What Are the Limits of Satire and Free Speech?

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In summary, the controversial animated show South Park has faced censorship after an episode featuring the prophet Muhammad in a bear costume was heavily censored with bleeps and "Censored" blocks. The decision to censor the episode was not solely based on a Muslim death threat, but also because of the episode's content being deemed in bad taste. Some argue that censoring free speech only gives power to those who make threats, and that the show's creators should continue to release their episodes uncensored. Others argue that mocking revered figures like Muhammad and the Pope is not acceptable and should be off-limits. However, some argue that satire and mocking is a form of free speech and should not be censored. Ultimately, the controversy raises questions
  • #71
Flat said:
Muslims - http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/155210
Christians -http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/103393
Catholics- http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/104227
Mormons- http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/104253
Jews - http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/154465
Athiests- http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/155374
Hybrid owners - http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/155193

...and the list goes on and on.
:rolleyes:
Thanks for the list. :-p
 
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  • #72
Huckleberry said:
America is home to millions of Muslim people,

That's awesome. Maybe a bunch of Christians should move on over to Algeria and threaten everyone living there if they do things Christians don't like. Wonder what kind of opposition would be felt there? Oh not in America though! This is their home too! Screw that notion, it's only their home if they WANT to live there by THOES societal values, not if they want to come and make some sort of change. Like I said the Muslims that don't like it can gtfo.

and not all Muslim people, even angry Muslims, support terrorism.
Err so you don't think that the majority of Muslims were angry and supported the Internet postings on the creators of South Park on RevolutionMuslim.com? That's odd since right in their holy scripture it requires them to support it.

What I expect is the majority of Muslims did not get what they wanted. I doubt many people anywhere want terrorists to speak for them.
Oh that is what you think. Well I'd love to see some statistics to support this claim, because I have a plethora of statistics to support the opposition to this. Namely that the majority of Muslims, while not taking part in fundamentalist or terrorist activities do in fact support terrorism and they do in fact hate America quite a bit. The ones that don't? I don't really care about them... Like I said:
me said:
If these Muslims would like to continue
What point, exactly, does your statement make which refutes what I wrote there? Nothing. I'm talking specifically about 'these' Muslims (these being the ones who are in opposition to American societal values)
It does make for a convenient excuse to mock someone though, even though I'm not aware of any terrorists making any threats in this incident.
Again, I'll ask you what your point is?
 
  • #73
DaveC426913 said:
Let me give an analogy.

Child misbehaves.
Parent gets mad and threatens to spank child.
Child screams he will run away if spanked.
Parent calms down and decides not to spank child.

You see, if you react to the child's threat (by basically calling his bluff and spanking him anyway), you hand the child power over the relationship.

No, the appropriate thing to do is to ignore the child's threat - you chose not to spank him because you are a good parent, and because you call the shots, not because of some empty threat.

I don't take South Park too seriously and I don't want to get into that whole part of the argument but I can't help but to comment on the above quote. Look at this from the childs perspective. They see that they have just won. The child called your bluff and realized that what you say is irrelevant. They see this as you being terribly afraid of them running away so they will just threaten you with it every time you threaten to punish them in any way. I have seen first hand what threats that never materialize do to kids. If you don't believe in spanking or (pick your punishment) then don't threaten to do it in the first place. A child should never really completely know what a parent might do as punishment.
 
  • #74
Averagesupernova said:
I don't take South Park too seriously and I don't want to get into that whole part of the argument but I can't help but to comment on the above quote. Look at this from the childs perspective. They see that they have just won. The child called your bluff and realized that what you say is irrelevant. They see this as you being terribly afraid of them running away so they will just threaten you with it every time you threaten to punish them in any way. I have seen first hand what threats that never materialize do to kids. If you don't believe in spanking or (pick your punishment) then don't threaten to do it in the first place. A child should never really completely know what a parent might do as punishment.

Bill Cosby: My father established our relationship when I was seven years old. He looked at me and said, "You know, I brought you in this world, and I can take you out. And it don't make no difference to me, I'll make another one look just like you."

Funny to us but I bet it made him think twice about things. :-p
 
  • #75
zomgwtf said:
What point, exactly, does your statement make which refutes what I wrote there? Nothing. I'm talking specifically about 'these' Muslims (these being the ones who are in opposition to American societal values)

Again, I'll ask you what your point is?

Society is always in a state of change. That change includes Muslim beliefs, who have the same right to religious freedom as any other American. They also have the right to freedom of speech, which allows them to voice their opinions, even angry ones. If you don't like the democratic values of the society you live in then maybe you should take your own advice.

