French cartoon sparks protests
POSTED BY: Niki2
UPDATED: Saturday, October 25, 2025 15:43
VIEWED: 11178
PAGE 6 of 11
Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
I'm pro-rapist HK! Artists are exactly the same as rape victims! That's exactly what this conversation is about. Well done HK you have opened my EYES. These guys and their hateful ugly rhetoric are SO COOOL and we should admire how they've pushed the boundaries of decency and good taste. Because it's free speech, and that makes everything they say admirable. We should have thousands of cartoons just like this! That'll show those CAH-RAAAAAAZY muslims!
Curious where this stuff about "admiration" comes from. I guess it was something Chrisisall said?
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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It comes from ME. I'm saying I don't admire these artists because of the content of their work, and that I think they're jerks, and I'm not going to buy their stuff, and somehow that translates into me being a blame the victim type and against free speech?!
Whatever guys! I can see how that's not a strawman at all!
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You seem to be having a much harder time than usual listening, Byte. You say some fairly outrageous things in this thread. When someone calls you on it, you throw up this tornado of denial and then go back to saying the same damn thing you said before.
Your words here seem rather pointedly to lay some portion of blame on these cartoonists for the violence which ensues. I find that horrendously unjust. And that's where the comparison with rape victims comes from. The whole point of bringing it up is because I presume you DON'T believe rape victims to be at fault for their victimization. The point is that I believe these cartoonists, regardless of their aesthetic mis/judgments, are EVERY BIT AS BLAMELESS as any other victim of violence. I believe that to be self-evident.
I'd hoped that you could at least acknowledge that piece, but instead you double down on your insistance that the cartoonists are at fault in some way. This gets confusing because there are two very different levels of "fault" that you seem continually to conflate. The fault of "poor taste" and being a "troll," and the "fault" of "setting off" violent reprisals. I would simply like you to differentiate these two faults and for you to acknowledge that no amount of tastelessness deserves violent reprisals. And it goes without saying that I have no means or desire to force such an acknowledgment out of you.
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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Quote:
When someone calls you on it, you throw up this tornado of denial and then go back to saying the same damn thing you said before.
Show me one place where I went back on anything I've said! It's you guys dumping stuff on me I haven't said!
People are responsible for their actions? oh wow! Revelation! Muslims tearing up a place are acting ridiculous and irresponsible? Absolutely!
Artists in response are drawing terrible anti-Islamic intolerant and pornographic stuff are themselves being ridiculous and are also irresponsible and kind of jerks? Oh no! We have to draw the line there! They're victims!
Quote:
The point is that I believe these cartoonists, regardless of their aesthetic mis/judgments, are EVERY BIT AS BLAMELESS as any other victim of violence.
The only one who was a victim of violence was that guy Auraptor brought up!
And I still think he's a jerk, which is an ENTIRELY SEPARATE FUCKING ISSUE from whether or not I think they deserve violence to be done on them. Incredible as it might seem: I don't!
Oh hey, if I were to be a rape victim, would I be a rape victim AAAND a jerk? Huh! It appears to be so!
Quote:
And it goes without saying that I have no means or desire to force such an acknowledgment out of you.
Whatever. You're not going to apologize to me about the pro-rapist or denial thing and I sure as hell am not going to start admiring these artists or call for more cartoons.
What is happening is that you think very poorly of me, and I think very poorly of you, and neither of us understand each other, and that is the way of things and nothing can be done about it.
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Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
I'm saying I don't admire these artists because of the content of their work, and that I think they're jerks
I get that, and it's a valid opinion Byte.
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Whatever Chris. You went after me just as bad. You all think I'm anti-free speech? Well, let me exercise some fucking anti-free speech!
How about this.
...!
Wow! that was good. Lets get some more of that up ins.
..............................!
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Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
What is happening is that you think very poorly of me, and I think very poorly of you, and neither of us understand each other, and that is the way of things and nothing can be done about it.
If I thought poorly of you, Byte, I assure you, I would not be talking to you. That you think very poorly of me is news to me.
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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I kinda also don't think the cartoonists are jerks.
It's insensitive and possibly stupid in that it might endanger them (some Pakistani government official apparrently put a bounty on the movie-maker's life) but as long as they don't come out saying downright hateful things about muslims in general, I won't consider them jerks.
The movie guy I only detest because of the snarling hatred for muslims and reckless deception of the actors that went into making his shit movie.
Whatever some radical muslims decide to do in response to those things is entirely on them, though. It cannot be put on the provocateurs, even if it IS predictable. Even in a realpolitik kind of way. It cannot be on them.
I don't think anyone here actually intended to lay real blame at their feet, though, really. It's legitimate to find religious taunting of this kind to be jerk-like.
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Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Whatever Chris. You went after me just as bad.
This is a lively debate, or so I thought... sorry if it seemed like I was bird-doggin' ya, really.
We can get intense here with our opinions, and some times we can take offense, none at all meant, milady.
In point of fact, you are one of my favourite posters here!
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Hey Agent,
I think context is crucial when talking about brutality. That's the only reason to bring up rape: as a cut and dried example of how our culture blames the victim and why that is such a very terrible thing to do. Something we can all agree on. I'm particularly sensitive to folks using the "bad character" of the victim to distract from and/or mitigate the culpability of the abuser. Even if it is not intended, that is its social function. I see otherwise very nice people doing this all the time, unwittingly, because they choose to ignore this very important context. And to be fair, it can be very hard to take absurdly violent threats as seriously as they need to be.
Children get brutalized by their parents and the parents talk about the bad character of their children as if that changes anything. The child was "seductive" or "defiant" or "willful" or "stupid," etc. "Taunting" in the context of threats against the life and health of these cartoonists strikes me as code for "asking for it."
The character of the cartoonists is an absolute non sequitur in the context of this discussion. It has nothing to do with the violent reaction at all. That's what violence does: it changes the subject. Violence is never part of a conversation, it prevents conversation. That is its social function.
No matter what the subject of the argument, when somebody threatens physical violence, the ostensible subject of the conversation has been lost. Now the subject is survival, and when well-intentioned folk then point at the victim and say, "reckless" or "foolish" they're missing the point and undermining pretty much everything they prolly stand for. Whether they realize it or not, they're saying the responsibility for keeping the peace falls on the likely victim curtailing his/her behavior in anticipation of the abuse. When well-intentioned folk like Niki or Byte come in with, "Well, the cartoons WERE disgusting..." it is simply inappropriate and only serves to distance folks from the real danger in which the real human beings who drew the cartoons find themselves. And, I'm sorry, even if real physical violence does not occur, the threat of violence is a violation.
So, yeah, in the face of the absurd brutality of the threats against the life of an artist, folks of good conscience are obliged to stand with them, regardless of the content of the art, on the principle that art in a free society is as close to sacrosanct as we secularists get.
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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