Don't be ridiculous. I buy an expensive bike and I fit it with a tracker and lock it in the garage. If someone steals it they're in the wrong but I have to assume its going to be more attractive to a theif than an ER500. It doesnt make what they're doing right but I can't justify leaving the bike outside just because theyre wrong. Its like riding a bike to the highway code but putting yourself in danger because there are bad drivers out there. Its no good saying they were in the wrong when your bikes in bits and you're in hospital
I don't, but they are going to be pretty thin on the ground if they are dispersed around the UK. A situation like France won't be 'shoot and scoot' with a four man team.
Being ridiculous won't help I'm afraid you cannot buy an expensive motorbike, Ali. You're not even allowed to run an old nail. You see, motorbikes are offensive to my people and you will be judged. You are no longer permitted to ride your bike so the whole issue is moot. *** Slight hyperbole, but only very slightly. You started it though, bringing up the subject of motorbikes on a politics forum. On a serious note: There are times when you can (conceivably but not morally) blame the victims for a crime that others have perpetrated upon them. In fact, you can blame any victim for being a victim, if you so wish. I find that that point of view offensive, personally speaking, but I intend no deadly revenge against you for expressing it. It's your right to do so.
I agree and don't follow Mr A's reasoning at all. Perhaps I am as thick as people are saying. The picture is about as useful to the argument as Mr A's posts - but I just wanted lighten the tone by sharing it. Beautiful?
The following words were inserted into the Public Order Act 1986 by the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006. This was a House of Lords amendment accepted reluctantly by the government. "29J Protection of freedom of expression Nothing in this Part shall be read or given effect in a way which prohibits or restricts discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents, or of any other belief system or the beliefs or practices of its adherents, or proselytising or urging adherents of a different religion or belief system to cease practising their religion or belief system." This is the bit of UK law which ensures blasphemy is not an offence in law at present. I find it an encouraging bit of illumination in a bleak landscape.
Who's really being ridiculous? Do you always take your garage with you? Is you bike never parked outside? Even if you go to the Continent? Or the TT? I had a tracker on a Bike that was stolen. It was never recovered. Really? Logic? Please!
Not for me. Looks like its been made out of lego ;-) Im not able to provide a solution to the argument. I guess my point is, just because we have the right to say something, should we say it?
If we want to yes. I find all religions wanting in the logic department and take great pleasure in laughing at them.
WHo said anything about logic? Again, you're missing the point. The bike goes places. I park it. It might get nicked thats why I insure it fully comp rather than 3rd party only. I understand the risk and choose to take that risk as we all do. I dont expect it to be nicked but I can't be completely surprised if its not there when I get back.....its within the realms of possibility even though its not right
And if you are behaving lawfully - like the cartoonists - and people who are offended by it kills you for that behaviour who's in the wrong? You or the shooter? After all you aren't surprised ... does that make him/them right by your reasoning, or just not as wrong as someone who shoots people without a motive for doing so that could have reasonable been foreseen by the victim.
All along Ive said it doesnt make it right. This isnt about right and wrong because in our world they are wrong and in their world we're wrong. Its not an argument you can have unless they turn up and start posting on here. My point is to question why we feel that its important to use our free speech to offend a religion...any religion, whether they can take a joke or not?
Really, I was taught this at a very young age, albeit from my (published) history teacher. I'd have thought anyone one writes as a profession would use it. The Fog Index is a readability test designed to show how easy or difficult a text is to read. It uses the following formula: Reading Level (Grade) = (Average No. of words in sentences + Percentage of words of three or more syllables) x 0.4 The resulting number is your Gunning Fog Index. The Gunning Fog Index gives the number of years of education that your reader hypothetically needs to understand the paragraph or text. The Gunning Fog Index formula implies that short sentences written in plain English achieve a better score than long sentences written in complicated language. For reference, the New York Times has an average Fog Index of 11-12, Time magazine about 11. Typically, technical documentation has a Fog Index between 10 and 15, and professional prose almost never exceeds 18.
I at one time had a small degree of sympathy for this point of view, it seems like a long time ago. I no longer feel that way and haven't done so for some time now. There are people, Muslims, who are oppressed, mutilated and murdered in the name of various flavours of Islam. Men, women, children. They are mistreated in the name of Islam, in accordance with its laws. There are people, mostly in the West, who are outraged at what they view as examples of man's inhumanity to man. It's an empathic reaction to perceived brutality. These outraged people have not taken up the AK47, the bomb, the blade to express their horror - they used their words instead. The reaction to this reaction has been to murder those critics. Now, what do you see as reasonable behaviour? Shut your mouth and say nothing - about the oppression, about the mutilations? Having been threatened, having seen your friends and colleagues murdered, do you now say nothing? Was it wrong ever to have spoken up in the first place? Where do you go from here? Where could you ever possibly go from here? I'm sorry but people who respond to mockery with murderous force have no sympathy from me. The vast majority of Muslims respond to that mockery the same way anyone else does - they ignore it, they seethe quietly, they get one with their peaceful lives. The violent minority are a plague on this Earth. However, unless I have missed a few recent announcements, the vast majority of Muslims still believe in ideas that are inimical to our Western values. The West's reaction to this? Well, it hasn't been murder ... in the UK, it's been an attempt to match square pegs and round holes, to accommodate people with very different belief systems, to allow the most amount of religious freedom possible - arguably, more freedom than is prudent but I won't argue that here. The fact is, if the West "wins" this ideological "war", Muslims are likely to be left with something of their ideology, way of life, their values. If Islam wins it, no one not embracing the Religion of Peace will ever be the same. They won't live recognisable lives in terms of what they've known before. Many won't even live. I firmly believe that moderate Muslims will be OK with whoever wins.
Absolutely. Free speech is the most important right in the sense that it is the one which guarantees all the others. It is a right which has to be exercised fully and regularly, or else it withers away. Free speech is most valuable when it is used to defy those who are most opposed to free speech, which in the modern world is the religionists.
That's a good question. I feel it is important in an abstract sense because it is a cornerstone of our democracy and in a concrete sense because once you start chipping away at the freedoms we take for granted, we would end up governed fundamentalists and special interest groups. It just a democracy flexing its muscles and saying "don't mess with us". Better than pulling Kalashnikovs on people surely? The pen has historically been proven to be pretty mighty. And as Voltaire said: "The only thing we must be intolerant of is intolerance". I would add ignorance to that but the former stems from the latter. We must always confront ignorance and that's what the cartoonists were doing.
Thanks. Thirty-plus years in journalism after five years at university studying languages, linguistics and journalism and it was never mentioned. I'd ask for my tuition fees back but we didn't have to pay them in those days.
