"Mr Honey's Day Out" wrote:

Surely though it is protected by the First Amendment?

That's a matter of what the nine sages say. Rights are phantoms - illusions of things that actually exist. Do Americans have the right to speak freely, to practice whatever religion they want, to not have your property taken without due process?

Yea.

Is that because a piece of paper some English guys signed 200 years ago said so? No. If that were so they wouldn't be "inalienable rights" they would be granted rights. But that doesn't stop the government from pretending they personally and out of the goodness of their collective hearts granted us our rights.

Nor does that stop them from leveraging their generosity to take said rights away from us, define our boundaries or give us rights that really aren't rights in a state of nature.

The freedom of speech means the freedom to speak freely when the Supreme Court feels like it (generally when there are conservative justices), the freedom of speech means the freedom of expression (non-speech communication), which includes art (as you suggested) when there are liberal extratextualists in power.

How inalienable could these rights be if they can so freely be constricted or expanded based on the whim of nine men and the prevailing agenda? And how could we say art is definitely protected when that is really a situational question? And since this is all situational are we really losing anything by constricting this "right" to "expression" when the prevailing sentiment of nine people demands expansion?

And if that is so, shouldn't it be the decision of all the people in the social contract and not nine elitist scholars?

Quote:

I agree that artists challenging religion with mockery do not generally admit they are doing so, and in disguising their free expressions they devalue secularism but progress an association between freedom and atheism. However I believe that atheism is a legitimate right and that artists are entitled to mock beliefs and advance a free philosophical attitude.

Few Americans know that with every right comes a responsibility to use that right correctly. The government doesn't enforce responsibilities... that would defeat the purpose, but it doesn't extinguish the fact they are responsibilities in the social contract.

Using the freedom of speech in such a manner is not what it was intended for, amounts to no social good and is blatantly irresponsible - thus the reason the social contract is failing today.

"Mr Honey's Day Out" wrote:

If artists, scientists and philosophers were beholden to received wisdom our knowledge would be primitive and free thought impoverished. I don't know if you would agree. Religion can be dogmatic, but I believe also in a case for secularism and the entitlement to eschew religion.

I don't agree.

Liberals use this argument to perpetuate the moral vacuum they've carved out in the free world. They cry "Galileo!" whenever religion is suggested as a temper for science, art and philosophy.

What do we get with the liberal agenda? We get science that gives us the atomic bomb and serin gas, we get "art" that degrades us, we get "philosophy" that allows us to abort children and lynch people for being black.

Liberalism is a trick - it tells you that no lines can be crossed if we just stop drawing them. Yet the further humanity sinks because of this, the more I am convinced of how immutable the lines are.

"Mr Honey's Day Out" wrote:

(Granted a lot of art is bunk and unless it is highly ironic I can't hold the Obama statue in any esteem at all, whatever Barack Obama's merits.)

Art and bunk are subjective terms... thus the problem. As long as the gimmick suits the artistic boards particular agenda (mindless atheism if you are familiar with the Met or Moma), then it is "art."

"Mr Honey's Day Out" wrote:

Dave, I wish you a good Holy Week.

Thanks, have a good passover.

"Don Karnage" wrote:

Thanks, have a good passover.

Thank you!

"Mr Honey's Day Out" wrote:

Dave, I wish you a good Holy Week.

Dude I didn't know Jews had secret powers!

My wife is pregnant again! And this time I'll know what I'm doing!

hahaha this is going to be weird... Esteban and I are going to be taking care of her and her mom during their respective pregnancies at the same time, what are the chances?!

And it looks like I'm going to have to give into being anchored at South Carolina permanently - which I guess was going to have to happen eventually. I decided I'm going to buy the neighbors property tear down the structures and expand ownership over the grazing land and convert the northeast part into a vineyard. I'd kinda like to get into planting...

I have no idea why

I'm going to be a dad!! ... again... err... some more. I dunno - this is super though! We don't want to reconsider any of the names we eliminated last time so this time it is all new ones. My personal favorites are Kinsey, Renee or better yet Trenae for a girl and Alexander (yea I know, but it's a family name) Luther or Cornelius for a boy.

She's insisting on Benedict or Benedicta as middle names for obvious reasons... I think I'm pretty much over ruled there.

I think I need to talk to my architect again...

Wow. Congratulations Dave

Its nice to have siblings so close to one another in age....(and cousins and uncles/aunties)

It be also intresting if you had twins again.

I think you need to update your 'alhumdulliah' thread.

