Danish government prepares bill to stop Koran burnings

This does sound like appeasement. If I buy a book, be it a copy of the Koran, 50 Shades of Gray, or anything else then it's my property and I should be able to do with it as I wish. If someone else gets offended, that shouldn't be my problem.

We shouldn't tolerate the intolerant.

I somewhat agree, but there should probably be instances where it's not allowed, similar to hate speech. I'm not sure how Danish law deals with hate speech, but I'd bet speech isn't allowed all the time. If the goal is to induce violence or anger, that should maybe be prevented in some instances.
- Who decides, what's "similar to hate speech"? When I burn my property? That's a slippery slope there. Respect is important, but when the intolerant demand respect with threats, that's blackmail.
- But didn't this recent influx of burnings start when an Iranian refugee burned the quaran in protest against the government he fled from? This doesn't seem to have anything to do with skin color.
What do you think of "no burning any books" That way it's not about catering to a religion, and if you burn a book in your home who's really gonna stop you
- Why dictate what someone can and can't do with their own property?
- What if thwy burn a tablet with the quran in it?

Welcome to the modern world. Where a country can destabilize another country by burning some stupid ass books.

Got to say the 21st century is shaping up to be disappointing. One would have hoped the garbage that was religion would have finally died off already.
- Let me guess, you were a r/atheism member
Do you think that wasn’t possible before? That’s pretty naive. Burn a Bible in medieval Europe and tell me what happens.
- Local anger then forgotten. No one would ever hear about it outside the few people who lived nearby
- Ugabooga the shamans daughter in caveman times, you get kill. Tell me what happens.
  Most countries have already moved out of the medieval age yaknow.
- Unless you did it in front of someone with authority or capacity to spread the word around, not much.
  It's not like we had global media during the plague.
- Emphasis on medieval though. Muslims can drive lambos, they can also arrive in this millennium on other topics.

Laws shouldn't be written to appease any religion.

They absolutely shouldn't but laws occasionally have to be written to prevent racism.
- But religion is not a race...

One upside to the crazy rednecks in the US is that a bill like this would likely see a large uptick in Quran burnings.

Are the Danish generally supportive of something like this? I would be pretty upset about a harmless form of protest being banned because some people in another country were mad about it.

I mean the Danish are the ones burning the books in front of foreign embassies. I think their opinions are mixed.
- The burning is being done by a couple of idiots who wants attention. It isn't something that happens on a regular basis, making the bill even more absurd.
- I imagine the burning is mostly done by immigrants. I really doubt the Danish have reason to pick any one embassy, and most of them won't have a reason to think about the Koran.
Danish chiming in, and while I can't speak for all my countrymen we discussed the topic at work yesterday.
Everyone I talked to had the same mixed feelings.
No, we shouldn't cater to the religious groups who wants to limit free speech because they get offended over someone burning their copy of a religious book.
No, anyone shouldn't burn religious books in public to incite hate and publicly display their (stupid ass) racism.
A quote from a Danish rapper, made some years ago, is currently trending
If we want to show people of the Middle East how great "freedom of expression" is, maybe we shouldn't use it to mock people who don't have it.
So, conclusion is we are torn..
Common conclusion was that everyone should be allowed to burn anything that is legal to burn on their own property. When you take that action into the public, it's okay that it's regulated..
If it's okay that that regulation only applies to religious books... don't know.
- If this law passes, it will only galvanize more and more restriction. Never seen an extremist who took a finger and then didn't ask for the whole arm.
- Yeah this is basically my thought and the thoughts of people I talk to as well. Both sides of the argument have merit and both are kinda shit, but ultimately, if you want your freedom of expression to be left alone don't purposely push the boundaries of it and use it to be a dickhead.
I wouldn't say generally, no.

I assume they will also ban burning of all religious books to be fair?

Yeah the proposal is for all religious texts
- I'm still not really sure if it's a good idea to ban the burnings, since it's apparently how you are supposed to dispose of Qurans in the first place
  https://www.npr.org/2012/02/24/147321213/how-to-properly-dispose-of-sacred-texts
- Blasphemy laws for the modern day.

I read that as "Korean burning" and I was like wow that really got out of hands

Korean barbecue is delicious, I don't understand why anyone would want to stop it
- Are you Hannibal Lecter?

Let's step back and see what this teaches people:

If you threaten violence, and are known to actually commit violence over something stupid, governments will bend to your will.

Is this REALLY the message we want to send? Instead of pandering to these religious clowns, come down hard on anyone who threatens violence - zero tolerance for this shit. Either enter the 21st century and turn your back on ass-backwards caveman thinking, or go back to the the shithole countries that you came from where murdering people over a stupid book is allowed.

Sweden and Denmark love the Saudi money.

Sweden I can get, they need Turkeys approval for NATO membership. Denmark I don't get.

It isn't a slippery slope when you are on it, it is just a slope at that point.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

COPENHAGEN, Aug 25 (Reuters) - The Danish government said on Friday it was proposing legislation that would make it illegal to burn copies of the Koran in public places, part of the Nordic country's effort to de-escalate tensions with Muslim countries.

Denmark and Sweden have seen a string of protests in public in recent weeks where copies of the Koran have been burned or otherwise damaged, prompting outrage in Muslim nations which have demanded the Nordic governments put a stop to the burnings.

