Thanks go to Pie G. for this gem….
Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh asked if the same media criticizing the Mohammed Art Exhibit would stop advocating gay marriage because that could also be provocative to radical Islamists on Wednesday.
Rush said, “the militant Islamists command us not to draw cartoons or any other kind of picture of the prophet Mohammed, and our Drive-By Media and Democrat Party readily agree, ‘Ain’t no way that should happen! It offends them, and we shouldn’t do it. And when anybody does, and they get shot at, it’s their fault.’ To which I ask, ‘Well, now, wait a minute. The same militant Islamists who do not permit the drawing of pictures of the prophet Mohammed also do not permit homosexuality and do not permit gay marriage. And we know what their attitudes toward women are. Why don’t we respect those?’ Can you imagine? If you turn on MSNBC…you’re gonna see a total devotion to the concept of gay marriage. Isn’t that insulting to the Muslims who would be watching? And isn’t it then — would it not then be understandable if the Muslims watching take some kind of action against MSNBC for offending them?” And “Where do we draw the line on this? Where do we draw the line on those aspects of Islam that we’re going to respect and not offend them, and then on the other hand say, ‘We don’t care if it offends ’em; we’re gonna do it anyway’?”
Obviously neither cartoon contests nor homosexuality should be banned. But the reason the former is being criticized and not the latter is because the former was specifically intended to insult Muslims, and the latter isn’t. No one calls our culture’s obsession with bacon Islamophobic or anti-Semitic, because it’s expected that everyone is going to do something that fundamentalists of a particular religion don’t like. There’s a difference between going about your lives in a way that might offend someone, and deliberately trying to offend members of a certain religion.
Of course, offending people isn’t always bad, nor is criticism of religion. I personally think the prohibition on drawing Mohammed in Islam is stupid and nonsensical, and I even think this contest could have been done in a way that didn’t denigrate all Muslims. Gellar’s hate group is not a group capable of such a feat though.
I remember South Park tried to depict Mohammed about ten years ago, in as respectful a manner as possible, and the network censored them because they were getting threats from fundamentalist Muslims. That was a shame.
And for the record: I think “Piss Christ” was disgusting too, and completely without artistic merit. Criticizing religion is fine and often necessary, but do it intelligently.
Chris, there’s a chance I’ve got this one wrong, but it seems to me that Charlie Hebdo and this Islamic cartoon contest in Texas did what they did ONLY as re-action to uptight Muslim going crazy and murdering people over a cartoon. Again, Pam Geller, Hebdo and company, et al, would never have deliberated baited and insulted Muslims if wasn’t for the Muslims inhumanity in the name of God. That is the ultimate perversion in my world.
I believe it takes true courage to stand up to these bullies and hold a cartoon contest that is sure to draw a lethal response. But, threats be damned, they do it anyway because it is an important teachable moment and it will draw debate all over the world where free speech is still alive.
This is something those radical Muslims, who would kill you, can’t tolerate. They are told never to question authority. This has some of them forced to think! They need to hear the world say they are wrong and their conduct is highly offensive to civilized people everywhere.
They need to know they are the ones that must change, not the cartoonist. Until they comply and become civilized, we all ought to draw offensive cartoons and not let a few people take all the heat and risk their lives. We should do it over and over until they get what we’re doing. Their society/religion/government is absolutely wrong if they endorse murder over a cartoon. There is no wiggle room on this. It is an absolute: Thou shalt not kill over any social offense… Period!
Off-Topic, but too good not to share:
Presidential Candidate Ben Carson says God gave him the answers to a Chemistry final in a dream
I thought the headline was satire at first. Then I watched the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEiBidpOzbs
Maybe God could have told Carson, “Hey, you know that time I helped you cheat on a test because you weren’t qualified to pass it on your own merit? Maaaaybe don’t mention that right after you’ve announced you want to run for president.”
I have never claimed to be a conservative but recently I have decided to become a true liberal.
Homosexuals and artists insult and provoke Islam, therefore they must die.
