Living with Free Speech
By Dan Tow • Jun 6th, 2008 • Category: Politics, Worth A Second Look • 39 Comments •You may believe me or not, but I wrote the following article, which is unaltered except for this new opening paragraph, before the recent bombing at the Danish embassy gave tragic illustration of the sad folly and irreplaceable human losses that can result from hideous over-reaction to the words or images of a handful of offensive fools half a world away. I share sorrow with Pakistan for the needless loss of life at the Danish embassy.
In my earlier article Limits of Free Speech, I discussed mainly the legal issues behind free speech, and the legal limits to free speech, from an American perspective. Since from a legal perspective, in US law, “free speech” really means freedom to communicate with all forms of expression, this article, like the earlier one, will deal with expression in general, not just speech. The comments to that earlier article made it clear to me that I had missed perhaps the most important practical issue for most of us, so in this article I hope to correct what I missed earlier. For this article, I will discuss non-legal questions of living with free speech, in a legal environment that already allows freedom of self-expression, including self-expression that is controversial and offensive to many. (There is no legal or moral issue with non-controversial, non-offensive expression; such expression will never be regulated, and creates no problems to manage!)
In any communication, there are two sides to consider: the person sending the message, and the person receiving the message. Less obviously, there are also two messages to consider: The message sent, and the message received, and most problems with communication boil down to a sender meaning to send a sensible message, with words that seem reasonable enough to the sender, with some benign meaning, while those same words mean something altogether different, something offensive, to the receiver. The receiver, naturally enough, objects strenuously to the offensive message received (which is naturally the only message the receiver can know about!), and the sender, most often, counters that the receiver is speaking nonsense, since, as far as the sender is concerned, the receiver has outrageously mistaken or misrepresented what the sender said.
I’ll begin with living with free speech as the sender of messages:
The key insight, which I learned from a memorable workplace class about 20 years ago, is that it makes no difference what you meant to say, only what message the receiver received! You knew what you wanted to say before you said it – the point of speaking was to convey meaning to the receiver, so the only message that matters is the one the receiver received! This leads to my favorite rule of thumb for living with free speech, as a responsible citizen:
Take complete responsibility for the message received, however differently the receiver interprets your message as compared with what you meant to say.
The unfortunate reflex is to defend one’s intended message: “But, I didn’t say that!”, or “You’re being too sensitive.”, or “How can you think I said that!” This usually leads to an escalating series of accusations, as each side takes progressively greater offense, and responds to perceived attack with counter-attack. I’m sure you can think of examples in your own family, at work, and in political discourse between nations. If, instead, you take the receiver’s perspective, and accept complete personal responsibility for the message received, then the natural response is more like: “I am so sorry that I gave offense! I assure you that I do not believe what I seemed to say, in my clumsy way. If I had expressed myself more carefully, I should have said…” (It may take some careful and tactful questioning, however, to fully understand what the offensive message received was, and how you may avoid the repeating the misunderstanding when you rephrase your intended message.)
In mass communications, we must take responsibility for a whole range of many messages received, and inevitably many of these will fail to match the intended message sent, as we simultaneously communicate with thousands of individuals with differing cultural, religious, and educational backgrounds. Even within a group with seemingly very uniform backgrounds, the same words may carry very different meanings. Concerning political expression, in particular, the point of useful political expression is to change people’s minds regarding important issues, issues that make a difference to many people’s lives. Since these must be issues that are not already obvious (else we wouldn’t need to change anyone’s mind), some readers will invariably believe that the position you advocate will do more harm than good, at least to themselves or the ones they care about most, if not to the whole world. If you make a strong case for the position, many of those readers who believe in a conflicting position will invariably respond with offense, rather than with reasoned counter-argument.
