I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Isgrimnur
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

Post by Isgrimnur »

Pakistani girl released after being arrested for blasphemy:
A Christian girl accused of insulting Islam in Pakistan was released on bail Saturday after spending three weeks in detention, in a case that renewed international criticism of the country's strict blasphemy laws.
...
Masih was arrested in August after Muslim neighbours alleged that she had burnt pages containing Islamic inscriptions.

But a Muslim cleric, Khalid Jadoon Chishti, was arrested at the weekend for allegedly planting pages of the Koran in a bag containing burnt papers to frame the girl. Chishti has rejected the allegations by members of his mosque as "fabricated." But his accusers allege the cleric himself desecrated the Koran in an attempt to drive out the Christian minority from the neighborhood.

A panel of doctors said Masih, who is believed to be under 14, suffers from learning disabilities, with an IQ level lower than those her age.

Several Islamist leaders in Pakistan have joined an international outcry over the arrest, which revived calls to review - if not repeal - Pakistan's controversial laws about blasphemy, which is a crime punishable by death.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

Post by geezer »

I need to somehow start working the phrase "lustful cockmonster" into more of my conversations.

:lol:
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Appeals court releases one member of Pussy Riot:
The Moscow City Court ruled that Yekaterina Samutsevich’s sentence should be suspended because she was thrown out of the cathedral by guards before she could remove her guitar from its case and thus did not take part in the performance.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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David Cameron wants to be tough on those who speak for terrorists:
David Cameron is planning new powers to muzzle Islamic hate preachers accused of provoking terrorist outrages such as the killing of soldier Lee Rigby.

The Prime Minister wants to stop extremist clerics using schools, colleges, prisons and mosques to spread their ‘poison’ and is to head a new Tackling Extremism and Radicalisation Task Force (TERFOR) made up of senior Ministers, MI5, police and moderate religious leaders.

The high-powered group will study a number of measures, including banning extremist clerics from being given public platforms to incite students, prisoners and other followers – and forcing mosque leaders to answer for ‘hate preachers’.
...
[A source stated,] ‘There is no question of restricting freedom of speech – this is about preventing people spreading the message of extremism and radicalisation in a totally irresponsible and reckless way.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

Post by El Guapo »

The other day a 4 year old that I was babysitting told me that he was giving me an $80 fine for "telling [him] what to do." I told him that I thought that there were serious first amendment problems with that fine. He was unconvinced.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

Post by LawBeefaroni »

Isgrimnur wrote:David Cameron wants to be tough on those who speak for terrorists:
...
[A source stated,] ‘There is no question of restricting freedom of speech – this is about preventing people spreading the message of extremism and radicalisation in a totally irresponsible and reckless way.
Image
Candidus wrote:The demogogues to seduce the people into their criminal designs ever hold up democracy to them.... If we examine the republics of Greece and Rome, we ever find them in a state of war domestic or foreign.... Apian's history of the civil wars of Rome, contains the most frightful picture of massacres.... that ever were presented to the world...


I'm not equating calls to violence by extremists with Thomas Paine's work but Cameron's quote struck me much like "Candidus" did.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Turkey blocks YouTube
Turkey on Thursday blocked access to YouTube following its recent order banning Twitter after someone posted an audio recording in which senior Turkish officials are purportedly discussing a scheme to create a pretext for waging war on Syria.

The audio claims to be a recording of Turkey's foreign minister, its intelligence chief and an undersecretary of foreign affairs discussing plans to stage attacks on Turkey from Syrian soil to justify waging a counterattack on Syria, says Ilhan Tanir of the Turkish Daily Today's Zaman in Istanbul.

The Turkish foreign ministry said the recording had been manipulated, but at a rally in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir on Thursday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeared to confirm the leak was genuine, according to the BBC.

"They even leaked a national security meeting," he said. "This is villainous, this is dishonesty. ... Who are you serving by doing audio surveillance of such an important meeting?"
...
The move came a day after a court in Turkey's capital, Ankara, said the government could not continue a ban it imposed on Twitter last week. Many Turkish users found ways to access Twitter despite the ban.

Erdogan had ordered Twitter blocked March 20, after the microblogging site refused to suspend anonymous accounts that linked to alleged recordings of Erdogan and his son talking about hiding money from police on a day of raids during a corruption investigation.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

Post by Vorret »

We may not be perfect in Canada but hot damn I'm happy to be born here with all the shit that's happening around the world.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Turkey Twitter ban lifted:
Turkey lifted its ban on Twitter Thursday, a day after the nation’s highest court struck down a government prohibition, an official in Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s office told Reuters.

