quote:Washington radio station WMAL-AM fired talk show host Michael Graham yesterday after he refused to soften his description of Islam as "a terrorist organization" on the air last month.
Graham had been suspended without pay from his daily three-hour show since making his comments July 25. The station had conditioned his return to the midmorning shift on reading a station-approved statement in which Graham would have said that his anti-Muslim statements were "too broad" and that he sometimes uses "hyperbole" in the course of his program. WMAL also asked Graham to speak to the station's advertisers and its employees about the controversy.
But Graham refused both conditions, prompting the station to drop him.
According to WMAL, Graham said "Islam is a terrorist organization" 23 times on his July 25 program. On the same show, he also said repeatedly that "moderate Muslims are those who only want to kill Jews" and that "the problem is not extremism. The problem is Islam."
The comments drew complaints and prompted an organized letter-writing campaign against WMAL and its advertisers by a Muslim group, the Council on American-Islam Relations (CAIR) of Washington. The protests led several advertisers to ask WMAL to stop airing their ads during Graham's weekday show, although the station says it didn't lose any advertisers amid the controversy.
In a statement yesterday, Graham blamed CAIR for his firing and defended his comments: "As a fan of talk radio, I find it absolutely outrageous that pressure from a special interest group like CAIR can result in the abandonment of free speech and open discourse on a talk radio show."
The reason we have free speech is to allow individuals to effect change. If free speech wasn't supposed to result in people taking action, we wouldn't need it. CAIR heard something it didn't like said on a commercial radio station. CAIR used it's free speech rights to make its displeasure known. The commercial entity responded accordingly.
Graham's firing isn't an example of an abandonment of free speech. It's an example of free speech in action.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Incidentally, if Islam is a 'terrorist organization' and CAIR is a special-interest group working for Islam...shouldn't Graham be relieved that he's only been fired? Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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The thing is, Adam, WAML hasn't restricted Graham's speech. They've restricted his access to equipment he doesn't own to broadcast his voice.
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I feel bad about feeling this way... I truly do... but I can't help feeling that there is some truth to his statements. That those muslims who truly believe in peace are following a different version of Islam, and that the "real" Islam really does call for the extermination of unbelievers.
I don't want to feel this way. I know other people have felt that way about "all" the members of certain religions, races, nationalities, etc. I know I shouldn't feel that way. But I do. I feel like what this guy said makes some sense. I got a quote from a wnd article. (I actually saw this in wnd before I saw it here.)
He says: "If the Boy Scouts of America had 1,000 scout troops, and 10 of them practiced suicide bombings, then the BSA would be considered a terrorist organization," he said. "If the BSA refused to kick out those 10 troops, that would make the case even stronger. If people defending terror repeatedly turned to the Boy Scout handbook and found language that justified and defended murder – and the scoutmasters in charge simply said 'Could be' – the Boy Scouts would have driven out of America long ago."
It's not like I think all muslims are hate-mongers and evil and killers. I just can't help thinking that the ones who aren't are overly optimistic about their religion or are adhering to the Americanized softer version.
Like I said.. I don't LIKE feeling this way. But I do. And I'm not sure what to do about it.
Does the Islamic "organization" have a responsibility to speak out against terrorism? To set the record straight, so to speak?
I dunno.. there have been offshoots of my own church that preach things that are way off from what we believe. I remember not wanting to be linked to the people in WACO because they were SDA offshoots.
I guess I see a big difference between the Islam in the middle east and the Islam in America. Aren't they trained to hate us over there as a general rule? Aren't young children trained to grow up to be suicide bombers?
Maybe my problem is lack of the "right" information. But I'm not sure how I'm supposed to get that.
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Since I doubt he would continue working if they didn't pay him, you could also say that they've declined to continue paying him to use that equipment and broadcast his voice and opinions. That's a far cry from denying his right to free speech. Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:He says: "If the Boy Scouts of America had 1,000 scout troops, and 10 of them practiced suicide bombings, then the BSA would be considered a terrorist organization," he said. "If the BSA refused to kick out those 10 troops, that would make the case even stronger. If people defending terror repeatedly turned to the Boy Scout handbook and found language that justified and defended murder – and the scoutmasters in charge simply said 'Could be' – the Boy Scouts would have driven out of America long ago."
