Language professors do not hate the late Pimsleur: a few admire him, most have never heard of him. I keep seeing this dumb ad all the time.
No one can ban the publication of even crap like this stupid "movie" for which the trailer is all that exists. If the goal was to piss off Muslims, it accomplished the goal, and no laws have been broken that would not be overturned. Most religions are chock full of silly stuff that is ignored by the faithful and stressed by at least some members of competing religions, and so we have the Freedom of Religion as well as the Freedom of the Press thing protecting the creators of hateful drivel.
In the US our unwritten policy is "don't mess with my magical horseback rides and I won't mess with your virgin births, etc." It is not something that might go over well on Planet Vulcan, but it works here most of the time.
Protecting religions from even logic is a difficult chore. Religions should have to fend for themselves. Deliberately provoking Muslims or anyone is certainly antisocial behavior that benefits no one. But it is clearly legal. It is probably entirely legal to scribble a swastika (or hammer and Sickle, Muslim crescent or Scientology symbol) on your own house or car as well. I am not sure what would happen if someone did this. I certainly would not try it to find out. I bet something about "neighborhood values" and "residential zoning" would be invoked. It would be unconstitutional, but not worth the bother.
No one hates free speech if they agree with it. Muslims and all churches hate any sort of speech which they believe goes against the truth of God or his appointees. Free speech is a recent idea in human history and originates in the "Age of Enlightenment". It, of course, has its advantages and disadvantages. Generally it is beneficial if a society honors free speech. Those who oppose it generally do so because they believe that the truth belongs to God and everyone should embrace it, and untruth comes from Satan and should be silenced, rather like throwing out rotting garbage. The difficulty is that God does not make frequent appearances in which He promotes His sacred and divine truth. It is possible that he has never done so. It is even possible that He simply isn't. Some Muslims are primitive and believe that the only way to promote Allah is to wreak violence upon those who do not believe. It has not been all that long ago that Christians did the same thing.
Silencing "God's enemies" simply does not work. It only silences dissenters at best. Time has proven this.
Plane is right: the dialog does not match up with the lip synch in much of this film. A lot of the time you cannot see anyone's lips. The backdrop of the desert and mountains are some sort of digital image, and the actors seem to have been filmed against a green screen. When they appear to walk in the sand, they leave no footprints.
If 100 investors paid $5 million for this, they were duped. I question all the publicity about this film's creation. I would say that what is on Youtube could be produced for under $5000, even if they paid the actors.
If the Egyptian Coptic who allegedly made this is here illegally, they can and will and probably should deport him (on grounds unrelated to the film). Otherwise, he will get away with it.
Banning this would be a violation of free speech and perhaps religious liberty. I agree that we do not need a law against making even dumb, inciteful bad videos.
We will need to beef up embassy security.
