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Originally Posted by Oriphiel
What are we even disagreeing about at this point? We both dislike wanton violence, and believe that people should have the right to express themselves.
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But the difference is, I believe there is a time and place for everything.
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I feel like the reason we're going back and forth is that you think i'm on the extreme end of the spectrum when it comes to freedoms and rights, that I think all people should be able to do whatever they want whenever they want. That isn't the case at all. It seems like the only real difference between you and I is that I refuse to crack jokes about dead people who were trying to defend their right to peacefully express themselves, even if they were expressing themselves in a way that you don't particularly fancy.
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Where have I cracked jokes about dead people?
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Originally Posted by Psy-Fi
I consider victim blaming, blame shifting, blame sharing to be quite grotesque.
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That depends on what side you're on, but personally I blame all the parties involved here, as they say it takes two to tango.
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The only blame for the murders in this case, lies squarely on the shoulders of the lunatics who committed those murders.
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What lunatics are you talking about, the soulless terrorists or the western sponsored forces in the Middle East?
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And the problem with keeping quiet and not "poking the hornet's nest" is that you could apply it to any situation where people stand up for themselves against others who threaten to do them harm. Any of the rights most of us in the Western world probably tend to take for granted; civil rights, gay rights, women's rights (just to name a few) would probably be little more than fantasies had it not been for people who continued to speak out and offend and anger those who were against them.
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Yes but these examples you've put above are not really comparable to the situation being discussed here in the Middle East. The set of examples you've put above are minorities looking to have their say and expressing themselves within the state mechanism. This is a very different scenario to dealing with fanatical and stateless terrorists who owe no allegiance to any real government or moral code that you/we might be familiar with. It's like going into a lunatic asylum and harping on about civil liberties to the inmates....... I doubt you'd get too much sense out of them.
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And those who continue to speak out for those (and other) issues today all over the world are often threatened with death by lunatics of all stripes. The world would be much worse off if nobody was willing to risk speaking out against those who try to intimidate others into silence and submission through fear and intimidation.
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The above is just romantic dawdling that is usually very good in theory, but in reality needs refinement before it's put into practice, because globalisation and means of travel has made the world a much smaller place, thus creating a greater furnace for world problems. It's all good and well speaking out against tyranny and restriction in a civilised society which has the means to address these issues, taking that practice overseas and into a different cultural environment is a far trickier and more dangerous thing to achieve, as facts have proved.