Giving offense, sometimes, in political expression may be an inevitable, though regrettable, by-product of making a strong case for an important position, so we must not be afraid to give offense, if we want to make a difference. On the other hand, those whom we offend much are unlikely to give careful and reasoned thought to our argument, so generally the best arguments, and the most useful political expression avoids giving needless offense. We may choose to express a strong viewpoint that will deeply offend those we regard as hopelessly tied to viewpoints we radically oppose. Even for these most radically opposed to what you hold to be reasonable views, I submit, giving offense should not be the objective, only a necessary side-effect of making an argument that has a chance to change the minds of those who are (in your belief) more reasonable. (I would not worry, for example, about offending either Osama bin Laden or the radical Neocons behind the Bush administration, for example, because I am hopelessly in disagreement with both, though I would see no real point in offending either if my argument had no chance to change more reasonable minds.) On the other hand, if an argument has any point at all, it must be at least to try to change the minds of some who at least partially hold opposing views, so the argument ought to be phrased in a way that the message received by people holding these partially-opposed viewpoints won’t be unnecessarily offensive, so these people can more calmly consider at least a moderate change to their current viewpoint. If we make a really artful argument, we might even persuade others to believe that they agreed with our view all along, since the viewpoint comes to seem so logical and obvious, but giving needless offense would surely prevent this!
One reason I have come to appreciate blogging is that it provides such valuable feedback about the message received. For centuries, editorial writers had little feedback about how readers interpreted their columns, but when I write a blog on The Pakistani Spectator, in spite of its modest (though rapidly growing!) readership, I often get a dozen or more thoughtful comments that clarify how the readers interpreted what I tried to say. What is more, when I see from the comments that I failed to get my point across, at least to some fraction of the readers, I can do more than just shrug my shoulders in frustration – I can immediately post a comment of my own attempting to clarify my position. This brings some of the advantages of a two-way personal conversation to journalistic discourse, a marvelous advance!
Finally, let’s consider being on the receiving end of free expression, expression that we will inevitably find offensive, at times. The trick to handling such offenses, I think, is to remember a few self-evident facts:
- Your nation and the world have an enormous number of people.
- Among this vast number of people, there are bound to be plenty of people who express themselves clumsily, who mean to convey messages you would find inoffensive, but who lack your perspective on the world and clumsily choose words or images that you find horribly offensive, instead.
- Among this vast number of people there are also bound to be plenty of oafish, usually bigoted fools who take pleasure in deliberately giving offense, because they are filled with hate, or they crave attention, even negative attention.
- In today’s world, especially, there are plenty of outlets where clumsy or hateful people can express themselves in ways that come to your attention, even from half a world away.
When some friend or family member whom we liked and trusted offends us, this is usually an unpleasant surprise, and rightly so. Through most of the history of humanity, humans rarely met strangers, interacting almost entirely with members of some small tribal group, so I think human nature adapted a response to offense that was sensible and appropriate in this setting – offenses were relatively rare and almost always came from personal acquaintances. When they happened, direct action to resolve the problem was likely necessary and appropriate. In today’s world, however, the vast majority of offensive messages we encounter come from persons we have never met and never will meet! What would be the ideal, “efficient” emotional response to offenses from total strangers whom we will never meet? I think the ideal emotional response to such offenses, given the above self-evident facts, is to expect such offenses to be a frequent and inevitable part of our lives, and to treat them like other minor, unavoidable annoyances, like everyday itches that we do not take personally, and just ignore as much as possible.
Sadly, this is not our natural emotional response; we evolved a natural response that was appropriate to living in a small, tribal group; when we are offended, we tend to feel it deeply, and we tend to feel driven to take action. So, our old-fashioned, out of date emotions naturally overreact to what ought to be a minor annoyance. We feel what we feel, and can’t really help being at least a little but annoyed by the offenses of strangers. If we recognize that our natural response isn’t really useful, here, though, I think it helps.
Apart from emotions, which we can’t choose, there is the question of our physical response, which we can choose. There are really two cases to consider, the case where we are dealing with someone who meant well, but offended us accidentally, and the case where the offense was deliberate. If the offense was accidental, and came from a writer who was clumsy in this case, but who normally has something useful to say, some feedback might be worth your bother. Blog comments are great in this case, with an easy opportunity for a little calm feedback for a good writer who probably meant well, but “put his foot in his mouth.”
