tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post113914787097231368..comments2024-03-29T10:54:33.737-05:00Comments on Althouse: The ridiculous fear of ridicule.Ann Althousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01630636239933008807noreply@blogger.comBlogger89125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1139323033053899632006-02-07T08:37:00.000-06:002006-02-07T08:37:00.000-06:00Oh yeah........ all that rioting has stopped the c...Oh yeah........ all that rioting has stopped the cartoonists dead in their tracks.....<B><A HREF="http://cagle.com/news/Muhammad/main.asp" REL="nofollow">THOSE MUHAMMAD CARTOONS!</A></B>bearbeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04770545814913465196noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1139315940572942102006-02-07T06:39:00.000-06:002006-02-07T06:39:00.000-06:00Swedish publisher withdraws textbookSTOCKHOLM, Swe...<B>Swedish publisher withdraws textbook</B><BR/><BR/>STOCKHOLM, Sweden (UPI) -- A Swedish publishing company Monday withdrew a religious textbook because it contains two images of the Muslim prophet Mohammed.<BR/><BR/>The book published by Liber was aimed at intermediate-level high school students, The Local reported.<BR/><BR/>The pictures were taken from a 14th century Persian manuscript and a 13th century Iraqi manuscript. The book was published in 1993.<BR/><BR/>The actions coincide with a series of demonstrations around the world protesting newspaper cartoons depicting Mohammed as a terrorist. A statement published by Liber on its Web site made no mention of the controversy.<BR/><BR/>Copyright 2006 by United Press Internationalbearbeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04770545814913465196noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1139276230737573832006-02-06T19:37:00.000-06:002006-02-06T19:37:00.000-06:00Well Ann, maybe this isn't the zone for me. Either...Well Ann, maybe this isn't the zone for me. Either that, or I've misunderstood, and you're not really recommending we hedge on free speech as a form of "outreach" to Muslims who are on the fence. <BR/><BR/>An excellent piece from an unexpected source:<BR/><BR/>http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,,1702932,00.htmlJen Bradfordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12866914506615807408noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1139275582095843422006-02-06T19:26:00.000-06:002006-02-06T19:26:00.000-06:00who you think should be further offended in order ...<I>who you think should be further offended in order to get back at the people who were violent?</I><BR/><BR/>White people who were offended by things Black people said? I know there are quite a lot of such White people. And while I don't follow the latest trends in KKK propaganda, I'm sure they seize on every "slap a white person" remark as an excuse for some new devilry (that one was Charles Barron in 2002; more recently there's Nagin's dream of a racially pure New Orleans. And the truly desperate fomenter of racial-hatred can always turn to Farrakhan).Balfegorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08012196656096263507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1139271292019617332006-02-06T18:14:00.000-06:002006-02-06T18:14:00.000-06:00Dutch Girl: Your analogy doesn't fit the situation...Dutch Girl: Your analogy doesn't fit the situation at all. Who in your analogy compares to the Muslims who are offended, but nonviolent, who you think should be further offended in order to get back at the people who were violent?Ann Althousehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01630636239933008807noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1139269851955714202006-02-06T17:50:00.000-06:002006-02-06T17:50:00.000-06:00Iraq The Model has some interesting comments about...<B><A HREF="http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/" REL="nofollow">Iraq The Model</A></B> has some interesting comments about Middle Easterns having many offensive and obscene Allah and prophet jokes........bearbeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04770545814913465196noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1139263948943570922006-02-06T16:12:00.000-06:002006-02-06T16:12:00.000-06:00The issue however is not whether the cartoons are ...The issue however is not whether the cartoons are insulting. I even said they were even in the very same post where I posted them on my blog.