Bring it, I'm bored. Challenge me on anything

"I find my opponent's flippant remarks regarding Islam to be rather troubling.." Your opinion of me is irrelevant to this debate. Any such appeals to emotion can be regarded as useless for the logical fallacy that they are. "With this in mind, I believe it is the media's duty to ensure that they do not propagate negative views of Islam. The publication of these cartoons did nothing to further such a goal." The media has no pro social goal. No altruistic common cause for good. It certainly has no inherent responsibility to self censor criticism. "Secondly, my opponent seems to have confused al-Qaeda with Islam. Simply because al-Qaeda is an extremist Muslim group doesn't mean that an act which is committed by them must be followed by scrutiny and, in this case, degradation of a religion practiced by over a billion people." No you simply missed the point. By bringing up the London and Madrid bombings you inferred that this would be reason to censor Islamic criticism. The very fact an Islamic organisation condoned those acts, showed why criticism was relevant. Islamic doctrine produced and supports the organisation. Claims of oh but its just fundamentalism and therefore irrelevant wholly misses the point that Islam can produce such organisations amongst its faithful in full compliance of its religious doctrines. "The characters in many of these cartoons are bearded men with scowling, shady faces dominated by big, bulbous noses. It reminds me a bit of the big-lipped African-American characters from cartoons of old.." Perhaps you are unfamiliar with caricatures that are the mainstay of newspaper satire. http://www.dorkinglabs.com... ^ Is that a racist attack on "white" Americans? Of course not. http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk... ^ Perhaps it was a racist attack on Europeans. Again no. Caricatures as a form of satire are well known and documented. Note the "bulbous" features you find so offensive. "Newspapers are by definition papers which should contain news." They do, Jyllands-Posten certainly does. Newspapers may also contain horoscopes, daily letters to the editor, opinion pieces, recipes, comic strips, crosswords, daily religion of area quotes and yes, satirical cartoons. "If you don't believe me…" Source 1 has no relelvant pre-publication data. Source 2 is 1 year after the publication. From source 4: "In Germany, to give but one example, immigrants from Black Africa and the Far East have been attacked more often than Muslims, in Russia students from Black Africa and Christians from the Caucasus (Georgians and Armenians) have been attacked at least as often as often as those from Muslim Azerbaidjan. If there has been latent hostility towards Islam India would probably be a better example. But Islamophobia has never been used in the Indian context, hence the suspicion that "Islamophobia" came into being as a public relations stratagem (partly as a counterweight to antisemitism) in the West in which it was expected to have a political impact in view of guilt feelings prevailing in these countries. This is not of course to deny the existence of tensions and conflicts but these were and are mutual and the term "Islamophobia" clearly intended to allocate responsibility and guilt to one side only." Source 3 appears to be a dead link. To actually make this argument relevant, examples from the time and region of publication would have been needed. You have failed to provide an "anti Islam" rationale relevant to the time of the cartoons publication. "I've already talked about how pervasive Islamophobia is in Europe..." Which is irrelevant to this debate. Jyllands-Posten were supposed to make a decision based upon a social climate 3 years into the future? I think not. All such calls about how any society is now is irrelevant to the decision to print made then. It is simply a red herring argument. "The paper WANTED to cause trouble, just not the kind of trouble it ended up getting.." No it wanted to prove a point. There is a taboo on drawing Muhammed, they sought those who were willing to break that taboo. If Islam's faithful wish to censor images of Muhammed they can - amongst those of their faith. To ask the rest of society, the non faithful, to comply to the same RELIGIOUS order is absurd. It should also be noted that when an Egytian paper published the same images no such furore occurred. It's only disrespect if the non faithful publish images? Such wonderful double standards. "Jylland-Postens has historically been associated with the minister's Venstre party.." I'm more shocked that you seem to think newspapers are some paragon of journalistic integrity with no affiliated bias. Major papers are biased, simple. Again, such things are not exclusive. It is not a political party run paper, it may have a political party bias. Likewise it can publish to certain spectrums and still employ other reasoning i.e. satire. All such correlations are fun to look at but prove very little. To give an example, we could look at their staff and see what % of staff were Muslim and from that infer they were actively biased in hiring non Muslims. It may well be a strong negative correlation, but still a useless conclusion to draw. "Wow. Impressive generalizations here. Sure Islamic cultures can be misogynistic, so can all cultures.." I never implied it was especially unique. "If misogyny is such an Islamic problem, why have two of the largest Muslim countries in the world, Bangladesh and Pakistan, voted women into power as prime minister while we here in the US are hearing questions like "are we really ready for a woman in the Oval Office" i.e. Do not make broad statements yet apply my narrow examples to broad statements. You have simply contradicted yourself. Benazir Bhutto was assasinated in case you forgot. By Muslims. I in no way imply all Islamic nations are homogenous. Albanian Muslims are far different to Middle Eastern Muslims, again different to Indonesian Muslims etc. The underlying themes however rarely change. I'm in full support of Pakistan and Bangladesh having female PMs but that is not the norm for the majority of Islamic nations or cultures. My opponent thinks that newspapers are some cultural entity removed from the processes it reports upon. If a newspaper does not sell copies it simply ceases to exist. Does this mean Jylland-Posten sought to publish cartoons purely for financial or political gain? Absolutely not. The very asking by the editor for the cartoons was a constructive criticism in itself of Islamic tradition. Did the cartoons publish any falsities? Again no. Did it try and hide what its dual purposes was? Again no. It was social satire, newspapers commonly employ it. Cartoonist become famous for it. It is a valid form of protest and its protests against Islam were equally valid. It certainly has no responsibility to any minority group for self censorship. For some of the cartoonists, it was an expression of something deeply felt and personal. From one of the cartoonists themselves with a follow-up piece. http://ibloga.blogspot.com... "It is me on the right. My head is about to explode of anger concerning the insult to my person. At the same time I am angry about the actions of terror in New York, Madrid and London. I had a special personal relation to New York. I loved to sit in the wonderful bookstore, Borders, in the World Trade Center. To the left I have added the old drawing of Mohammad, because it started it all. The hare symbolizes my own personal courage, which is not that big. It is the part of me, which maybe prefers to get away, and that cannot control everything." - Kurt Westergaard (His family was in hiding after death threats.) Regards, Puck.