Finally, in the case where someone is hateful enough to actually wish to give offense to a stranger, well, do we really want to give him or her the satisfaction of showing our offense? In fact, showing how offended we are in such a case plays into the hateful offender’s hands in two ways; we give satisfaction, with our offended response, and we advertise the offensive message. I hear regularly, for example, of examples where religious groups react strongly and publicly (and I have seen this on the pages of The Pakistani Spectator) against apparently deliberately offensive blasphemy. (I have seen this from both Christian and Moslem groups – neither seems to hold a monopoly on this sort of reaction.) It has always seemed to me that assuming the offenders intended the offense, they must only take satisfaction and encouragement from the reaction, and what is more, in most cases, their original offensive message would have been rapidly lost in obscurity if only everyone would have ignored the message, as it deserved, but with the publicity surrounding the widespread objections to the message, that message got ten-fold or one-hundred-fold more attention than it would have otherwise. I do realize that to someone of deep religious beliefs, blasphemy is surely profoundly offensive, and hard to ignore, but surely (in my opinion) there are greater evils and more damaging sins in this world to concern ourselves with than the words or images of some provoking fool, and if we had to react to every such fool, we would dance like puppets all our lives.
Last 5 posts by Dan Tow
- Just Taxation - October 31st, 2008
- New American Voters; Guilty Until Proven Innocent? - October 22nd, 2008
- Safety in “Big Daddy’s” Shadow? - September 8th, 2008
- Coping with Limits to Control in Politics, Life, and Bridge - August 26th, 2008
- The Right to Remain Silent - June 18th, 2008
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This is an interesting article to say the least.
When does freedom of speech become hate speech? I was raised near a KKK stronghold in the United States and to show Jesus as a KKK member would be just as wrong. For example, just because you can draw a cartoon doesn’t mean it is right to do it.
As one who believes we all see God in a different light, the point I am trying to make is you can find bad in all cultures.
30 Sept 2005: Danish paper publishes cartoons
20 Oct: Muslim ambassadors complain to Danish PM
10 Jan 2006: Norwegian publication reprints cartoons
26 Jan: Saudi Arabia recalls its ambassador
30 Jan: Gunmen raid EU’s Gaza office demanding apology
31 Jan: Danish paper apologises
1 Feb: Papers in France, Germany, Italy and Spain reprint cartoons
4 Feb: Syrians attack Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus
5 Feb: Protesters sack Danish embassy in Beirut
It wasn’t until the cartoons were reprinted multiple times that the riots/attacks/protests started. And the current blast outside the Danish embassy is just the protest by some highly emotional and misguided group or person.
Westerners like their free speech and freedoms, but they are the victim of the media bombeat and hype. The man in the street is angry and disgusted by this, it cements his opinion that Muslims cannot be trusted, are all terrorists and murderers, and the media exploits this situation, and publishes the derogatory material against Muslims to ignite them and portray them as ignorant and violent people and that is what they are doing now.
Muslims should show some presence of mind, and violent rallies and processions and attacking the embassies is not the way. Not at all. They should engage in dialogue on the people level. Blogging is that way.
Blogging is the way to go for that.
But Hamid you know, unfortunately for the world at large. most of the Muslim world is not on Internet bandwagon. They need to educate and train themselves in this regard.
Doubt and disbelief are more than just cultural characteristics, they are essential IMHO to economic growth and productivity gains, we need to be certain in our pursuit of peace and harmony.
I’m disappointed at this turn of events. The reactions to the cartoons are the latest, biggest example of people seeking to place restrictions on free speech.
you could argue all day about what does and doesn’t mean ‘free speech’, and you would end up nowhere.
Criticising a religion is in no way prejudice akin to racism and homophobia. Criticising a religion is specifcally focussed on looking at the beliefs and ideas and stating you disagree with them. It is no different to criticising, say, the ideology of a political party.
This is not a debate about free speech because no one has called for government censorship is categorically wrong. A government does not have to censor anything for free speech to die if the threat of violence renders the costs to free speech unacceptably high. The threat of violence allows unpleasant minorities to prevent a majority freely expressing themselves
We have in Britain a right to free speech. That right is limited already by things like libel and hate laws. It doesn’t, however, mean that anyone has a right not to be offended, since almost everything offends someone, and a good deal of cartoons serve make their point by offending someone. Muslims, just like everybody else, do not have a right to censure any media simply because it offends them.
They do, however, like everybody else, have a right to be offended by content that offends them, to critise the choice of whoever publishes such content, and to protest lawfully however they choose (consumer boycott, lobbying their government etc.) when such things are published, the same way Catholics might criticise a newspaper’s choice to publish an article advocating euthanasia. Surely the choice to publish such an article lies entirely with the publisher, since the content, though offensive to many people, is protected by free speech. But at the same time, the protests of those who disagree are also free speech, and they are right to protest things that offend them.
