a load of unfalsfiable psychobabble meant to be accorded respect by way of a “thoughtful” analysis? There is no reason to waste time in placating lunatics who demand that their (profoundly insulting to non-believers) worthless “creed”

All religions and also literature, art, music, mythology etc etc belong to the realm of unfalisfiable information. Shakespeare never once brought fourth a single reliable figure. Shall we do away with him?
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Perhaps you think this point spurious but if one puts aside for the moment the nefarious iniquities of doctrine and control that one associates with religion and simply treat it a system of meaning and mythology like secular literature there is value. I can neither prove this nor do I wish to. There is no objective criteria that distinguished ‘good’ music from ‘bad’ music. If you don’t know it can’t be explained.
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Perhaps by ‘creed’ you weren’t referring to Islam in entirety but simply its fundamentalist fringes. However it seems to me that given your blood red prose you bear the ‘creed’ an hostility. Is it hostility towards all faiths? Perhaps. I simply like to point out to those people whose entire understanding of Islam comes from videobytes of flag-burning mobs that there’s a heritage that’s rich in cultural stuffs comparable to the other branches of Abraham’s tree.
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I love the Gospel According to St Matthew and The Book of Job. I can do so without acceding to the dictates of howling bigots who believes that Leviticus gives ‘em the right to blow up abortion clinics or bash gay men. Likewise I can appreciate Islamic culture without endorsing the bin Laden crew.
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Most muslims don’t.
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As for the Danish cartoonists. I support their rights unequivocally. But when I saw the cartoons I was amazed at how lame they were. Childish, vacuous tripe. Obviously in order to make some adolescent point viz free speech these dudes set out to light a fire. And they got burnt. I reckon the, as you say, pre-Enlightenment theists (and unlike Judeo-Christinaity Islam’s yet to cross that bridge) who demand that the West submits to their nonsense must be resisted and their point of view defeated. I don’t think teenage cartoons whose purpose was soley to offend is the way to do it.

“The secular liberal state certainly has its work cut out for it. In respect of “ordinary people” in a one on one situation, or a relatively small number of thugs against one individual in a public arena, I’ve found that the law of common assault is remarkably effective with (in NSW) a maximum penalty in local courts of 2 years custodial sentence. [Victims need only be (via the prosecutor in criminal law) in fear of an imminent attack]”

There is no reason to equate this with vilification laws. Under vilification laws, victims DON’T need to be in fear of an imminent attack. Indeed, there doesn’t even have to be any notion of any attack occurring, anytime, at all! The Act specifically states that any words spoken or written that are likely to direct “severe ridicule” on the target should be prohibited.

As things stand, there is no equivalence between laws of common assault and religious vilification laws - what we are left with is the hypocritical advocacy of protection against “severe ridicule” accorded to only one section or group in society. There is no possible moral or practical justification for this.

The fact that some theists have beliefs that might be considered obnoxious to others doesn’t mean they are disentitled to any or all statutory protection. OTOH the fact that positive discrimination by legislation is allowed under the UN for indigenous peoples for example, might be anaethma to civil libertarians, but it sure doesn’t disentitle others of their existing legal rights and remedies. (except for a few bob of course.)”

Yet you would still deny that “right to be protected from violence” to others on the basis of no obvious moral or practical principle. How come?

“You’ve ignored my point on the criminal justice system and assault, common or with actual violence assault occasioning or grievous bodily harm. Vilification laws are not meant to replace or even supplement this criminal justice regime at the individual level, how could they?”

In which case, there is no use for vilification laws. Either you believe that hatred leads to violence, meaning you want to ban the expression of hatred period, or you don’t. There is no moral justification for only according protection to one section of society while denying it to another.

“Free speech is a balancing act against legitimate competing interests. To equate repealing an anti-vilification act with repealing the crime of murder is not valid as there are no competing interests justifying murder (not being self defence).”

You’ve completely missed the point. YOU are the one who believes that hatred causes violence, even though you have provide not a scintilla of evidence to support your penchant for banning any particular kind of hatred. Even if you don’t believe that there is much of a likelihood for non-religious vilification to cause violence, you have no moral basis for legalising it if, as you say, vilification tends to cause violence.

“Who exactly is justifying it? You appear to be saying that because one section of legislation is directed against vilification of significant minority groups ie gays, indigenous, minority theists, or women for example, it means that because that legislation doesn’t protect individual “bourgeosie” its proponents are automatically supporting violence against said bourgeoise individual? Preposterous.”

Don’t blame me - YOU are the one who thinks that vilification causes violence. Seeing as there is unquestionably the chance (under your calculus, not mine) that vilification of property owners can lead to violence (the death toll of 20th century communism, for example), the question arises as to why you would deny them the same protections you’d extend to others. This anomaly cannot be ignored.

