Two gunmen shot dead at &#x27;draw the prophet Muhammad&#x27; contest in Texas

Some lovely pictures in the Mail.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3066779/Police-officer-suspect-said-injured-shooting-outside-art-anti-Muslim-exhibition-art-depicting-prophet-Muhammad.html

Reply 2

username1148663

21

Good

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Reply 3

Lacesso

9

I bet it was those pesky Christians again!

Reply 4

That contest is pretty scummy in the first place, and it's tragic whenever anyone dies.

Reply 5

Glad to see it was the gunmen who were shot dead and not the participants. Looks like they got more than they bargained for by attacking an event in Texas

Reply 6

Original post by TheDefiniteArticle

Their death is tragic because whatever they had done or intended to do, they're still human beings. "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind."

I bet tragic wouldn't have been the first words out of your mouth if it had been the participants who had been killed. No doubt you would have said they brought it on themselves.

The fact is, whether you like it or not, people have a right to draw the 7th century warlord known as Mohammed. The fact that some of this warlord's modern followers feel they have the right to kill anyone who doesn't abase themselves before his memory is neither here nor there; our own rights and artistic freedoms stand.

Personally I don't agree with the death penalty (and if they were caught alive they should have been imprisoned) but I'm glad they're dead.

Reply 7

Original post by Hickory Dickory

I don't think so. It's clearly designed to show that some people do not submit to the muslims' demands of restriction of freedom of speech.
Who gives a **** about what a billion or zillion people believe? Let then believe whatever they want, but they have no right to tell ANYONE what they can or can't do.

The death of those two scumbag muslims are no more tragic than the huge dump I flushed away in the toilet after lunch today.

First, I just want to make sure you know that freedom of speech isn't an absolute right. Secondly, I think it's important to keep in mind the relative importance of the restriction imposed, even if we do assume that we're in effect legislating against any depiction of the prophet Moh'd. Why would anyone want to make such a depiction? I accept that there have been some very important pieces of art made which did so, but they are the exception rather than the rule. It's barely important in society that some intolerant Texans can voice their bigotry in the form of being directly offensive. Regarding "who gives a **** about what a billion people believe?", I assume this was merely facetious. Social policy obviously needs to account for the individual needs, desires and "rights" of every individual, not just those we happen to agree with.

Original post by MatthewParis

I bet tragic wouldn't have been the first words out of your mouth if it had been the participants who had been killed. No doubt you would have said they brought it on themselves.

Just to quickly respond to this, in case I've misrepresented myself, I think that those dead are also awful people, and their attempted actions were far worse than those of the Texans. And yes, whenever simply anyone dies, it is bad. Of course, there are some situations when it can be mitigated by either hugely positive consequences or prevention of some worse act, but that doesn't stop the death itself being tragic.

Reply 8

Original post by TheDefiniteArticle

It's barely important in society that some intolerant Texans can voice their bigotry in the form of being directly offensive

You do realise that this statement is somewhat hypocritical and bigoted in its own terms?

I would also argue that freedom of expression, where it does not involve an element of harassment (i.e. verbal abuse, harassing letters, etc), should absolutely be paramount. In this case, there was no element of harassment; these terrorists sought these people out

Social policy obviously needs to account for the individual needs, desires and "rights" of every individual

What (some) Muslims are doing is demanding that everyone be forced to live by a religious rule that only exists in their religion. That is simply unacceptable in a secular society; people draw pictures of Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, and all sorts of historical figures.

Just because it is unacceptable for a Muslim to do it themselves does not mean it should be so for anyone else, particularly given these people are going out of their way to be offended and find these images.

Would you next argue that if a Muslim says homosexuality should be illegal because it offends them, we should bow to that as well? And if not, why not? How is that different to drawing Mohammed?

not just those we happen to agree with.

Surely you see the irony in that statement?

but that doesn't stop the death itself being tragic

We'll have to agree to disagree on that score. From where I'm sitting, it's too less terrorists around who could harm their fellow citizens of a state which took them in with open arms

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 9

Déscartés

12

Knowing what happened with Charlie Hebdo, why on earth would they take the risk of having a draw the prophet Mohammed? Yes freedom of expression or whatever but they know it will offend Muslims and what some extreme Muslims would do. It's good none of the participants were hurt but it's really ignorance on their part.

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Reply 10

Hickory Dickory

Original post by Déscartés

Knowing what happened with Charlie Hebdo, why on earth would they take the risk of having a draw the prophet Mohammed? Yes freedom of expression or whatever but they know it will offend Muslims and what some extreme Muslims would do. It's good none of the participants were hurt but it's really ignorance on their part.

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Because it's important. Because it's important to promote the idea that violence will never stop free speech, no?

Reply 11

Déscartés

12

Original post by Hickory Dickory

Because it's important. Because it's important to promote the idea that violence will never stop free speech, no?

And so they are willing to risk civilian lives to show that? You read yourself, 'Building and surrounding area was placed on lockdown by a SWAT team with*around*100 attendees still inside'
How many competitions have that kind of security?

