The Cracked Thread

There are several passages in the Bible against idolatry.

The issue isn't that religious groups can or can't be violent, it is that a minority uses violence against anyone who depicts their icons in a less than serious tone and somehow they shouldn't be criticized or mocked because someone has a bad temper and will start bombing and shooting places.

That's because the minority doesn't have a 24 hour news network watched by half the population that's devoted to savagely attacking the least perceived slight towards their religion.

And that stops how many people, exactly? Fox News is a joke. Them ranting about perceived slights against Christianity is preaching to the choir at best, and pure snark bait at worst. I really don't see how that adresses 's point.

Anyway, good article about bisexuality is up.

The Bisexuality article

I have some deja vu feelings while reading this one, I don't know if it is because of all TV Tropes articles I read or the other Cracked articles about sexuality spread over the time.

Making fun of a person's beliefs is an effective way to drive them deeper into the camp you don't want them in.

If Bob believes in the deliciousness of tomatoes were on the fence between one group that is calling for tomatoes to be the dominant vegetable in the industry and another group that claims to support all vegetables but keeps insinuating that the tomato fans like to f*ck goats, Bob will be more inclined to take the side of the group that's not calling him a goat-f*cker.

Any debate stops being logical the moment personal attacks are introduced to it. This is why TvTropes bans such debate tactics. Feeling insulted is a popular cause for people to adopt extremist beliefs. MRAs feel like the world hates them for being men. Radfems feel like the world hates them for being women. Neo-Nazis feel like the world hates them for being white. Etc.

We even see this anger in things as simple as shipping wars and fandom rivalries. The My Little Pony fandom is a goddamn nightmare that bleeds into other parts of the internet that have otherwise done their best to ignore the franchise, as a consequence of a civil war between fans who think the bronies are ridiculous and bronies who are pissed off because they're tired of replacing furries as the internet's new favorite target just for enjoying a cartoon about ponies learning moral lessons and...stuff, I guess?

Ultimately, "Don't you wish you could make them stop pointing and laughing at you?" is an underlying cause for a lot of anger and violence. Extremist groups merely organize and weaponize that pre-existing hurt and rage, focusing it into a highly destructive laser of scorn.

edited 29th Jun '15 12:58:01 PM by TobiasDrake

Still doesn't stop posters here from portraying MR As and fundamentalist Christians as total and complete idiots.

People who go further into the hole because of satires are already in the hole to begin with.

That's because MRAs and fundamentalist Christians are their equivalent of Muslim terrorists. They're the hate group. Mocking the hate group is acceptable. Mocking the group that the hate represents, however, is not.

That hole is the end of a journey that began with being attacked for what you are.

Making fun of terrorists is fine. Making fun of Muslims is hate, and drives more Muslims into the waiting arms of terrorist recruiters. When the South Park guys decided to mock Mohammad, they were attacking the Muslim religion, not the terrorists who kill people in its name. That's the problem.

edited 29th Jun '15 1:03:07 PM by TobiasDrake

They mocked every single religion, political party and country under the sun, why should Islam and Muslims be exempted from that?

First, "They did something bad before therefore they can do something bad again" is a terrible argument. Second, it is important to recognize the relationship of powers in play. Mocking Islam in an American cartoon is completely different from mocking Christianity. One is a marginalized group, the other isn't. It is the difference between representing Caucasians' skin as paper white (or bright pink) and representing Afro-descendants with black face. Sure, you can argue that, on a vacuum, they both the same^note simplifying skin pigmentation to a simpler base color, but in reality, it really, really is not.

The is the classic "punch up, not down". Mocking a marginalized group reinforces stereotypes and make the group even more marginalized. These groups ready feel like outsiders without the media reminding them every time they can.

Nobody will say "oh, they're mocking everybody, this is not directed at me specifically, I have no reason to be mad." No, everybody will be offended by the insult directed at them and won't care about the rest.

edited 29th Jun '15 2:23:27 PM by Aetol

I guess I should have stormed the American Embassy when the Simpson mocked Brazil to express the dissatisfaction of the shitty portrait of my country then.

South Park aired Mohamed in 2001 with zero scandals, the 2006 episodes came after few Danish cartoons mocked Islamic suicide bombers and Mohamed was throughly censored on that episode as a joke and had Buddha snorting cocaine in front of children.

Going through with self censorship to appease religious extremists fall into a load of pit traps.

First it admits it is okay to mock and satirize most faiths but not others, because how vocal their followers are. If one faith has to be respected so should all the others.

Second it outright implies that they are too dangerous to be mocked, because they turn violent and incapable of rational thought when they are mocked. Which is condescending as fuck because it admits they aren't civilized enough to join a civil discourse.

Third, the extremists win! Yeah they do, because everyone is too concerned with their reactions to say anything or mock them over fear of retaliation. That is what they want, to be feared, to change our views and to intimidate us.

Fourth, marginalized argument doesn't stick when they are the second biggest religion on Earth. May be a minority in Europe and Americas but most of the terrorism acts happen in Muslim majority soil. Not the US and not on Europe.

Fifth, encroaching by mockery doesn't happen with sane people. By that logic everyone should write a long apology letter to all those US Southerners over the years of being depicted as racist dumb rednecks and be sorry for making the racist Southerners into very racist Southerners.

