I think I understand your position now. You are not making contradictory claims. You are making two claims of quite different types.

(1) Moral imperative: Censorship should not exist.
(2) Personal psychological assertion: Under certain circumstances, if the moral imperative is intentionally violated, it would not worry (“bother”) you.

Then again, I wonder whether this really is a non-contradictory position. Presumably, if X doesn’t worry you, then you effectively find X to be acceptable. If you find X to be acceptable, that means it does not violate any moral imperative you hold. Thus, letting X be censorship, you do not in fact hold to an anti-censorship moral imperative – that is, if you genuinely hold to (2) (as you seem to), then you do not in fact hold to (1) at all (as I suspected). Your assertions of (1) are thus little more than rhetorical dross to provide cover for your actual position: you advocate the imposition of censorship on the basis of your own personal tastes. And therein, ladies and gents, lies the seed of demogogary.

I think that censorship should not exist (for adults). However, the fact that a movie gratuitously showing a real rape would probably be censored does not bother me at all.

It isn’t fence-sitting, it’s called living in a world that isn’t black & white.

My position is that banning people from speaking is not a good idea, but in the case of people like this … I am not at all bothered if they are banned.

So let me see if I’m comprehending your “position”: banning people from speaking is a bad idea except when it isn’t. Is that your “position”? Do all your “positions” involve self-castration on a fence, or just this one?

you are in fact right, reading comprehension has not been good in this thread, and I did not read you post correctly, you do support freedom of expression, and I can’t read properly.

I don’t like the idea of people people working to implement a system which would have a woman stoned to death for sleeping with me. Should they be banned? Maybe not, but I’m sheding no tears.

Reading comprehension isn’t all that good in this thread, is it? My position is that banning people from speaking is not a good idea, but in the case of people like this (or David Irving, or a neo-Nazi leader or any other person who wants to force a barbaric idea on my country) I am not at all bothered if they are banned.

It sets a precedent for future assaults of free speech? Not really, it just re-enforces the concept that absolutely unfettered speech it not permitted. Also something I disagree with in principle but am happy to reap the benefits of.

“The other somewhat unfortunate misunderstanding that you have is that anyone here could wish for or care about your support or endorsement of any matter that relates to Muslims.

Can I categorically lay that incorrect assumption entirely to rest.

Please feel free to exercise the full reach of your influence to ban or prohibit any person or speech that you may disagree with or that intimidates you.”

Thank you for your comment. I think that if you look through our archive than you will see where we stand on all of the issues that you raise (a, b, c, d). If you think that we could be in favor of police states and ethnic cleansing, then you must ipso facto think that we are monsters, or at least uncivilized.

I have my own list which includes not stealing land from indigenous people and exterminating them for the bounty on their ears.

b,c and d are all things that we would be against as well (and probably a too). I think Sharia is not really the problem, rather it is the judges who administer it and the system of justice that develops around it.

An equivalent example in a western country is the US for example

Roger B Taney and the Dred Scott case
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_B._Taney
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott

Taney a staunch supporter of slavery proclaimed that a black man had no rights that a white man need respect, although this was on clear contradiction to the US constitution.

Amir alludes to something similar when he discusses the punishment for adultery.

BTW your condescending instruction to look the history of Emperor Freddy the second is a bit of a joke, I know him right down to the color of his beard. I suspect that everyone else here does as well expect you, so don’t say it

it make you look like an idiot, and that isn’t cool.

Umm maybe , but few (none?) of them stipulate the death penalty.

All this schoolkid tittering about having “four friends’ watch is really ludicrously innocent. You think the secret police wouldn’t arrange for 4 witnesses if they wanted someone out of the way? What does the law say about witnessing by video? (There are plenty of videos out there showing actual penetration.) Have you never been involved in sex in public or group sex… uh, no probably not, I guess. You want to get out more.

I repeat, I am shedding no tears over any retrictions on the ‘free speech’ of people advocating barbarism and repression such as is envisaged by advocates of Sharia.

You misunderstand Frank when you say this:

The censorship doesn’t harm us, the cost is borne by your civilization which you say cherishes freedom of expression.

It is incorrect to attribute ‘ownership’ of Australian civilisation to Frank.
Frank has made it very clear that he is opposed to freedom of expression. Insofar as freedom of expression is a value of Australian civilisation (let’s say it is), Frank is thus clearly opposed Australian civilisation.

um, we seem to have a clash of cultures here???

Australia is a country founded on the understanding that we will all tolerate each other because we’re all Aussies. Are there limits to any of this?

Well, yeah. We will not tolerate anyone who wishes to institute any of the following:

(a) sharia law as it is currently being practised in say, Pakistan… or bits of Nigeria…
(b) Old Testament Law (instituted by anybody at all)
(c) brutal police states
(d) ethnic cleansing and targeting of people on grounds of race, religion etc… (as it might be, in Darfur…)

Listen, guys, we hear what you’re saying. All the Muslims I know (in Melbourne) are brought up to believe that there can be no compulsion in religion. And they are extremely nice people. The suburb in question where they live has happily embraced them because, well, They Get It. About living in Australia.

Sheikh Whatever his name is clearly doesn’t. And there’s plenty of guys around worse than him. BTW, I also have heard that he is a very kind man who has worked tirelessly to help lost boys in trouble, but unfortunately that doesn’t get into the papers. And I can accept this. But he’s not a good PR guy because he doesn’t speak English, and that alone is a massive problem.

More to the point, it’s a bit late for anyone to say hey, let’s not reprise the Crusades, yeah? Because it’s already happening all over the world, and you can’t pretend it’s not. But we CAN choose how we want to replay them. My choice is we reprise the meeting of the Emir of Jerusalem and the Emperor Friedrich (II) Hohenstauffen of Germany. It was in the early 13th century and if you don’t know the story, I advise you all to look it up because it’s important.