The country’s constitutional court ruled Wednesday that the ban violated free expression, but Erdogan’s government, which imposed the ban two weeks earlier ahead of last Sunday’s municipal elections, did not immediately act.
...
Despite the criticism, Turkey’s voters partially exonerated Erdogan for his crackdown: his Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party overwhelmingly won in local elections on Sunday.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

Post by LordMortis »

http://www.iranhumanrights.org/2014/05/ ... -sentence/
The Revolutionary Court in Tehran has sentenced eight Facebook users to a total of 123 years in prison on charges of “propaganda against the state” and “insulting the Supreme Leader.”
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Daily Mail (UK)
A life sentence given to a moderate Chinese scholar on Tuesday shows the ruling Communist Party is cutting off dialogue on ethnic tensions and could backfire by radicalizing minorities, scholars and analysts said.

A court found economics professor Ilham Tohti, an ethnic Uighur Muslim, guilty of separatism and sentenced him to life in prison. It was the most severe penalty in a decade for illegal political speech in China and eclipsed the 11-year jail sentence given Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo on subversion charges.
...
Ilham Tohti is seen as a moderate voice with ties to both ethnic Uighurs and the Han Chinese majority. A Communist Party member and professor at Beijing's Minzu University, he ran the website Uighur Online that highlighted issues affecting the ethnic group.
...
Prosecutors said Ilham Tohti was the ringleader of "a criminal gang seeking to split the country" and "caused severe harm to national security and social stability." His lawyers said the scholar's remarks — on the Internet, in his classrooms or with foreign media — did not advocate separatism and instead sought to resolve the region's ethnic tensions.
...
The European Union called the life sentence "completely unjustified," and Amnesty International said the decision was "shameful" and "an affront to justice."
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Australia
Schools will lose the option of appointing secular social workers under the national school chaplaincy program, for which the Abbott government has found an extra $245m in budget funding.

While flagging big cuts to future school spending growth, the Coalition's first budget earmarks the funding over five years to continue the chaplaincy scheme originally put into place by John Howard.

But the education minister, Christopher Pyne, confirmed he would axe an option put in place by the Labor government for schools to opt for non-religious student welfare worker as an alternative to a chaplain providing “pastoral care”.
...
But the opposition education spokeswoman, Kate Ellis, questioned the government's priorities given it would curb school funding increases from 2018 onwards, which she said would fail to keep pace with rising education costs.

Ellis said it was wrong for the government to direct funding only to chaplains who had a “direct link to organised religion”.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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UK PM David Cameron wants to ban encrypted messaging:
Using WhatsApp can be a past thing for Brits as the popular application is now facing a total UK ban because of a new law enforcement that would stop people sending any form of encrypted messages.

Talking about this issue earlier this year, David Cameron questioned that if in their country, they should allow a means of communication between people which they cannot read, reported the Daily Star.

Answering his question with a no, Cameron had said that being the Prime Minister he will make sure it is a comprehensive piece of legislation that makes sure that they didn't allow terrorist safe spaces to communicate with each other.

It is being said that the controversial law, which is nicknamed the "snoopers charter," can be in place by the autumn.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

Post by Moliere »

Isgrimnur wrote:UK PM David Cameron wants to ban encrypted messaging:
I'm surprised the post office doesn't ban envelopes. We should write all of our letters on post cards. It's not like we have anything to hide, right? Think of the children! And terrorists!
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

Post by GreenGoo »

Isgrimnur wrote:UK PM David Cameron wants to ban encrypted messaging:
Using WhatsApp can be a past thing for Brits as the popular application is now facing a total UK ban because of a new law enforcement that would stop people sending any form of encrypted messages.

Talking about this issue earlier this year, David Cameron questioned that if in their country, they should allow a means of communication between people which they cannot read, reported the Daily Star.

Answering his question with a no, Cameron had said that being the Prime Minister he will make sure it is a comprehensive piece of legislation that makes sure that they didn't allow terrorist safe spaces to communicate with each other.

It is being said that the controversial law, which is nicknamed the "snoopers charter," can be in place by the autumn.
How does he expect online transactions to occur?
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

Post by hepcat »

A more appropriate analogy would be banning letters that are sent inside an adamantium case. They're not trying to make them all visible to the public, they're trying to prevent them being almost impossible to make visible at all.

note: This is not me trying to say that I'm all for government intrusion into our day to day correspondence.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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hepcat wrote:A more appropriate analogy would be banning letters that are sent inside an adamantium case. They're not trying to make them all visible to the public, they're trying to prevent them being almost impossible to make visible at all.

note: This is not me trying to say that I'm all for government intrusion into our day to day correspondence.
I found this particular article unclear, as it mentions facebook/google/twitter handing over messages to the government upon request but also says that you will no longer be able to encrypt messages. Those are not necessarily the same thing of course.

