So probably all of you who do not live under a rock know about all of the protests going on due to this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAiOEV0v2RM

Brief summary: Anti-Islam movie created by some guy in California. Got huge attention. Many countries, not only Islam countries, staged protests. Huge protest in Libya ending in the death of the US Ambassador to Libya.

But what do you guys, a sample from the population of the world, think? It is still up because we have freedom of speech in the USA, but, personally, I think it should be taken down because it has provoked riots and is just plain stupid, freedom of speech or not. Should it be taken down or not?

Feel free to research more into it as I am well aware there are many other details I haven't covered.

I find this logic is flawed. Being a gay atheist, I have to deal with a bunch of ridiculous nonsense all the time. Videos making me out to be a child molester, videos saying I'm destroying America, and videos saying I'm some kind of diseased rodent that spreads aids and corrupts young minds to join my foul ranks. And that's just the nonsense I have to put up with for fucking dudes, Good god, now think about all the nonsense I have to put up with for being an atheist. And last time I checked, despite how much these videos make my life harder in spreading misinformation and lies, no one is doing anything to stop their existence simply because of 'free speech.' Are you saying that if I start protesting, rioting, and murdering people THEN these videos should be taken down?

Simply put, I consider this logic flawed. Think about it. If these people didn't get upset over this one stupid video, would you have ever hear of it? Would anyone even care? The great thing about free speech is that through allowing such horrible content we know to detest it. We know what kind of people warrant our scorn. It's not the fault of this stupid, disgusting movie that these people decided to respond by acting - quite simply - stupid and disgusting. Blaming the movie for THEIR actions is a lot like blaming video games when a gamer decides to kill his family. When people put up revolting things like this movie, what an individual is supposed to do is prove that they're better than that. If these Muslims just stayed home, watched porn, and, you know, not murder innocent people in cold blood then - I can promise you this - instead of talking about how absolutely disgusted I am with these protestors I would instead be bitching about how disgusting this movie is.

This behavior shouldn't be justified. There are a lot of good Muslims out there, but anyone that gets this upset over a single movie really needs to learn a thing or two about maturity. Oh, and here's a thought: While they're so completely offended by this one dumb movie, I wonder how much of these exact same people would have me hanged or stoned. That definitely offends me, I wonder if anyone would have my back if I decided to charge an embassy and started chucking rocks at people. Not that you should worry about me chucking rocks, because I'm pretty weak so they wouldn't be that big.

With all that said though, I think there's something bigger at work here. I don't think this is all just about a stupid movie. I think there is a legitimate problem here and that movie just served to be the last straw that broke the camels back. Hatred, war, and poor relations probably all played their parts. Or so I hope that's the case, because getting mad over a movie just seems stupid. I honestly hope there's some great amazing

Freedom of speech in a nut shell:

If it involves demeaning gay people - A okay.
If it involves group that's socially acceptable - never okay. (Really, if Chick-Fil-A was supporting a organization that funds projects against black people would anyone defend it on grounds of free speech?)
If people freak the fuck out and kill people - Nada.

Alright before I get into what I really thought about your post, I want to make two comments. First, I disagree with your metaphor about a video gamer killing their family. I think that was a terrible comparison and the two do not relate at all. Second, although this may not be relevant, I think it is important to reiterate that it is not only Muslims who are protesting. Many majorly-Christian countries all over Europe, especially the UK, are also protesting the publication of the video in the US.

Having said that, I think your post contains an amazing argument that I failed to see before. I completely agree with you that my logic was flawed and I have changed my opinion on the main matter. I will agree that the video is part of free speech, and although stupid and disgusting, it has its right to be there; taking the video down would be unjust in a country that respects freedom of speech. Your post was rather brilliant and I give you kudos for providing a new perspective to me. However, having this change in mind set I am now starting to rethink my opinions of freedom of speech, for better or worst.

In this position, though, I do feel vulnerable because I haven't heard any other arguments against yours, so I wouldn't say my opinion on this subject is set in stone or anything. I would love if other people would post here and state their arguments (especially if they disagree with the previous argument).

Thank you, sir, for those wise words. Now I shall look forward to someone else raping your argument with their own wise words, if anyone else has the motivation to post here.

Yes, absolutely. Almost everyone, in fact. It would just be economic suicide to do something like that, though.

It's a terrible movie but they can make it. I defend the film maker's right, even though he clearly is an idiotic racist.

I won't bend the fundamental rights granted by my civilization because it will cause violence. It is not the right of others to say what can or cannot be said, or what can or cannot be shown. If the Islamic community wishes to be apart of modern civilization they must adopt a peaceful stance. You may peacefully protest, you may assemble, you may form a petition, and you may shout just as loudly your dissent.

But acts of violence will not, and should not, be tolerated.

