Folks on DU have totally changed my mind.

[LiberalAndProud]

Eric Rudolph was totally provoked. I mean really, if you chum the waters, sharks will attack.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Good God, where did you get that?

I think most of us find Islamophobia pretty objectionable but who is justifying the resultant actions of lunatics?

There are no winners here. There are only losers. In both the metaphorical and literal senses.

[wingzeroday]

3. Go read

Go read some of the threads. There are people calling for charges against the people who held the event. There are also people calling it entrapment and wondering why the two attackers are being referred to as "gunmen" like they have never heard the expression before.

[Jackpine Radical]

10. I haven't exactly been wholly absorbed by this mess,

but I bet if you were to accurately poll DU, most people would pretty much agree with my comment. Deplorable (but Constitutionally protected) behavior followed by insane, indefensible violence.

I really wish people could avoid sticking their fingers in the collective eyes of other ethnic/religious/racial/sexual-identity groups, but I stand with Voltaire: Whether I like it or not, they have a right to do it.

Nobody has the right to kill another over an insult, no matter how grievous the insult.

[wingzeroday]

14. "I bet if you were to accurately poll DU"

This is a valid point. I will concede that some of the posters in question may be parody trolls and do not accurately represent any actual sincerely held political viewpoint.

[Jackpine Radical]

16. I think some people post nutzo stuff here just to cite it elsewhere as a sample of our thinking.

The idea that anyone would excuse killers because of "provocation" just smacks of RW stereotyping. You wouldn't believe the stuff My Favorite Wingnut sends me as examples of what he imagines to be "outrageous libberul" doctrine. They somehow imagine us to be some sort of genetically modified descendants of Satan, Stalin and Pol Pot.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

4. No one is 'justifying the resultant actions'.

But people are acknowledging that anyone smarter than a fifth grader could have expected this sort of reaction in the wake of Charlie Hebdo, and that, indeed, Pamela Gellar DID expect this result, which is why they had such heavy security. Likewise, the doubling down on Islamophobic hate speech in the wake is entirely predictable.

[LiberalAndProud]

18. ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026616144#post64

I'm not picking on one poster. This is just one example among many.

The minute someone says we should sit down and shut up, I take umbrage.

[wingzeroday]

2. Same here

How about an interracial couple holding hands in some conservative teaparty racist backwater town?


They would be TOTALLY asking for it.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

5. I'm pretty sure that interracial couple isn't holding hands so they can get attacked.....

....but rather because, you know, they love each other.

But thanks for playing.

[wingzeroday]

6. They would be provoking

Socially conservative right wing extremists.

Which is a big no no apparently.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

9. Um, yeah.

But an interracial couple who holds hands that provokes bigots to violence aren't doing it to provoke violence.

On the other hand, this was Pam Geller's exact purpose for this entire stunt. I'm not sure why people don't understand the vast difference between the two scenarios.

[wingzeroday]

15. Take

Take a group like The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (or a host of other provocative groups) who are intentionally being provocative towards Catholics.

If they were attacked by rifle wielding Christians would you blame them for the violence directed against themselves?

[Tommy_Carcetti]

20. If it was a society where Christians were known as quick to violence over offense....

....and the intended purpose of that group was to provoke those Christians to violence in order to justify their claims that all Christians were inherently violent individuals, then yes.

If it was just some dipshit Christian taking offense out of the blue, then no.

There are additional factors at play here to be considered.

[wingzeroday]

22. Ok

In our society are Muslims quick to violence over offense (real or perceived)? I don't believe that to be the case.

Do you? Honest question.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

23. Most of them are not. A few of them are.

You play with the hand you have, not the one you want. And it's not worth risking public safety of innocent to try to validate some pre-existing belief.

[wingzeroday]

25. Where

Would someone draw the line at causing offense? Would a convention of atheists (such as the American Atheists National Convention) having a speaker state that there was no God (Thus creating offense by denying the Koran) rise to the level?

[muriel_volestrangler]

26. What do you think of the marches from Selma to Montgomery?

Was that provocation? Do you blame them for the attacks by the known far-right on them?