In the past they (UK politicians) have definitely proposed making all encryption illegal, but I am unsure if that is what they are proposing this time around. The article did mention the Tunisia attack as political fuel for this particular time, which might actually allow them to pass something stupid.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Iceland legalizes blasphemy:
Iceland's parliament on Friday voted widely in favour of decriminalising blasphemy, in the name of freedom of expression in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris.

The bill was adopted after 43 of 63 members of parliament voted in favour. One lawmaker voted against, 16 were absent and three abstained.

The bill had been put forward by the Pirate Party in February, after the January attacks in which 12 people were gunned down in the Paris offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
...
Article 125 in Iceland's penal law, which has now been abolished, had stipulated that anyone "who publicly mocks or dishonours the doctrine or worship of a legal religious group, in this country, shall be fined or jailed up to three months."
...
The Lutheran Church of Iceland, to which almost 75 percent of Icelanders belong, had supported the change.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Penis.
Vagina.
Hamburglar.
:shock:
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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ABC
An Italian journalist who is under criminal investigation by the Vatican for publishing a book about scandals at the Holy See said Tuesday he refused to answer the Vatican prosecutor's questions during an interrogation this week, citing his right under Italian law to protect his sources.

Emiliano Fittipaldi, author of the new book "Avarice," based on leaked Vatican documents, said he agreed to go to the Vatican on Monday after being formally summoned because he wanted to understand exactly what he was accused of.

But he told reporters Tuesday that he refused to answer the prosecutors' questions, citing the protections journalists enjoy in Italy to shield their sources — protections which don't exist in the Vatican legal code.
...
Another Italian journalist who wrote a second book about Vatican mismanagement and is also under investigation by the Vatican refused to appear for questioning this week. Gianluigi Nuzzi also cited the utter lack of protections for journalists in the Vatican legal code, and the fact that the Italian constitution guarantees freedom of the press.
...
If the Vatican tribunal goes ahead and charges the two journalists and ultimately convicts them, it will come down to a political question as to whether the Holy See will request their extradition from Italy — and if Italy will oblige.
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Fittipaldi said the prosecutor told him he was facing the stiffest possible prison sentence — from four to eight years — because the Vatican considers the publication of the information to have been a crime against the state. According to the 2013 law, the Vatican asserts jurisdiction over foreign citizens even when the alleged crime occurs outside the Vatican if the crime is considered to be against the Vatican itself, and if the potential penalty is over three years.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Turkey's Erdogan compared to Gollum.
A Turkish court has asked experts to determine whether the "Lord of the Rings" character Gollum is good or evil to decide whether a doctor insulted Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan, the defendant's lawyer told Reuters on Wednesday.

Erdogan's lawyers are sueing Bilgin Ciftci, a physician from the western city of Aydin, after he shared pictures on social media of the president juxtaposed with those of the "small, slimy creature" immortalized in J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy novels.

"The prosecutor didn't watch the movie and he defined Gollum as 'the monster in a bad role'. But we said Gollum can't be defined as evil. The character itself is a war between good and bad. He is basically seen as a victim of society," said Ciftci's lawyer, Hicran Danisman.

"The judge said he was familiar with the movie but he couldn't decide whether Gollum was good or bad," she said.

The experts who must decide the issue include a cinema specialist, a behavioral scientist and a psychologist, Danisman added.
...
In Turkey, insulting the president is a crime punishable by up to four years in jail.

Erdogan, who has dominated Turkish politics for more than a decade, brooks little dissent and has sued dozens of people, including cartoonists, a former Miss Turkey winner and teenagers on accusations of insulting him.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Guardian
Many British politicians would doubtless rejoice at the news that Andrew Marr, Emily Maitlis and Andrew Neil were to leave their jobs almost simultaneously.

That is the fate that has befallen what could loosely be described as their counterparts in Japan – Ichiro Furutachi, Hiroko Kuniya and Shigetada Kishii – three respected broadcasters with a reputation for asking tough questions.

Their imminent departure from evening news programmes is not just a loss to their profession; critics say they were forced out as part of a crackdown on media dissent by an increasingly intolerant prime minister, Shinzo Abe, and his supporters.

Only last week, the internal affairs minister, Sanae Takaichi, sent a clear message to media organisations. Broadcasters that repeatedly failed to show “fairness” in their political coverage, despite official warnings, could be taken off the air, she told MPs.