<BR/><BR/>The issue is whether it is acceptable for people to theaten to murder other people (or in this case, to put a contract out on them) because of something they said. In the case of the hypothetical, the person who was victimized at the dinner table has the right to be angry. But if they hire a hit man to 'scrub' the cartoonist, then that would be a crime and they would be prosecuted for doing it.Eli Blakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00792743206074537073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1139259819546796692006-02-06T15:03:00.000-06:002006-02-06T15:03:00.000-06:00geoduck, maybe it's me, but I'm just not seeing yo...geoduck, maybe it's me, but I'm just not seeing your point. You write: "It is a historical anachronism to imput the motivations of the Middle Ages to anyone living today."<BR/><BR/>It is not a "historical anachronism" to do so if one side is explicitly saying "we are fighting this war in part with the goal of recapturing territory lost to Islam in the middle ages."<BR/><BR/>I've already pointed out how Osama and terrorist spokesmen today use the loss of lands 500 years ago that Islam itself had captured from Christians centuries earlier as a primary justification for their current efforts. Even more mainstream Muslims embrace the notion of Dar Al Islam. That is, land once under Sharia or Islamic control is forever more an Islamic territory, with the world divided between the "house of Islam" and the "house of war" to be conquered for Islam. The difference between moderate Muslims and the Osamas of the world is to what degree the "war" is a literal versus a figurative war. <BR/><BR/>From the Toronto Star: "At the Jamal Islamiya mosque in this seaside town, a Muslim lament of historic proportions is proclaimed in large letters on a framed poster: "In 1492, we lost everything." <BR/>For the mosque's leader, and much of the Muslim world, the year marks the traumatic conclusion of Islam's golden age, a time remembered like a collective wound.<BR/><BR/>It's a period when the last piece of Muslim-held territory in Spain fell to Catholic monarchs, ending almost 800 years of Moorish rule on the Iberian peninsula.<BR/><BR/>....<BR/><BR/>To the east, the Muslim empire of the Ottomans would reign for another four centuries. But many would trace its long decline to the fall of Al Andalus, the Moorish name for Andalusia.<BR/><BR/>The result is a yearning that today makes Spain, more than any other<BR/>European country, a battleground in the name of Islam.<BR/><BR/>"They stole 500 years of history from us," says Omar Checa Garcia, who heads the Jamal Islamiya mosque and cultural centre."<BR/><BR/>This whole discussion is somewhat beside the point. It's just a little difficult to have a rational debate when one side (Western knee-jerk Muslim apologists) operates in a carefully crafted alternative reality where inconvenient facts are simply ignored or willed away.ShadyCharacterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07548438718826516623noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1139259616766257722006-02-06T15:00:00.000-06:002006-02-06T15:00:00.000-06:00This piece at Dr. Sanity on shame versus guilt goe...This piece at <A HREF="http://drsanity.blogspot.com/2006/02/shame-guilt-muslim-psyche-and-danish.html" REL="nofollow">Dr. Sanity</A> on shame versus guilt goes a long way toward explaining why some posts seems to be talking past each another.<BR/><BR/>In the Western our <B>guilt culture</B>, tolerance has evolved because <I>"we obsess about how we might have hurt their feelings and some of us actually desire to make amends and apologize."</I><BR/><BR/>In contrast, it is more common in Islamic culture that the <B>avoidance of shame</B> is paramount. Ensuring one's "honor" permits all manner of behaviors the West finds abhorent, especially the subjugation of women <BR/><BR/><I>"For most shame societies, even the mildest insult must be avenged with death, because now everyone knows that you have been insulted, and without the death (or blood) to wipe it out, honor cannot be restored."</I><BR/><BR/>Appealing to reason, then, is considered <I>weak</I>, not laudable; shameful, not honorable.KCFleminghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00124201866124646626noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1139256918144916862006-02-06T14:15:00.000-06:002006-02-06T14:15:00.000-06:00Why are you assigning responsibility to Westerners...Why are you assigning responsibility to Westerners when Muslims choose to join with "the forces of chaos and oppression"? <BR/><BR/>Sorry, but I think that's such a clunker. If they aren't already more alienated by the hardliners than by a Dane who insists upon a free press, it's not a natural alliance at all.Jen Bradfordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12866914506615807408noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1139254898300304282006-02-06T13:41:00.000-06:002006-02-06T13:41:00.000-06:00I've said it before, but some comments make me fee...I've said it before, but