A real treat for an insightful read. Please accept my congrats. I would remember this article for a long long time.
With the help of the comments providing me feedback regarding the message received (at least by some), I will add a few remarks:
1) I agree with Decoy that is is entirely legitimate to criticize individual religions and religion in general, if such critical views are your belief. However, if your intent is actually to change anyone’s mind, and not just to pointlessly offend, then I think it is tactically useful (but not in most countries legally mandatory) to express such criticism with utmost care and tact, because humans tend to be very prickly about thier deeply-held religious beliefs, and offending them, especially with what they regard as blasphemy, tends to shut down their ability to rationally consider an alternative view, even apart from sometimes triggering tragic violence (which I blame primarily on the perpetrators of the violence, but still, why give them a reason unnecessarily?).
2) Regarding the right peacefully to protest messages you find hateful: Well, of course you have the *right* to protest - that is the very freedom I defend, and in the case of protest against pointlessly offensive speech, I would *agree* with the message that such offensive speech was a moral wrong (though I would not agree that it should be legally prohibited). The main point of the last paragraphs of my article was not that such peaceful protest is morally wrong, or ought to be legally prohibited! My point was that such protest is usually a *tactical mistake*! Consider Prof. Khan’s timeline above, and imagine what the timeline would have looked like if the entire Moslem world had simply said and done *nothing* about those offensive cartoons:
30 Sept 2005: Danish paper publishes cartoons
a few days later: a few Moslems see the cartoons, and find them offensive, but make a tactical *choice* not to bring attention to them (which would only lead to far more people learning of them and being offended, or worse, (in the case of prejudiced non-Moslems) actually *liking* the messages), so they publicly ignore them and tell no one about them. Some non-Moslems also recognize the offensive nature of the cartoons, but they also make the tactical choice to say nothing, or perhaps simply to point out in letters to the editors of that paper that the content was pointlessly offensive and in poor taste.
a little later still: The cartoons deservedly fail to attract public notice, and do not become misguidedly viewed as a cause celebre for free speech that would lead some other western media to reprint them as some sort of defiant pro-free-speech act, in spite of their otherwise worthless content. The cartoons are soon deservedly lost to public notice and quickly forgotten, like 99.9% of such poorly-thought-out, ill-meaning media messages.
Of course you have the right peacefully to protest whatever you want, and I completely sympathize with the natural human desire to speak up in response to a message you find hateful! The *practical* (not moral) question here is whether protesting helps spread your message or actually assists in spreading the *opposite* message?
I don’t care who has this sick sense of humour or freedom of speech, but I do feel pained when some of us react in such self destructive ways and reinforce the general impression the world has about us -
the muslims being irrational. There is no justifications for such acts of violence I don’t care under what provocation.
Speech is a voluntary coordinated response to ideas originating in brain and transforming in to words thus endorsing the impression of desire and interest to communicate the listener of intentions and resident response and perception of the conveyer.
Expression is a mode to convey message or opinion, may it simply be a motion, a verbal, a physical move, an action or reaction.
Hence as many as one can consider suitable and appropriate as per his exposure, suitability, required criteria, necessity and circumstances.
In other word expression is the only platform which enables the speech to be communicated to the listener intended for, thereby as you said, the message received.
In my opinion the same is the methodology of US law or else, whereby it awards as in your version, “in US law, “free speech” really means freedom to communicate with all forms of expression”.
Although you have artistically blended the idea of free speech and expression with recent blast scenario and repeated criminal blasphemy episodes, but here my point of reservation is that your intended desire to legalize repeated act of blasphemy under the cover of free speech can not be own or engulf or assimilated by and under the head of courteous and neglecting response.
This disowning has infact similar threshed hold as; we being Muslim and nation condemn the cowardly act at Danish embassy.
Dan it’s all the matter of perceiving and interpreting things.
Perceptions and feel has a very little line of demarcation, and most of the times used inadvertently and interchangeably as synonymous.
Up to the point of definition and synonymous arteriation in a vocabulary of books, terminology does not create mess but if we get out of definition and implement the terms on religion and belief, there seems to be a mass difference.
This is the root cause of deranged directions.