The question for me is, who gets caught in the rhetorical crossfire? Are the cartoonists targeting just the fundies and killers, or Muslims as a whole? I know where Gellar’s rhetoric usually falls and she doesn’t make distinctions between ordinary Muslims and terrorists, even though she sometimes claims to. She demonizes all of them. I can’t support such a contest if her group is involved, though of course I support her right to do it and she should be able to feel safe from harm regardless of her choices.
Like I said, I’m not opposed to cartoons of Mohammed on principle, it’s the intent of this particular group that bugs me.
And again, of course I agree that those who responded with actual violence are the worst actors in this situation, and that Islamofascism is a bigger problem than Islamophobia. The thing is that I am never going to convince an Islamofascist to change their behavior, they’re too far gone. They truly believe they can impose their religion at the point of a sword, and that this is what God wants. But can I convince people who think Gellar is right and that Muslims are inherently evil? I have a little more hope there.
“Gellar’s hate group” ???
Seriously, “Gellar’s hate group” ???
The last time I checked “Gellar’s hate group” had killed no one nor attempted to kill anyone.
“Piss Chris.”
Either opinions may be correct, However as I see it, Geller did one thing positive,
She drew out two sleeper cell terrorists and then Texas officer dealt the proper response to their jihadist ways.
This is America, we have laws permitting free speech, not sharia courts dealing death by stoning’s, beheading or lashes.
Once you accept the fact of free speech can become a two way street, you have to put up with selective people who would test its boundaries, if only for their own self promotion.
RE: #3 – Well said, and 100% right!
Don’t know who this guy is, but like what he says.
Counter Jihad is about HUMAN RIGHTS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SwkADfQelU
Pie Guevara: “I have never claimed to be a conservative but recently I have decided to become a true liberal.
Homosexuals and artists insult and provoke Islam, therefore they must die.”
Please cite me one liberal who has ever said anything of the sort.
“Seriously, “Gellar’s hate group” ???
The last time I checked “Gellar’s hate group” had killed no one nor attempted to kill anyone.”
I don’t understand your point. Are you saying a group can’t be a hate group unless they kill someone? Is a group that preaches white supremacy, like VDARE, not a hate group as long as it doesn’t actually kill anybody?
Or are you just saying Gellar’s group isn’t as bad as actual terrorists who kill people? Because if so, I’ve made it pretty clear that I agree.
Harold:
“Either opinions may be correct, However as I see it, Geller did one thing positive,
She drew out two sleeper cell terrorists and then Texas officer dealt the proper response to their jihadist ways.”
This is a good point.
Peggy, the “Counter Jihad” movement *should* be about human rights, and maybe that’s how it started out, but it’s filled with people–including some leaders–who want to ban the Quran and other mainstream aspects of Muslim worship. If the leaders of the movement don’t respect the rights of all people to worship peacefully, and if they can’t draw distinctions between terrorists and ordinary Muslims–and I don’t think they can–then I don’t think they can be called a human rights movement.
The usual choplogical discourse from Piss Chris. The notion that Pamela Geller heads up a hate group is absolute nonsense.
“Homosexuals and artists insult and provoke Islam, therefore they must die.
“Please cite me one liberal who has ever said anything of the sort.”
Irony and sarcasm are completely lost on Piss Chris who poses as the politically correct Mr. Sensitivity.
“I know where Gellar’s rhetoric usually falls and she doesn’t make distinctions between ordinary Muslims and terrorists, even though she sometimes claims to. She demonizes all of them. I can’t support such a contest if her group is involved, though of course I support her right to do it and she should be able to feel safe from harm regardless of her choices.”
Ridiculous left-wing bullshit. Piss Chris demonizes Gellar.
Why?
Pie: “Irony and sarcasm are completely lost on Piss Chris who poses as the politically correct Mr. Sensitivity.”
Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you’re just not funny?
“Piss Chris demonizes Gellar.
Why?”
Putting aside the irony of you accusing anyone of “demonizing” others after you just suggested that liberals think critics of Islam should die, then invented yet another completely uncalled for ad hominem to throw against me:
Perhaps the reason I call her out on her bigotry is because she’s a genocide-denying, white-supremacist-friendly, conspiracy theorist bigot?
