others

That’s the trouble with others.

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Discussion (20)¬

  1. disperser says:

    Other comics just don’t compare.

  2. Rrr says:

    If only, if only others could be the same, like we are!

  3. Len says:

    @Rrr
    But then we’d be like them!

  4. M27Holts says:

    Other Bother Brother?

  5. jb says:

    There is also what you might call “reverse othering”, where you other yourself (or, more precisely, you other your own people). The classic example would be the anti-Westernism that is so fashionable among Western intellectuals, and the exaggerated deference and respect for non-Western religions and cultures that goes with it. An extreme example might be Susan Sontag’s famous declaration that “The white race is the cancer of human history”. (This goes back further than you might think. Gilbert and Sullivan surely had such people in mind when he had Ko-Ko add “…the idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone,
    All centuries but this, and every country but his own”
    to his little list).

  6. postdoggerel says:

    “So this is hell. I’d never have believed it. You remember all we were told about the torture-chambers, the fire and brimstone, the ”burning marl.” Old wives’ tales! There’s no need for red-hot pokers. Hell is—other people!”

  7. M27Holts says:

    Aye. Human stupidity is my own pet hate….It’s our own fault, allowing people to be delusional and not making people uncomfortable about their personal delusions….

  8. M27Holts says:

    I see a geezer shot dead im Sweden, apparently he burn’t a copy of the Koran…

  9. Rrr says:

    M27: Have not followed this closely, but that’s about the gist of it.

    An Iraqi refugee (atheist, he said) made an obnoxious point of repeatedly burning Qur’ns in bacon, particularly in front of mosques on Friday and in front of TV cameras. Rumour has it he got paid by another State for so doing.

    This for some time delayed Sweden’s accession into Nato as it affronted a blocking (gobbly bird) nation as well as others.

    Yesterday he apparently stepped outside from a live cast onto his balcony to smoke (wonder what he used to light up?) and got thoroughly shot quite dead. Tomorrow he would have received his sentence for hate crime, but that has now obviously been postponed into next week for his accomplice since the Court has to edit the screed. The deceased are auto-pardoned, it seems.

    Solves a thorny extradition issue, at least. He seems to have overstayed his welcome.

  10. arbeyu says:

    M27/Rrr
    I’ve not followed the story, so I cannot confirm or deny Rrr’s statements.

    If the man did indeed repeatedly burn Qur’ans in bacon in front of mosques on Fridays, then that is indeed intentionally offensive, obnoxious behaviour.

    But so what?

    I swither whether or not the Swedish state should have charged him with a hate crime.

    But some people decided to be so offended that they murdered him? The moral fault is theirs, not his. They could have chosen to be less offended.

    As George Harrison put it…

    Everyone has choice
    When to or not to raise their voices
    It’s you that decides

    Only you’ll arrive
    At your own made end
    With no-one but yourself to be offended
    It’s you that decides.

  11. M27Holts says:

    Burning books is always a bad thing to this biblophile. But the koran, like Mein Kampf is a particularly disturbing ramblings of a mad man….dangerous books to base one’s life on for sure…

  12. M27Holts says:

    Set of ramblings…

  13. Rrr says:

    It is never the right thing to kill other people (except in self defence).

    BUT actions do have consequences, and this guy did stuff that predictably angered many unstable* persons and demonstrably influenced political decisions internationally, i.e. delaying the accession into Nato of both Sweden and Finland – which probably led to more deaths by prolonging Russia’s war in Ukraine.

    All in all, we can wish for ordered solutions to conflicts. In this case, had he survived the day Momika would likely have been sentenced, since he broke the law, and perhaps expelled. (He tried to seek asylum in Norway when his welcome ran out in Sweden.)

    * unstable as in religious lunatics

  14. Eske Rahn says:

    @Disperser In the context, your icon reminds me of imdb.com/title/tt0084899

  15. jb says:

    If you start shouting slurs at a bunch of tough-looking guys hanging out in a seedy bar what they should do is treat you with contempt and ignore you. You’d be kind of foolish to count on that though.

  16. arbeyu says:

    Sure, if you walk into the wrong bar and say the wrong thing about a football team, then you might expect a kicking. And if you’re offensive to Muslims, you might expect worse from adherents of that religion of peace.

    But you’d also expect the full weight of the law to fall upon the thugs. Because inflicting violence is not acceptable. For me, taking religious offence is no different from, and no more excusable than getting offended over slurs about a football team.

    Guaranteed, there will be people excusing the murder on the grounds of religious offence. Just as religious leaders refused to condemn the Rushdie fatwah.

    And that’s the next step we need to take in secularism: you don’t get to be more offended about someone taking the piss out of your religion than you do over your football club.

  17. M27Holts says:

    If you can’t win an argument with your wits then you have to resort to caveman politics…and obviously lose the argument. I hate to argue with people who are clearly unarmed…

  18. M27Holts says:

    Arbeyu. Objective discussion is not possible with the deluded. Any proven fact will be ignored. The “How do you know that my personal god isn’t real?” Question is justified by the ridiculous modern assertion that “your truth” is all that is required. Solipsism on a mass scale is the default position unfortunately….and tgey think they are being clever….

  19. postdoggerel says:

    M27,
    the way you put it is terse
    I’d have said as much if not much worse
    national brotherhood week
    is all that we seek
    with fratricide, such and such, and otherhood.

  20. Choirboy says:

    Anyone interested in seeing mindless believers soundly destroyed I recommend ‘The Athiest Experience’ on YouTube where idiots call in to Matt Dillahunty and others to provide ‘proof’ of there tinpot ideas. He is an ex Southern Baptist who saw the light and knows the scriptures inside out. They really don’t have a prayer!

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