The trick he uses here is with the numbers: there are 1.3 billion. To reach the 10 in 1,000 ratio, there would need to be 13 million suicide bombers.
Further, Islam doesn't have scoutmasters in charge, and many Islamic scholars have condemned attacks on civillians as always wrong.
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Really? That makes me feel a little better...
Hey, are they American scholars or another nationality?
It's not like I would ever condone being hateful or even a little mean to an Islamic person. I would just wonder in the back of my mind... Does this person want to kill me? And if they don't personally, do they believe that it's okay if someone else does?
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When I was flying to Toronto the two people behind me were talking rather loudly about what a relief it was to be on a plane back to Canada. Because since guns are legal in the United States, everyone they saw they wondered if they were carrying a gun. And as they were walking down the street downtown, whenever someone was coming in the opposite direction they thought "That person could pull out a gun and shoot me."
I'm not exaggerating. They went into great detail about it, and about how they never felt safe while they were in America.
Just thought you might want to know, Katarain, that if the Islamic person is from another country they might be wondering the exact same thing about you. (And I'm not trying to be snarky, here. . . I think it's an interesting dicotamy.)
I, of course, was flabbergasted and thought they were being completely ridiculous. 'Cause people don't just pull out guns in the middle of downtown in America and start shooting people. Except, well. . . when they do.
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quote:Originally posted by Katarain: It's not like I would ever condone being hateful or even a little mean to an Islamic person. I would just wonder in the back of my mind... Does this person want to kill me? And if they don't personally, do they believe that it's okay if someone else does?
How remarkably curious. That is precisely the way I feel about Christians.
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kat, your feeling on the "real" Islam is similar to how I think atheists/agnostics feel about Christianity. There are Christians who are nice and peaceful, but the "real" Christianity is the one that would force the 10 Commandments everywhere, mandatory school-prayer, etc...
Christ did say, after all, that following him would pit brother against brother, daughter against mother.
Heh, unfortunatley it was no pun on the name, it was just a silly and apparently ineffective way of calling Graham nuts. Granola bars, nuts, that's all. My bad.
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ElJay, I get that, I do. But look at what KoM said. Do you see many Christian suicide bombers out there who belonged to groups that held the position that the Bible tells them to kill people? Is such a feeling presently justified? I assume he's referring to past acts, such as the crusades, not things going on right now.
What reason does an Islamic person have to think that about me? Because of the war? Doesn't a reasonable person see a difference between a war fought between soldiers and an attack on citizens by terrorists?
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quote:He says: "If the Boy Scouts of America had 1,000 scout troops, and 10 of them practiced suicide bombings, then the BSA would be considered a terrorist organization," he said. "If the BSA refused to kick out those 10 troops, that would make the case even stronger. If people defending terror repeatedly turned to the Boy Scout handbook and found language that justified and defended murder – and the scoutmasters in charge simply said 'Could be' – the Boy Scouts would have driven out of America long ago."
There are several major problems with this analogy.
1. There are ~ 1 billion Muslims in the world. A liberal estimate might place 100,000 of them as members of terrorist organizations. So Your to be quantitatively accurate you should have said if the BSA had 100,000 troups and 1 of them practiced suicide bombings.
2. Islam doesn't have a central organization. There is no Pope or living Prophet who guides Islam. Sunni's don't even have a clergy. So there is no one who has authority to kick people out of Islam.
3. The "hand book" of Islam, The Koran, doesn't justify terrorisim. Language in the Koran which some use to justify killing is no stronger than language found in the Bible which some have used to justify killing. In fact, it is probably weaker. (In the Bible the Israelites were commanded by God to kill every non-Israelite who inhabited Israel -- I know of know equivalent in the Koran.
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quote:That those muslims who truly believe in peace are following a different version of Islam, and that the "real" Islam really does call for the extermination of unbelievers.
There was a time in history when you could have said precisely the same thing about Christianity.
The official state religion of the Ottoman Empire was Islam. But the Ottoman Empire in the medieval era had a far greater degree of freedom of religion than Christian Europe had. There were Christians and Jews in Ottoman lands that lived peacefully and practiced their religion openly. Muslims and Jews in Christian Europe, meanwhile, were being forced to convert, tortured, killed, or expelled.
