Hurt feelings?? STFU!!

Religion really does cripple the human mind. Studies tend to show that theists have lower IQs than atheists, and I readily believe it ... because what is IQ really, if not the ability to solve problems one is presented with using one's powers of reasoning? And those powers are exactly what religion most suppresses.

This is being shown now in a planned protest rally, or so they're calling it, here in Oslo ... the second one, in fact. A bunch of cab drivers - hundreds of them, apparently - are going to park their cabs somewhere downtown and just stand there for hours in order to show how upset they are by Dagbladet (which has printed something worthwhile for once) running the drawing below on their front page last week.

Click to enlarge if you can't see what it is. It's the 'prophet' Muhammed in the guise of a pig, writing the Q'uran. It's pretty old apparently, but who cares about that.

All of these drivers are Muslims, of course, and they are so offended, blecch. I saw one of the cabs on the news, it had a poster in the back window saying something about 'respect'. Yes. We should respect their collective delusion, but they don't need to respect our freedom of speech, is that it? Yes, that's exactly what it is, because what they want is for Dagbladet to apologize for printing the drawing. How fucked up is that??!

First of all, I don't see where they get off staging this protest in the first place. This is a totally personal matter, it has nothing to do with their work or their employer or anything. Yet they're going to be spending how many hours of their working day (or night) just sitting on their asses doing nothing?? They should be fired IMO. Which would have been a good thing too, there are too many cabs in Oslo, this would have been a great way to weed out some of the less suitable drivers. If I had been running the company where these people work, I wouldn't have put up with it. Not once and certainly not twice. And what do you want to bet that ethnic Norwegians would not have been allowed to get away with it ... ? >:-(

But the fundamental problem here is that these people are a part of our society, yet their mindset is so at odds with the way our society works and the values it's built on. These are the kind of people who talk about 'abuse of the freedom of speech'. Sheesh. While immigrants do bring valuable contributions to our society, they also create quite a few problems (particularly some of them), and IMO those problems cannot be solved until both they and we genuinely understand that it is impossible to abuse the freedom of speech. That is what makes it freedom of speech.

Newspapers don't apologize for what they print. I mean, hello. Unless you can pinpoint specific unfounded libelous slanders of specific named living individuals, they do not and must not and shall not apologize for anything they print. When people start demanding that they do so, I really have to wonder what kind of society they want to be living in. Apparently not this one. >:-(

If you don't like our society, what are you doing living in it? You can't change the fundamentals of it without also changing it as a whole ... and if you think Iran or Saudi Arabia or whatever is so much better than here, then why aren't you living there? It'd be so much easier, they already suppress the media and give free rein to religion. Plus, in Saudi you could get some slaves to drive your cabs for you, since you're apparently too lazy to do it yourselves.

Yes, I do know that there are lots of Muslims who don't agree with this, who don't join any protest rallies, blah blah. But where are they?? These 'moderate' Muslims, where the hell are they? Why don't they ever write letters to the editor or organize marches to state their views loud and clear? I actually kind of understand the crazies who don't believe in the existence of such a thing as moderate Muslims, because if they existed and were such a majority as it's claimed, you'd think we'd hear from them more often. o_O

The problem is that these moderate Muslims may agree with the protesters to some extent, just not enough to join or start a protest. And that actually is a real problem too. There was a woman on the news tonight, I think she must be an ethnic Norwegian convert to Islam (ie a person I automatically have zero respect for), and she was one of these. Her feelings were hurt when she saw this drawing, but apparently it wasn't a big enough deal for her to do anything about it. WTF is that about? Hurt feelings?! That's something that always comes up in these discussions, from the Muslim side. That freedom of speech is all well and good, but why print these things when we know they hurt people's feelings? Oh, boo-hoo, sob!! Why? I'll tell you why - because your hurt feelings are irrelevant. My hurt feelings are irrelevant. This is a free society in which all members are of equal value and have the same rights. Therefore, the feelings of all members are equally important, from which it follows that none of our feelings should be considered in matters of principle and in matters of law.

If you're religious and I'm not, it doesn't matter - neither of us have the right to not have our feelings hurt. The fact that your delusions make your feelings so much more sensitive than mine is neither here nor there.

STFU and get back to work!!!!