The Liberty Papers

No, not the WWI command given to soldiers when they left the trenches to charge into the machine guns. I’m talking about the reaction of Muslims to the cartoons published by a Danish newspaper last September. As I’ve discussed earlier, the reactions of violence and anger have proved the point of the cartoons that portray Islam as a violent religion. The violence has escalated from protests and individual gunmen, or small groups, seeking out Danes and Norwegians to kidnap, to rioters burning the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Syria. On a side note, I would suggest that anyone who thinks those riots were not allowed, even encouraged, by the Syrian government hasn’t paid much attention to reality in the Middle East.

First, a piece of advice to Muslims. Stop worrying so much about what someone who doesn’t believe in your religion does. After all, if your religion is true, those cartoonists have committed blasphemy and will pay the price for their sin. In the meantime, it doesn’t hurt you at all. They have not caused you to violate your religion, nor even urged you to. So, chill out. Or, as another religion’s teachings say, worry about the stick in your eye before worrying about the sliver in mine. Because, if your religion is actually one of peace, you are violating it with the riots, attacks, and destruction of property that you are committing.

In the meantime, we in the West need to stand firm. Messages like the Washington Post is reporting need to stop:

“The right to freedom of thought and expression . . . cannot entail the right to offend the religious sentiment of believers,” the Vatican said in a statement.

That’s complete bull. If you can’t offend the sacred cows and the naked emperor then you don’t have freedom of expression. Of course, I’m sure that the Vatican would like to have the ability to control thought and speech as they did in the past.

In the United States, major newspapers, including The Washington Post, chose not to reprint the images on grounds they would give offense.

So, you have de facto surrendered your freedom of expression. Of course, this is just a more public variant of something that has been going on for a while now. According to reports I’ve read in the past, the movie studio that produced “The Sum of All Fears” changed the plot from Palestinian terrorsts getting a nuclear weapon to white supremacists because of pressure brought to bear by Muslim groups. So much for artistic freedom.

Freedom of speech means that I can say whatever I please, publicly, no matter whether it is offensive, racist, inflammatory, or anything else that people don’t like. To suggest that there should be limits on what I say or write in order to avoid offense to another is to suggest that I should not be free to speak. The choice, and the responsibility, must be mine, else the freedom does not exist.

To the couple of commenters on this entry who suggested that the cartoons are racist, I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. Racism is the belief that race or ethnicity accounts for differences in the character of people or their ability to do something. It is about discriminating based on someone’s ethnic group. These cartoons may be anti-religion, but they do nothing to single out someone for their race, or suggest that any ethnic group is inferior to another. Of course, your charges of racism are a convenient strawman to attack this, and is an attempt to deny the truth that the reactions of Muslims supports the satire of the cartoons in the first place. It is also an ad hominem attack, an attempt to discredit the message by attacking the messenger. If you can make the cartoonists out to be racists you will, you hope, avoid dealing with the message. It’s a trap that ultimately discredits you. Deal with the message.

Well, the country that supposedly champions life, liberty and property has surrendered. Or, at least, our government has tucked its tail and run. They remind me of Sir Robin-the-not-quite-so-brave-as-Sir-Launcelot in Monty Python and the Holy Grail: “…when danger reared its ugly head he bravely turned his tail and fled…”

From this Reuters story we find out that a U.S. State Department had this to say (emphasis added in bold):

These cartoons are indeed offensive to the belief of Muslims,” State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper said in answer to a question. “We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility. Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable.”

Translation: Say whatever you want as long as it is politically correct, inoffensive and bland. And remember that responsibility thing when you talk about the U.S. government. Oh yeah, don’t talk bad about Christians either. Or anyone else that might be upset by it.

The U.S. Government is empowered by the people of the United States to adhere to the U.S. Constitution, including this:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Instead, we are surrendering in a most cowardly fashion to a bunch of whiny children throwing a tantrum.

Now, I’m starting to get mad. I’m sick and tired of people telling me I have to keep my mouth shut and not say something because other people might be offended. From Reuters:

“Freedom of satire that offends the feelings of others becomes an abuse, and here we are talking about nothing less than the feelings of entire peoples who have seen their supreme symbols affected,” he told the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

It’s not abuse. Being responsible about freedom of speech means accepting the consequences of saying something. It doesn’t mean keeping my mouth shut because I might hurt your feelings. Knowledge is power. Forcing people to keep their knowledge isolated by muzzling their speech takes their power away and collects it in the hands of the few. Whether that few is the Catholic church, Muslim priests or Presidents and Prime Ministers. I refuse to shut up. I will not take those cartoons down. If someone is offended, that is their issue. I accept the fact that they may be offended, I’m sorry that they are offended, but I will not stop because of that.

Aside from all of that, could someone explain to me, aside from being courteous and polite, why I have to follow the rules of a religion I am not an adherent of? If I were in an Islamic church, I would not do something that was against their religion. Same goes for a Catholic church. But, I’m neither Islamic, nor in their church. I am under no obligation to adhere to their religious law. Am I?

I had planned on writing a big post on this topic. But, I’m not quite motivated to write it yet. But I’m still thinking about it. And wondering how anyone can not see the violent and oppressive nature of the Middle Eastern culture. Sure, the cartoons weren’t all that nice and would make you upset, if they were about your religion. But, let’s be bluntly honest. I don’t recall a time during my life when Christians, Buddhists, Jews or Hindus reacted, in general, with the level of anger and violence that Muslims are reacting with in response to this editorial cartoon. In fact, their reactions merely proved the cartoonists to have valuable insight (they depicted Islam’s prophet, Mohammed, in ways that indicate he and his religion are violent ones).

The French press has shown that they don’t have the gumption to be a free and independent press, there have already been two editors fired over this. The Danish and Norwegian press are hanging tough, at least so far, which is great. The AP refused to print the cartoons because they deemed them to be offensive. Many Muslims are claiming that this is similar to the behavior of the German press in the 1930’s, when Jews were constantly depicted as evil because they were Jewish. The difference, of course, is that Jews weren’t beheading kidnapped hostages on camera, blowing up civilians in local marketplaces, flying planes into buildings, blowing up airplanes and so forth. If you don’t want to be perceived as violent, don’t act with violence.

There’s a lot more that I could write, so many things are brought to light by this incident. And I’ll try to get to it soon.

Update: Because the American press is unwilling to exercise their freedoms for fear they might offend someone (in other words, they have surrendered), I am publishing the cartoons here.