Yet we know that such brutal behavior is not inherent in Christianity, because that behavior has been abolished, and Christianity still thrives.
I would argue that Islam is going through a similar period right now. Large portions of the Muslim world are under the direct control of extremists. The literalism and intolerance that plagued Christianity for centuries has taken deep root in the Muslim world. There is nothing inherently brutal about Islam. It's the way Islam is being used by power-hungry leaders that is brutal.
I am certain that one day--one would hope within our lifetime, but we'll see how it goes--Islam will move on, and then Muslims can live peacefully with Christians and Jews the way Christians and Jews now live peacefully with each other. Remember that even the latter situation would have been unthinkable until very recently.
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: [QUOTE]The trick he uses here is with the numbers: etc
Further, Islam doesn't have scoutmasters in charge, and many Islamic scholars have condemned attacks on civilians as always wrong.
Originally posted by Katarain:Hey, are they American scholars or another nationality?
Good catch on the numbers, Dag, I totally missed that.
I remember that American mullahs' issued a recent fatwa condemning civilian killing in general and al-Queada and bin Laden specifically.
Bear in mind that in some Islamic dominated countries, issuing a similar decree would be tantamount to signing your own death warrant, or your deportation papers. Extremists are not picky about who they murder, as shown by the many muslims killed by suicide attacks in Iraq.
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quote:Originally posted by Bokonon: kat, your feeling on the "real" Islam is similar to how I think atheists/agnostics feel about Christianity. There are Christians who are nice and peaceful, but the "real" Christianity is the one that would force the 10 Commandments everywhere, mandatory school-prayer, etc...
Interesting that you should bring that up.
The SAME EXACT THING scares ME about most Christians. And I'm Christian. But I'm not mainstream Christian, and I am 100% in favor of separation of church and state. I don't believe in mandatory school-prayer, or teacher/administrator-led school prayer. And I don't believe in forcing the 10 commandments or any other Christian belief.
The stuff that comes out of the Christian Right is downright frightening.
I suppose the way I feel about the Christian Right can be compared to the way I feel about extremist Islam. Maybe the perception I have that Extremist Islam really is the "Real" Islam is the same as those people who think the Extremist Christian Right is really the "Real" Christianity.
Which, I guess, is exactly what you just said...
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I am listening to the leader of the Pakistan oppostion party right now claiming on BBC that 9/11 and the London bombings were a Zionist conspiracy and Osama Bin Laden was framed.
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I don't think it's currently justified the way KoM put it, but I think it is without a doubt the way bok put it.
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quote: The reason we have free speech is to allow individuals to effect change. If free speech wasn't supposed to result in people taking action, we wouldn't need it. CAIR heard something it didn't like said on a commercial radio station. CAIR used it's free speech rights to make its displeasure known. The commercial entity responded accordingly
No, the reason we have free speech is to exchange ideas, to get different viewpoints on things.
While the company certainly is completely within its rights as owner of the equipment and his employer to fire him, they have made it harder to talk about a certain viewpoint and have denied Graham an ability to air his views to a large audience, further curtailing the idea and its discussion.
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Poppycock. The company was absolutely right to deny him the right to spread hatred in their name. No company is obligated, by the Constitution or any state law I am aware of, to tolerate bigotry from its employees.
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Perhaps not suicide bombers, but there are Christian terrorist organizations. Most notably, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Ulster Union. There are others with which you maybe less familiar.
On Oct 22, 2004 a group of Christian Terrorists set of three bombs in northeast India killing 44 and wounding 118. This group's terrorist activities were backed financially by Baptist church's in the US.
The Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda is responsible for the rape and abduction of over 6000 children and are responsible for the maiming and murder of thousands of civilians. There founder calls himself their spiritual head and their goal is to establish a Ten Commandments based government.
The Christian Identity movement in the US justifies the use of violence if it is perpetrated in order to punish violators of God's law, as found in the Bible and interpreted by Christian Identity ministers and adherents. This includes killing interracial couples, abortionists, prostitutes and homosexuals, burning pornography stores, and robbing banks and perpetrating frauds to undermine the "usury system." To perpetrators of two prominent terrorist attacksm, the Oklahoma City Bombing and Atlanta Olympic bombing, were associated with this groups.
