2/03/2006

Jesus H Christ!

but is the blogsphere abuzz today or what on this cartoon thing?

I have many observations on it, but the only two that really matters are 1. that people are free to do what they want, and 2. actions have consequences. What few commentators on the topic seem to appreciate is how these two facts form a feedback loop.

You can print, say, or draw whatever you want. Just don't be surprised when - and let's frankly admit this - the people you are deliberately trying to provoke conclude that you're a complete jafi. A jafi, whose soaring rhetoric about freedom and respect for Islam and the sacredness of the cause to bring liberty to the middle east as a grand antidote for tyranny and oppression, just came off looking a lot less sincere. A lot less.

And if someone chooses to be offended at these cartoons, I say to them lakum di nakum valaya din. or in a more vernacular sense: get over it.

UPDATE: Neil Stevens at RedState steps up to the plate. Would that his fellow conservatives follow his example.

UPDATE 2. Some of his fellow conservatives have followed his example. Hugh Hewitt for example, says that we should not "cheer the vulgar and the stupid."

The jihadists are the enemy, not the Muslim world. Refusing to recognize how idiot cartoonists can indeed offend Muslims who are not only not Islamofascists but also our allies and even our fellow citizens is to refuse Muslims the right to at least the same level of disgust that Christians display when they denounce stupid NBC series like The Book of Daniel or shows like Will & Grace.


If this is a free society in which people have the right to be vulgar and stupid, then why is being offended at a deliberate insult akin to imposing dhimmitude?

1 comment:

Razib Khan said...

ironic how this coincides with brass crescent. any article you would recommend on this topic?