“Because it’s not an obvious step. Emotion cannot be legislated away. Emotional hatred leading to crime whether of small or large dimensions can and is legislated against–in the case of anti-vilification laws, in specifically defined ways, it says “keep your emotional hatred to yourself, out of the public arena.” The legislation is very specific on public utterance as against private.”

Fine. So why don’t you demand that ALL people be equally protected from this dreadful plague of vilification?

As things stand, I’ll summarise as follows:

-The supporters of vilification laws have provided no evidence whatsoever that vilification (i.e. the incitement of hatred) causes violence. There is no purpose in according any attention to damages allegedly arising from the incitement of “hatred” over the incitement of any other negative emotion, such as envy.

-Even if one believes that vilification DOES lead to violence, no moral or rational reason has been provided for opposing a blanket ban on all forms of vilification against any individual or group, on all possible grounds; to do otherwise is essentially to sanction violence against a sector of society.

-Finally, as I wrote before, the fall-back position of hate-speech advocates is that we should only concentrate on banning the MOST “serious” or “prevalent” forms of vilification, which they allege (without evidence) to be racial and religious forms. But this is an absurd argument at doesn’t even make it to first base - it’s identical to arguing that we should legalise rape on the grounds that it’s “nicer” to rape somebody than to murder them.

what you’re really advocating is that their superstition will be accorded statutory protection

Nonsense, that’s an erroneous interpretation. I’m advocating anti-vilification law to prevent violence to anybody, within the scope and framework of that law, even for those whose beliefs I personally find intelletually rotten to the core. Religion unhappily seems to be the cause of most mass violence these days as several hundred thousand Iraqi’s would testify to, but they can’t.

The fact that some theists have beliefs that might be considered obnoxious to others doesn’t mean they are disentitled to any or all statutory protection. OTOH the fact that positive discrimination by legislation is allowed under the UN for indigenous peoples for example, might be anaethma to civil libertarians, but it sure doesn’t disentitle others of their existing legal rights and remedies. (except for a few bob of course.)

People get beaten up all the time by others on precisely these grounds. If you don’t want to afford them the same protection as others, then it’s pretty clear that you have rejected the entire basis of civil equality.

You’ve ignored my point on the criminal justice system and assault, common or with actual violence assault occasioning or grievous bodily harm. Vilification laws are not meant to replace or even supplement this criminal justice regime at the individual level, how could they?

Further on that point - laws aren’t created on the basis of “need”.

You’ve just canned the whole process and rationale of common law, let alone statutory.

if zero murders were committed in 2008, that wouldn’t justify the repeal of laws against murder.

Free speech is a balancing act against legitimate competing interests. To equate repealing an anti-vilification act with repealing the crime of murder is not valid as there are no competing interests justifying murder (not being self defence).

There is no moral justification for tolerating violence against the bourgeoisie,…

Who exactly is justifying it? You appear to be saying that because one section of legislation is directed against vilification of significant minority groups ie gays, indigenous, minority theists, or women for example, it means that because that legislation doesn’t protect individual “bourgeosie” its proponents are automatically supporting violence against said bourgeoise individual? Preposterous.

And in any case, none of the advocates of vilification law have taken the obvious step of agitating for a ban on hatred itself

Because it’s not an obvious step. Emotion cannot be legislated away. Emotional hatred leading to crime whether of small or large dimensions can and is legislated against–in the case of anti-vilification laws, in specifically defined ways, it says “keep your emotional hatred to yourself, out of the public arena.” The legislation is very specific on public utterance as against private.

You have provided no evidence for any of this, and in any case, what you’re really advocating is that their superstition will be accorded statutory protection (that is, of all of the deeds you might carry out that could attract the hatred of others, only your belief in fanciful nonsense will be granted protection from said hatred). Religious believers deserve no special rights that are unavailable to the rest of us (the fact that they often lose their tempers over the mildest slights is THEIR problem, and warrants no special consideration); REWARDING people for the ignorance and stupidity is the antithesis of a meritocracy.

“I think there’s a world of difference between an individual who is hated for his/her looks/quirks/peccadillos/dress/habits and a large minority hated for their beliefs or perceived notions of what their co-religionists are doing in another part of the world.”

People get beaten up all the time by others on precisely these grounds. If you don’t want to afford them the same protection as others, then it’s pretty clear that you have rejected the entire basis of civil equality. In any case, there is no such thing as a “right” not to be hated by another person.

Further on that point - laws aren’t created on the basis of “need”. They are made towards the aim of attaining justice. If zero murders were committed in 2008, that wouldn’t justify the repeal of laws against murder. REGARDLESS of how many people are vilified on the basis of ANY attribute of theirs, if you truly believe that vilification leads to violence, you are morally obliged to advocate a complete ban on vilification.* Or is some violence more equal than others?