Maybe the Islamic community isn't ready for modern civilization. They're welcome to go and isolate themselves from the world. Go back to the dark ages and forget all of the science and technology which is taken for granted.

This is more frequent than I think it should be, too. Golf Clubs are extremely racist and sexist; it just made news that Augusta National admitted Condeleezza Rice, and they host the Masters, so they are a big deal. This type of thing has been going on decades after we all should've grown up.

The movie is a joke. A poor one, and a stupid one, but far from an original or new phenomenon. If there were riots every time something like this or this or every time someone makes a crude joke about catholic priests and little boys, there wouldn't be much left in predominantly Christian nations. I think this article sums up the most of it pretty well. It isn't everyone who believes the riots are the right course of action; here is a photo set of the protests that occurred after the riot in Libya.

So no, the movie shouldn't be censored and it should be allowed to air. I do not agree that the US government has defamed the acts of creating the movie. I do not appreciate the movie, I think it is in bad taste, but I am not going to stand in the way of freedom of speech.

According to Wired's article, the director (I think) of the movie was a person convicted of inventing identities for bank accounts and such.

Freedom of Speech should be limited only when someone or something is trying to incite violence or genocide. Insults, with or without reason, should generally be permitted.

Most people would agree with the common example that: Shouting "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater, should not be protected speech, because it causes an unnecessary, highly disruptive, and potentially dangerous (in specific cases people did actually die from this!) panic.

This was legally established in the U.S. in the Brandenburg v. Ohio case, that decided if such speech were to cause "imminent lawless action" (that is to say, poses a clear and present danger), that said speech is not protected.

'Sam Bacile' &? his associates violated this principle, they knowingly put themselves and others at great risk in airing these clips, for that reason, I feel their right to free speech in this case should be forfeit.

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Moreover 'Innocence of Muslims' was made into an anti-Muslim film without the knowledge or consent of the actors:


I don't know that this violates any legal principles, but I think one would have to agree that was highly unethical.

Luckily for those feeling 'Sam Bacile' or 'Nakoula Basseley Nakoula' (as he's been identified) deserves some sort of punishment, he probably face prison time for something, if not this movie; as he is infamous for illegal financial practices.

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As for the violent reaction of the Muslims, I think the topic's already been dragged into the dirt; they shouldn't be allowed to behave violently (even to go so far as to attack diplomats on protected soil) because of a few offensive pieces of media created by obnoxious individuals, particularly violent individuals should be held accountable if possible, etc. etc.



Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Sep 16 2012, 7:46 pm by jjf28. Reason: Syntax

Knowingly put themselves at great risk? From what? Other humans who are unhappy at their satire - so unhappy that they will kill you for it. This is the whole POINT of free speech, you can say such things without censorship, ESPECIALLY violent censorship. And that is all Islam is trying to achieve in these cases and others, violent censorship.

What's a guaranteed way to silence someone? Kill them.

You may as well say that Copernicus should have shut the hell up when he put forward the heliocentric model because he 'knowingly put himself and his peers at risk of violent behaviour from the Catholics'. This is abhorrent reasoning!

I feel the opposite. As stupid as their video may be, The Onion News Network makes a good point. While their material is largely satirical in nature, it often has a powerful message beyond the humor. In response to the violence of this video, the Onion released a very graphic picture which is not appropriate for SEN, but here is the caption: I'm sure you can imagine the poor taste and highly offensive nature of the image from this description alone, but in most places outside of the Middle East, images like this aren't cause for violence. How could anyone from a society where this sort of mockery is commonplace and regarded as little more than a bad joke really predict how much violence it could cause in a place thousands of miles away? Maybe Sam Bacile should have considered this, as part of his responsibilities as a director, from a moral standpoint. However, from the standpoint of the United States legal system, he did not incite anyone to break the laws of the United States, therefore his speech should be protected. Of course, some U.S. citizens did die as a result of this video. If it can be proven that Sam Bacile intentionally incited the peoples of the Middle East to cause harm to Americans, then that speech should not be protected and he should be locked up for manslaughter. However, I doubt it was intentional, and even if it was, this would be very hard to prove.

Ahh, my new desktop background!

This isn't known for sure, see here from wiki:

The Obama administration opened an investigation into whether the attack in Libya was a planned terrorist attack on the 11th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, because it was "too coordinated or professional to be spontaneous", rather than a spontaneous mob that was angry over a YouTube video criticizing Islam.[115] According to The New York Times and CNN, officials within the Obama administration have said that they believe the attack in Benghazi was deliberate,[116] and reports indicate one or more[38][117] pro-al Qaeda groups may have been involved in the attack.

@Vrael - I'm henceforth dropping that it was illegal (I'm hopeless unqualified to argue U.S. law ) - and will focus on the morality.

