Utopia Talk / Politics / Salman Rushdie attacked

Rugian Member	Fri Aug 12 14:54:22 In New York. Apparently he'll live. Anyone willing to be that it wasn't one of Seb's people?
murder Member	Fri Aug 12 14:56:08 The Iranians finally got him?
Paramount Member	Fri Aug 12 15:02:11 Can we say that it was a drone strike on one of Islam’s enemies?
murder Member	Fri Aug 12 19:18:32 Muslims can be considered drones.
Sam Adams Member	Fri Aug 12 22:12:35 Nuke tehran.
obaminated Member	Fri Aug 12 22:27:25 Lost an eye. Muslims respect free speech.
Habebe Member	Fri Aug 12 22:35:42 We should annihilate the leadership of Iran with help from Irann& Israel id necessary. I'm sure they are down.
Forwyn Member	Sat Aug 13 00:13:31 The motive for the attack is, thus far, unclear, but given that Rushdie spent nine years in hiding after Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a 1989 fatwa authorizing his murder over his authorship of the novel, The Satanic Verses—which the Ayatollah considered blasphemous—and that Rushdie was attacked just as he was about to give a speech, an effort to silence Rushdie permanently through violence seems likely. The message sent by a successful attack on Rushdie is loud and unmistakable: your hurtful speech is the equivalent of violence against me and my values, and you deserve violence in return. It’s a message intended not just for Rushdie, but for anyone who might be tempted to follow in his footsteps. When we began our careers in free speech advocacy in the early 2000s, the conflation of the expression of opinion with physical violence was a fringe belief, at least in the United States. Yet over the last 10 years, we have seen that argument become far more common, first on college campuses, and then in our society at large. Advocates for seeing offensive speech as a form of violence tend to think that doing so would make society better. For example, just days after the riot that shut down a Milo Yiannopolous speech at the University of California-Berkeley in 2017, the Daily Californian student newspaper ran five op-eds in a single day from authors who sought to justify the use of violence in order to prevent the political provocateur of the moment from speaking. “These were not acts of violence. They were acts of self defense,” concluded one of the pieces. These are not simply fringe opinions out of Planet Berkeley. In the largest campus survey of free expression, only 76 percent of students said it's never acceptable to use violence to stop a campus speech. That is almost one in four students reporting some level of acceptance for violence to stop a speech they disagree with—even if they think it's only “rarely” acceptable. This is alarming given that such efforts would be legal zero percent of the time. At some higher education institutions, such as Wellesley and Barnard, the percentage of students who say violence is never acceptable to stop a campus speech dropped to as low as 56 and 57 percent, respectively. It is a great sign of comparative peace and progress that younger Americans can convince themselves of a rough moral equivalence between peaceful argument and violence as a means for resolving disputes. But if violence and hurtful speech are actually equivalent, it’s not only logical to answer speech with violence, it’s impossible to cogently argue that you shouldn’t. A downward spiral towards violence is guaranteed. But we have no doubt that if our society reverted to solving more disputes using violence, they would quickly understand the superiority of liberal institutions like courts and Congress, and liberal norms like freedom of speech, over “might makes right.” The vast majority of Americans who say that violent responses to speech are sometimes acceptable will nevertheless be appalled by the attack on Rushdie. Yet they must come to grips with the fact that today’s attack, multiplied thousands of times, is how a society where violence is acceptable protest to speech would actually look. Free speech, and the peaceful version of conflict resolution it enables, is the only solution to this problem that does not require authoritarian repression. Quoting an unnamed writer, Sigmund Freud perceptively noted in 1893 that “the man who first flung a word of abuse at his enemy instead of a spear was the founder of civilization.” This is the painful lesson of thousands of years of human endeavor. It’s also a lesson our high schools, colleges, and institutions of all kinds have not lately bothered to teach. We may live to regret that oversight. But beyond the hard-won lessons behind the speech/violence distinction, our thoughts are with Salman Rushdie and his family tonight. For his sake, and for all of ours, we hope that this brave artist will not only survive but live on to teach the world to never take a free and open society for granted. http://www...8violence-e2-80-99/ar-AA10BGNt
Allahuakbar Member	Sat Aug 13 02:37:17 !