some comments make me feel that I have to say it again: I have NO tolerance for those who are being violent or threatening violence. What I care about is that decent Muslims not side with them. We should not descend into ugly hostile expressions that alienate these people who should naturally ally with us and not with the forces of chaos and oppression.Ann Althousehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01630636239933008807noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1139253101440419522006-02-06T13:11:00.000-06:002006-02-06T13:11:00.000-06:00And I'll answer the "hypothetical" posted by Alask...And I'll answer the "hypothetical" posted by AlaskaJ:<BR/><BR/>No, they might not be "great" examples of freedom of expression, if by "great" you mean polite or inoffensive, but so what. It's the most unpopular speech that needs defending, not speech about butterfies and roses.knoxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13231876226573540476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1139252615282419762006-02-06T13:03:00.001-06:002006-02-06T13:03:00.001-06:00I wish someone could tell me how to post a link. O...I wish someone could tell me how to post a link. Oliver Kamm's latest is very good:<BR/><BR/><I>Seventeen years ago, when Salman Rushdie was under sentence of death from a foreign power for the crime of writing a novel, the US and UK governments responded feebly and grudgingly while continental Europe showed, in general, greater mettle. The same is true now. The Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, rightly observes, of those cartoons: "We are talking about an issue with fundamental significance to how democracies work." The British Foreign Secretary lamentably sees the fault instead in the actions of the press: "I believe that the republication of these cartoons has been insulting, it has been insensitive, it has been disrespectful and it has been wrong."<BR/><BR/>In 1990, a year after Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa, Rushdie wrote: "I feel as if I have been plunged, like Alice, into a world beyond the looking glass, where nonsense is the only available sense. And I wonder if I'll ever be able to climb back through." What was most extraordinary about the episode was the nonsense - epistemological as well as political - spoken by statesmen and commentators. The first President Bush ventured boldly, a week after the fatwa was issued, that the threat of assassination was "deeply offensive". The Japanese government thought hard and declared: "Mentioning and encouraging murder is not something to be praised." The Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, Dr Immanuel Jakobovitz, remarked with callous stupidity: "Both Mr Rushdie and the Ayatollah have abused freedom of speech."<BR/><BR/>Surveying these judgements, the writer Jonathan Rauch, in a fine book (from which I have taken the quotations in the preceding paragraph) called Kindly Inquisitors, identified a tendency among Western intellectuals that would repudiate the sentence but not the notion that Rushdie had committed a crime.</I><BR/><BR/>http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2006/02/the_cartoons_an.htmlJen Bradfordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12866914506615807408noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1139251995373605712006-02-06T12:53:00.000-06:002006-02-06T12:53:00.000-06:00We're not talking about refraining from offensive ...We're not talking about refraining from offensive jokes at a dinner party. We're talking about people whose JOB it is to be provocative (political cartoonists) being attacked for it. Or their embassies firebombed, as the case may be. Any suggestion that it's the cartoonists "fault" is bizarre to me.<BR/><BR/>Meade, are you saying that moderate Muslims need to be somehow convinced that "we" (the West, for lack of a better term)--who published some cartoons--are better than some radical fascists who scream for murder and bloodshed? If they actually NEED convincing of this, I am skeptical that anything we say or do can possibly placate them. <BR/><BR/>And even if we could mollify them, we would then constantly be trying to live up to some ideal behavioral model dictated to us by the Koran! This ideal would involve artists, journalists, and yes, political cartoonists censoring themselves out of fear. <BR/><BR/>I can't believe anyone, in this country, in this century, is suggesting that these people self-censor!