[Bluenorthwest]

24. I've seen DUer's claim that LGBT people are 'brazenly falunting' our rights and thus angering

religious people and costing the Democratic Party victories. So they do in fact claim, even so called liberals on DU, that merely being a couple is a provocative act. This was the first post I read the morning after the last election, the DUer who wrote it is still on DU:
"The openness and brazenness of the LBGT agenda and the media flaunting of gay marriages all across the country cost Dems dearly and threatens to do so in the future."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025764803#post45

[zappaman]

17. You are sooooo far of the mark, it's astounding.

[wingzeroday]

21. Way back when

I was in Times Square and had stopped to observe a group of individuals who were shouting on a stage. It was interesting. I had never heard of them before but apparently they were known as Black Hebrew Israelites. Pretty extreme stuff which seemed to be focused on killing people based upon skin color.

Anyway an interracial couple went close to the front of the stage and started kissing which resulted in a host of threats from the group. I ran into one of them at CB's (of all places) and jokingly asked him where his microphone was. He laughed and said he was "not on the clock" right now. It takes all types I suppose.

This memory has nothing to do with anything really. But thank you for your post. I think I am just in a cranky mood today.

[G_j]

7. if someone took a pot shot at a Westboro Baptist

Church demonstration at a funeral. Would people say they were asking for it? I don't know.

[cwydro]

8. Oh dear.

Please don't rise to the bait that is floating around here today.

[Maedhros]

11. I will defend to my last breath the right of ANYONE to say or draw ANYTHING.

I will not put anti-Islamic racist cretins up on a pedestal.

[LiberalAndProud]

13. Who is?

Clearly they were asking for a violent response, and they got it. That's not snark, that's truth.

They are vile provocateurs. But we all have the ability to monitor our response to provocation.
What we need is a big coliseum to give the zealots a venue.

[cali]

12. your op really doesn't deserve the dignity of a response, but.....

this is just so absurd.

Pamela Geller is a hate monger of the worst kind. She absolutely set this up to be as provocative as possible. For pity's sake, she even held her little hatefest shindig at the same location as a Pro-Islamic meeting and has said she did so on purpose.

This is a woman who founded two groups that the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as hate groups. she wants a war and has said so. She calls Muslims "monsters" and "perverts" and worse. She has called President Obama a jihadist, a secret Muslim and... worse.

In Her Own Words
"Islam is not a race. This is an ideology. This is an extreme ideology, the most radical and extreme ideology on the face of the earth."
— Pam Geller On Fox Business' "Follow the Money," March 10, 2011

"Obama is a third worlder and a coward. He will do nothing but beat up on our friends to appease his Islamic overlords."
— Pam Geller, AtlasShrugs.com, April 13, 2010

"Hussein [meaning President Obama] is a muhammadan. He's not insane … he wants jihad to win."
— Pam Geller, AtlasShrugs.com, April 11, 2010

<snip>

Geller uses her website to publish her most revolting insults of Muslims: She posted (and later removed) a video implying that Muslims practiced bestiality with goats and a cartoon depicting the Muslim prophet Mohammad with a pig's face (observant Muslims do not eat pork). Geller also has denied the genocide of Bosnian Muslims by Serbian forces in Srebrenica – calling it the "Srebrenica Genocide Myth," even though the Serbian government itself issued a state apology for the massacre. She wrote, "Westerners are admitting to their role in something that didn't happen, and digging their own graves."

Geller will ally with virtually any individual or movement that expresses stridently anti-Muslim sentiments, no matter how otherwise repugnant. As a result, she has frequently rubbed shoulders with elements of white radicalism. In 2009, Geller was invited to address the German far-right organization Pro Köln [Cologne], described as a successor group to the neo-fascist German League for People and Homeland. Pro Köln at the time was under investigation by the German authorities because of its defamation of foreigners and suspected violations of "human dignity." As of early 2011, Pro Köln was officially deemed a right-wing extremist group by the German authorities.

<snip>

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/profiles/pamela-geller

[muriel_volestrangler]

27. You're not really responding to the OP

You're just pointing out what a horrible person Geller is. That's not relevant. Being a horrible person does not mean she loses her freedom of speech, or of safety. The 2 gunmen made a conscious plan to drive from another state and start shooting people. The analogy to "putting chum in the water at a public beach", which was made on DU, is ridiculous and stupid.

[LanternWaste]

19. Geller certainly baited more than merely two gunmen. Good Ms, Geller. Good job, indeed.

Geller certainly baited more than merely two gunmen. Good Ms, Geller. Good job, indeed.