Paramount Member	Sat Aug 13 03:17:35 ” We should annihilate the leadership of Iran ” Why? The attacker was an american citizen born in the US. When the janury 6 attacks happened or when the FBI was attacked the other day, I didn’t see you calling for the annihilation of the MAGA leadership.
Habebe Member	Sat Aug 13 05:38:32 "When the janury 6 attacks happened or when the FBI was attacked the other day, I didn’t see you calling for the annihilation of the MAGA leadership" Of course not, we called for an anhiliation of the leadership of Iran then too.
Rugian Member	Sat Aug 13 06:53:20 Lost an eye, the nerves in his arm were severed, and his liver was stabbed and damaged. Dude got proper fucked. "Yet they must come to grips with the fact that today’s attack, multiplied thousands of times, is how a society where violence is acceptable protest to speech would actually look." Spoiler alert: they won't.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sat Aug 13 06:59:00 Liver hemorrhaging can be really difficult to stop. My money is that the guy is an Iraqi shia, maybe Lebanese. Based on his last name.
murder Member	Sat Aug 13 07:09:19 "Yet over the last 10 years, we have seen that argument become far more common, first on college campuses, and then in our society at large." It's amazing how freely the lies flow since Trump became the standard-bearer for the GOP. I guess "fighting words" were an invention of Berkeley, right? I mean it's not like the entirety of the John Wayne western movie genre wasn't fist fights provoked over minor offenses the entire time they weren't shooting each other often over minor offenses or anything like that. FOH!
Habebe Member	Sat Aug 13 07:21:30 Hey Pilgrim.
murder Member	Sat Aug 13 07:29:55 People in the US get the shit beat out of them and occasionally killed for rooting for the wrong team. A Republican presidential candidate actually encouraged his mob to beat up protesters. Someone said something about your mother or father? Fist fight! Someone made a comment about your wife? Fist fight! Someone called you a bastard, or a fag, or a half-nigger? Fist fight! It's not like duels were a thing or anything. It's not like Alexander Hamilton was gunned down over an insult or anything. It's not like Charles Sumner was beat half to death in the Senate Chamber over a speech. It's not like there's a history of say lynching people for simply demanding their rights or even much less. This is a culture that has been swimming in violence from day one ... yet somehow it's the hypersensitive leftists that invented violence. Seriously GTFO with that shit!
murder Member	Sat Aug 13 07:32:22 "Hey Pilgrim." Smile when you say that.
murder Member	Sat Aug 13 08:32:03 "The institution's leadership had rejected recommendations for basic security measures, including bag checks and metal detectors, fearing that would create a divide between speakers and the audience, according to two sources who spoke with CNN. The leadership also feared that it would change the culture at the institution, the sources said." lmfao! You think maybe this is going to change their culture and create a divide between speakers and the audience?
obaminated Member	Sat Aug 13 10:29:28 Iranian of course
Paramount Member	Sun Aug 14 05:12:42 He is alive. He is talking and jesting, according to news sources.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sun Aug 14 06:39:15 Very good.
murder Member	Sun Aug 14 06:47:59 "He is talking and jesting..." Did he tell the one about Muhammad?
Y2A Member	Sun Aug 14 21:24:59 Larry David may be next: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMGZEnnLi3U
Habebe Member	Sun Aug 14 21:26:36 Larry David is the funniest lefty out there, we must protect him at all costs.
murder Member	Mon Aug 15 05:55:37 I don't find Larry David funny at all.
habebe Member	Mon Aug 15 06:10:36 Who do you find funny?
murder Member	Mon Aug 15 06:45:50 Me. :o)
swordtail Anarchist Prime	Mon Aug 15 10:27:08 http://twi...66369?cxt=HHwWgoCy2f7K4aArAAAA
murder Member	Mon Aug 15 10:43:54 That is some high quality movie making.
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