Comments about ‘Russians ban religious Mickey Mouse’

Wow Russia defending Christianity when the U.S. would never dare trample on "freedom of speech"

Part I

This is very interesting.

Free thought, belief, and speech is something we often promote as the only acceptable standard of human rights. However this, like any other claim, still needs to have reasonable support.

I'm not saying free speech is a weak claim. I believe in such freedom. But we also need to acknowledge the clear problems surrounding the concept and address them.

Threatening someone is not protected, for good reason. Libel is not protected. Sexual harassment is not protected. We could reasonably say that with free speech will come controversial opinions and sometimes ideas that are dangerous.

Can certain philosophies or arguments be poisonous? I think so. I have heard arguments that are very convincing but have highly dangerous outcomes. I think that history proves this claim, with examples like Hitler, and others.

One could say 'then limit THOSE ideas' but this is ineffective, as who has more claim to an idea than anyone else. Atheists have no right to silence the religious, and vice versa.

The problem isn't the painting or poisonous ideas, but how these ideas enter society, how free are the people in relation to mere 'ideas'.

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Part II

When Hollywood readily misrepresents truth, even intentionally promotes the destruction of moral standards that this country has historically stood for, then there is a clear problem.

I picture a small city in ancient times, where a man tries to stir people up to violence and to abandon their long standing moral and religious beliefs.

In such a time, the people may have wanted to banish such a person. I am not entirely convinced, but part of me sees no problem with this paradigm. I believe that everyone has the right to believe what they want. But I also see how a society wanting to live a certain moral standard has the right to preserve that standard.

I often look at certain anarchist / pro-communist / and anti-religious arguments and think 'if you hate everything about the U.S. why don't you move somewhere else?'

I absolutely believe in people's right to freely believe as they will. But those who speak out against the church may be excommunicated. I can't help but wonder if government is no different. "We won't fight your view, but if you don't respect our view, go somewhere else".

Where is the line?

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Part III

I'm not saying we should banish those society doesn't agree with. I firmly believe in the right to property, etc. I simply think that there is merit to the point. I also wonder how to address it.

Threatening someone is not protected. What about threatening the American way, or the way that the majority wants.

Roe V. Wade went directly against what the vast majority of states had in place. Should such power exist with judicial review? Is that not oligarchic, as Thomas Jefferson warned?

I am not offended at this painting. But despite my belief that this man is free to paint it, hang it up, and show people, etc. I also wonder if a city also have the right to say 'we don't welcome that here, we believe it is destructive or promoting to our people an abandonment of the current moral standard.'

Any thoughts here? I realize that few may read this, with the masses of comments here. But I think it's an interesting question and it's something I've been debating for a while.

If LDS and you disagree, consider this- Did God not have a right to cast Lucifer from his presence?

Interesting reversal: this artist disrespects the Christ by putting Mickey Mouse in a setting that only the Christ should occupy; Jon Naughton disrespects the Christ by putting him in settings that he wouldn not occupy.

To quote the artist "This is displaying current reality: the substitution of human spiritual, moral values with mass-cultural values." Apparently it is not current reality to everyone-Hats off to the Russians for taking a stand.