Posted on 02/04/2006 6:00:03 PM PST by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
I received an email tonight that epitomizes various tendencies we have seen many times before. A Muslim writes in telling me that he has been very "docile," that he does not support Osama, but now my actions have driven him around the bend. And what exactly have I done now? Why, it's worse than bombing a village "to get osama's deputy": I have defended the cartoons of Muhammad and published them at my website.
This is a common displacement of responsibility. Of course, it rings hollow. If he has really been a peaceful fellow, he will be able to put up with a few cartoons. And this man certainly does have "every right to slur [my] parents and [my] lineage and [my] belief" -- I get a good many emails every day, most of them unprintable, that do just that. While I may not think too highly of those who sent them, I am not going to kill them or threaten to do so. I may despise the artist who depicted Jesus Christ as Osama bin Laden, but that is the sort of thing that happens in a free society. I want others to have the same freedom to express themselves in better ways, even if they may give offense -- but that requires all to be willing to put up with things that offend them. Living in a free society involves both the freedom to give offense and the patience to be offended.
Of course freedom of expression does have limits, but the limit is not and cannot be that that which offends some group is out of bounds. That would rule out virtually everything. The woman in the picture above is exercising her right to speak freely, and she is saying something extraordinarily offensive. In fact, it is a genuine threat. Should she be killed? Jailed? Arrested? Threatened? No, none of those.
Let her talk -- but a society with a sane interest in self-defense would keep an eye on her and her friends. She has announced her approval of what she characterizes as an impending mass murder. Anyone who did so in any other context would be monitored. That's all. Now: how does that compare to these cartoons? Did the Danish cartoonists who drew Muhammad announce their approval of mass murder? Did they recommend killing Muslims or anyone? No. Some of them noted the connection between Islam and violence, a connection jihad terrorists have been anxiously reminding us of day after day after day. And they dared contravene a law which binds none of them as non-Muslims and Danish citizens: the Islamic restriction against drawing the Prophet. If that is going to bring the violent response that the lady above and the writer below hint at, well, it was going to come eventually and would have come sometime with or without the cartoons.
I didn't start it, I am not nurturing it, and I do blame the Muslims who have issued threats of violence, beaten up innocent people, burned flags, called for an International Day of Anger and reacted so disproportionately to the cartoons in other ways. As Ibn Warraq has noted, we in the West have nothing to apologize for and should not apologize. Indeed, we must not apologize, if we would remain free and not be cowed by threats and intimidation. We must not apologize if we hope to preserve the very freedom by which this girl in London and the gentleman below threaten us, and by which all of us can speak and write and think what we believe is true, without submitting to any totalitarian lockstep.
Make no mistake: cartoon rage is a totalitarian impulse, a threat to the basic foundations of our society.
Dear mr.spencer. let me introduce myself. iam a well educated muslim engineer. iam a very patient man who does not get emotionally upset easily. i did not get angry when US recently bombed a village to get osama's deputy. iam also against the principle of osama and his principles. if your jihad watch is against monitoring the ideology of the likes of osama then iam supporting you, but please tell me how do you justify the support given by your website for the newspapers who published the cartoons of the prophet. in what way is that jihad watch. publication of these cartoons have angered the muslims all over and so am i. if you are telling me that freedom of expression means writing and telling anything and everything about anybody regardless of the feelings of the party concerned then do you mean to say that i have every right to slur your parents and your lineage and your belief, and by doing so as per you iam just expressing by freedom of speech. iam mystified.
today i have realised that jihad watch is nothing but hate site of islam in the garb of freedom. but remember one thing your fear is correct islam is the fastest growing religion in the world, how am i sure of it because iam a muslim convert. on the last note this is my first time iam involving myself in these type of issues. just think if insulting our prophet can bring out so much reaction from me who has been docile all this years, then think what this will do to hardcore jihadis from whom you are afraid of. you have started it, you are nurturing it and don't blame the muslims for their actions because not everyone are like me who will spend fifteen minutes and write a e-mail to you and address you as Sir.
Ping
Dear, Mo'- Bite me.
The assumption of responsibility is the first step toward sanity...it is one step too far for islam.
If we know something is insulting because someone tells us it's insulting, and we keep doing it, we really don't care if it insults them, do we?
IOW, we really don't care about them at all.
Immaturity has caused these extreme reactions, and it will take a certain level of maturity to bring them to an end.
The followers of mohammud (may piss be upon him) make the Grand Inquisitor look like a girlie man...
There is something inherently wrong with people who become members of a rock-worshipping death cult, do not believe that Man possesses free will, have no tolerance for other religions (especially those that pre-date theirs), treat women like dirt, and blow up their own (and other) children in the name of their god because they are promised illicit sexual pleasure with pre-pubescent girls.
In other words, they are sick, vile creatures who must be eliminated from the Planet or forced under arms to convert to a more acceptable form of worship because by all reasonable definitions, they are not human.
Rudy G. got plenty of negative guff for trying to address the Maplethorp exhibit.
Islamobabe-Show Us Your T*ts!
L
Except insane.
Fortunately for me, that is a rhetorical question...
I think those placards of the protestors in London qualify as hate speech, and if it were up to me, I would round those people up.
BTTT
btt
I don't want to start a war with anybody.
But if publishing cartoons is going to spark a war, then I think those democrats who have been screaming about how Bush's actions incited peaceful people to hate us owe us a BIG APOLOGY.
Because apparently it takes NOTHING to spark this war. It is odd how I defend muslims to my liberal buddies, telling them that they are insulting good muslims by suggesting that a peaceful people are driven to suicide bombings by simple acts like our presence.
It is time for good muslims leaders to rise up and explain that it is not the very nature of muslim teaching which sparks violence at the first sign of insult.
If they won't, they will confirm the fears of a growing part of the non-muslim population that the so-called "religion of peace" has been sadistically misnamed.
Publishing cartoons that offend, if you don't believe the message, would simply be a cruel exersize.
If the cartoons accurately depict your opinion of the world, then offense is required. People have a right to express negative opinions of the muslim faith.
You might as well insist that all of our women cover themselves, because we KNOW that having them walk around uncovered offends our muslim brethren.
Which is to say -- let's not be deliberately offensive for no purpose, but let's not temper our liberties at the behest of a theocratic movement seeking to impose their religious tenets on us. Because the "no pictures of the Prophet" rule is simply a tenet of their faith, just like the rules about women, and the rules about publicly showing faith for another religion, and drinking, and a bunch of other rules.
Why would you think that, having successfully gotten us to follow any of the tenets of their faith through violence, that they would stop until we all lived in a muslim theocratic state? Which is, by the way, what many muslim leaders preach for our future.
Yes. We hate that, but will defend to the death anyone's right to do so.
today i have realised that jihad watch is nothing but hate site of islam in the garb of freedom. but remember one thing your fear is correct islam is the fastest growing religion in the world, how am i sure of it because iam a muslim convert. on the last note this is my first time iam involving myself in these type of issues. just think if insulting our prophet can bring out so much reaction from me who has been docile all this years, then think what this will do to hardcore jihadis from whom you are afraid of. you have started it, you are nurturing it and don't blame the muslims for their actions because not everyone are like me who will spend fifteen minutes and write a e-mail to you and address you as Sir
Your actions are barbaric, no matter how you justify them. They are born from Pride, the realm of Shaitan. If I beheaded a NYTs reporter every time they offended my faiths and beliefs, rivers of blood would run.
If you and your kind continue down this path, Islam will be destroyed and Mohommed will be remembered as nothing more than a barbaric child-molestor.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.