“Through her website, Geller has promulgated some of the most bizarre conspiracy theories found on the extreme right, including claims that President Obama is the love child of Malcolm X, that Obama was once involved with a “crack whore,” that his birth certificate is a forgery, that his late mother posed nude for pornographic photos, and that he was a Muslim in his youth who never renounced Islam. She has described Obama as beholden to his “Islamic overlords” and said that he wants jihad to be victorious in America. In April 2011, Geller accused Obama of withholding evidence in the then-upcoming trial of accused Fort Hood mass murderer Major Nidal Malik Hasan.
Geller uses her website to publish her most revolting insults of Muslims: She posted (and later removed) a video implying that Muslims practiced bestiality with goats and a cartoon depicting the Muslim prophet Mohammad with a pig’s face (observant Muslims do not eat pork). Geller also has denied the genocide of Bosnian Muslims by Serbian forces in Srebrenica – calling it the “Srebrenica Genocide Myth,” even though the Serbian government itself issued a state apology for the massacre. She wrote, “Westerners are admitting to their role in something that didn’t happen, and digging their own graves.”
Geller will ally with virtually any individual or movement that expresses stridently anti-Muslim sentiments, no matter how otherwise repugnant. As a result, she has frequently rubbed shoulders with elements of white radicalism. In 2009, Geller was invited to address the German far-right organization Pro Köln [Cologne], described as a successor group to the neo-fascist German League for People and Homeland. Pro Köln at the time was under investigation by the German authorities because of its defamation of foreigners and suspected violations of “human dignity.” As of early 2011, Pro Köln was officially deemed a right-wing extremist group by the German authorities.
Geller is an enthusiastic fan of Dutch anti-Muslim extremist Geert Wilders. He was charged in 2009 with hate-incitement in the Netherlands, but not convicted. She invited Wilders to speak at the June 2010 “Ground Zero Mosque” rally. In June 2010, Geller spoke at an event in Paris put on by the Bloc Identitaire, which opposes race-mixing and “Islamic imperialism.”
Geller invited the notorious British anti-Muslim group English Defence League (EDL) to her September 2010 anti-mosque rally in New York. The previous May, a report by the British newspaper The Guardian revealed the EDL as thugs who hold anti-Muslim protests intended to provoke violence. Because of its racism and history, the EDL’s leader, Tommy Robinson, was denied entry at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and sent back to England.
Yet Geller described the EDL in May 2010 as “courageous English patriots” when the group mobilized popular anger to oppose the construction of a mosque in the town of Dudley, near Birmingham, England. “There is nothing racist, fascist, or bigoted about the EDL,” she wrote. In February 2010, she wrote in her blog, “I share the E.D.L.’s goals. We need to encourage rational, reasonable groups that oppose the Islamisation of the West.”
In February 2011, she spoke favorably of Soviet leader Josef Stalin’s forced relocation and genocide of Chechen Muslims after World War II, arguing – wrongly – that they were allied with Adolf Hitler. Historians say Chechens were fighting to preserve their own freedom and culture.
Geller’s incendiary rhetoric and readiness to deny civil freedoms and the presumption of innocence to Muslims hasn’t prevented her from gaining a measure of mainstream acceptability. In late March 2011, she was even invited by the Alaska House of Representatives to testify on a proposed anti-Shariah bill.
Geller’s anti-Muslim stance has also drawn the admiration of white nationalist and even neo-Nazi proponents on the extreme right – a rather remarkable feat, considering she is Jewish. She has been the subject of positive postings on racist websites such as Stormfront, VDARE, American Renaissance and the neo-Confederate League of the South.
Geller was one of several prominent anti-Muslim activists cited by the Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik in the manifesto he posted online hours before killing 77 of his countrymen, mostly teenagers, at a left-wing youth camp in August 2011. In the wake of the attack, Geller downplayed the influence of her views on Breivik, making much of the fact that his screed had only mentioned her by name once. This conveniently ignored the manifesto’s dozen citations of her blog and 64 mentions of her SIOA partner, Robert Spencer. At the same time, Geller couldn’t help displaying some sympathy for Breivik’s actions against the young multiculturalists. “Breivik,” she wrote, “was targeting the future leaders of the party responsible for flooding Norway with Muslims.”
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/profiles/pamela-geller