to say Christians killed is heresy saying a blasphemous statement. The humans that killed used the name of Christ as a cloak, and that is all.
Jesus in humans did not kill. Jesus – Adoni raised the dead. Jesus is the Lord God. Therefore to say Christians killed is heresy saying a blasphemous statement. The humans that killed used the name of Christ as a cloak, and that is all.
More Islamic Insanity or Muslim Madness–take your preferred alliterative description.
Here’s an ultra-condensed history of those who have spoken out against Muhammad and his barbaric cult:
In the Middle Ages, Jewish writers described Muhammad as ha-meshuggah (“The Madman”), a term used in the Bible for those who believe themselves to be prophets. Martin Luther King referred to Muhammad as “a devil and first-born child of Satan”. Voltaire wrote a play Mahomet, Le fanatisme, ou Mahomet le Prophete, literally Fanaticism, or Mahomet the Prophet), that is a study of religious fanaticism and self-serving manipulation based on an episode in the traditional biography of Muhammad in which he orders the murder of his critics. Swami Vivekananda wrote that great evil has been done through Muhammad’s fanaticism with “whole countries destroyed” and “millions upon millions of people killed.” Jai Maharaj, sponsor of the Satyameva Jayate site, wrote that Muhammad was “in fact a terrorist, criminal and murderer whose entire life was based on victimizing innocents and indulging in mindless violence, carnage and massacre.” Maharaj chronicled what he called were Muhammad’s “criminal acts in the form of battles and murders.” Ayaan Hirsi Ali has called Muhammad a “tyrant” and a “pervert”. Geert Wilders called Muhammad a “mass murderer and a pedophile”.
Ralph! So glad to see you are back with your selectively-quoted bigotry! And you have company on this thread. Have you read what Martin Luther said about the Jews? It is not pretty. Geert Wilders is considered part of the worryingly strong far right in Europe, and is a racist. And Voltaire was highly critical also of Jews and Christians — enough so (though the point is disputed by other scholars) that Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, the widely-read popular scholar of Judaism, considers that the greatest Enlightenment hostility against Judaism is found in Voltaire’s writings. And I have heard a few of Ali’s lectures and read some of her writing, and she paints with a very wide and bigoted brush as well. As I have mentioned before, you cannot say that “all Muslims” act in a certain way – that is some 2 BILLION people – any more than you can say “all Christians” act in a certain way, or “all Jews.” (In fact, if one says, “All Jews think or act like X,” you are usually called an anti-Semite, with reason.) Ali makes such wild claims regularly.
But since you like Voltaire, perhaps you should consider this from his “Treatise on Toleration”: “It does not require great art, or magnificently trained eloquence, to prove that Christians should tolerate each other. I, however, am going further: I say that we should regard all men as our brothers. What? The Turk my brother? The Chinaman my brother? The Jew? The Siam? Yes, without doubt; are we not all children of the same father and creatures of the same God?” Try out that as your starting place when thinking about Muslims – if more of us did, the world would be a happier place.
I wonder if that could be turned on them when some fanatic, meaning to curse Christians, curses God under a different name?
Also: http://www.theonion.com/articles/god-angrily-clarifies-dont-kill-rule,222/
Think ot C — love that Onion piece!
And Bush 1 saved it for what????????
Oh yeah oil, bankers…… And his 10 acres…. How soon we forget…..
DHMCartver, you are very good at one thing: changing the topic of discussion to one in which you feel more comfortable. Nonetheless, I’ll go along with you.
I will concede that Voltaire is not a particularly good example to illustrate what Muhammad and Islam are about, even if his take on them is pretty much on target in this case. As you point out, Voltaire hated a lot things, including Christianity and Judaism. According to Hanna Emmerich, the author of the only book-length study of Voltaire’s attitude to the Jews and their religion, Voltaire attacked Judaism because it was “the basis of Christianity, and whoever attacks one must also attack the other.” See Des Judentum bei Voltaire (Berlin, 1930), p. 256.
But there is a great distinction between Volaire’s venom for Islam, and his attacks on Christianity and Judaism. In Islam, Votaire recognized that Muhammad’s acts were barbarous. Regarding Christians and Jews, however, at core, Voltaire betrays his envy of Christians and Jews. In fact, Voltaire has specifically referred to Jews as “masters.” And it is an inescapable reality that if you were to identify the greatest minds and the greatest contributors to the rich culture of civilization in the last few centuries, 95% of them or more would be Christians and Jews. That was true in Voltaire’s time, and it’s true today.
So you have to take the views of some anti-Semities with a little grain of salt, as some of them–particularly the more intelligent ones (like Voltaire) have great envy of the accomplishments of Jews.
Thus, for another example, the great composer, Richard Wagner, was really not so anti-Semitic as he might seem on surface examination. Wagner wrote a famous anti-Semitic diatribe, Das Judenthum in der Musik (Jewishness in Music) that discussed in substantial part about how the music of Jews wasn’t really very good. But the reality is that Wagner never really felt that way about Jews at all. In fact, he KNEW that the opposite was true.