@Oh_Man - Stunning how you can call my reasoning abhorrent and not form a concrete attack on said reasoning. I don't think you've sufficiently eroded neither my premises nor my argument. I encourage you to employ the counterexample method, or use equivalent statements to show that my reasoning is such - in the interests of avoiding miscommunication/ unintentional straw-mans, I’ll put my arguments in standard form (for those curious: ADD stands for putting two statements together, MP is a Latin abbrev. roughly meaning "if you put the 'IF' with the corresponding 'IF-THEN', you get the 'THEN'")

Before I continue, 'Sam Bacile' is an alias (he's probably a Coptic Christian from Egypt named Nakoula Basseley Nakoula), not a Jewish film producer in Cali. originally from Israel as he claimed. (sourced later)

1. Speech which will knowingly and needlessly put people at great risk of harm should be restricted (see below)
2. 'Sam' released content knowing that it would bring people to harm (see below)
3. 'Sam’s content was needless (see below)
4. 'Sam' knowingly released speech that would needlessly put people at great risk of harm. (2, 3, ADD)
5. This speech of 'Sam’s should be restricted. (1, 4, MP)

Premise 1

In support of premise 1: I used both legal and anecdotal evidence to show that free-speech should not always be protected, and I put fourth very short lines of reasoning why this particular instance should not be protected as displayed in my standard form argument. You only appear to reject premise 1.


I in no way supported violent censorship, I merely rejected the self-aware, unnecessary provocation of violence and stated that when one does so, he should not be protected under the umbrella of free-speech. I consider the introduction of 'violent censorship' in this context a particularly smelly red-herring.


I'd like to raise two objections to this response:

1. I wasn't aware that Copernicus put forth the heliocentric model knowing it would provoke violent reactions from the Catholic community (we know it provoked violent reactions after-the-fact, but did he know it would provoke violent reactions before-hand?), if he didn't know, then this is a very weak analogy, please source.

2. He put forth the heliocentric model intending to show his findings in a respectful manner, he did not put fourth an offensive, tasteless, mixture of truth and lies into a 12 minuet, targeted insult of a culture, knowing that it would provoke violent reactions; the comparison strikes me as unjustified.


This calls into question premise 2 ('Sam' released content knowing that it would bring people to harm), I do have two separate lines of inductive reasoning for it:

Premise 2

1. 'Sam Bacile' is most likely Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a Coptic Christian from Egypt. (source)
2. Most Coptic Christians from Egypt would understand that such a video would incite violence. (intuition, accept or reject for yourself)
3. Therefore he probably knew video would cause violence.

1. Klein appears to be an associate of Nakoula (source)
2. (from the horse’s mouth) "We went into this knowing this was probably going to happen," Klein said. (source)

As I’m sure you know, a premise being more likely than it's contradiction(s) is all that is necessary for it to be part of a good argument - I think that's been satisfied.

Premise 3

In support of premise 3, I’ll simply point to the many occurrences of such content in the past that fostered negative reactions and did not facilitate change. Respectful discussion between emissaries (state administrators, Jewish/Coptic leaders) and Islamic leaders has met success in the past and should be how we attempt to facilitate change.

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If I may take a short rant: 'proving'/'to prove' is a terrible word/phrase that colloquially requires unreasonable amounts of evidence. To quote Alexander Vilenkin "It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man."

Rant/legality aside, I think that if he knowingly and needlessly incites violence of any kind, he should be locked up - and I think there is good reason to say he did just that.

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Note: I argue for 'acted knowing X would happen', not 'acted intending X to happen'

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Stepping outside of the specific situation upon which I have clearly taken a stance… I do think It is a grave problem that individual (stressing individual) Islamic’s take such serious offense that they would resort to violence, I do wish their culture would change that, I am in full agreement with the statement “This should not be offensive” and that satirical content should not cause such an uproar. Likewise I think using the ‘N-word’ should be completely appropriate and wish that it could be used in a joking manner (this is an aside, not a supporting analogy) – but the world’s not quite like that, in the meantime I think that we should be watching our step and work towards change through building positive relationships.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Sep 16 2012, 10:22 pm by jjf28.

Freedom of Speech probably doesn't even apply here. Doesn't it deal with relationships between government and citizens or civilians under the government's jurisdiction only?

If that is the case, his video probably should not be removed. However, it's clear that it's going to offend somebody or a party. Given the reputation of extremist Muslims, if Sam Bacile gets stoned or such, it would not be surprising (not that the assault itself should be condoned - it is simply foreseeable).

