Hat tip Jihad Watch
Robert Spencer (who is also the editor of Jihad Watch) declared victory after his Michigan debate with Shadid Lewis Saturday. The Detroit Free Press applied the typical mainstream spin prefacing the article with references to those who think Spencer is a hate monger and writing it up without any hint of who prevailed.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/08/in-debate-with-robert-spencer-muslim-spokesman-shadid-lewis-tries-fails-to-prove-that-islam-is-a-rel.html
It appears CAIR in Michigan realized beforehand that Lewis would not be a match for Spencer. That's why they urged their followers to boycott the debate. I will follow up to see if the full debate is published.
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3 comments:
Here, in this article, is another example of a misunderstanding or misinterpretation of Freedom of Speech by Muslims:
"Victor Begg, senior adviser of the Michigan Muslim Community Council, said the idea that EMU had no choice in hosting the event is absurd. “We respect the freedom of speech. However, denying the Holocaust, yelling ‘fire’ in a theater or glorifying Hitler would not constitute freedom of speech,” he said.
Denying the Holocaust is protected free speech, as ignorant as it may be.
Yelling ‘fire’ in a theater is NOT free speech because of the imminent danger it causes... there are time and place restrictions and this is the most widely used example.
"glorifying Hitler would not constitute freedom of speech,” he said. He is wrong on this one as well. You cannot advocate the violent overthrow of the government and as long as glorifying Hitler doesn't do that, you can do it.
Now, this man is senior adviser of the Michigan Muslim Community Council, so you can imagine the ignorance in the general Muslim community of what free speech is.
I know UCI MSU students or their attorneys don't know what it is either. To them it is the right to shut down speech that might be favorable to Israel is an exercise of free speech, regardless of the time and place restrictions.
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Miggie,
And we must stand up for free speech until they get the message. If I were the president, I would tell the OIC that they will never succeed in shutting down free speech in the US instead of playing footsie with them like Hillary did..
Nobody gets to declare THEMSELVES the winner of a debate, not with any integrity. The winner is determined by which speaker sways more of the audience than not to accept their version or interpretation of events, and their presentation of the facts.
It sounds to me, from Spencer's own description, tantamount to quoting Ignatius of Loyola vs. Martin Luther King, Jr., and then arguing over who is the greater Christian authority.
Miggie is right about freedom of speech, but in fact you can even ADVOCATE overthrow of the government. What you cannot do (legally) is organize forces TO overthrow the government by force and violence, including speech that actively recruits people to such forces. As a judge remarked in a rather seldom-noticed case "half the people voting in an election want to overthrow the government. The question is what means they were prepared to use."
We need to remind the OIC that under our law, it is perfectly legal to produce the play "Corpus Christi," although the court that so ruled observed that the play "is indeed blasphemous." If we allow that about Christianity, why would we treat Islam any differently?
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