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.
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.
Comments here are not by the Ralph Adamo who lives in New Orleans.
“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.
“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.
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.
“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.”
Sorry, I just going to sit here and drink gin and tonic till they come to pick me up.
‘Under the spreading chestnut tree….”
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.
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.
Good call there raff…. I think oil is the answer, see the post above….but hey…
OS,
Onw word…Oil.