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It is not the company's responsibility to grant Graham the ability to air his views to a large audience. It is not the company's responsibility to air points of view it finds distasteful or unacceptable.
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Heh, unfortunatley it was no pun on the name, it was just a silly and apparently ineffective way of calling Graham nuts. Granola bars, nuts, that's all. My bad.
posted
See my previous post. Property rights and free speech, edit: though definitely intertwined, are two different things. You can support one while still understanding that it impacts the other.
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Ack! Sorry, Katarain. Sorry. Reading and speaking to a dozen people atm. Reference that to scottneb Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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"Do you see many Christian suicide bombers out there who belonged to groups that held the position that the Bible tells them to kill people? Is such a feeling presently justified? I assume he's referring to past acts, such as the crusades, not things going on right now."
Abortion clinic bombings and shootings come to mind, right off the top of my head.
Also, I was beat up for my lack of belief. That was more a case of schoolyard bullying, but kids like that grow up, after all.
The guy near Detroit that killed someone because he was an atheist.
Then there was the Branch Davidians, Jim Jones and his People's Temple. The suicide component is there.
Of course there have been numerous cases of parents (particularly mothers) killing their children who claimed they had done it for religious reasons.
Can't remember the details, but some politician recently suggested that bombing Mecca was an appropriate response to the current situation.
In fact, doesn't Bush claim some kind of divine guidance in his decision making? As I understand it, Chistian Fundamentalists are pretty staunchly in favor of the war for religious reasons.
Pat Robertson is calling for Hugo Chavez' assassination. I don't know that he's used religion as his reasoning, but it's hard to divorce him from his religious self.
White Supremecist groups use religious arguments. for their hatred.
And then there's Fred Phelps.
No, I'd definitely say that you don't have to go back to the Crusades or the Inquisition to find examples of Christians justifying violence with their religious belief. There are plenty of current examples.
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The difference is that I living in the alleged stronghold of Christianitym "America" can still say openly, and I do, that I condemn the killing of people on the grounds of religious differences.
I can get on a television station and say that I find it sick and wrong when a christian blows up an abortion clinic. And that God hates the hypocrits who act in his name. I can walk up to a chapel and protest the remarks made by a minister during communion.
I can go door to door and ask people if I might share with them my own beliefs about God and Jesus, and the law cant touch me, people can say yes or no on their own door steps without being forced either way.
If I was killed by somebody because of my beliefs and remarks they would be tried in court just as surely as anybody else who commits murder.
NONE of these things can be done in ANY muslim nation. I lived in Malaysia for 4 years, and I have to say I LOVED living there, but even as a 3rd grader, when I heard my teacher say because he was marrying a muslim he was compelled to join Islam, thinking that there was something wrong with that situation.
It was Christian men who made the foundation of this country and they didnt do too shabby. I turn on the TV and they talk about a big barrier in Iraq's new constitution being "The government shall make no law contradicting Islam" does that sound remotely like "the government shall make no law respecting religion or the free enterprise thereof?"
How can you make any laws then let alone allow free speech. Muslims cant even agree what Islam says (I know Christians have the same problem, but we arnt the ones making christianity the measuring rod for all laws.) Islam is not an evil religion but it certainly does not empower its people with freedom of thought. If some cleric preaches hate you forfeit your life if you speak against them. If a nuclear bomb went off in mecca (read the shadow series for that WHAT IF) would americans be dancing in the street? If I saw one you can bet I would stop them by any means neccesary, but I am willing to bet you wouldnt see ONE dancer, at least not in my neighborhood and they are 80+% christian.
Christians may hate to hear their beliefs rediculed (and they are on a constant basis), some even act out of rage and kill the voices of those they fear the most. But at least we give those incidents the publicity they deserve and people hear about them in the news as a murder and not as Gods work.
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quote:No, the reason we have free speech is to exchange ideas, to get different viewpoints on things.
And we wouldn't care about exchanging ideas and getting different viewpoints if doing so didn't cause change within the real world. You've stopped the chain of analysis short of the goal.
quote:While the company certainly is completely within its rights as owner of the equipment and his employer to fire him, they have made it harder to talk about a certain viewpoint and have denied Graham an ability to air his views to a large audience, further curtailing the idea and its discussion.