The government rejected protests by some Danish opposition parties that said banning Koran burnings would infringe on free speech.

"I fundamentally believe there are more civilised ways to express one's views than burning things," Hummelgaard said.

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen had in July said the government would seek to "find a legal tool" that would enable authorities to prevent the burning of copies of the Koran in front of other countries' embassies in Denmark.

Neighbouring Sweden has also said it is examining ways to legally limit Koran desecrations to reduce tensions after recent threats that led the country's security officials to raise the terrorist threat level.

The original article contains 270 words, the summary contains 191 words. Saved 29%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Fucking assholes and idiots.

In this case everyone involved, the 'victims' included.
- There aren't any "victims" here.
  Maybe the trees, but those are already dead.

The USA protects burning and stomping our own flag, as it should in my opinion. Free expression of dissent against a symbol and what it represents to that person.

Same should hold true for other things. Same with art too, "Piss Christ" made a lot of Christians very angry, but it was protected as artistic expression.

If you feel that the only way your message can be received and understood with its full intended impact is to disrespect a sacred/beloved symbol, you should be allowed to do it.

Stomp a flag, piss on a cross, burn a Koran, spit on a relic. If you own the property, and you aren't tresspassing or directly intimidating somebody, go for it 100%

If I don't like a student's work, would I be allowed to burn a copy of it in front of their peers? Nope, it would probably get me fired as it would be seen as personal animosity towards a student.

How about the work of another academic? Sketchy ground - I'd have to genuinely hate them to consider their work as worth nothing more than smoke. Then again, I should probably burn a copy of the original anti-vax "paper" to make a point to students about bad studies and how scholars feel about such authors. I suspect my inbox would be filled with anti-vax hate by the end of the day if it reached social media.

Overall, I'd argue that book burning shouldn't be banned, but also that it isn't effective. All it does is hand corrupt theocracies the cry of "see, those heathen book burners hate you all - you should purge them in holy fire". It doesn't drive change towards a more progressive government, and merely ensures that the rule of dictatorship finds its way to our shores.

It is a protest that defeats itself.

Burning someone's work would most often just make you seem deranged. But don't muddy the waters here, the key point is it must be legal. And if someone wants to make it illegal, that's the rare good reason to actually do it.
- On that we agree!
Private sector backlash != state backlash

I suspect that you could burn Korans all winter and suffer no ill effects as long as you didn't go out of your way to tell people you are doing it.

So what we're really talking about is being deliberately provocative to a particular immigrant population.

I don't like religion, any religion but I think that you can't police what goes on between people's ears.

Also, I don't like racists pretending it's about the religion when it's about the skin colour.

- Come again, boss?

I don't have the full story on what the hell is going on with the Qur'an, but I personally think it's the right thing to do to stop people from being able to burn holy texts as I not only oppose book burnings in general but it's disrespectful to burn a holy book as it is- to me at least- a sign you do not respect that culture the book comes from.

I'm definitely not religious and really don't care if you are or aren't, but it's also really trashy in my opinion when you specifically do it in front of practicers of that religion or their holy site.

Have you thought about the implications and consequences if we start banning non-violent expressions of opinions because someone else might find it disrespectful?
- This feels like a "slippery slope" argument.

I can’t believe people are arguing for burning books here like medieval morons. Torah, Quran, Bible, Encyclopedia, doesn’t matter. If it incites violence and civil unrest, it should be controlled and people should be discouraged from it. This is no different than literally any other law. Wtf?

"The government should control all of our actions to prevent civil unrest, it's for the greater good!"
- Can people stop trying to reduce the real world to absurd black and white positions??
  Like you could use this smooth brained argument to the extreme to protest literally any law ever.
- “The government should allow me to shoot people in the face, because otherwise it’s stepping on my personal freedoms”
  Stop trying to justify xenophobia and/or dislike for religion.
So if I cause enough of a problem I can bend the will of the government.
I'm going to create a religion that gets offended that you exist, and we'll riot until that's illegal then?
- Do you really think those 2 positions are equivalent?
  Like the difference between somebody being racist and somebody being offended by an action designed to offend them? Also plenty of religions don't like certain groups and protest about them but we don't give in because the world is not black and white like that. Conceding that maybe allowing people to burn religious texts of the biggest religions in the world for the sole purpose of offending those people is not a productive thing to allow in a modern society does not mean we must then concede every demand any religious body makes.
- If there’s a group of people with a legitimate concern, a government should hear you out and make an assessment.
  You as a single person can choose to do whatever you want within reason and what’s permitted by law.
  You can continue to misconstrue this further however you like, but burning books is barbaric. We’re past that point as civilized society. But feel free to continue to argue for it behind the veneer of “freedom” or whatever else you can come up with.
Some people believe that women should be under the supervision of a man at all times. Not doing so might incite civil unrest. Where do you draw the line? I draw it at no appeasements because unless people have it their they will keep complaining. Teaching them that outrage gets results is a moral hazard.
- People can chose to believe whatever they want. It’s the actions and the consequences that matter in a society. If burning a book becomes an act of inciting violence, then it should be reviewed, discussed and a law should come out of it as a consequence which discourages such an act. That’s how civilized societies should work which deem equality as a fundamental right for everyone.
  Your hypothetical scenario is just that and we can spend days going back and forth. We are talking about a real problem here.
The violence is already there, this just somehow compels it to show it.