"MuslimSister" wrote:

Wow. Congratulations Dave

Its nice to have siblings so close to one another in age....(and cousins and uncles/aunties)

It be also intresting if you had twins again.

I think you need to update your 'alhumdulliah' thread.

lol yea it's going to be fun, my kids will all be only a year apart, so will their aunt/uncle and cousins (also born this year), and since we're all going to be in the same place they will grow up together - so they've already got their own lunch table!

It will make a big difference since the peer pressure to please other people to gain friends will be much less.

I think I can handle two sets of twins though, assuming the second patch is anything like the first. My girls don't fuss, get into trouble, do anything embarassing or otherwise make life difficult the way babies sometimes tend to do... they even sleep [i]at night[/i]... I'm a little weirded out given all the warnings people give me about the impending doom of when they get out of this good phase...

wow, congrats Dave!

You're life is getting challenging. The twins are gona be the big sis's thats so cute!

Hope all goes well with Annette's pregnancy/labour etc.

CONGRATULATIONS DAVE ALL THE BEST WISHES FOR U AND ANNETTE AND TH LITTLE ONES

Wow!! Congratulations to you both.

Did anyone see Wife Swap yesterday?

A devout Muslim family swapped with an English family of atheists who have a daughter who is a lesbian.

I always get nervous when I see Muslims on TV, just in case they say something outrageous that would make Islam look bad to my mother. This program was fairly balanced tho, alhamdulillah!

The Muslim wife encouraged the daughter to spend more quality-time at home with her parents, and bought more order and cleanliness to their lives, while the English wife pressed for more freedom to the the two Muslim daughters, who were allowed to attend their first rock concert (much to their delight). Not much was learnt by either family but it all went reasonably well.

The one really funny bit was when the English wife started to cook at the Muslim household and was politely told "Its kind of Muslim tradition to wash your hands before preparing food" and she was very embarrased!!

Did anyone else see this?

Did anyone last night see the Channel 4 program "WIFE SWAP"?

It was about a Muslim woman who goes to live in home of a Christians and the Christian woman who goes and lives in a Muslim home.
They swapped roles for a month to see if they can better run each others homes. They cooked and ran the home according to their own cultures.
Christians lady found the children in the muslim home to be oppressed and totally controlled.
Muslim woman discovered Christian home to be full of gays and lesbians. She was so shocked that she started crying on camera.
Both women were allowed to make new rules while they lived in each others homes for one full month.
The Muslim lady banned all gay friends from visiting the home. The Christian lady lifted restrictions on muslim children from attending concerts of heavy metal bands.

The program will be repeated on E4 on Friday at 9pm. I recommend it to everyone. It is a must see documentary. The debate after the documentary was also very fiery.

Why the hell would you want to watch a show called "wife swap?"

I watched it. I gotta say it was fairly balanced but the Muslim family had double standards in some aspects.

IMO, the muslim lady who apparantly had such strong beliefs shouldn't have even been participating in such a programme.

I also don't like the idea of trying to enforce ones culture and religion onto others; like the Muslim lady tried to do by forcing the young girl to cover up or by banning homosexuals from the house.

I'm not saying that the Athiest family were right or wrong but I am a strong believer in tolerance which I feel the Muslim family were lacking.

Also some of the comments the Mrs Ahmed said were more cultural than religious. i.e. How it is the women's job to clean the house/cook and not the men.

Overall, I was kinda disappointed. Didn't enjoy it. Don't think a Muslim family should be participating in a trashy programme like wife swap.

Is this show seriously what it sounds like? People swapping... wives?

its not about perverts!!! im surprised u'v never heard of this as they have an american version too.

anyway, the basic premise is that one woman swaps with another to live with each other's family. After two days of living by 'their rules',each woman sits the families down to tell them what needs to change and tries to change them to be more like hers.
At the end of it all, the two women finally meet and discuss (argue) about whats happened, what they've learned from the experience etc.

the producers pick families that they know will have major grievances and differences with each other. families tend to differ mainly on class, but also sometimes race, beliefs and in this case religion. the show falls somewhere between social-commentary and car-crash trashy TV and was very popular a few years ago.

the idea got exported to america where bigger gulfs and differences can be seen across the country because it is so huge. one memoral episode saw a very camp gay couple from san-francisco swap with a couple of southern 'hics' who live in a trailer park and much shouting was done by all!

That sounds like a trashy knockoff of Morgan Spurlock's 30 days... Something Fox thought up no doubt.