Because another idea was expressed.
Every other radio station (except the inevitable one who will pick this guy up in a few months) in the country is "den[ying] Graham an ability to air his views to a large audience."
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All I want to know is if the ALCU would agree to represent him if he sued the radio station or if they only believe that liberal bigotry has a right to be expressed.
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quote:All I want to know is if the ALCU would agree to represent him if he sued the radio station or if they only believe that liberal bigotry has a right to be expressed.
I'm sorry, but this statement is crap.
The ACLU represents people with just about every ideology under the sun when it believes their rights have been violated (even the KKK and the Neo-Nazi party). The key here is the last part, where an actual violation of someone's rights has been done. Only someone with a very limited understanding of free speach law would think this guy's rights have been violated in this instance. So of course the ACLU won't represent him.
If I call my boss a dirt-bag to his face, and after I am fired I try and get the ACLU to represent me, they will probably tell me the same thing they would tell this guy. That we don't have a case. Not that our ideologies don't match theirs.
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quote: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No, the reason we have free speech is to exchange ideas, to get different viewpoints on things. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And we wouldn't care about exchanging ideas and getting different viewpoints if doing so didn't cause change within the real world. You've stopped the chain of analysis short of the goal.
You definition actually lends more weight to the idea that his speech was curtailed than mine.
And you are confusing the action with consequences. If I speak to you and you physically do nothing because of what I said, then I am still engaging in 'free speech', regardless.
quote: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- While the company certainly is completely within its rights as owner of the equipment and his employer to fire him, they have made it harder to talk about a certain viewpoint and have denied Graham an ability to air his views to a large audience, further curtailing the idea and its discussion. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Because another idea was expressed.
Every other radio station (except the inevitable one who will pick this guy up in a few months) in the country is "den[ying] Graham an ability to air his views to a large audience."
So what? Just because everyone else is doing it, or might do it, doesn't mean that the company isn't curtailing his ability to get his message out now.
As an aside, though, I am actually suprised the company took this kind of stand and fired him for saying that Islam was a terrorst organization. Lots of other talk-show hosts, while they haven't said that exactly, have derided Islam as a religion of peace.
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quote:You definition actually lends more weight to the idea that his speech was curtailed than mine.
And you are confusing the action with consequences. If I speak to you and you physically do nothing because of what I said, then I am still engaging in 'free speech', regardless.
I didn't say that wouldn't be free speech. But if no speech ever led to consequences, we wouldn't care enough to make it the most protected right in the Constitution.
It's not the defining attribute of free speech; it's just why we happen to care about it.
quote:So what? Just because everyone else is doing it, or might do it, doesn't mean that the company isn't curtailing his ability to get his message out now.
They're not curtailing it. They are no longer subsidizing it. Unless you're defining every decision not to subsidize it as a curtailment, they're not stopping his free speech.
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If the ability to talk to people or effect change is free speech, then a diminishment of that ability is a diminishment, or curtailment, of speech.
This guy used to be able to speak to thousands of people using the company's platform. Now he can't. His speech has been curtailed.
Does the company have to subsidize him? No.
Are they curtailing his ability to talk to people? Yes.
Your reasoning that
quote: Graham's firing isn't an example of an abandonment of free speech. It's an example of free speech in action.
while true in the second part, is false in the first, for the reasons that I have given.
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quote: The key here is the last part, where an actual violation of someone's rights has been done.
The ALCU seems perfectly willing to represent liberals regardless of whether there was a genuine violation of their rights.
quote: What grounds are there for suit, NFL?
Do you honestly believe lacking legitmate grounds for a law suit tends to stop people who are determined to bring their case to court? I'm not saying the cases won't even get thrown out before they reach a jury, but that doesn't stop a lot of idiots from trying or overzealous groups like the ACLU from representing them or at least giving out press releases and filing briefs supporting them.
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quote: Graham's firing isn't an example of an abandonment of free speech. It's an example of free speech in action.
while true in the second part, is false in the first, for the reasons that I have given.
