It's not blasphemy if you don't believe in it.

[elfs]

Stunning, hopefully, absolutely no one, at a summit of 57 Islamic Nations in Dakar, legal scholars have drafted a document calling for legal strategies to silence critics of Islam. Senegal President Abdoulaye Wade, apparently unfamiliar with this notion of "freedom of expression," said, "I don't think freedom of expression should mean freedom from blasphemy. There can be no freedom without limits."

Especially bizarre is this editorial which seems to imply that Muslims deserve the same laws protecting them from ridicule and blasphemy that the Jews already have in the United States.

Fine with me. Given that there are none. I mean, how alienated from reality can you be to write: "The [Western] world has moved on to implement Tocqueville's theocracy"? Tocqueville's theocracy‽ Those must be some excellent drugs, dude.

Comments

[norman-hamer.livejournal.com]

That was a very special editorial.

I didn't take it as implying that there were specific antisemitism laws in the USA, but in "the west".

http://www.antisemitism.org.il/eng/Legislation%20Against%20Antisemitism%20and%20Denial%20of%20the%20Holocaust#Germany

Given the number of writers who are painting with a pretty broad brush about "islamic countries" as if they all had the same set of laws, I don't think this is much different.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

That was a very special editorial.

Yes, in much the same way that broadcast television networks in the 80s and 90s used the phrase "very special" to indicate that your usually fun and hip sitcom was going to have an unfunny episode where someone dies, is raped, reveals herself to have been the victim of child abuse, discloses his oncoming Alzheimers, comes out of a closet, or reveals a deep and abiding love for neoconservatism. (Okay, so that last was pretty much every episode of Family Ties.)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

Feh.

The world's 1 billion Muslims need to realize that there are 5+ billion of us who are not going to bend over backwards to accommodate their repeated temper-tantrums.

The Islamic bodies of this ilk also don't seem to realize that respect is earned, usually by showing some respect or, at minimum, some consideration back. And if the world is too Big and Scary with all of its differences, they should stay home and not interact with anyone else. Otherwise, they need to Get Over Themselves.