You see we feel things through our innate abilities that has been destined by virtue of our god gifted natural tendencies in the shape and format of nature ,as smelling tasting, sight and seen, hearing, and touching.
These are the modes by which we appreciate the end result or resultant in the form of good, bad, stink, and etc. however perception is an integrated phenomena .its the cumulative effect of feel and associated paraphernalia with element of interpretation.
If observe religion in the light of perception my feelings would be different, as compared to a person who observe religion by his feel, as closed observation would relate element of emotion and attachment with in the domain of definition.
It is this tendency that ignites and retaliate thus deviating the horizon of thoughts.
Expecting response to speech through speech is a misnomer and denies the concept of expression as expression is a platform to convey speech which can be through the way, what ever is acceptable, feasible and suitable to the retaliator.
In my opinion this is the legal ground of speech where it should be curtailed as it havoc a new multidimensional attitude of listener to respond ,who shall be expected to utilized any such platform that in his horizon of thoughts is fruitful.
Such magnitudes of impulsive reactions again are dependent on multiple factors from, exposures to qualification and broad perspective to courteous tendency, terminating at his assumed or obligatory religious bindings and belongings.
Dan, tendency to react in situation has neither criteria nor protocol hence neither is always situational.
In such a variant horizon of vast population peoples have different perspective to look in to affairs whether religious or functionary.
Grooming, exposures, ethnic belongingness, religious bindings and attachments, and grievances against races are all such factors that shoot a new circular of event in any such untoward free speech culminating in to undesirable situation,
It is this point where legal measures need to be initiated so to curtail and avid any new situation,vide free speech and expression.regards
So what is the way to stop those offensive people who derogate the religious beliefs and figures?
Abbass: Ignore them!
Yeah, just ignore them and let them find out how boring a joke can be when only the “joker” finds it funny.
With your permission Dan, Abbass, there are pre set criteria and limitations to respond and react.
Such responses are threshold dependent and variant, exercising individual in to different trait qualities as aggressive, humble, down to earth or offensive etc.
These traits are again dependent on time tested exposures, circumstances, situational, obligatory, bindings, belief, and horizon and perspective of vision.
In other words such limitations are polished with exposures to extreme of environment that breaches the threshold by diffusing its pressure and brunt so that person may become immune or to a limit that his thresh hold to respond increases thus delaying the reaction in retaliation.
The same is the theory of tolerance that person sacrifices his desire over interpreted thoughts ,thus curtailing and abiding and refraining from the untoward behavior and indecent response, morally and socially unacceptable by virtue of law, society, culture or religious abides etc.
Dan is right to the extent that of course one has the right peacefully to protest whatever he want, as the natural human desire to speak up in response to a message if one find hateful!
However, here again discussion enters in to the same methodology of expression, as mode and platform to respond in lieu of speech is in the domain of retaliator, depending on his trait qualities and threshold to accept brunt., and the brunt itself depends on his previous or innate abilities as tolerances.
This tolerance has one other visionary prospect if we scrutinize the subject in the light and methodology of belief and religion.
Tolerance under such perspective resides on principle of obligatory restrictions and belief attachments.
Thereby, sorting the tolerance, in to the mode of preference and priority, on the basis of liability.
It is this restricted liability that is always targeted and floated by such offensive culprits that deliberately utilized the expression of free speech in lieu.
In my opinion, under such diversified domain of responses, again, limited speech with legal implementation become a requirement so to refrain and avoid unfamiliar and offensive behavior.
As to your inquisition, how to stop these offensive people who derogate belief or religion, regardless of their belongings, in my opinion being Muslim ,we have many situational responses of our holy prophet (PBUH)and qoran which clearly ,specify and negate such irresponsible behavior of human response that may hurt ,or derogate or culminate in to grievances, Islam teaches principle of brotherhood and harmony with peace ,and negate and disown all such elements that ,sabotage or dismantle scope of Islamic ideology and teaching.
In my opinion, irrational responses under any circumstances should be condemned and disown and as has been cited and advise by Dan, ignoring the event is an option.