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Reply 12

Ninjakam119

15

There's a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Now I am by no means defending these two idiots, I couldn't care less about their deaths. But this contest was clearly designed to offend, I don't see any draw Jesus competitions. They want to provoke a reaction, and well they got what they wanted, you can't say they weren't expecting it. Again I condone what these two 'people' tried to do, but the people partaking in this competition can f-off.

Reply 13

Original post by MatthewParis

You do realise that this statement is somewhat hypocritical and bigoted in its own terms?

The reason it's not is that because freedom of expression is not an absolute right, importance has to be afforded to various types/modes of expression. While the freedom of religious expression is very important, and I'd absolutely defend their right to criticise Islam in a calm, non-inciting manner, the chosen mode of expression of the idea is the one which is clearly calculated to cause the most offence for their given criticism.

I would also argue that freedom of expression, where it does not involve an element of harassment (i.e. verbal abuse, harassing letters, etc), should absolutely be paramount. In this case, there was no element of harassment; these terrorists sought these people out

"Paramount" is not the same thing as "absolute". Individual rights only exist as a legal concept. They cannot be a moral concept because a moral "right" must be absolute (otherwise it would merely be a moral consideration) - and it is clearly possible to devise simple thought experiments to show that no right is morally absolute (even the right to life - consider the classic dilemma where you can divert a train which is going to hit two people to only hit one - the 'one's life does not make it morally indictable to divert the train). Freedom of expression is important, but it is the ability to express ideas that is important, rather than the particular mode of expression (this is why we have intellectual property regimes in the law). Here, it is the mode of expression that is objectionable rather than the ideas being expressed.

What (some) Muslims are doing is demanding that everyone be forced to live by a religious rule that only exists in their religion. That is simply unacceptable in a secular society; people draw pictures of Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, and all sorts of historical figures.

They are demanding it, but they naturally won't receive it. That's not to say it's not morally wrong for other people to breach this 'rule'. To take something of an absurd example, I should not be legally prevented from making jokes about someone's recently deceased grandmother to their face, but it is clearly neither a moral or a social good that I do so.

Just because it is unacceptable for a Muslim to do it themselves does not mean it should be so for anyone else, particularly given these people are going out of their way to be offended and find these images.

They're not going out of their way to be offended. Someone is taking something sacred to them and ****ting on it. It's offense of the highest degree. Just because you (or I) personally wouldn't be offended doesn't mean it's not offensive.

Would you next argue that if a Muslim says homosexuality should be illegal because it offends them, we should bow to that as well? And if not, why not? How is that different to drawing Mohammed?

You're assuming I'm arguing that portraying Moh'd should be illegal. I'm not. And it's clearly not morally wrong to be homosexual or engage in homosexual relationships because the correlative "right" (I use this term to convey the idea, I don't think it's a moral right - see above) is significantly more important than being able to portray a single figure.

Surely you see the irony in that statement?

It's not at all ironic. Again, I think it's very important that they be able to object to Islam and its individual practices, I just don't think that every method of doing so is acceptable.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that score. From where I'm sitting, it's too less terrorists around who could harm their fellow citizens of a state which took them in with open arms

Yeah, I don't think it really matters whether any individual thinks it's bad that they're dead or not.

Original post by Hickory Dickory

Firstly, was anything done at this event outside of the freedom of speech rights, even with whatever boundary you propose?

Arguably (incitement to racial/religious hatred is a reasonable limit on FoE, though evidently the authorities in Texas don't agree), but I think you're missing the point. I'm not arguing that it's outside their rights per se, I'm arguing that even if it is outside their legal rights, it's still morally objectionable.

It's EQUALLY important that that bigots and hate mongers and evil people, whatever you like to call them, have the same rights as you do. In fact, even the dead scumbag muslims had that right - they could have drawn cartoons if they wanted to.

Yes, this is obvious, I don't see your point?

Characterising it as 'drawing cartoons' is obviously missing the point.

Reply 14

Original post by TheDefiniteArticle

They're not going out of their way to be offended

Given they are deliberately exposing themselves to these drawings when they could go their entire lives without seeing them, they are going out of their way to be offended. When most of us see something we don't agree with / like, we change the channel / cross the street.

We don't repeatedly expose ourselves to it until we go into a rage and try to murder the person who created that which we find offensive

Someone is taking something sacred to them and ****ting on it.

You mean someone is showing "disrespect" to a long-dead 7th century warlord? So what? They should get over it. I might not personally choose to draw a Mohammed cartoon, but I entirely defend people's right to do so and I understand the reasons they are doing so.

IT is entirely justifiable that people make a point of exercising their rights, rather than allowing those rights to fall into abeyance through disuse and intimidation.

The disproportionate amount of time you have spent criticising the cartoonists rather than the revolting terrorists who attempted to murder people for drawing a picture speaks volumes about your moral compass

It's offense of the highest degree. Just because you (or I) personally wouldn't be offended doesn't mean it's not offensive.

The fact they are offended does not confer any objective character on the action. I could be offended that elephants exist, that has no actual bearing on the moral character of elephants.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 15

The winning drawing; seems very apt

Spoiler

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 16