Hey, there! Log in / Register
Muslim-hating New Hampshire group sues MBTA over ads - again
By adamg on Sat, 02/08/2014 - 5:41pm
A group that couldn't get a federal judge to force the MBTA to run ads calling Palestinians "savages" has filed another federal lawsuit trying to get the judge to force the MBTA to run a similar ad.
The American Freedom Defense Initiative filed its second suit in US District Court in Boston yesterday after the T's ad agency agreed to modify its original ad, but then rejected a modification to the modified ad that was much more similar to the original rejected ad.
The first ad the group wanted to run, back in October, used an adaptation from famous grump Ayn Rand:
In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat jihad
Titan, the company that handles advertising on the T, rejected that on the basis it violates a T policy against ads that shower hate on a particular group. In December, US District Court Judge Nathan Gorton rejected AFDI's request for an order forcing the T to run the ad, saying the T was a "non-public forum" and that its decision was "reasonable" enough, rather than capricious.
After Gorton's ruling, the group then submitted new verbiage to the Titan:
In any war between the civilized man and those engaged in savage acts, support the civilized man. Defeat Violent Jihad. Support Israel.
Titan approved that ad. But instead of sending the ads to Titan, AFDI said it had changed its mind and wanted the ads to run what it claims is "slightly changed" wording:
In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the
civilized man. Defeat violent jihad. Support Israel.
Titan said no deal.
In their newest lawsuit - assigned to the same judge who rejected their earlier demand to force the T let them call Palestinians savages - the group claims the T is stunting their first amendment rights because it is run by people who don't want the truth to get out about "the Israeli / Palestinian conflict and about Islam in general."
Topics:
Free tagging:
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 AFDI complaint | 255.34 KB |
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
The new ad sounds kosher to me.
The problem with the original ad was linking savage to all practitioners of Islam. This clearly delineates savages as referring to those who support only a particular type of jihad, one at odds with the religion of peace known as Islam.
So are you saying
Muslim jihadist aren't savages?
If you want to characterize a population by its extremists
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2304793/Two-babies-stricken-HERP...
Does this make all Jews savages? No.
That's the problem: we could also look at what extremists like John Salvi and Eric Robert Rudolph do and call all "pro-life" people savages, too.
And that wouldn't be true, either.
Bombers are savages, perhaps - but Palestinians are not all bombers, and many of those who founded Israel were bombers. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/bombing_of_the_king_david_hotel.htm
I could go on, but I think the point is made.
I don't think you made your
I don't think you made your point. Can you please go on?
The poster you're replying to
The poster you're replying to said "muslim jihadists", not "all muslims".
I think he already realizes that doesn't make all muslims savages, so your pont is.... pointless.
No.
The problem with the rewording is that the word "jihad" and its derivatives do not solely refer to people who take up arms. "Jihad" translates to something akin to "the struggle for the way of Allah"(thx, wiki) or "the struggle to be a follower of Allah." For Muslims, the "Great Jihad" is the struggle to live according to the precepts of Islam (if it helps to translate this into Judeo-Christian ideas, this would be the struggle to live according to the 10 Commandments, or the Laws of the Talmud, or the teachings of Christ, or the Baltimore Catechism).
The Lesser Jihad has two aspects
a) Peacefully spread the ideas of Islam-- just like Christians CS Lewis, Reinhold Neibuhr, Oral Roberts, and those people who ring your doorbell with Watchtowers or Chick tracts are trying to do for Christianity. Judaism, to its great credit, does not advocate proselytism.
b) Defend Islam, with arms if necessary, against persecution or powers that oppress Islam. Some defend Islam with editorials and diplomacy. Some defend it with arms, often with good reason (ie much of the Serbian war), sometimes with wrong or bad reasons. And some of those who advocate defending Islam with arms advocate and act to broaden the idea of "defending Islam" far beyond what any reasonable person would consider a defensive action.
Most practicing Muslims, especially in the West, have not, will not, and do not engage in armed conflict with anyone, justifiable or not. Most Muslims farm and run stores and play cricket and fill teeth and just don't have lives in war zones, nor do they seek them out. All Muslims are mujahadim in the Greater Jihad. Therefore, all Muslims are Jihadim (which is a Britishism). Not all Jihadim are violent.
Using "mujihadi" or "Jihadi" as if it only refers to the people who use violence to spread Islam and to shut up different viewpoints is to reduce it to a slur, and is inaccurate.
I'll go on, Swirly. You
I'll go on, Swirly. You certainly seem to have a subtle anti-Jew/anti-Israel agenda. First of all, I wouldn't believe anything the guardian has to say about Jews, especially American Jews. They are notoriously anti-Jew and anti-Israel (I lived in London for a good part of the last decade).
Second, who sent planes into the World Trade Center in 2001? Who bombed the Boston Marathon? The Pan Am flight over Lockerbie? The attempted shoe bomber? The attempted underwear bomber? The recent bombings near Sochi? I could go on. The difference is that you cite one bombing in 1946 in which notice was given to reduce casualties - and the target was a military one hostile to Israel, not innocent people. Notice a pattern?
You missed her point
She wasn't saying that one incident in 1946 defines Jews (any more than the more recent Baruch Goldstein massacre). She was saying that every group has extremists and that the mistake is stereotyping all members of that group as extremists. Condemning all Muslims for attacks on Israel would be like condemning all Christians for the never-ending stream of mass shootings carried out in the US by Christians.
How many
Beheading did the US have last year? Comparing domestic crime to international terrorism, really!
Ironically
If you're living in the Middle East, maybe, Afghanistan, and you're watching a drone drop a bomb on your neighborhood, you know, you think Americans are savages too. Sure, maybe you live next door to Al Qaeda's new "#1" man, but that doesn't mean you like it. Then, the drone strikes, your property goes down in flames and maybe even friends and family are killed. Unfortunately, our "smart bombs" aren't so smart that they differentiate between bad and good guys. In fact, if you're the victim of the bomb, you probably believe that all Americans think all Afghanis are terrorists, so that's why we're bombing you. That isn't true of course. Some Americans think we should stop bombing now, and perhaps that we should never have started, given that 9/11 was perpetrated by Saudi Arabians. In any case, "savagery" is in the eye of the victim, and it's pretty hard to look around the world and not find some everywhere, sadly. It isn't where you live, it isn't the God you worship, it isn't your manner of dress, or your means of killing that make one "savage." It is that you kill innocent people, and some would say it's that you kill people at all.