<BR/><BR/>To say, "We all need to be thoughtful and sensitive" is correct, but it has nothing to do with the context in which this current violence and turmoil is occuring.knoxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13231876226573540476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1139251958778806822006-02-06T12:52:00.000-06:002006-02-06T12:52:00.000-06:00Dixie, the point about Yemeni's having hundreds o...Dixie, the point about Yemeni's having hundreds of Danish flags on hand for a demonstration (along with the identical hand lettering on the "cut the heads off heathens" signs in the London protest) is that these demonstrations might not be all that "spontaneous". Think of the show demonstrations in Cuba or the old Eastern Bloc countries - signs and banners and whatnot magically appeared just in time for the spontaneous rally-of-the-day...<BR/><BR/>This supports the notion that what we are seeing is being manufactured by those in power in the Islamic world and may not be an accurate reflection of the average muslim in these places. That's a comforting thought, even if the evidence for it is a little tenuous.ShadyCharacterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07548438718826516623noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1139247842164511452006-02-06T11:44:00.000-06:002006-02-06T11:44:00.000-06:00Bruce Hayden said...... I tell friends who are ove...Bruce Hayden said...<BR/><I>... I tell friends who are over-sensistive to being teased that if you let everyone know that you are over-sensistive, the teasing is going to just get worse, and worse, and worse...</I><BR/><BR/>And how do your overly sensitive friends respond to such advice? Do they resolve to toughen up and become less sensitive? Do they learn to hide better their sensitivities. <BR/><BR/>Or do they tell you to mind your own business while quietly planning, in their own overly sensitive way, to kill you?<BR/><BR/>Do you ever give advice to the teas<B>er</B>s?Meadehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03316388500723034455noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1139246053589803102006-02-06T11:14:00.000-06:002006-02-06T11:14:00.000-06:00Ann, do you think Alaska Jack's "analogy" bears an...Ann, do you think Alaska Jack's "analogy" bears any resemblance to the situation at hand? If so, a great many of us are not addressing the same topic at all. <BR/><BR/>It's completely irrelevant to me whether the author of the cartoons was a "jerk". Theo Van Gogh was pretty obviously a jerk on a regular basis. The point is that the penalty for being a jerk (or gratuitous insults, or blasphemy) is not government censorship or a knife in the chest. A great many Muslims disagree. The Danish government was forced to explain the concept of a free press on several occasions, after Arab leaders demanded he "punish" the newspaper. <BR/><BR/>I read a great piece by an Iranian woman who was disgusted to find that even after emigrating to France, she was being made to feel the power of the mullahs. She felt especially betrayed by people like yourself who act as if it's a question of etiquette and "understanding", versus basic liberty and safety. I wish you weren't quite so vague about your views. Some people have been reading you longer and think they know where you stand. I have no idea.Jen Bradfordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12866914506615807408noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1139243564538800592006-02-06T10:32:00.000-06:002006-02-06T10:32:00.000-06:00A recent poster pointed out something, that the Mo...A recent poster pointed out something, that the Moslem fanatics overreacted to the cartoons. I think this significant as it exposes a major weakness in them. <BR/><BR/>I tell friends who are over-sensistive to being teased that if you let everyone know that you are over-sensistive, the teasing is going to just get worse, and worse, and worse.<BR/><BR/>I see this happening here. If cartoons ridiculing Mohammed and Islam so easily incite them, I expect to see much more of such, since this weakness has been exposed.Bruce Haydenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10815293023158025662noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1139243258551068992006-02-06T10:27:00.000-06:002006-02-06T10:27:00.000-06:00For those who question the value of humor, "Freako...For those who question the value of humor, "Freakonomics" had a great example of its effectiveness in essentially destroying the KKK through redicule.