I was wondering when somebody would raise Witness (1985), because it's an obvious, interesting and appropriate case for comparison.

I think the rights of the Amish were less because they are less violent than others and less aggressive in all sorts of ways, and the rights of Islam are more than those of other religions because Islam is more aggressive, violent and all-round dangerous than other religions.

That's unfortunate.

In Knights in white armour (1996, Hutchinson, London), Christopher Bellamy proposes in his Conclusion: revised principles of war and peace a new principle five (p. 231): "Fifth: go with the flow. ... Rowing against the tide is a bad bet." He delicately avoids spelling out what he means in a clear way, but in context (with examples such as ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia) the intention is clear: peace-keepers shouldn't favour the weaker side in a conflict (regardless of alleged rights and wrongs), rather the way to minimise conflict is to avoid challenging those who can and will react violently if their will is checked, and let losers ... lose. Turn a deaf ear to their complaints, and you'll have less trouble.

This appears to be what the British have accepted as a practical principle, abroad (as in Iraq), and even at home. Police have based aggrieved fox hunters to pulp, because it was easy and safe to do so, but Muslims threatening others have been more or less above the law from the time of the riots against Salman Rushdie on. (It's those who go against the Muslim protesters who are vulnerable to police action.)

It's the same in Australia. Muslim Lebanese rape gangs and other thugs who go to the same mosques have grown confident and aggressive in an environment of go-softly policing, while police batons never seen before were employed in numbers against surfies. While some surfies are criminal yobs (and those who got bashed on that occasion surely deserved it - I have no sympathy for rioters), lots of Aussie surfies are as harmless as the Amish (if much less moral), and this has a lot to do with their having lesser rights in practice.

Going with the flow is the easy option, and it's sometimes the only practical option. It's the natural option for a post-modernist society that can't easily say: "this is right and we're going to satand up for it, though the cost may be high." But as a general, pervasive policy of applied justice, which is what we in the West tacitly have settled on, I think it's fatally flawed.

"Going with the flow" means the stealthy abolition of individual rights, such as the right to speak your mind safely. And even between communities such as the Amish and Muslims (who are acting globally as an aggrieved collective regardless of sectarian differences) it systematically rewards the worst with a degree of practical domination over others, while putting the easiest to get along with in a subordinate position, where they are at best indulged petitioners.

The long term effect of favouring dangerous collectives over harmless individuals cannot be good.

Those insane Amish! Will they ever cease their quaint madness?

It's exactly like that time that the Catholics blew up the NBC studios and held wild bloody riots for weeks and weeks because of that Sinead O'Connor stunt with the Pope's photo.

Remember: ALL religious ideas are EQUALLY dangerous.

Well Ben, I find more dangerous those religions that justify murder of infidels and plundering of their countries, but it is just my opinion.

> Few people -- if any -- outside the Amish
> community have raised any objection to the
> film. The film was within the bounds of
> propriety of the culture that produced it,
> even if it was well out of bounds for the
> culture that was its topic. That, it seems to
> me, is the essential point. Yes, the right
> to public speech and artistic freedom entail
> responsibilities. But those responsibilities
> are primarily to the standards of one's own
> culture.

And that makes making money off of and the discracing of the Amish OK? In the end, did the movie really need to be made? No. But, as long as most of us are OK with it that is really all that matters to a society.

Of course if the Amish decided to put a sniper round in the head of each of the producers more people would have cared that they didn't want it to be made. And that is one point of all this. Fear makes people comply to your demands. This fear can be used for "good" (police, military) or "bad" (police, military, thug, islam).

Very few people go into a job where they can protect our society and possibly die doing so. The rest of us really don't have the courage to do that. Or else that is what we would be doing. And it is interesting how we say "freedom is good", yet are so unwilling to even just say those words in a way that could get us killed. Not pick up a gun and serve in the military, just say something like "I don't believe in Islam and I feel Mohammad does not speak for God. And it really disgusts me when I think about the age of his last wife."

How many people believe that, but wouldn't dare publish it in a paper with their name? The cartoons were not really about Mohammad or Islam. They were about people letting fear control what they say and and what they think. We at times try to rationalize the fear with "They are justified in hating us" or "I shouldn't have provoked them". That way we can cower down and not feel defeated. But, that fear still censors our words and thoughts.

That is why we are OK with disgracing the Amish. And why we need to look into our hearts of fear.

Do the Amish watch movies? And don't these events actually support their belief that separation from the world is the only way to live?

There is no such thing as "shoe-fly pie," which sounds as if one throws one's shoe into the batter. It's spelled "shoo-fly," for reasons that are obvious given the pie's high molasses content.

That is all.

Excellent points, Arrow. I wish I had written that instead of my rather lame conclusion.

And Grandma is quite right about "shoo-fly." My bad, though my version is consistent with my mental perception of the taste of it when I'm forced to eat it.

Well, we have now the perfect excuse for all our warring interventions in the ME.

Look, the West prints a few cartoons a couple times, and riots and burning embassies is the reponse.

So, when the Muslim presses print death to the infidel, die American Satan, kill the white cowboys, and Jesus was just a prophet and not the Son of God, and blast it all over Jazeera TV and the others all year long, why invading with the air force, abrahm tanks, and large infantry forces is an equivalent response.

Gee, finally I understand why the war on terror is on as it has been!

(Any on the left want to tell me again why printing the cartoons was uncalled for, or how it should never have been done ? I bet not. This shut them up in chat so quickly you could hear a pin drop. )

:-)

Are the Muslims going to stop their presses now ?
Don't expect the self flattering screwballs on the left to even acknowledge that fair is fair.