Wednesday, 8 March 2006 - 6:17 AM CST

You keep saying this is about free speech, but you seem to take free speech to mean that no one is supposed to take offense at anything freely-spoken, regardless how offensive, how grossly politically-incorrect. A person may well chafe under the constraints of politically-correct speech, but he shouldn't be surprised at the results if he decides to call someone a nigger. The Danish cartoonists were ignorant, insensitive dumbasses. The newspaper published deliberately-offensive cartoons. People were greatly offended. Duh.

Our most famous American terrorist organization, the KKK, prominently employs Christian symbols, including the burning cross, yet no one ever describes the KKK as "Christian terrorists." Their aim - post 1915 - was the preservation of white Christian social-cultural mores and a white supremacist social order, which they called "Americanism." They recruited fundamentalist white clergy (imams) by giving them free dues and positions of leadership and they used churches for their meetings. If you are aware of anyone who claims that the lynchings of the KKK arose from the teachings of Christ, please let us know. I'm also not aware of anyone claiming that something evil at the heart of Christianity spawned the Third Reich, the Christian sectarian violence in N. Ireland, or the Oklahoma City bombings.

Wednesday, 8 March 2006 - 10:42 AM CST

Rider:

You don't know that those Danish cartoonists were bigots at all. In fact, all that's known was that they were provocateurs.

The point you keep missing is that the whole cartoon project printed in Jyllands Posten was meant to illuminate the climate of fear amongst journalists, artists, and thinkers -a concern that any political incorrectness toward Islam might end up with a Theo VanGogh-style murder in the street by a fanatical killer.

This point needed to be addressed. Even if it took a less-than reputable paper (and I can't say that Jyllands Posten fits that description, having not read the paper)using racist cartoons to cast a light on the situation.

There should not be a tolerance for the kind of fanatical, psychotic behavior that erupts from the Muslim community over anything in the media. We should not have to fear street riots, public stabbings, embassy burnings, and the like over a film, a book, or a cartoon.

One of those cartoons showed an artist with his brow covered in sweat, watching fearfully over his shoulder as he drew a picture of a man I'm assuming is meant to be the prophet Mohammed. That cartoon was the least racist of the lot. That one was, in my opinion, the one that best addressed the situation.

You are right to fight against bigotry, and I commend you for your attempt to defend those who don't have a voice of their own in our discourse, but I feel you are missing the biggest part of this issue:

Even as their defender, you are still American. The people who freak out and firebomb embassies over cartoons in foreign newspapers would gladly behead you in their fervor without ever considering the possibility that you might be on their side of the issue.

Defend Islam. But defend free speech, too. The kind of hate and intolerance fostered by potentially racist cartoonists doesn't even come close to the level of irrational, murderous, and genocidal hatred spewed by the goons who were offended by them.

Peace and tolerance are the highest of ideals, and should be pursued, but not at the expense of reason.

Respect for Islam shouldn't have to equal fear of Islam. That fear is not the wild fantsy of the Western bigot. That fear is grounded in fact.

Wednesday, 8 March 2006 - 11:40 AM CST

I didn't say they were bigots. I said the cartoonists were "ignorant, insensitive dumbasses." I think they were stupid if free speech was what they were supporting. You know, that's like someone saying, "I'm freaking sick and tired of having to be so goddam careful not to say "nigger" around black people. We have free speech in this country, and if I want to say "jigaboo," by God I'll say it!" [Go for it, Patrick Henry. And keep shouting "Free speech!" as you spit your teeth out.]

The cartoons quickly went from being about free speech to fodder for the "clash of civilizations" people, the Islamofascists vs. the Islamophobicfascists.

If you do or say something that is sufficiently offensive to followers of any religion, though they be from widely disparate schools of thought, they will cry out in outrage with a single voice. So, if someone is trying to prove by this that Islam is sick or twisted that is crap. The shocker? These people are human.

Al Qaeda, the salafists, the wahabis, the radical Islamists want their followers to believe that everything they see is about a global clash between the civilizations of the West and the faith of Islam. These are the terrorists. What they say is a lie. We do not have to accept their ideology and define ourselves in their terms in order to defend ourselves against them. Anybody claiming to be on our side who promotes that same idea is not only playing into their lie but unwittingly promoting it. The "clash of civilizations" folks are the real dhimmis. They are Al Qaeda sympathizers.

Wednesday, 8 March 2006 - 8:33 PM CST

Fuck you you fascist faggot.

Wednesday, 8 March 2006 - 9:52 PM CST

Rider:

Anybody claiming to be on our side who promotes that same idea is not only playing into their lie but unwittingly promoting it. The "clash of civilizations" folks are the real dhimmis. They are Al Qaeda sympathizers.

If your ideological strategy for the next few decades is to pretend that we aren't in a clash of civilizations, then I think you're bound for disaster.

The idea of perpetual war between the secular West and medievalist Islam sounds awful, but there are a lot of mistakes out there that are going to have to be fixed.

Iran, for instance, is begging to be flattened.

Thursday, 9 March 2006 - 9:41 AM CST

TP, the so-called "clash of civilizations" - meaning a global showdown between Western civilization and Islam - is nothing but a big, old Nr. 7 galvanized tub of hog slop. Where did anyone ever get such an idea? Who says we are heading for a "clash of civilizations"? That is the stuff of Al Qaeda or salafist recruiting sermons, for pity's sake. WTF? Does that mean we have to believe it? We certainly have to be a lot smarter about defending ourselves against the bad guys that have always been out there and about understanding the enemy, but America is not under existential threat from Islamic terrorism. It is nothing we cannot handle. The Muslim countries of the world (the majority of which are non-Arab, btw) are not the new Soviet Union. Islam is not the new international communist conspiracy. We certainly don't need to give a single rat's ass about what those idiots think is the nature of their struggle. Who gives a flying fuck what they say it's all about?

Please read the informative post by Juan Cole on the WP-ABC poll which shows on-third of the American people believe Muslims are more prone to violence. That the American people have been manipulated to that extent and led that far down the road of bigotry is a disgrace. The people who are doing this have their own anti-Arab and Islamophobic agenda(s), and they do not have OUR best interests at heart. They give aid and comfort to Osama bin Laden, who is probably praising Allah that American bigots are actually taking the bait. Isn't it time we did something that was in our interest for a change, instead of good for Osama bin Laden? How dumb can we get?

Iran will have to be dealt with. But whatever happens will not about Islam or Islamic civilization or medievalism or the Quran or sharia; it will be about nuclear counter-proliferation!

Sunday, 12 March 2006 - 10:53 PM CST

Rider:

"If you do or say something that is sufficiently offensive to followers of any religion, though they be from widely disparate schools of thought, they will cry out in outrage with a single voice. So, if someone is trying to prove by this that Islam is sick or twisted that is crap. The shocker? These people are human."


I'm with you on the idea that racial provocation isn't what free speech is for. You must admit, however, that if the roles were reversed, the Danes probably wouldn't be burning down an embassy or killing anyone for having been portrayed as an ugly stereotype in even the most distasteful and insulting cartoon. It's true. Generally speaking, the Dames have a far more civilized society and are less culturally predisposed to doing something psychotic if you insult them.

Get over everyone else's racism long enough to realize those feelings are merely a reaction to the extremism and institutionalized violence that characterizes the followers of that religion more than others.

Understand that not everyone who has a problem with fundamental religion has a racist agenda. Some of us are just realistic enough to know a dangerous psychopath when we see one, and not try to dismiss him as 'misunderstood' and to view him as the pitiable victim of injustice. Some of us are smart enough to recognize a hazard and call society's attention to it before it claims another victim.