<BR/><BR/>Apparently, what happened was that to some extent, the Klan was infiltrated. Then, a lot of its secrets were fed to the Superman writers, who had Superman fight the Klan for six weeks or so. While he was doing it on TV every day, he revealed a lot of their secrets, including their rituals, exposing them to ridicule for the absurdity of such. The result is that the Klan never recovered.Bruce Haydenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10815293023158025662noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1139243008112219282006-02-06T10:23:00.000-06:002006-02-06T10:23:00.000-06:00I don't think that we have seen anything yet as to...I don't think that we have seen anything yet as to cartoons rediculing Islam, simply because the situation in Europe is going to go from moderately bad to extremely horrible in the next generation or two. The Moslems have demographics on their side, and I frankly expect to seee most of western Europe fall to Islam in the next 50 years, and I don't see much that can be done to prevent it. <BR/><BR/>Mass migrations of peoples have been going on for the extent of our recorded history. Indeed, much of our history is a direct result of such. The problem is that the Europeans have left themselves open to this through lack of fecundity, and maybe, lack of will. <BR/><BR/>On the other hand, over here in the U.S., our fertility problem is being taken care of primarily by Hispanics, who are much more assimilatable, given their Christianity (though, of course, this is not without problems). <BR/><BR/>So, what I expect to see by mid-century is a world split into essentially four blocks, Christain, Moslem, Chinese, and Indian, with the Moslems controlling much of western Europe. <BR/><BR/>As a result though of finding ourselves at odds with much of the Moslem world, I expect that the cartoons here in the U.S. depicting them, etc. to get progressively worse over that time. Remember all those Hitler and Japanese cartoons of WWII? I expect just as bad here depicting Mohammed, et al. Why? Primarily to rally the people.Bruce Haydenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10815293023158025662noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1139235523921904202006-02-06T08:18:00.000-06:002006-02-06T08:18:00.000-06:00So Muhammad doesn't like people making pictures of...So Muhammad doesn't like people making pictures of himself. What is he, Barbara Streisand? <BR/><BR/>ACtually no, Mo couldn't care less. My good friend Sherdin - a Muslim of moderate persuasion- tells me the Quran makes no laws against depicting Muhammad. Regardless, this is nothing more than a case of believe what I believe or I will inflict pain upon you (and other random people as well.) Some people I've spoken too have reffered to the fact that Imam Akhmad Akkari has been intentionally trying to incite anger towards the West by touring the Middle East months after the fact. And with depictions of Muhammad/Muslims not actually shown originally in Jyllands-Posten - those being Muhammad with a snout, as a paedophile demon, and a muslim in prayer being raped by a dog. And all of which it would appear his organization came up with themselves - oh the irony. Clearly the man is desperate to whip up a storm. And he has. <BR/><BR/>But while I don't entirely understand the point of the rub-their-noses-in-it reprinting of the cartoon in various newspapers across Europe, I refuse to allow a group of people to try and intimidate others into their way of thinking simply because they burn flags and promise to wage a terrorist campaign. And I certainly won't be swayed by the condemnation of theocratic states such as Syria and Saudi Arabia, neither of which have free-speech laws in place, nor afford the right to their citizens to march in such a manner threatening a war against the state. <BR/><BR/>But we should also remember, paraphrasing Christopher Hitchens , that the first lynch mob on the scene is not the genuine voice of the people. These idiots who charge through European capitals are not indicative of Muslims, and certainly not any that I know. And using perspective, a thirty-man strong mob in Jakarta storming an embassy, is still just 30 people in a city of 13 million. <BR/><BR/>I reserve the right to offend you in any manner I see fit. If I slander you then there are legal institutions which will decry publically that I am a lying bastard. I even respect the right for you to say whatever you like about whomever you like without repurcussion. But if you demand that I agree with you? Well then we have a problem.Gavinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00531697266561385827noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1139233886353648382006-02-06T07:51:00.000-06:002006-02-06T07:51:00.000-06:00Just a couple of points to ponder.Let's say that f...Just a couple of points to ponder.<BR/><BR/>Let's say that for some reason, you decide you have to protest something that happened in Yemen. You decide to burn one of their flags. You live here in the US, the consumer paradise. Where would you get the flag? Where would you even look?