Assuming that the riots and attacks were not deliberate, it's foreseeable that something like that could happen. Again, the crimes committed should be investigated normally, but it really shouldn't be so surpirsing. If I pissed on your dog and shat on your car's windshield, you might be pissed enough to come beat me up or kill me, especially maybe if I left a stain on your car which happened to be a family heirloom or a lambourghini. The only difference in this case is a legal and values dissonance. Sam Bacile basically pissed all over Musilms' family heirloom lambourghini, and now they're pissed, which is fine. (But the ensuing violence was not.)

But Sam didn't actually break any laws. If I literally shat on your lambourghini I might be charged for something, but his video is sanctioned (even though that's basically what it did).

Edit: Something has gone wrong in whatever society that deems it fine to mock other societies without regard for the possible consequences. I question the value of such a society that condones inflaming others.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Sep 17 2012, 6:47 am by Sand Wraith.

It's not illegal, that ruling is a violation of the first amendment. Well, that or there's going to many things of consequence should we accept otherwise.

"Speech which will knowingly and needlessly put people at great risk of harm should be restricted."

No, it shouldn't, and I'll explain why. The whole court system operates on the notion that persons are responsible for their own actions. That is to say, if you punch someone in the face, you can't blame the Universe's laws and say you are not an agent without a will and therefore not responsible for your own actions (as true as it may be).

The above premise quoted acknowledges that there are instances when someone is responsible for another's actions through indirect influence. That is to say, that when you yell fire in a crowded movie theater, the persons who would presumably storm out of the building are not fully responsible for any persons they would harm in doing so.

This is already a sticky mess of philosophy, since there aren't any fine lines to go by. And this is all, as I should admit, based on conjecture -- that a particular speech would be harmful without direct evidence apart from the laughable, "b-but common sense" fallback.

There is this right of people to bear arms, practice any religion they wish, and so on. So allow me to toss some of these into the mix:

Should a priest be allowed to continue preaching his religion if another person vowed to kill, and has killed, people for his doing so? Is the priest responsible for the murders?

Most would argue that he should be allowed, as protected under freedom of religion as well as freedom of speech. But here's the thing, there's no difference between the two hypothetical scenarios in terms of logic. Which means we must restrict other freedoms as well: it's an all or nothing sort of deal. You cannot discriminate between scenarios when the logic and principles are the same.

And we do have a word for that: injustice.

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That said, freedom in America is a complete joke. We're not actually free. We're fed propaganda that we're a free country; but if this country were actually as free as the propaganda depicts, then there wouldn't be any need for the propaganda, would there?

You know, I hate this statement more than anything. It isn't the message I hate - because no, we really aren't free, are we? - it's because this is, to me, a feel-good statement protestors or activists use when they aren't sure what exactly they are fighting for. It's a blanket statement, and in my opinion it is used to convey an emotion rather than any message; it makes people feel hopeless or bitter, not proactive or ready for change. I'm having a problem finding the "we are free" propaganda, too. In response to the film, Hillary Clinton says "The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation." She adds later in an after thought that the US will never stop someone's use of free speech, I admit, but this sounds a lot like a mother saying "I'm not mad at you, just disappointed." ...you know your mother is mad at you, and you know she will probably not forget about it for a while. Just because she didn't yell at you right away for cheating on a test that doesn't mean that she will let you go see a movie with your friends this weekend. Sorry, there is no illusion of freedom in America. It is my belief that people would rather be secure from a the boogeymen then be free. Last night my friends and I went to a movie - before the movie started we watched an informational video about notifying theater staff we see anyone suspicious and to keep our belongings close to us at all times. This is brand new; when we went to see Brave opening weekend this video did not exist. I think the reason why it is here now is because of the Aurora shooting; it goes without saying that it rustled quite a few people. But what will it stop at? How long before theaters, malls, or other gathering places all have TSA check points? At what cost to our freedom?

I don't think many people think it is fine, what the director has made. Just because we tolerate it doesn't mean we like it.

Oh yeah, we tolerated those Native Americans to death. 'tis a shame I can only protest this in free speech zones.

You didn't even read my post, did you sac? Or are you agreeing with me?

Only an extremely small percentage of Muslims are violent extremists. There are conservative and liberal Muslims, just like there are conservative and liberal Christians.

Violence is an inherent part of Islam though...


1 out of 3 British Muslims aged 16 to 24 believe that Muslim apostates should be executed. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/jan/29/thinktanks.religion)
Yes, a THIRD. This is not 'an extremely small percentage'. There is nothing 'extreme' about Islamic violence because violence is an inherent part of the doctrine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_violence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qur%27an_and_violence

This is the same with Christianity, only nowadays those violent passages are ignored.


Here go to 2:45 the interviewer says the exact same thing you said.

Another one that addresses the same questions.


I really liked his quote: "It is like we are facing 14th century Christians with 21st century weapons."

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Sep 20 2012, 9:45 am by Oh_Man.