It is absolutely true in the first part. You seem to be arguing that freedom is a ratchet - once someone decides to subsidize an exercise of a person's rights, then discontinuing such subsidy is a curtailment of the right.
Note that by this reasoning:
quote:This guy used to be able to speak to thousands of people using the company's platform. Now he can't. His speech has been curtailed.
the station's actions would be anti-free speech even if the reason for firing him was unrelated to content. Such a definition is almost impossible to sustain in practice.
As fugu so succinctly put it, his speech is being curtailed, not his freedom to speak.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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I used to live in GA. Some anti-abortion group hired a billboard to say abortion is wrong. The owner of the billboard got a call threatening lawsuit if he didn't take down the message.
Anyone care to guess what side the ACLU took?
Now I'm in VA. We have styles of license plate; you can get your style added if you like (I don't know if it's signatures on a petition, or if you have to give the state money). Some of the more popular ones I see: Support Wildlife; Kids First; various colleges.
An anti-abortion group decided to make a "Choose Life" style. There was a lawsuit to stop them. Any guesses on the ACLU's position?
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Not without a lot more information about the billboard's ownership, the contents of the ad, etc.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote: You seem to be arguing that freedom is a ratchet - once someone decides to subsidize an exercise of a person's rights, then discontinuing such subsidy is a curtailment of the right.
It's a curtailment of the ability to meaningfully engage in that right. More importantly, in this case, it's a curtailment of the ability of an idea to be aired and acted up, which you haven't argued against. I've never once said that he can't engage in any speech at all, as that would be stupid. This should be implicit in the word 'curtailment'.
Let's keep in mind the facts. You speak of the company not subsidizing this gentleman's speech as if it had come to this conclusion on its own, as if it had determined on its own that his idea didn't have merit. But why was this gentleman fired? Because he was espousing a certain idea that a group didn't like. That group, CAIRN, virtually *forced* this gentleman's employers, intimidated them!, to fire him because they didn't want that idea discussed on the air. If it were the state who had done what CAIRN did, I doubt we would be having this conversation. If the state told the radio station 'fire him, or else', would there be any question that this was a denial of this gentleman's speech? Why is one an illegimitate use of power and not the other? It seems to me that the circumstances where the free airing and exchange of ideas are useful and good are the same and should be deemed a good whatever the case.
Just because this is a NGO doing the dirty work doesn't mean that it's not still wrong for the same reasons that it would be wrong if the government was doing it--an idea is being removed from view because it is considered too dangerous too exist. People aren't being allowed to decide for themselves whether that idea has merit or not.
quote:
Note that by this reasoning:
quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This guy used to be able to speak to thousands of people using the company's platform. Now he can't. His speech has been curtailed. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
the station's actions would be anti-free speech even if the reason for firing him was unrelated to content. Such a definition is almost impossible to sustain in practice.
If the station fired this guy for consistently not showing up to work or something like that, the station could still rehire someone who would say the same things as that gentleman. They can't do that now or they risk being punished by CAIR. In this specific case it's not just the ability of this gentleman to air his views, but the ideal of a free discussion of ideas that is being hurt.
Does CAIR have the right to boycott or sue or whatever to shut this idea down? Sure. I guess.
Is it wrong? Should they do it? I don't think so. I think a much better solution to this whole problem would have been for the station to give CAIR the chance to rebutt the things this guy has been saying. I bet ratings would have been great. Ideas would have been exchanged, but CAIR doesn't want the free exchange of ideas, it wants this idea dead and it has accomplished the ability of that idea to be aired on at least one radio station through force.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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What force? This was speech. One of the many reasons we put primacy on free speech is that people who can be heard are less likely to resort to force.
That's why this is a prime example of speech. A disagreement existed. It was solved by one side making its case better than the other. Without violence. Without force.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote: The comments drew complaints and prompted an organized letter-writing campaign against WMAL and its advertisers by a Muslim group, the Council on American-Islam Relations (CAIR) of Washington. The protests led several advertisers to ask WMAL to stop airing their ads during Graham's weekday show
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Rakeesh
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great timing, Bok! KoM illustrated your point.
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Extremists are not picky about who they murder, as shown by the many muslims killed by suicide attacks in Iraq.