Under broadcast laws, the internal affairs minister has the power to suspend broadcasting that does not maintain political neutrality.
...
As the host of Hodo Station, a popular evening news programme on TV Asahi, Ichiro Furutachi was at the centre of a row last spring over claims by one of the show’s regular pundits, Shigeaki Koga, that he had been forced to quit under pressure from government officials angered by his criticism of the Abe administration.

Shigetada Kishii, who appears on News 23 on the TBS network, angered government supporters last year after criticising security legislation pushed through parliament by Abe’s Liberal Democratic party (LDP).

Perhaps most striking of all is the departure of Kuniya, the veteran presenter of Close-up Gendai, a current affairs programme on public broadcaster NHK.

Her “crime” had been to irritate Yoshihide Suga, the chief cabinet secretary and a close Abe ally, with an unscripted follow-up question during a discussion about the security legislation.

While the anchors themselves have refused to comment, experts say Abe and his allies had made their feelings known about the broadcasters during secretive dinners with top media executives.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

Post by El Guapo »

It's nice to read stuff like this, as it makes me feel better about the ways in which the United States is screwed up. We're not the only ones!
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Turkey
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan has claimed the definition of a terrorist should be changed to include their "supporters" - such as MPs, civil activists and journalists.

It comes after three academics were arrested on charges of terrorist propaganda after publicly reading out a declaration that reiterated a call to end security operations in the south-east of Turkey, a predominantly Kurdish area.

Mr Erdogan has said the academics will pay a price for their “treachery”.

A British national was also detained on Tuesday ... after he was found with pamphlets printed by the Kurdish linked People’s Democratic Party (HDP).

“It is not only the person who pulls the trigger, but those who made that possible who should also be defined as terrorists, regardless of their title,” President Erdogan said on Monday, adding that this could be a journalist, an MP or a civil activist.
...
President Erdogan has already threatened the future of Turkey’s highest court after it ruled that holding two journalists in pre-trial detention was a violation of their rights to freedom of expression.

The journalists, Cumhuriyet newspaper editor Can Dundar and Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gul, were arrested on charges of revealing state secrets and attempting to overthrow the government. They reportedly face calls for multiple life sentences from prosecutors and will stand trial later in March.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

Post by GreenGoo »

He should ban (temporarily!) anyone who is the same religion as these terrorists from his country.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

Post by Rip »

GreenGoo wrote:He should ban (temporarily!) anyone who is the same religion as these terrorists from his country.
That would be awesome, since that would require expelling himself. The Kurds are Muslims to.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

Post by GreenGoo »

Rip wrote:
GreenGoo wrote:He should ban (temporarily!) anyone who is the same religion as these terrorists from his country.
That would be awesome, since that would require expelling himself. The Kurds are Muslims to.
Presumably that makes him a likely terrorist. Infiltration is complete.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Russia
According to Poland’s IAR news agency, the Russian consumer authority says that it has received complaints over The Queue (Kolejka), a board game developed by the IPN.

IAR reported that complaints were made about the game’s instructions, which refer to the Soviet Union as having imposed communism in Poland.

According to the IPN, The Queue is “a board game that tells a story of everyday life in Poland at the tail-end of the communist era.”
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

Post by hepcat »

Imagine what will happen when Putin gets cable and sees the original Red Dawn for the first time...
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Turkey
A gunman has opened fire at Turkish journalist Can Dundar, who is standing trial in Istanbul on charges of revealing state secrets.

The assailant fired at least three shots outside the court, eyewitnesses said. Mr Dundar escaped unharmed but a reporter was reportedly injured.

Police say they have arrested the suspected gunman.

Erdem Gul, a former colleague of Mr Dundar who is also on trial, said the attacker shouted "traitor" as he fired.

Mr Dundar, a former newspaper editor, was briefing reporters outside the courthouse when the incident occurred.

He is standing trial alongside Mr Gul over a series of reports in Cumhuriyet newspaper that alleged Turkish intelligence operatives were transporting weapons to Syria in early 2014.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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UK
A call centre worker who made a video where his pet pug did a Nazi salute in response to the words, ‘Sieg Heil’ has been arrested.

The film – which featured the dog watching Hitler’s speeches – has been viewed nearly a million times on YouTube.

The video showed pet pug Buddha jumping up on hearing the words: ‘Gas the Jews.’

Markus Meechan, 28, spent the night behind bars after police swooped on his home in Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, and arrested him on suspicion of a hate crime.

He was later released and a report sent to the procurator fiscal in relation to an alleged breach of the electronic communications act of 2003.
...
Police said the arrest should be a warning that videos which cause offence will not be tolerated.