Much of Wagner’s anti-Semitic rants had to do with his envy and resentment of Meyerbeer’s music. Yet, Wagner COPIED some sections of Meyerbeer’s works. And he sent one of his works to Mendelsohn for advice on how to make it better, and he has referred to Mendelsohn as a genius. (Wagner also copied some scoring ideas from Mendelsohn.) And, of course, Wagner absolutely adored the music of Johann Strauss II—as did other great musicians of his day, including Brahms and Tchaikovsky. But Wagner knew that Strauss was descended from Jews. (And, in fact, Strauss has written about himself, saying “in my heart I am more Jewish than Protestant.” And if that were not enough, Wagner engaged his friend, Hermann Levi, a rabbi’s son, to conduct some of his operas. Like I indicated, with some anti-Semities, you have to take their words with more than a grain of salt.
Now, as you will observe, I have also changed the topic as well. Two can play at that game.
Does Ralph’s studying on all this “jewish” crap make anyone else sort of queasy?
“with the help of the Obama Administration which is working on an international standard to allow for the prosecution of people who speak out about religion.”
This does not sound like protecting the Constitution of the United States to me. Might this be an impeachable offense?
And we liberated Kuwait…..
Can somebody tell me exactly why?
OS,
Onw word…Oil.
Good call there raff…. I think oil is the answer, see the post above….but hey…
In carrying out its new law globally — according to precedent set by the United States — the Kuwaiti government will shortly commence drone-strike assassinations, i.e., “justice,” on those infidels in the United States who blaspheme against Single Spook Animism (in any of its malignant manifestations) and yet won’t come out from behind their “human shield” families and fight like sitting ducks or fish in a barrel. These precision Kuwaiti drone strikes will, naturally, not cause an unacceptable (to the Kuawati government) level of collateral damage among Americans who exhibit suspicious “patterns of behavior” like gathering together for weddings and funerals, or who have males in the household “of military age.”
Golden Rule. What goes around comes around. Blowback. Karma.
“And we liberated Kuwait…..
Can somebody tell me exactly why?” — Otteray Scribe
Answer: So that President George H. W. Bush and the Pentagram could declare The Vietnam Syndrome dead, so that President Deputy Dubya Bush and the Pentagram could then indulge themselves in two more Vietnams: namely, Iraq and Afghanistan. As Glenn Greenwald summarized the situation recently:
“The War on Terror is the end in itself, and Terrorism is merely its pretext.”
American presidents and the Pentagram do not fight wars to win them. They start wars to have them. As the career lifers used to say back in Vietnam: “Don’t knock the war, it’s the only one we’ve got.”
I trust this has answered your question. For further elucidation, break out your copy of 1984 and read Orwell’s trenchant and timeless analysis: “War is Peace.”
I am not even going to try to figure out what is satire and what is sincere.
But we are living in a golden age of military dominance.
Smart bombs, drones and the missiles they carry are all essentially simple technology. Like anti ship cruse missiles, in a decade or so every 3rd or 4th rate military will have them.
At that point the most crucial feature will be bases from which to launch. With Mexico at least in range of becoming a failed narco-state, basing may not be such a problem to our future adversaries.
Of course, this problem is likely decades away, long enough for many reading this to retire and build a shelter far from the likely target cities.
Look it just isn’t that bad: an ebook with most of the NY public library, an generator and 2 feet of reinforced concrete over your head – no problem.
Sorry, I just going to sit here and drink gin and tonic till they come to pick me up.
‘Under the spreading chestnut tree….”
Make that Victory Gin, bfm. No tonic ration this year, even though the official production figures for tonic have broken all previous records.
“The fabulous statistics continued to pour out of the telescreen. … He could not follow the figures, but he was aware that they were in some way a cause for satisfaction. … Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it.” — 1984
The sooner we leave Afghanistan in 2014, the longer we’ll stay there till 2024. We’ve killed 20 out of Al Qaeda’s top 30 leaders, so now they have 50 top leaders. Killing 30 of them will probably take another decade, which will leave something like 100 top leaders. Stuff like that.
We invaded Iraq to depose a dictator we did not fear, to deprive him of weapons he did not possess, in retaliation for an attack upon us in which he did not participate. Now, after a decade in Afghanistan, the tipping point will soon turn the corner and connect the dots on the ink-stained fly-paper dominoes in the tunnel at the end of the light.
The American government has now become an official parody of itself. But have we ever got some lessons in freedom to teach those Muslims.
Yes it is. What Obama is trying to do is make a law so humans can’t speak out against Muslims.
“Curious,” I’m sorry that my references to Christianity and “all this jewish crap” (as you put it) makes you feel “sort of queasy.” I’m sure that if you’d check out http://www.stormfront.org, you’ll find just the kind of “pick-me-up” discussions you need to get rid of that queasy feeling.
“The bill makes it a death penalty offense to curse God . . . .”
I don’t see how this could surprise true Christians.
Any decree such as this is perfectly in line with the 3rd Commandment.
Comments here are not by the Ralph Adamo who lives in New Orleans.
Who is masquerading as me? I did not say Obama was trying to keep people from speaking against Muslims.
religious people make laws calling for death. Jesus came that we might have life.
KJV, . John 18 >>Now Caiaphas was he, which gave counsel to the Jews, that it was expedient that one man should die for the people.
Mark 14:1-9, the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take him by craft, and put him to death, John 12;10 the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death;
Matthew 26:59 Now the chief priests, the elders, and the whole council sought false testimony against Jesus, that they might put him to death.
Mark 14:55 And the chief priests and all the council sought for witness against Jesus to put him to death; and found none.
John 5:16 : And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day.
John 7:1After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him.
Luke 20:19 And the chief priests and the scribes the same hour sought to lay hands on him; and they feared the people: for they perceived that he had spoken this parable against them.