Sixty, satire and mockery can be and are offensive, but it doesn't give any excuse to be violent, because getting violent over satires is one of the reasons they are being mocked on the first place. There are a shitload of anti-semite artist on the Middle East drawing every nasty depiction of Jews, Christians and Hindus yet you don't see the IDF or Christian mobs bombing them. Get angry not violent, if they want to show how displeased they are do it with words not bullets.

Seventh, extremist can't get the difference between libel&slander and mockery&satire, regular people can. The majority of Muslims in the US wasn't giving a single damn in the 2001 episode and the French Muslims weren't giving a single damn about Charlie Hebdo. That was until some dipshit extremist decided those would be nice targets. They are so over sensitive to be against any depiction of Mohamed or the Islamic faith anywhere by anyone.

No one in Comedy Central, Charlie Hebdo, the Danish Cartoonists and Theo van Gogh weren't calling to kill Muslims or spreading lies about them.

Comedy Central mocked the absurdity of censorship around religious figures.

Charlie Hebdo had a Jewish and a Muslim in their cover mocking the amount of religious protections these two groups enjoy in France.

The Danish Cartoonist were mocking the Islamic Suicide Bombers, which are already extremists.

And Theo van Gogh was killed over a short documentary about the rampant sexism and discrimination women suffer in some Islamic societies.

None of those were defaming Muslims more than they were showing the absurdities around Islamic societies.

Mocking and Satire are just one of they ways to address the issue. I can't fucking help to sneer when I got asked to prove how mockery stifles terrorism but claiming that mockery encroaches and radicalizes people is taken at face value.

The Tsarnaev didn't bomb the Boston Marathon because drawings, nor did all those terrorist blowing themselves in Mosques, nor did the Libyan Benghazi Embassy attack was. They all had other reasons.

The failed Texas shooting and Charlie Hebdo weren't targeted as much for their work but as a mean by extremists to send a message. All they needed was a target.

More reason to not make yourself a target.

Braving the threats of violence is, in my opinion, just asking for trouble. We all know how it ends. It isn't courage when your sacrifice achieves nothing beyond temporarily increasing awareness about the extremists — and incidentally, giving far-right personalities fodder to advocate islamophobia.

I'm not saying we should just shut up and leave them be because, as you justly say, then the terrorists win. But defiantly insulting their religion invites violence and insults the other muslims, which as TobiasDrake pointed out, runs the risk of driving them into the extremist's camp.

edited 29th Jun '15 3:58:09 PM by Aetol

Wow◊

Such Insult◊

Very Offense◊

Much hurt◊

Wow◊

I'm not going to cower because some nutjob thinks he needs to kill people over some perceived insult toward his imaginary friend.

Far right wings are gonna far right wing no matter what Muslims do, terrorists gonna terrorize no matter what we say or do and I'm not going to sacrifice my laughs over it.

Even fucking Huffpost over a Saturday Night Live skit

Whoever is going to use guns over satire cartoons is already on the wrong end, as for the others it can turn them away from extremists by showing how fucking stupid it is before they are swallowed by its ideology.

Satire shatters the perception of groups who want to be taken seriously

Even in countries where they can be arrested and die Middle East Artists still use humor and Satire against fundamentalists. These guys have more balls that me and you ever will.

edited 29th Jun '15 4:37:36 PM by AngelusNox

So much awesome in that. Seriously, fuck those victim blaming pieces of shit that said Charlie Hedbo deserved to be attacked, or that anyone who insults Islam somehow deserves the vitriol they receive.

edited 29th Jun '15 7:57:23 PM by JackOLantern1337

I wanted to avoid this thread like the plague until the conversation would have moved to another subject, but I have to say this :

Angelus Nox, thank you. Thank you a thousand times. Those are exactly the words I would have put if I wasn't so jumpy about the subject and wasn't burning with rage everytime someone puts "but..." after "what happened in Charlie Hebdo was a tragedy", or after "we should mock everything".

Thank you.

"The is the classic "punch up, not down". Mocking a marginalized group reinforces stereotypes and make the group even more marginalized."

Which is nice and all....but power dosent work that way, hate groups are not usually majority, no matter if they are white or male, power dosent work in big block of power in where the powerfull are bad and the powerless are good, after all many satire that are consider acceptable are because they dont have the power to harm largue quiality of people.

And second bit, any fundamentalist be nacionalist,religious,etc. there is NOT point of discussion, they are not risking they worldview but wait until you do, for them respect will be given if you bow down and acept they point as truth because...well, it is

After all, the crux of this argument is simple:What it makes an accetable target and what isnt?

"More reason to not make yourself a target."

.....Where I hear that type of argument before?

And for angel nox, My total respect, you said better than me

On the subject of "punching up, not down" that Heatth brought up: there was already a video by Movie Bob posted in the previous page that addresses that topic and believes it's kind of a messy thing to deal with.

here. It's this one.

Jesus mother f—

really guys?

I'm muslim! If you're gonna link to depictions of Muhammad could you at least mention in the text what it links to?

Just because there are terrible extremists out there doesn't mean you should avoid basic etiquette.

edited 30th Jun '15 7:46:22 AM by MrAHR

gr8 b8 m8 ir8 8/8

no h8

What the hell happened here? This is not 4chan or Reddit. Cut it out.