{"id":3838,"date":"2012-09-23T08:44:40","date_gmt":"2012-09-23T12:44:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=3838"},"modified":"2012-09-23T08:44:40","modified_gmt":"2012-09-23T12:44:40","slug":"free-speech-vs-hate-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=3838","title":{"rendered":"Free speech vs. hate speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Protesters at the US Consulate in Toronto yesterday demanded that American authorities do something about the infamous anti-Islam video, the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Innocence_of_Muslims\">Innocence of Muslims<\/a>. They held up signs claiming that &#8220;free speech does not mean disrespecting any prophet&#8221;, among other things.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestar.com\/news\/gta\/article\/1260901--gta-coptic-christian-activist-asks-police-for-protection\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-3839\" title=\"free_speech_prophet\" src=\"http:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/free_speech_prophet.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"615\" height=\"461\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/free_speech_prophet.jpg 615w, https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/free_speech_prophet-300x224.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>But, my friends, that is EXACTLY what free speech is. It is precisely the right to disrespect, even insult if I wish, God, Yahweh, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Christ, Mohammed, Buddha, Ra, Moses, and every other living or imaginary prophet, deity, political or religious leader. Even using crude or obscene language and bad humor, if that happens to suit my fancy.<\/p>\n<p>Do you want to know what hate speech is? Why, it&#8217;s easy: holding up (not to mention handing to 4-year olds to hold up) signs that demand the beheading of people as it happened the other day in Australia:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.heraldsun.com.au\/news\/national\/behead-mother-hands-herself-in-after-sydney-muslim-protest-violence\/story-fncynkc6-1226476236307\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3840\" title=\"619545-childsign.gif\" src=\"http:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/619545-childsign.gif.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"316\" height=\"421\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/619545-childsign.gif.jpg 316w, https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/619545-childsign.gif-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 316px) 100vw, 316px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>No, I am not ready to join the ranks of Islamophobes worried about the coming Caliphate, but I still categorically reject these Islamist attempts to limit the right to free speech in Western societies and the implied or, in this case, explicit threats. As an immigrant myself, I think I have the right to say something that might appear a tad more distasteful if uttered by persons born here in Canada: if you don&#8217;t like it here, you are free to leave.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps go to Pakistan. After all, that fine country&#8217;s Minister of Railways thinks that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/worldnews\/asia\/pakistan\/9560879\/Pakistani-minister-offers-bounty-for-death-of-anti-Islam-film-maker.html\">offering a $100,000 bounty<\/a> for the head of the filmmaker is the right thing to do. How enlightened and civilized. I am sure people who think about free speech like these protesters do would fit right in.<\/p>\n<fb:like href='https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=3838' send='false' layout='button_count' show_faces='true' width='450' height='65' action='like' colorscheme='light' font='lucida grande'><\/fb:like>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Protesters at the US Consulate in Toronto yesterday demanded that American authorities do something about the infamous anti-Islam video, the Innocence of Muslims. They held up signs claiming that &#8220;free speech does not mean disrespecting any prophet&#8221;, among other things. But, my friends, that is EXACTLY what free speech is. It is precisely the right <a href='https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=3838' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,5,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal","category-politics","category-religion","category-42-id","category-5-id","category-38-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3838"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3849,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3838\/revisions\/3849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}