Mocking people does not help reduce the tenseness that you claim "these" Muslims create. It continues the tenseness, which is the same accusation you make of a majority of Muslims. They are angry because their faith is mocked, but if they speak out in anger then they are accused of supporting terrorism. Hardly.

My point is that all the behaviours that you are condemning the majority of Muslims for are the same ones you promote for your own values, which you call American societal values. They aren't my values, and I'm not moving anywhere regardless of how much you curse at me, but I would risk my life protecting your right to do so.
 
  • #76
Huckleberry said:
but if they speak out in anger then they are accused of supporting terrorism. Hardly.
Uhmmm a few posts back you said they WERE terrorist... I don't get it.

As well they didn't speak out in anger. They made public calls for death of these two people based on them 'mocking' Muhammad. Simply for putting him in their show actually. It's weird that there are plenty of paintings of Muhammad found in Islamic art (I knew Art History courses would be useful sometime...) As well they are certainly allowed to voice their opinions as long as those opinions are protected under the law. These were NOT protected statements. If you research into the situation what they had done was not protected by free speech.
However they feel that they can bully their way around with death threats and car bombs everytime something goes on they don't like in order to bring about change. Well, I'll repeat, if they hate it enough to call for change then they can GTFO.

The 'societal changes' you speak about will be brought about by Americans for the perceived better of ALL of America. Americans enjoy their freedoms very much and the Muslims are trying to take them away when it comes to Islam... I highly doubt this is an American change therefore it does not fall under your definition. Unless of course the Muslims who call for change somehow get a majority.

They aren't my values, and I'm not moving anywhere regardless of how much you curse at me, but I would risk my life protecting your right to do so.

Don't even give me that non-sense. I assume your a soldier from your statement? Great, I'm from Canada and I've enlisted too. In fact the majority of my family has.

If you think that the Muslims were within their rights to call for the death of these two cartoonist or van Gogh then yeah, you do fall into the category of GTFO of the country. Eventually these people will push the Americans too far and something will snap. I don't think it's going to end well for these people.
 
  • #77
zomgwtf said:
Uhmmm a few posts back you said they WERE terrorist... I don't get it.
I'm not sure what you are referring to, but if you mean this...
Huckleberry said:
America is home to millions of Muslim people, and not all Muslim people, even angry Muslims, support terrorism.
...then hopefully you can see I was not calling angry Muslims terrorists. I have been cautioning against making that correlation because it appeared to me that you believe angry Muslims are terrorists.

As well they didn't speak out in anger. They made public calls for death of these two people based on them 'mocking' Muhammad. Simply for putting him in their show actually. It's weird that there are plenty of paintings of Muhammad found in Islamic art (I knew Art History courses would be useful sometime...) As well they are certainly allowed to voice their opinions as long as those opinions are protected under the law. These were NOT protected statements. If you research into the situation what they had done was not protected by free speech.
However they feel that they can bully their way around with death threats and car bombs everytime something goes on they don't like in order to bring about change. Well, I'll repeat, if they hate it enough to call for change then they can GTFO.

If RevolutionMuslim made death threats then they have broken the law and would have been arrested. Can you show me any clear death threats? I don't doubt RevolutionMuslim would be pleased if someone used violence against Comedy Central or the creators of South Park, but they claim that is not their intention. (In your above paragraph I'm assuming you mean RevolutionMuslim every time you refer to they or them.)

They can call for change as much as they like, as can any Muslim or other citizen. There's nothing illegal about calling for change. What they can't do legally is use violence or the threat of violence. If it can be proven that they did this then they should be prosecuted for their actions. They shouldn't be prosecuted for public paranoia (a witch hunt).

The 'societal changes' you speak about will be brought about by Americans for the perceived better of ALL of America. Americans enjoy their freedoms very much and the Muslims are trying to take them away when it comes to Islam... I highly doubt this is an American change therefore it does not fall under your definition. Unless of course the Muslims who call for change somehow get a majority.
(Here in this paragraph you are talking about Muslims as a whole, which is a different subject, to me at least, from the one in the paragraph before.)

If the US has a single set of social values that represents all its citizens then it would be the US Constitution. From state to state and community to community there can be large differences in how society chooses to live. Muslims are as much a part of their communities as any citizen, and their opinions affect the outcome of US social values. It isn't an 'us against them' scenario. I don't know what an "American change" means in this context unless Muslims are not included as a part of the larger group of Americans.

