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February 03, 2006
Cartoon Angers Muslims
Do you think the world is whimpish when it comes to dealing with these "always" angry, "always" threatening, "always" hypersensitive Muslim radicals?
Take this latest "cartoon" incident from Denmark. A magazine runs a contest for political cartoons and the next thing you know Muslims...
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all over Europe and the Mid-east are marching in the streets, decrying how one of the cartoons has made a mockery of the Prophet Mohammad. Mobs of defiant, outraged Muslims are calling for reprisals, just like the time when a story broke that Marine guards were flushing the Koran down the toilet, an absurdly silly story, but it proved one thing, there's a very thin line between Muslim radicals and their brother Muslims who seem to be almost as volatile.
How many times have we seen news about angry mobs in Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Indonesia and beyond, protesting something western or burning the America flag or burning effigies of whoever happens to be our President at the time? Those same mobs, cheered on by government leaders, called us the "Great Satan" and chanted "Death to America" and what do we do in response to all this irrational non-sense? Nothing.
We hold no counter-protests, there's no breaking off from diplomatic relations, there are no calls for censorship, we don't fire bomb their cars. We do absolutely nothing to retaliate. However, we may try to understand where they are coming from and try to make allowances for our cultural and religious divide. Actually, we do that a lot, don't we? But, if one little magazine publishes a political cartoon that remotely offends Islamic sensibilities, they flail around like they're having a seizure. Seems like they can dish it out, but they can't take it. Thats a shame, because it only makes things worse for them in the long run. It's causing the world to become increasingly unsympathetic to Muslims and their issues.
Too often we see examples of their religious doctrine colliding with our freedom of the press and freedom of speech and I don't see us giving in on either of those two issues. But, even if we don't agree on that, they can't go around threatening to chop off heads everytime they hear a critical word.
Islam's religious leaders ought do something fairly soon to moderate all this extremism and do some fence mending or they may suddenly find themselves unwelcome in the civillized world. People are becoming increasingly disgusted by their long history of conquest, violence and oppression of basic human rights, not to mention their "mad bomber" approach to diplomacy.
Posted by Post Scripts at February 3, 2006 11:48 AM
Comments
I am so used to the media in this Country %!- -ing on the things I believe in that it makes me laugh that people would burn buildings down over a cartoon. If it has not happened yet, it soon will, President Bush will be blamed for this latest temper tantrum from the Muslims.
I wonder how ---ed off they would be if the National endowment of the arts paid someone to put the Koran in a jar of urine and call it art?
I have a jar, catch me at half time tomorrow for the recycled beer. I think we should see what happens. To say I do not care about Islamic sensibilities would be understating it to the extreme. I guess that proves your point about Muslim protestations and how the world is becoming unsympathetic to them. I was way, way, way, out in front of this trend.
Posted by: Toby Stahler at February 4, 2006 02:13 PM
I am in sympathy with some aspects of Toby's response. Islam is a backward, bigoted, violent, imperilaistic creed with only some slight redeeming social value. Having said that and also taking into account Tobys reference to the Crucifix in the urine jar incident I also think this. The Arabs don't hate us because we are Republicans, they don't even hate us because we defend Israel. The Arabs hate us because we are an anti religious, hedonistic, amoral society that is an anethma to their beliefs. They hate Hollywood and what it stands for even more than American Conservatives because of the anti religious, anti moral agenda it promotes. To them we are poisoning the world with trash culture and in some respects I can't argue with them and I'm not even religious.
Are they over sensitive? You bet, but from their perspective we are blasphemous followers of Satan, Hollywood and Danish satire proves it in their minds. Do Christians react differently when the left wages war on their beliefs. Yep they do. But is it because Christians are tolerant or because they have become lazy?
While Toby is looking for a place to recycle his beer I will be trying to talk my friends into the Lingerie Bowl.
Posted by: Ron Acevdo at February 5, 2006 10:39 AM
It isn't that we are lazy it is that we live in a Country with a plethora of freedoms and for the most part an understanding of what that means.
We allow people to do their thing, even if that thing upsets us but we do not for the most part cross the line and act violently.
I do agree with you about Hollywood being a huge cause of problems in the world. I also find it ironic that liberals run Hollywood while having so much in common with the worlds trouble makers.
Posted by: Toby Stahler at February 5, 2006 08:40 PM