Satan has worked his way into most popular music.

When you sing a song, you use that song to express your feelings, and he obviously wants to murder gays.

What other meaning or reason does this person have for saying such things?

Craig, here is the quote from Milton’s Areopagitica: “…Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter? Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing…”

`Her’ in this case refers to `Truth”, from the previous sentence in the essay.

I think the opposite to you in demanding historical and social contexts, by which I presume you mean consistency with these contexts. If you demand such consistency you also reject the US constitution because many, perhaps most of its pioneers were slave owners; you reject Plato and the other great Greek thinkers because they were of the leisure class in a slave state; you reject Churchill because he allied with the Soviet Union; you reject Einstein’s anti-nuclear sentiments because he was a Zionist and Israel probably has the bomb; you may even have to reject Maori leaders’ signing the Treaty of Waitangi because Maori legal tradition at that stage wasn’t much beyond club and spear.

As for Milton finding present day NZ repulsive, the same might be true of many or most people moved over four centuries or more, Catholics as well as Puritans. What would the Greek founders of democracy have thought of our Parliament?

Milton was advanced in many of his views. For example he was an early supporter of the right of people to divorce.

Biomag83 – I was reading some jihadi websites over the weekend and saw oen post that said that ‘our mujaheed brothers in UK, Europe, Canada, Australia and New zealand’ would take heart at Hasan’s killings in the US. Wouldn’t suprise me if we did have Al Q cells here already – either freelance or franchised.

That’s scary stuff, Brian.
Quite sobering to think we may have radical Muslim elements in good ol’ Godzone.
I’d be keen on the links to that info for my records – if you have it handy.

No doubt deniers like Luc will continue to say that Islam is no threat to NZ. Not until our first home soil Muslim act of terrorism. And even then he’ll have some excuse absolving the terrorists of their actions.

big bruv (4875) Vote: 46 3 Says:
November 15th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
How is it that so many can express outrage at the comments of this Beenie man chap yet remains strangely silent when our own John Harawira calls the vast majority of people in New Zealand ‘White motherfuckers’?

Strangely silent? Have you been on Mars or something?

Anyway, a large enough group protest, BDO realise the error of their ways, they uninvite him.

Well done all.

I reply:
Like hell he did — and Milton would have found “a democracy, like NZ”, with its tolerance for Catholics and Jews and its manifold libertine errors, deeply repulsive. I think it does help discussion if we don’t distort Milton by removing him, and his work, from their historical and social contexts.

I’ve very sorry if your bridge has been flooded out, but couldn’t you go get down with your troll self somewhere else?

Meanwhile, I’d really like Chauvel to take a deep breath and have a good think about what he’s demanding Kate Wilkinson do. I wonder what he’d have to say if a certain Robert Nesta Marley had been denied a visa to enter New Zealand in 1979 because of his lyrical advocacy of use of a certain controlled substance?

Charles also need a history lesson of the way bookstores and gay/lesbian right groups were routinely subjected to Customs and Police harassment if they tried to import books, no matter how inoccuous, if they just had the words “homosexual” in the title! Using the power of the state to censor unfashionable speech isn’t quite so attractive when you’re on the receiving end, rather than dishing it out.

Milton included of course “in free and open encounter”.

That means in a democracy, like NZ.

I think anti-hate speech laws and moves like Chauvel’s diminish “free and open encounter”.

There was an attempt to slip through anti-hate speech legislation in NZ after our film censors moved to ban some anti-gay film from some born-again Christian group. I think I recall reading somewhere that Stephen Franks was the MP who spotted the provision hidden away in another bill. This led to it being dropped.

DPF is right on this issue, and so was Milton in his famous mention of truth always beating falsehood.

So what you are saying is then, that most have enough intelligence to not listen to something, but make uninformed comment on it anyway?

Thought not.

Anyway, that’s offensive to LGBT – insinuating there is something wrong or necessary to be avoided about homosexuality.

However, those artists are just stupid, and we can laugh at them. There is even a satirical sketch doing so. Sure, we have reasons to find their music repulsive, damaging, and part of a network of homophobic sentiment; but you don’t catch Lil Wayne telling his audience to hang or stab their gay and lesbian peers.

But what we have here with Beenie Man is a case of hate-speech that has gone beyond offense into the realm of endorsing violence. As per what was said about “gay men that come from America and other places and kidnap young Jamican boys as sex slaves” well that is abhorrent, as was the slavery of the Jamaicans by the predominantly heterosexual colonizers. But what is relevant is that Beenie Man endorses violence against LGBT in a nation tarnished by its abhorrent violence against LGBT record. His music is part of a system of oppression and violence, and he is an insufficient non-redundant part of necessary and sufficient causes for the actual murder and violence against gays. To me, that is enough in itself to justify banning him, and his ilk.

Homos are far too easily offended.
….

Most people just suck it up and get on with life without whining.

Interesting choice of words.