“The laws as I read them are not explicitly directed at “hatred on the basis of religion”, they cover the full gambit of groups that may attract the ire of essentially brain dead rednecks and other odious morons including for example neo-Nazis, fundy Christians or Muslims or whatever.”

They SPECIFICALLY cite race and religion. Interestingly, the laws leave out property or class. Why, given the abominable record of communism, should we EVER allow the proliferation of envy in a society? Do we really need to kill yet more people? There is no moral justification for tolerating violence against the bourgeoisie, assuming people believe that vilification leads directly to violence (for which, as I’ve already pointed out, the evidence is remarkably thin). And in any case, none of the advocates of vilification law have taken the obvious step of agitating for a ban on hatred itself (which, ridiculously, means that it is essentially illegal to “incite” something that is itself not illegal).

*The usual point that supporters of vilification laws might make here is that we should only concentrate on banning the MOST “serious” forms of vilification, which they allege on the basis of no evidence to be racial and religious forms. But this is an absurd argument at doesn’t even make it to first base - it’s identical to arguing that we should legalise rape on the grounds that it’s “nicer” to rape somebody than to murder them.

What contemptuous generalisations? The only points I’ve made here were that the “prophet” Mohammad was either lying, deluded or insane when he dictated the Koran (a point on which you, as a non-Muslim who has also rejected Mohammad’s risible claims, evidently agree with me). If you DON’T agree with me, then I’ll invite you to take the shahada, right now (which you, by logic, must do if you don’t believe that Mohammad was a liar, insane, or suffering from some shade of delusion).

The disgusting sight of Noam Chomsky defending well-known white-supremacists and fascists makes me sick.

He wasn’t defending them or their views. He was defending their rights. Most people who crap on about free speech only do so to secure their own. They only indulge others as part of the bargain. If they could eradicate their enemies whilst maintining their own liberty they would. When Chomsky, an anarcho-syndacalist and a Jew, defends Nazis, he’s doing as Voltaire said. That’s honourable.

there is no reason why only people who believe in nonsensical fairy tales should be “protected” from “hatred”, while ordinary people (who indeed can have hatred incited against them, which MAY lead to violence) are essentially left in the dark.

I agree with that in principle but I think it has to be recognised that the fairy tale believers constitute far greater numbers in need of protection from other brands of fairy tale believers who have a tendency to believe that their “fairy” gave them licence to kill/beat-up on the other “infidels”. (And vice versa as the case may be)

I think there’s a world of difference between an individual who is hated for his/her looks/quirks/peccadillos/dress/habits and a large minority hated for their beliefs or perceived notions of what their co-religionists are doing in another part of the world.

The secular liberal state certainly has its work cut out for it. In respect of “ordinary people” in a one on one situation, or a relatively small number of thugs against one individual in a public arena, I’ve found that the law of common assault is remarkably effective with (in NSW) a maximum penalty in local courts of 2 years custodial sentence. [Victims need only be (via the prosecutor in criminal law) in fear of an imminent attack]

To put it another way - passing a law that prohibits the “incitement of hatred on the basis of religion” is as absurd as passing a law that prohibits assault on the basis of one’s clothing attire, while naturally PERMITTING assault against everyone else.

The laws as I read them are not explicitly directed at “hatred on the basis of religion”, they cover the full gambit of groups that may attract the ire of essentially brain dead rednecks and other odious morons including for example neo-Nazis, fundy Christians or Muslims or whatever. Their victims are potentially any minorities. It just so happened that the only case I know of in Victoria (and I believe the only significant one) is the 2 Danny’s case, and my suggestion is that since we have largely removed the propensity to bash gays/darkies and other minorities by way of education and progressive tolerance enhancement by enlightened leaders, (John Howard excepted)the legislation could be repealed when the last bastion (so it seems to me) of ignorance and superstition via the “fairy” belief is overcome. [Not that I’m branding all theists BTW , but as Weinberg said “for ‘good’ people to do evil, that takes religion.”]

The ‘overcoming’ may take some time, unfortunately.

“And I am as anti-religion, probably, as Steven is, but the motivation to rub peoples’ noses in it is to my mind adolescent, as is the artwork and conception of those cartoons.”

As a recovering theist, even I am not actually “anti-religion”. My significant other is an pseudo Buddhist/ancestor-worshipper, but that doesn’t particularly bother me at all. And certainly I do have a superstitious side (for example, I have personally seen ghosts, I think, on at least 3 occasions). What IS bothering to me is:

-Coercive theism: when people demand either respect or legal privileges solely because they believe in an imaginary friend, which is pitiful behaviour by any standard

-Moral hypocrisy: where disgusting, smug a**holes who quite happily and publicly rejoice in the “knowledge” that those who don’t share their particular brand of unfalsfiable claptrap are going to BURN ALIVE for all eternity (!! - what kind of a FANATIC could actually think that?), a completely severe, unevidenced and unjustified assault on the character; who nevertheless turn into angry, blubbering children, when one of their hated Heathen returns the favour by degrading their non-existent Father, demanding the government step in to protect their fragile psyches. There are no known word groupings that can express just how disgraceful this truly is.

