CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux asked some reporter today if the maker of the movie against Islam would face charges. Essentially the answer was that it was unclear.
The lunatics at MSNBC said he should face charges. And a professor at the University of Pennsylvania wrote an op-ed defending her tweet that the maker of the film should be in jail.
[W] hy did I tweet that Bacile should be in jail? The “free speech” in Bacile’s film is not about expressing a personal opinion about Islam. It denigrates the religion by depicting the faith’s founder in several ludicrous and historically inaccurate scenes to incite and inflame viewers….
While the First Amendment right to free expression is important, it is also important to remember that other countries and cultures do not have to understand or respect our right.
This is a dangerous dangerous precedent. As dumb as this movie was and even if you believe that the attacks on our embassies were because of this stupid video (they weren’t) it still wouldn’t be enough to arrest him.
The right to free speech is a right. Is there something about “right” that they’re not understanding. If you support the imprisonment of this man for hurting the feelings of radical Muslims then it won’t be long before Christians are imprisoned for hurting the feelings of homosexuals because of their view on gay “marriage.”
If we unleash these dogs be assured that the dogs will turn on us in short notice.
September 13, 2012 at 8:53 pm
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
September 13, 2012 at 9:16 pm
Apparently Suzanne Malveaux studied at Harvard, for what that's worth, and at Columbia, earning a master's in broadcasting. She's a working journalist, and her sister is even a law professor — and the lady still doesn't know what the First Amendment is.
It just goes to show that there really is such a thing as a stupid question.
September 13, 2012 at 10:00 pm
" It denigrates the religion by depicting the faith’s founder in several ludicrous and historically inaccurate scenes to incite and inflame viewers…."
So, Martin Scorsese should be in jail too?
September 13, 2012 at 10:01 pm
Meanwhile we're paying "artists" and "educators" to insult our own religion with laws that violate our consciences, displays that desecrate images we hold sacred, and lectures that drill kids in the inevitability of immoral behavior. If we object, we're called Philistines and ignorant hatemongers.
September 14, 2012 at 6:06 am
Interesting. So, I assume these same people calling for Bacile to be
put in jail for his film are also calling for similar punishment for 'artists'
who denigrate Christianity…
September 14, 2012 at 11:25 am
An argument could be made that deliberately offending Muslims constitutes good ol' "yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater"—as both are extremely likely to lead to the deaths of innocent people at the hands of irrational mobs—but that is not the argument this professor made.
As has been pointed out, if "denigrat[ing] [a] religion by depicting the faith’s founder in several ludicrous and historically inaccurate scenes to incite and inflame viewers", there are dozens of people in Hollywood who'd be in jail right now RE: Christianity.