personally, I see it as no matter WHAT is said, someone is GOING to take offense to it. You can’t have an opinion on a subject and not find someone of the completely opposite mind… even with fact it is some time contested or just the mention of the truth is offensive. I think there are boundries in place somewhat… libel and slander laws… but I really don’t think there should be laws against offending people, maybe because I am not easily offended… or maybe because I have encountered a lot of people who are virtually offended by any and everything that anyone says… If you limit speech to only what doesn’t offend then you will have nothing at all.
Boundaries can be placed by culture also, Gracie.
We in Britain once spoke of a person being a lady or a gentleman (Firefly alluded to this on the ‘Atonement’ comments). It still remains with some. A person wasn’t, or isn’t, necessarily a lady or gentleman in the ‘Class’ sense, but by way of their behaviour. They were also considered as being ‘respectable’ and a pillar of the community, which a so called ‘gentleman’ of the Gentry might not be.
true true… I know here if you say fat someone will be pissed, if you say obese, portly, plump, rubenesque… lol someone will take offense to it, some things there is no way out of without offending someone. I am fat and I personally could give a shit how you phrase it! lol… it is what it is. but so many things here are like that, no matter WHAT is said about anything someone is protesting, sueing and bitching about it. If you quelched EVERYTHING that offended there would be nothing.
Well, judging by your Avatar, I’d say ‘Curvaceous’! 
that is similar to what my husband says as well, but his might stem from him being a rather smart man… LOL.
He and I must be cousins? 
I have a question, guys.
What if I insert in to my forums signature line reading “Death to Capitalists!”
Whould that be offensive to others or just stupid?
And would that be appropriate and permitable?
Is there a difference between merely offending people, which may include making political statements or using political slogans, and inciting people to violence?
In Denmark the cartoons didn’t incite anyone to anything. They were just observations about aspects of Islamic conduct. They were met with incitements to kill the cartoonists etc, which confirmed much of what the cartoons were directed at.
There’s a big difference between ‘Down with capitalism’ and ‘Death to capitalists’.
Is there a difference between merely offending people, which may include making political statements or using political slogans, and inciting people to violence?
In Denmark the cartoons didn’t incite anyone to anything. They were just observations about aspects of Islamic conduct. They were met with incitements to kill the cartoonists etc, which confirmed much of what the cartoons were directed at.
There’s a big difference between ‘Down with capitalism’ and ‘Death to capitalists’.
Yes, exactly. I know that.
Still my question what would be your reaction/feelings/thoughts if I did put such a slogan in my signature for everyone to see?
And I asked it without any refference to the “Cartoon scandal”.
I’m opposed to violence and incitements to violence, by anyone for any reason.
So I’d prefer not to see ‘Death to [insert preferred victim here]’ anywhere.
If people want to proclaim such things then they live with the consequences from those whose reactions range from indifference to taking it seriously.
One consequence is that my reaction to anyone who says such things and really means it is that my dislike of violence is moderated by a willingness to obliterate them if they’re a threat to me, my family, or nation.
It is precisely because of that primitive reaction which such statements will provoke in many people that I think it’s best to avoid such statements.
And I asked it without any refference to the “Cartoon scandal”.
Perhaps, but it represents the farce of people who get upset about being typified as unreasoning and violent religious zealots and who react to anything which suggests that they’re unreasoning and violent religious zealots by behaving as unreasoning and violent religious zealots.
Because I’m getting a bit tired of people demanding my death and that of everyone who’s vaguely like me, because we’re not members of their current version of some seventh century cult.
Me too.
But what if someone actually did have a signature like that on our forum? What then?
Do it and see what happens.
PK ain’t a mod any more and it’s clearly an experiment, so you should survive.
What will be interesting is the reaction of people who see it in threads where they have no knowledge of this one.
If I was 10 years younger I would do it to see the people’s reaction. But not now. Since I my self do not think so I do not want to put it even as a joke.
Besides I doubt anyone would notice what I put on my signature.
I do not want to call names but someone does have such slogan on his signature… though it reads “death to Communists”
Even though I am not one it still freaks me out a bit every time I see it…
See how my new signature affects you. 
EDIT: The original sig has changed or is absent due to reasons within my control but which I don’t want to explain, for I am an international man of mystery.
click to enlarge
I dont know what to say about the topic,.
I am moslem married to a catholic woman,… and every sunday never fails to send her to her church and in few occassions enters the House of God of hers,… BUT seing what ever it was being made by The danish cartoonist or the latest Dutch movie maker,.
it boils me to a certain level,… but somehow i could keep my head cool,. thanks to other religions leader constructive reactions,…
But it is just me,…
how about those who were uneducated enough or less expose to the world,. these people would easily hit the street and burning things,… or send themselves to the anything they meet with a bomb attached.
IS THIS kind things expected by the offender? or does this being foreseen?
You may hate,… but dont instigate or prejudging,… i might disagree with Israelis policies over mid east,.but I always keep on hand a recommendable kosher restaurant should mu jew friends around…
Its only me
No, it’s not just you.
Some people in other religions have strong reactions to what they regard as blasphemy in art, e.g. http://www.planetpapers.com/Assets/4032.php , and cartoons e.g. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/feb2006/leun-f23.shtml , and film e.g. http://libertus.net/censor/odocs/pj-cinemaofblasphemy.html
I think one of the reasons public Islamic reactions to things like the Danish cartoons were so strong is that, unlike people in the West over the past fifty or sixty years, people from Islamic nations aren’t used to seeing their religion questioned or publicly mocked. That’s not so very different to Catholic Ireland or Catholic Italy until perhaps as late as the middle of the 20th century where, as in Islamic countries, there was a fusion of religion with the state in many respects because just about everybody shared the same religion, at least nominally. Not as clear a fusion as Islamic states run under Sharia law, but the result wasn’t all that different in practice in many respects, e.g. outlawing contraception in Ireland http://www.wsm.ie/story/3390
At least one middle eastern Imam stated that, if the music had been different, Fitna could easily have been made by a jihadi group. hence, he had little objection to it.
The reverse, however, is not permitted in Islam, for a Muslim woman cannot marry outside her own faith.
Yet Muslim men can marry Christians or Jews, because they believe in the testaments shared with Mohammed, but not women of other faiths.
From the Western non-Islamic perspective, that seems to some of us as treating women as second class citizens.
It’s just one of the many things which no doubt make sense to Muslims who believe their faith’s teachings (as did somewhat similar rules in various Christian religions until about the 1960s) but which, like much of Islam or other currently strongly prescriptive religions, are incomprehensible to largely secular Westerners nowadays. Which is part of why there is such a gulf of understanding between some adherents of Islam and most in the West at present.