<BR/><BR/>About timing: Iran is restarting it's enrichment program. The world press is actually starting to notice. Suddenly, spontaneous violent demonstrations break out all through the Muslim world. The worst violence is in countries with strong ties to Iran and it's client terrorists.<BR/><BR/>Danish flags are available throughout the world for burning whenever needed.Gaius Arbohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08021279408065871265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1139230217562242462006-02-06T06:50:00.000-06:002006-02-06T06:50:00.000-06:00The "dinner party" metaphors don't quite work. Bec...The "dinner party" metaphors don't quite work. Because lost among them is the repeated eurocentric bias to judge the murderous Islamofascist rabble by Western notions of justice, reason, and tolerance.<BR/><BR/>These are decidedly unwestern peoples. They are not inhuman or subhuman, but they are decidedly <I>not</I> adherents to our Greco-Roman and JudeoChristian heritage. In fact, they reject it all. To judge them by these standards is to misunderstand them completely. <BR/><BR/>It's really just the same old battle, fought over and over again in history: civilization versus barbarism. How many times do <I>these</I> barbarians have to remind you that their aim is to eliminate you before you'll believe them? "Death to the West" is not a metaphor.<BR/><BR/>And I've had enough of their threats.KCFleminghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00124201866124646626noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1139228694944623902006-02-06T06:24:00.000-06:002006-02-06T06:24:00.000-06:00You invite a guy with a sick wife and children to ...<I>You invite a guy with a sick wife and children to be guests in your home. Surprising to you, the guy becomes mentally deranged whenever anyone makes fun of his sick wife and children.<BR/><BR/>One day, you come home to discover your guest standing in front of you menacingly waving a sword dripping with the blood of your beloved great dane Ferdinand.</I><BR/><BR/>Wait wait wait . . . to capture the full dimensions of the situation, don't we need to have <I>another</I> guest be the one who's insulted his sick wife and children? And him killing your beloved great dane Ferdinand because the <I>other</I> guy made a passing rude remark about his sick wife and children, and then the guy's <I>friend</I> went over and lied that the <I>other</I> guy had said <I>much worse things</I> than he actually had done?<BR/><BR/>That would cover the fact that:<BR/><BR/>a) The protesters want us to shut other people up, and<BR/><BR/>b) The protesters are fired up not just by the real cartoons, but by three considerably more offensive <I>forged</I> cartoons that were circulated by some sort of activist.<BR/><BR/>I mean, one reason we seem to get no credit for our restraint in these matters is almost certainly that quite regardless of whether we do bad things or not, there are people going about <I>lying</I> about it, and saying that we <I>are</I>. And sure, we can deny these things, and try to prove that no, the vast majority of us <I>haven't</I> done anything of the sort . . . but it's really a "so, have you stopped beating your wife?" situation. The very fact that we protest just looks like a clumsy cover-up.Balfegorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08012196656096263507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1139227392891253462006-02-06T06:03:00.000-06:002006-02-06T06:03:00.000-06:00I said"Yes I remember the riots, burning buildings...I said<BR/><BR/>"Yes I remember the riots, burning buildings, demonstrations demanding the beheading of the artists,NYT editorials denouncing the insensitivity of it, etc. No, wait a minute, that was in the alternate universe you inhabit. What actually happened was a few Christians peacefully demonstrated and tried to get the government to quit funding art that was offensive to their faith using their tax dollars and failed to get even that much.<BR/><BR/>To which Ricardo replied<BR/><BR/>3:52 PM, February 05, 2006 <BR/>Ricardo said... <BR/>I never said anything like that. Check above.<BR/><BR/>No, you just claimed the reactions between of the two groups, Christians and Muslims, were equivalent because they were both offended. The problem with your analogy is that I don't have any problems with the fact Muslims are offended. What I have a problem with is the attempt to silence free speech using violence and the threat of violence. What's more, I feel that anyone who talks about the need to self-censor in order to spare their feelings is either giving into the fear they are trying to spread or speaking code for "don't upset the brown people, they can't be expected to control themselves" - whether they realize it or not.hygatehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15254553016628944506noreply@blogger.com