Today is Everybody Draws Mohammed Day. Nick Gillespie explains
Why We’re Having an Everybody Draw Mohammed Constest on Thursday, May 20:
Before the calendar page turns to Thursday, it’s worth meditating on the whys and wherefores of the contest, which was inspired by a jihadist death threat against the creators of South Park and was originally suggested by Seattle artist Molly Norris. Soon after asking everyone to draw the Prophet in solidarity with the arguably millions of people repressed by threats of theologically justified violence, Norris herself went into ideological hiding, suggesting instead that everyone draw another target of South Park satire: former Vice President Al Gore.
While Gore, who likes to credit himself with understanding the architectonics of cyberspace (if not creating them) and who way back when convened Congressional hearings to discuss the dread menace of satanic heavy metal lyrics (via con diablo, Ronnie James Dio!), is certainly worthy of the sort of ongoing abuse that only a fully distributed Internets can deliver, the obvious reason that Norris changed her target is real and potential violence.
Mark Steyn elaborates:
I initially had mixed feelings about Everybody Draws Mohammed Day. Provocation for its own sake is one of the dreariest features of contemporary culture, but that's not what this is about. Nick Gillespie's post reminds us that the three most offensive of the "Danish cartoons" — including the one showing Mohammed as a pig —were not by any Jyllands-Posten cartoonists but were actually faked by Scandinavian imams for the purposes of stirring up outrage among Muslims. As Mr Gillespie says:
It is nothing less than amazing that holy men decrying the desecration of their religion would create such foul images, but there you have it. It is as if the pope created “Piss Christ” and then passed it off as the work of critics of Catholicism.
So, if it really is a sin to depict Mohammed, then these imams will be roasting in hell. (Unless, of course, taqqiya permits Muslims to break their own house rules for the purpose of sticking it to the infidels.)
And Zombie describes this as nothing less than
Islamic extremists still seem to think that banning Facebook or threatening to kill the Everybody Draw Mohammed Day organizers will somehow make the problem of blasphemy go away. They don’t yet understand that we in the West have spent the last 600 years not merely earning the right to be blasphemous, but more importantly creating a society and a worldview in which there is no such thing as blasphemy, because all forms of speech are permitted and religious bullies no longer get to determine what is forbidden.
Now get out your pencils and start drawing.
I would add that Radical Islam behaves as if it is the embodiment of Psychopathy: [All emphases added-SW]
Psychopaths are not, in fact, particularly good liars; they spin tales and get away with it because their listeners fail to confront them on the inconsistencies. So, why bring Psychopaths into the mix when discussing the danger from radical Islam? Unfortunately, those who follow the dictates of their Koran (whether it is simply one of many interpretations or the only interpretation, as insisted upon by the Islamists, is immaterial) are explicitly permitted to lie, threaten, cheat, do whatever it takes to dominate the infidel. Whether or not the typical Muslim is a psychopath is not the issue; the issue is that Islam, as practiced in the public sphere, behaves like a Psychopath. Note that it is often the apostate Muslim, most at risk from the reactions of their former co-religionists, who most acutely points out the failures (and questions the existence) of Moderate Islam and Moderate Muslims.
I suspect Dr. Steve will at some point discuss how the victims of the psychopath unconsciously collude with the Psychopath. I touched upon this last week in Undercurrents where I described an analytic treatment that failed to progress until I recognized that I had colluded with my patient in avoiding her underlying rage. She was not in any way a Psychopath, but the dynamics, of unconsciously appeasing her in order to avoid her rage being directed at me, is a sine qua non of interactions with the Psychopath. (Take a look at the Iceman Interviews for a close-up peek into the mind of the Psychopath. You will be fascinated, repelled and disturbed. Imagine being in the room with the Iceman.)
No one likes to think of themselves as a coward. It is damaging to one's self-esteem to imagine being craven and allowing one's fear to control one's actions. That is why so many find ways to rationalize their surrender to the forces of intolerance and hate. Our MSM, which has never shied away from attacking religious beliefs suddenly finds itself terribly respectful of religion when the religion involved is Islam. The New York Times quite easily and repeatedly abandons its vaunted free speech principles when the free speech risks insulting Islam. (And please note that it is taking less and less of an insult to arouse the rage of Islam. We have gone from obnoxious cartoons to teddy bears in the space of just a few years.)
Radical Islam is fighting an asymmetrical war against the West and they are more than holding their own because so many of the Western elites and governments are more than ready to buy a brief respite for the cost of our fundamental freedoms. Radical Islam is a losing ideology incompatible with modernity. They sense it but we often act as if we do not appreciate what we have. A unified front by America and the West would dispense with Radical Islam with minimal bloodshed and minimal drama simply by standing up for what we profess to believe in. As Americans we should remember our roots:
We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.
-- Ben Franklin
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