Detective Inspector David Cockburn said: ‘This clip was shared online and has been viewed almost one million times.

‘The clip is deeply offensive and no reasonable person can possibly find the content acceptable in today’s society.”

‘This arrest should serve as a warning to anyone posting such material online, or in any other capacity, that such views will not be tolerated.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

Post by Combustible Lemur »

It's a good thing that Americans are not all that good at being reasonable.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

Post by Isgrimnur »

American police wouldn't care. Unless you compared the chief to Hitler. Then they'd kick in your front door.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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AhlulBayt News Agency
Speaking on his nightly television program, “al-Imam al-Tayyeb,” which is being broadcast during the holy month of Ramadan in Egypt, Sheik Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, the Grand Imam of Egypt’s renowned Sunni institute of learning, al-Azhar University, explained that atheists developed their opinions in the 18th century with some degree of politeness and respect toward those who believe in God but contemporary atheists, particularly after the events of September 11, have declared war against all religions, especially Islam.

He added that one of the major causes of the spread of irreligiosity and atheism in the Islamic world is that some Muslim youth do not have the support for firm thinking and belief and cannot assess what they hear, especially since those who spread atheism spread their ideas with simple and comprehensible explanations for the youth.

“Experts in psychology and large financial institutions support these ideas and the danger of these institutions is that their ideas can be considered as the weapons of the West,” he stressed.
...
In conclusion, the Grand Imam of al-Azhar urged the Muslim community to take action to end the phenomenon of atheism and said that the only way to end irreligiosity and atheism is to disseminate correct religious knowledge in schools and universities and to have theological and philosophical courses in our universities taught to students in order to ensure the culture of society against deviant thoughts.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

Post by GreenGoo »

Right. The biggest threat to Islam is atheists.

Good luck with that.
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

Post by Isgrimnur »

Daily Beast
A band of Twitter trolls alleging to be from the Middle East spent Sunday and Monday repeatedly reporting “atheist” and pro-LGBT girls and women to the local authorities in places where blasphemy laws allow for punishments as severe as death.

Stories of social media harassment have become increasingly common in recent years, but the consequences of this trolling campaign could be far more serious than most. Twitter users in Kuwait have already spent years in jail for tweets similar to the ones trolls unearthed on Sunday and Monday, as repeated requests to Twitter to ban those doxing young women have so far fallen on deaf ears.
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Last year, Twitter’s then-CEO Dick Costolo made reining in abuse a priority for the social network and expanded its safety team to “act against accounts that don’t follow the rules.” In February, the company hired a group of experts to launch the Twitter Trust & Safety Council, which would “provide more tools and policies” to “express themselves freely and safely on Twitter.”

When The Daily Beast reached out to Twitter to ask how accounts like @Old_gaes were allowed to remain active despite consistent reports of harassment, a spokesperson said that “we do not comment on individual accounts, for privacy and security reasons.”

When asked to “better outline how Twitter assesses threats to personal safety” after a violation of the rules that could leave its users in danger, the company did not respond to repeated requests at press time.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Smoove_B
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

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Isgrimnur
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

Post by Isgrimnur »

MPAA: Bastion of freedom
The MPAA, facing a suit that hopes to see smoking imagery banned from films rated G, PG or PG-13, is arguing that the ban would be an infringement of the first amendment right to free speech. They argue that the ratings should reflect what most US parents would think suitable viewing for their children.

Now the plaintiffs, led by Timothy Forsyth, are arguing that movie ratings are not protected by the first amendment, according to the Hollywood Reporter. They argue that the link between on-screen smoking and teenage uptake is scientifically provable and their complaint is therefore about false advertising.

“The complaint asserts that defendants cannot affix a PG-13 or lower certification on movies with tobacco imagery, because they know that it has been scientifically established that subjecting children to such imagery will result in the premature death of more than a million of them,” said Forsyth and co in a new memo.
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The case, which is ongoing, could significantly alter the way films are rated if it is decided in favour of the plaintiffs and potentially clear the way for further suits covering alcohol use, gambling and high-speed driving.
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LordMortis
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Re: I am so thankful for the first amendment

Post by LordMortis »

As someone who has long since foregone smoking around children, I see no problem with this ban, even if PG-13 seems a little too much. I like the idea of smoking being a foreign and strange custom to children. Not even exotic, but nonsensical.

The most uncomfortable I ever get is when I am out somewhere and excuse and exorcise myself for cigarette and a child comes all out the way of everything to me in isolation to talk to me.

I just don't know how you apply these rules going backwards. I'd hate to see children denied the joy of cartoons of old because history is not kind to their times.
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