Mr Dan Toy the cartoons had nothing to do with freedom of speech or an act of some foolish people it is a conspiacy by design knowing of the violent reaction thus alligning the western wold to secure oil and Gas rich esources plus Defence of Israel
Jahangir: It does not take an organized conspiracy to find bigoted, offensive fools who enjoy fanning the flames of hate. Such offensive fools already exist in plenty, without the help of any conspiracy, so I fail to see why an *organized* conspiracy is necessary to explain these events, or why an organized conspiracy would need to *bother* to lift a finger to make this happen. Such fools already exist in plenty in the Christian world, in the Moslem world, in the Jewish world, in the Hindu world, in the irreligious world, and in every other large group, and no organized conspiracy is *necessary* to ensure that they will be heard all too widely. All that is necessary is that reasonable people take more notice of them than they deserve, and amplify their original, feeble voices by calling added, undeserved attention to their pathetic, hateful messages.
So, I see no necessity for a conspiracy, here, but for purposes of argument, let’s go ahead and assume one, anyway: If there *was* such a conspiracy, what would be the most effective way to counter it? The answer is no different than the answer if there is no conspiracy! Don’t play into their hands! Ignore the offensive message, rather than amplifying it with attention it does not deserve!
I learned a thing or two from this article of yours, and the foremost was the rule of thumb about free speech. It says it all:
Take complete responsibility for the message received, however differently the receiver interprets your message as compared with what you meant to say.
So can we or should we take the complete responsibility for the message sent?
best wishes from Dubai
I opine that Blogging has put the limits off the the free speech which is dangerous. Free Speech notion is like Free Mason movement, which should be controlled and banned.
Hi Dan, freedom of speech means you can say whatever you like on your site and on your blog, if people start banning you or suing you for it, thats a barrier to freedom of speech.that’s my quick take on the matter.
I got no strings, so I have fun
I’m not tied up when we need one
They’ve got strings but you can see
There are no strings on me!
The right to free speech is not absolute, a line must be drawn between acceptable and unacceptable forms of speech. Controversy arises when different parties disagree over where to draw that line. Indeed, a perpetual tension exists between free speech absolutists and those who favor restrictions on certain types of speech or expression, including hate speech, pornography, obscene art, sexually explicit library materials, and flag burning (which many people consider symbolic political speech). These and other forms of speech generate heated debate between those who demand completely unfettered expression and those who call for some degree of restriction on the words and images
Yasir: Thanks for your kind and thoughtful response. Among mortals, at least, only the sender (you) cares about the message sent, since everyone else will only know the message(s) received. Take responsibility for the message sent, if you like, but no one else will care.
Regarding limits to free speech, there are two sorts, legal and moral. I already discussed *legal* limits in http://www.pakspectator.com/limits-of-free-speech/, and yes, legally, even in a country like the US where speech is relatively free, there *are* *some* legal limits, and they are mainly legitimate. Whether there should be *more* legal limits, or fewer, is something the people of each country ought to debate and decide for themselves, I think, preferably by democratic means (and preferably without legal limits to that debate!) Moral limits (unenforced by law, but somewhat enforcable by tradition and social disapproval of those who disrespect the limits) are another matter, altogether, and I would certainly agree that morality demands that we choose responsible expression that avoids needless offense. (Since it is impossble to agree what *is* responsible expression, and government can use any restriction based on content to squash democratically necessary dissent, I think it is a good thing to be extremely limited in what we restrict by law, though!)
I thank you all for the useful feedback of all your comments!
Dear Dr. Imran, your comment # 27 is referred. Here, you have put something which is not your own and I am sure that you are aware that this amounts to cheating ( Plagiarism). Since you copied in verbatim, I am constraint to bring it up here. You might want to correct the stuation. In the meantime, following is the original source / and authorship for the benefit of other readers:
Because “the right to free speech is not absolute, a line must be drawn between acceptable and unacceptable forms of speech. Controversy arises when different parties disagree over where to draw that line. Indeed, a perpetual tension exists between free speech absolutists and those who favor restrictions on certain types of speech or expression, including hate speech, pornography, obscene art, sexually explicit library materials, and flag burning (which many people consider symbolic political speech). These and other forms of speech generate heated debate between those who demand completely unfettered expression and those who call for some degree of restriction on the words and images” used by Americans.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Free speech / Scott Barbour
Freedom of speech—United States. I. Barbour, Scott, 1963– . II. Series. KF4772.Z9F737 2000 342.73′0853—dc21 99-29107 CIP0
Copyright ©2000 by Greenhaven Press, Inc., PO Box 289009, San Diego, CA 92198-9009
Printed in the U.S.A.
