this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2023
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The burners are not causing problems. They're exposing a sickness that these individual people have in their minds. A healthy person doesn't try to hurt someone just because they're offended.
These sick people who would hurt someone for burning a book are the same sort that would throw acid on a woman for some bullshit medieval family honor, for example.
Better to incite them and get them arrested and perhaps even deported before they're allowed to hurt anyone. It shows you won't tolerate it in your society.
Hell, it may even encourage more moderate Muslims to move to that country if they know that the society doesn't tolerate the actions of the small, insane minority. The Muslims that believe in liberal ideals like freedom of expression are exactly the type of immigrants that make a society stronger and we should encourage them.
All this law will do is allow that unhinged mental illness to rest, in secret, before coming out in some other toxic way.
I'm not saying that the book burners are being entirely altruistic here. I wouldn't be surprised if they honestly hated all Muslims. But it is their right to express it without hurting anyone. This feels more like a "broken clock is right twice a day" sort of situation.
I get that. But I think the danger is from outside the country, so they aren't going to be arrested.
They can be arrested or just refused entry if they are known to be connected to extremist groups. They should be screened as any other person traveling to Denmark.
If we let them, especially external actors, influence our domestic policy, then they win. Look at what happened to the USA after 9/11. The terrorists won and it's proof that terrorism works. Not only do the people capitulate to the terrorists, but bad domestic actors use it as a means to push some other (anti freedom) agenda.
The alternative is just laying down and letting medeival assholes decide domestic policies of the secular world. Don't let terrorism win.
Personally this feels like a contradiction.
State surveillance measures taken after 9/11 is part of the anti-freedom agenda to me. To effectively screen or establish connection to an extremist groups requires enhanced surveillance for effectiveness and arresting anyone with even a distant connection seems dubious (what type of connection, family, friends, being tricked into going to one meeting, etc). The people defining what an "extremist group" is can also be nefarious if bad actors are in play (think of the anti-communism/socialism scare that is portrayed in the recent Oppenheimer flick).
Exposing and healing are not the same thing. They are fanning the flames, reducing neither the behaviour nor its causes. They're handing out meth to junkies.