Many have opined on the Mohammed cartoon controversy, but perhaps none have captured the real issues involved as succinctly, as eloquently, and as convincingly as has Ed Morrisey:
Freedom of speech necessarily means that people will be offended by its exercise. It makes no sense to guarantee free speech and then demand "voluntary" speech codes designed to take all of the potentially offensive speech out of the marketplace of ideas. Under those circumstances, what freedom does anyone have left? Those who want to exercise speech now have to meet everyone's threshold of offense, which in a global community means 6.5 billion standards.Of course, what we're talking about here isn't refraining from offending everyone, anyway -- we're just talking about meeting the threshold of a group of people based on their capacity for violence. After all, as Kinsley points out, the Muslims themselves have routinely printed the most foul accusations and cartoons about Jews, Christians, and Westerners in general, and they're not proposing to stop. All they're demanding is that we don't offend them, and they're killing people in order to make their point.
Offering respect and restraint in response to violence isn't an act of "maturity" or responsibility, as some argue [e.g. Hugh Hewitt--ed.*]; it's a surrender, and more dangerously, it's an invitation for the violence to spread. After all, when people see that the way to earn "respect" from the West and its media is to commit violence and riot in large numbers, that behavior will begin to repeat itself. That is exactly the reason we don't negotiate with terrorists of any stripe -- and this is no different.
If newspapers print offensive opinions, let the offended protest, boycott, and use free speech to counter with their own opinions. Those actions are a proper exercise in a free society. When the free societies start giving up their right to speak out because of violence, they give up their freedom and tacitly endorse the rule of the bullet and the bomb. In the end, we will all wind up as dhimmis if we allow that to happen.
[* Hugh references supplied; key text bolded.]
Check out Morrisey's entire post, it's a worthy read.
PS—The real irony here is that the very violence intended to squelch these cartoons is the most compelling reason why they must receive maximum circulation; violence must never be seen as an effective antidote to free speech.
Let's make more cartoons on The Prophet.
http://imran.com/media/blog/2006/02/lets-make-new-cartoons-of-prophet.html
Imran
Posted by: Imran Anwar at February 10, 2006 02:04 PM (Permalink)It's not about a couple of drawings of Mohamed.
And as far as insensitive and offensive cartoons go Arab newspaper have long been producing repulsive propaganda not seen since the days of Joseph Goebbels.
See: http://www.fulcrumofdestiny.com/TempleMount.html#Goebbels
Those cartoons of Mohamed first came out in September. The time lag suggests that the current hub-bub is disingenuous. What's the real issue here is Moslem supremacy. Islamic morés will be increasingly imposed the world over, or at least that is the intension. Modern, super-strict interpretations of Shariah are not for over there, they are for everywhere a Moslem foot trods, which these days is everywhere. A world-wide caliphate is the goal, this entire century is the timetable.
President Bush spoke of this awaited caliphate in great detail in a recent speech (which I reposted on my website) While our president doesn't use the word he defines the movement and goals in detail. Cabinet members Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and General John Abizaid, US Central Command did not refrain from naming the return of the seventh century Khilafah (the caliphate) as the long term end of the Long War we are in. (Long War is John Abizaid’s term).
You can read that Presidential speech at my website:
http://www.fulcrumofdestiny.com/Presidential%20Speech.html
Joseph Goebbels was the People's Enlightenment and Propaganda Minister for theThird Reich. He wrote the guidebook that many Islamists are again putting into practice.
First on the propaganda list is "Repeat a lie often enough and people will believe it".
The Second propaganda tactic is to infuse fear into the public mind. That way the very thought of doing something against Shariah or Islam or Moslems is too frightening to think of and the potential consequences too horrible to chance. Beheadings and gruesome mutilation are a useful tool for intimidation. Mutilation is perfect for instilling fear for the victim is a walking advertisement: this could happen to you. It doesn’t have to happen often or even near you. It does have to be highly publicized. Hello Internet.
The third element at work is out and out un-American. Patience. Tenacity. Even... resolve.
None of what Morrisey says makes much sense. His ramblings about "freedom of speech" are irrelevant. The truth is ; unsavoury propoganda cartoons were printed in a mainstream Euro newspaper to deliberately provoke a response from a sector of the world. Many of that sector protested, big deal. Varying idiots from the 1.5 billion people who follow Islam protested violently. Idiots do that kind of thing, nothing unique about that. The protests were mild in comparison to the intolerant violence which occurs in the "Tolerant, Free West" over something a small as following a different soccer team.
http://www.footballsupporters.info/library/library.htm
That whole them and us argument is just bogus.
PS "That is exactly the reason the reason we don't negotiate with terrorists of any stripe"
LOL You wouldn't know where to start with that one!?! But heres a small taster
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/index.htm