If you truly believe that, then that’s an excellent argument for amending each act down to the base level - it should be illegal to incite hatred (insofar as you can “incite” emotions), period. IF it is argued that hatred leads directly to violence, then there is no moral or ethical reason for refusing protection to any person who is the victim of hatred - there is no reason why only people who believe in nonsensical fairy tales should be “protected” from “hatred”, while ordinary people (who indeed can have hatred incited against them, which MAY lead to violence) are essentially left in the dark. To put it another way - passing a law that prohibits the “incitement of hatred on the basis of religion” is as absurd as passing a law that prohibits assault on the basis of one’s clothing attire, while naturally PERMITTING assault against everyone else.

But this is a side point - “hatred” does not “cause” ” racist violence” anymore than “envy” causes the mass-murder of property owners. It is illogical to ban the incitement of something that isn’t actually illegal.

Well, the verb to “incite” wouldn’t be used so much for mocking the powerful, unless I suppose the powerful official / politician / person was provoked to retaliate. I don’t quite understand your point about the Enlightenment and post-Marxist politics being only superficially compatible; I think as used in this thread, “Enlightenment” is to mean “the reverse of religious and medieval”. But that doesn’t mean you dignify any and every instance of puerile behaviour, just because it’s anti-religious, with the imprimatur of “the enlightenment”. Otherwise we’d have to name Big Brother as its apotheosis.
By “speaking truth to power” I mean that the real hard work of freedom of speech is to protect writers, actors, cartoonists, etc. from the powerful. Sure, if you’re a member of the privileged majority you’re allowed to make schoolyard jokes against a social group to get a rise out of them, because many people hate them at that time in history; but I think crying “freedom of speech” is giving that behaviour too much dignity and I have no respect for it. And that’s how it works - we have freedom of speech, those Danes can go ahead and I can call them on their bullshit, as the Americans say! Unfortunately, the privileged get to think F of S should only go one way.

For instance you think the cartoons were ‘hate speech’. I disagree with that opinion, but it’s a point that can’t be easily settled.

What I’d rather see is marginalised groups having the tools to use satire and humour to fire back. ‘Salam Cafe’ on SBS is a good example of that. I’m also fully aware that it’s difficult for marginalised groups to get their hands on those tools.

I can’t see how the latter work does much more than “incite”. It seems to me to “rub people’s noses in it”. It is hardly a “thoughtful piece on religion”.

Helen, is it ok to incite “truth to power”? To put it another way, which distinction is really more important to you — that the cartoons were “inciting”, or that they were directed at a minority group? Because the latter distinction is not of the Enlightenment at all, it’s a product of post-Marxist domination-based politics. And the two are only superficially compatible.

Oh … I’m sorry … I thought this was the internet. Must be in the wrong place.

This is the one thing about internet ‘discussion’ that strikes me as being radically different from RL. On the internet, it seems, nobody ever concedes anything … the given means of responding when out of one’s depth seems to be, rather, calling your opponent an idiot and disappearing.

I’m not advocating taking these peoples freedom to publish their stuff (and I left out another salient point: the freedom of a newspaper editor to ignore stuff that’s mediocre, risible and nasty.) I’m pointing out that FS includes my right to say why they shouldn’t have published it.

Your comment, ” It’s the job of the cartoonist to wind people up, to provoke and infuriate. Reasoned argument isn’t in their job description. …It;s nor their responsibility if some people behave violently because of them, it’s the rsponsibility of those who become violent” — illustrates exactly why you’re ignoring the context: the cartoons were hate-speech against a community who are at present marginalised in Western society because people conflate them with the actions of a minority - and the cartoons were overtly encouraging and reinforcing that tendency.

And I am as anti-religion, probably, as Steven is, but the motivation to rub peoples’ noses in it is to my mind adolescent, as is the artwork and conception of those cartoons. It’s all very well to bang on about Delicate Sensibilities and you’ll sound very tough, but in the end, if you foment social discord it probably won’t be you who gets a rock thrown at you - it’ll be some kid who only wanted to use the school playground (and so the cycle of violence continues).

Do you think the hateful cartoons of Jews which were widespread in the nineteenth and early twentieth century were OK? If not, how are hateful cartoons of Muslims OK now?

It;s nor their responsibility if some people behave violently because of them, it’s the rsponsibility of those who become violent.

I believe in limits to free speech and an ethics of free speech, but there’s a question of context as well.