"Don Karnage" wrote:

Is this show seriously what it sounds like? People swapping... wives?

Its not a 'dodgy' programme. The point of the swap is to get a glimpse into someone elses life...so thats why they often swap two very extreme families together.

You know the whole 'is the grass more green on the other side'.

It's only the 'lifestyle' that they swap...nothing more.

However, the programme that came on last night was a joke....why on Earth would a Muslim family partake in such a show knowing that they wouldnt be able to agree to most of the rules changes.

I agree that the women's beliefs were more cultural then Islamic i.e. she had a serious issue with her husband helping her more around the house. What a weirdo.

The Americans version is more cool.

lol that's interesting... I'd be curious to see what a girl would do if she had to swap lives with Annette for a day or two.

Anyway, has anyone here ever seen the show 30 days? Specifically the episode where "Dave" from "Charleston" (West Virginia) goes to live as a Muslim in Detroit for a month?

It was rather interesting. I wish they would have gone with a more mainline protestant Christian rather than an evangelical, at least I got the impression he was one, but it was still pretty interesting.

I wonder how the muslims worked past the fact an unrelated male was living with them in the same house as their daughter? That would seem to strike an alarm bell for some reason.

Dunno what I would do in that situation. - It's a completely different culture, barbaric, dirty, disgusting... but Detroit aside, having to pretend to be a religion I don't believe in and take abuse and comments (given my particular issues with lashing out on people) would drive me crazy.

I think the Christian husband was good.
The Muslim husband was not nice at all. He was too intimidating to the Christian lady who was very laid back and reasonable.
Both women experienced cultural shocks during their 4 weeks stay at each others homes.

Children of both homes were cool. I think the best person was the Muslim lady, God bless her. She put to shame everyone who confronted her. She was challenged on many issues and her replies were totally Islamic and no could fault them.

http://www.gotoquiz.com/how_pakistani_are_you_first_class_number_one

Arey, you are 35% Pakistani!

Not bad, but not good enough to call yourself a real Pakistani either! You seem more London than Lahore, so why not try wearing a shalwar kameez for a week and maybe that'll bump up your rating...

"Apparenly I'm not Pakistani" wrote:

Arey, you are 6% Pakistani

Dear me. Many many commiserations, you're not Pakistani at all, really. You are no longer welcome to visit the country. If you have a Pakistani passport, you must return it immediately

That's weird because the last one of these tests I got said I was a cocanut... I'm starting to think maybe I'm not a real Pakistani...

"Don Karnage" wrote:

Arey, you are 6% Pakistani!  

Dear me. Many many commiserations, you're not Pakistani at all, really. You are no longer welcome to visit the country. If you have a Pakistani passport, you must return it immediately!How Pakistani are you? (first class number one!)Create a Quiz

now thats just being childish....

"Ya'qub" wrote:

now thats just being childish....

Naturally!

Give it some time, I'll grow on ya

I came up with 20% Pakistani, even though my family is Scottish!

here's my test to see if your an Aberdonian:

1) are you an alcoholic?

a) no
b) yes

2) can I understand a word you're saying?

a) yes
b) no

3) what do the lassies say when you walk through the streets of London?

a) good afternoon, sir
b) Donald, where's your troosers?

Results:

mostly a's : fit u wailing, loon?

mostly b's : hoots me noo!

salamz!!!

me back!! but only just............as I got totally messed around by PIA!!!!!
:evil:

Welcome back! How was the trip? Where'd ya go!! Bring us back any presents???

...did you bring me a cake??

I saw some John Lee Hooker CDs going for 99p in Tesco yesterday and thought I'd give them a try. Great purchase.

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ji0j_eWQ0uU&mode=related&search=]John Lee Hooker[/url]

"Don Karnage" wrote:

Welcome back! How was the trip? Where'd ya go!! Bring us back any presents???

...did you bring me a cake??

Where could I have gone to?? I travelled on PIA!! Take a guess!! Yep pakistan!!!

"MuslimSister" wrote:

http://www.gotoquiz.com/how_pakistani_are_you_first_class_number_one

Arey, you are 35% Pakistani!

Not bad, but not good enough to call yourself a real Pakistani either! You seem more London than Lahore, so why not try wearing a shalwar kameez for a week and maybe that'll bump up your rating...

I got:

Arey, you are 20% Pakistani!

Sorry yaar, that's quite low. You're either a Pakistani that's strayed far from your roots, or a non-Pakistani with a little bit of spice in your character. A little bit more effort wouldn't hurt!

:? eerm okay!