Posted on 02/04/2006 2:42:34 PM PST by Cornpone
The author needs to be reminded that when this happens, Christians never question the right of the artists to produce the work, but took the position that public money, which includes from Christians, should not have been used to pay for the offensive art. What muslims are criticizing is the right to produce the work.
They bait Muslims and risk inciting hatred by equating Islam with terror and evil.
Sounds right to me.
My wife always comments on this when she sees the terrorists with the socks over their heads. "What, are they too cowardly to show their faces?"
Don't stand in a puddle when you throw the switch.
Yes, they have, or at least ought to have the right to publish offensive material, but that right demands the responsibility to accept the consequenses when offended peoople raise hell about it.
He's absolutely right that there is hip-deep hipocrisy all around this one...
In general this is quite true, and I certainly agree with the take that many are expressing on this - i.e., that this is the illustration of the coming conflict with the Muslim world. their views are incompatible with democracy and individual rights. They are incredibly intolerant - and you have to believe that while there are plenty of intelligent people in Iran, for example, the spastic reaction on the street to this cartoon matter is really a function of a type of illiteracy. Perhaps they can read - but you have to questions what have they been reading? Only the Koran?
However - I was just thinking about a specific counterexample from many moons ago that was quite humorous. In Chicago - an art student portrayed the late mayor Harold Washington in a less than flattering light, and, well the result was something akin to the Muslim reaction to the "offensive" cartoons.
Harold Washington, Chicago's first black mayor, died suddenly of a heart attack in November 1987, shortly after being reelected. He had become a revered figure to the black community of Chicago — so much so that shortly after his death a poster went on sale in which a smiling Harold Washington is shown in the company of Jesus Christ floating above the Chicago skyline; the poster is captioned "Worry Ye Not." David Nelson, a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, did not think Washington deserving of deification, and so for his entry in the school's annual fellowship competition Nelson submitted a painting intended (he claims) to portray Washington in a more human light. The painting, entitled "Mirth and Girth" and based on a rumor that doctors at the hospital to which Washington had been brought when he suffered his fatal heart attack had discovered that underneath his suit he was wearing female underwear, is a full-length frontal portrait of a portly grim-faced Harold Washington clad in a white bra and G-string, garter belt, and stockings.
For the full recount of the case see: http://www.ncac.org/artlaw/op-nel.html
I remember the incident.
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