No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means, electrical, mechanical, or otherwise, including, but not limited to, photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher.
Dear Aftab, you better stick to wagging your tail for Musharraf, and it would be better for you to not spend your limited mental energy in these things. I know what plagiarism is and whats not. I voiced the opinion, which I considered right and upon which I believe. Go, Sue me.
The strong do as they can and the week suffer as they must.Noam Chomsky These are the views of an American of conscious and world wide credibility, if we observe in this context whatever wrong happening against the weaker Nations with abundant Natural resources anywhere has to have some organisation behind it
Dear Imran, I fail to find any reason for your this outburst. You are perhaps not aware that it’s not only your responsibility to give reference to your source, it is also responsibility of a reader to point out this failing. Otherwise, it is not you who is guilty of academic theft, my ignoring this crime implies my being an accomplice, whic I refuse to be. As far as my “limited mental energy” which you have very kindly referred to is concerned; well, suffice it to say that I am more than happy to be endowed with this.
Your challenge “Go, sue me”, tells quite a bit about how much you all care and respect the Rule of Law. Any law, moral, ethical, and legal. For you “Rights” mean just yours, even you allow yourself a ‘right’ to steal, cheat, and plagiarise shamelessly. First learn the basic responsibilities one has in any free society then talk about nobler things like Freedom of Speech and Expression. I am afraid it is people like yourself who have provided contradictory examples of what our Belief is and what Islam stands for. No wonder the world laughs at us. Ponder a little before shooting off again from where you usually do.
Good day!
Free speech is bound to create some fervid and torrid reactions, which could really become nasty. But that depends how you react to that. If you just blow up and react mindlessly against it, then you would be prone to more of it, and if you reasonably and objectively accept or reject the point and remain calm and cool, and the same if applied from the other side, then it would create a genuine lasting harmony.
Agree with the learned opinion of Dr Ayesha that “Free speech is bound to create …….”
Only would just want to add, if I might, that freedom, any freedom is burdend with responsibilities; any time we entertain our freedoms we must learn to respect others rights. You can’t go wrong with this principle.
My good friends,
I’d like to comment on a small drama that played out today among these very comments that has surprising pertinence to to the matter we are discussing. In doing so, my goal is not to embarrass anyone, but only to further illustrate my points. I have learned that among these comments there was a comment with a bit of text that was seen by more than a dozen of you, in complaining emails to TPS, to be pointlessly insulting to me. (I do not know if the “message sent” was *intended* to be insulting, and I harbor no ill will to the commenter involved, nor do I wish to embarrass this individual!) These emails insisted that the insult should be edited out, and TPS “bent” its customary rule to make the change, with the kindest of intentions. I thank you all for you concern and kind intentions, but I must say that I believe it was misguided, and I have requested that the comment text be restored to its original, unless *the commenter* requests that it be changed. The first reason for this is to make a point in favor of free speech. The second reason is more selfish: When a writer adds unnecessary personal insult to an argument, this tends to discredit his or her own argument, and (especially when that argument is against my own point of view!;-) this is not a bad thing!
Now, this provides a lovely opportunity to “practice what I preach:” If we all practice what I preach, here, the correct response to this apparent insult is to *ignore it*!!! Please, everyone, do not bring attention to an insult (to me) that you disagree with by taking any notice of it at all! We could add a dozen more comments slamming the commenter for being out of bounds, but if he or she really was out of bounds, and intended the insult, this would only amplify the original offensive message! (Of course, if you are yourself the insulted party, you have every right to defend yourself as you see fit - whether to respond or ignore the offense is not really a moral question, just a question of which tactic *works best*.
I mean, you are quiet a man. These Puzzles of yours are an admirable effort, and that puts you in a very rare species of geniuses. Had my late husband alive, he would have loved you, as he was just crazy about Suduko.
Dr. Ayesha,
Ah, you found my little hobby. I was wondering when or if any of my favorite commenters might notice the ad, and I’m honored that you were the first to remark on it. You are very kind. It’s a very small thing, but maybe it can provide some amusement and an occasional satisfying challenge, for puzzle fans. - Dan
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Jack roberts
Social Bookmarking