Don't even give me that non-sense. I assume your a soldier from your statement? Great, I'm from Canada and I've enlisted too. In fact the majority of my family has.
That non-sense you are talking about is a part of the US Constitution. Everyone who serves in the US military swears to protect it from enemies, foreign and domestic. If freedom of speech and religious freedom are incompatable with any individual, Muslim or otherwise, then their illegal actions will make them an enemy of the state. There is no democracy without equality. I do not support death threats to stem free speech, nor do I support marginalization and disenfrachisement of Muslims because of their religion.

If you think that the Muslims were within their rights to call for the death of these two cartoonist or van Gogh then yeah, you do fall into the category of GTFO of the country. Eventually these people will push the Americans too far and something will snap. I don't think it's going to end well for these people.
RevolutionMuslim is a small group with an extremist leader. They have about 20 members. It isn't clear to me that RevolutionMuslim called for the death of anyone, and even if they had, they do not speak for the whole of Islam no matter how many hateful posts they make.
 
  • #78
Borg said:
Yes they mock every religion's symbols...

Why?!...


The attempted bombing in New York was wrong but, it is equally sickening when Sunni and Shiite are blowing up each others mosques. Where is the logic there? In your analogy, this is like watching a family shoot at each other.

Actually, I’ll go crazy laughing if they mock this, or the terrorists but Mohammed!


That's not a home that I would care to visit...

:smile: Are you sure you're* not in the middle of that home already!

* Of course I'm not referring to you personally by saying that, you know what I mean :biggrin:
 
  • #79
Borg said:
Yes they mock every religion's symbols...
drizzle said:
Why?!...
I'm not a writer for Comedy Central. You would need to ask them. I've only seen the show once or twice so my guess would be that religious hypocrisy makes an easy target.

Borg said:
The attempted bombing in New York was wrong but, it is equally sickening when Sunni and Shiite are blowing up each others mosques. Where is the logic there? In your analogy, this is like watching a family shoot at each other.
drizzle said:
Actually, I’ll go crazy laughing if they mock this, or the terrorists but Mohammed!
There seem to be some South Park experts here. Maybe one of them knows of an episode where it's been done already. While you may find it funny, are you sure that there wouldn't be some backlash over an episode like that?

Borg said:
That's not a home that I would care to visit.
drizzle said:
:smile: Are you sure you're* not in the middle of that home already!

* Of course I'm not referring to you personally by saying that, you know what I mean :biggrin:
No I'm not sure what you mean (sorry, I'm a little slow sometimes :rolleyes:). I'm guessing that you think that the US is full of shootings from the abundance of personal weapons here. I don't know if you've lived here. If not, the US is probably very different from what you're thinking.
 
  • #80
If RevolutionMuslim had only posted something about how offensive the cartoon was and warned of likely consequences, I agree, it would not be a threat. However, after doing this, they poted the home addresses of the south park creators along with a picture of a man with a knife in his head. I would say this constitutes a veiled threat, as it their intent seems clear to threaten them without doing so in the strict legal sense.

It's kind of like me saying, well, you have to understand that for legal purposes, what I'm about to say to you is purely hypothetical and in no way constitutes a genuine threat, but if you come around here again, I will slit your throat.

The meaning is clear.
 
  • #82
As long as we have drones dealing death from above, let people get pissed about cartoons. If cartoons are your standard of outrage, but you're trying to make a car bomb with commerical fireworks, I feel safer already.
 
  • #83
Cartoonist against censorship and backing down when threatened are responding to the fundamentalist Muslims giving the threats.

Everyone is invited to participate in the response which will be made for display on May 20th. I wonder if this will result in even more death threats being made... perhaps more violence I'm not sure.

http://www.drawmuhammadday.com/

I kind of have a bad feeling about this...
 
  • #85
Yikes... I have to be honest, I write some fiction, and I am VERY careful not to anger Muslims. I do not have the same concern for my fellow Jews or atheists/agnostics, Christians, or anyone else. So, in that sense, while I admire Matt and Trey, I wouldn't make the same choice; I want to live in peace too much for that.

I would say that makes this a relatively effective terrorist tactic, and I recognize my own moral cowardice at least.
 
  • #86
Thought I heard something else from the crowd other than 'god is great', my mistake.
 
  • #87
mheslep said:
Thought I heard something else from the crowd other than 'god is great', my mistake.

It's possible all I could make out was chants of ''Takbir'' which is just allah akbar repeated by the crowd. You might have heard something else in there though, I don't undertsand Arabic that much :-p and I don't understand Swedish either.
 

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