Fight Like Hell for the Right to Draw Muhammad…Then Choose Not to

 

“Words are like eggs dropped from great heights; you can no more call them back than ignore the mess they leave when they fall.”– Jodi Picoult

Let’s get something straight up front. For every terrorist attack, the blame belongs with the attackers. I don’t blame Reagan for the Beirut bombing in 1983, I blame the terrorists. I don’t blame Clinton for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, I blame the terrorists. I don’t blame Bush for 9/11 or Obama for the Boston Marathon bombing. I blame the terrorists.

I cringe at anyone who places blame on a lack of defensive security. I don’t mind a post-attack review of security to ensure a safer America, but not to assign blame to the victim. We shouldn’t need any security at all, but because Islamofascists and other enemies exist, we do.

Similarly, I don’t blame Pamela Geller for the terrorist attack at her “Draw Muhammad” contest in Garland, Texas on Sunday. I blame the two dead terrorists.

I’ve long been a Pam Geller fan, often steering people to her Atlas Shrugs blog to give them awareness of not only how brutal Islamofascism is to its own people, to women, to gays, to Christians, and Jews, but also to learn how considerably large the number is of Islamists who practice “honor killings,” female genital mutilation, and other horrors. She chronicles the monstrosities the rest of the media ignores.

Like Pam, I too believe the number one threat and problem-maker in the world is radical jihad. I supported the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. As long as Islamofascists are fighting against us (ISIS, al-Qaeda, etc.) we ought to be fighting against them.

I also understand, as Pam Geller does, that there may be millions of Muslims who don’t want to kill us. The media offers that like I’m supposed to be grateful. I’m not. They owe us that. However, the number of Muslims who do want to kill us isn’t small (a constant media misrepresentation is that it is small). We aren’t talking about a lone wolf, a rogue actor, a cell, a small group, or a fledgling movement. Jihadists who want us dead run entire nations with armies, navies, tanks, guns, planes, and bombs.

Sure there are some patriotic American Muslims.  Let me introduce you to Cpl. Kareem Kahn.

Cpl.Kahn.2

This is a picture of his mother hugging his gravestone. He lived two towns south of me. After 9/11 he joined the military and said he did so specifically to make the point that Muslims should fight against Islamic terrorism. Point taken, Corporal, and our enduring thanks are with you.

I don’t use him as an exemplar to say, “See, this is how all moderate Muslims really act.” By and large they don’t. I use him as an example of how moderate Muslims should act, but I don’t see them doing that. Cpl. Kahn is the standard they just aren’t meeting.

Some people, like our President Barack H. Obama (pbuh), like to say that these jihadist terrorists aren’t really Islamic, they are bastardizing Islam. Well, they aren’t bastardizing Christianity and they aren’t bastardizing Judaism. That should make them an embarrassment to all other Muslims. This cancer is under their religious skins, not mine. It’s up to them to speak against Islamofascism, work against it, fight it and kill it. We’ll be glad to help since we are the target, but I just don’t see enough Cpl. Kahns coming out of the oft-heralded peaceful Muslim community, in this or other countries.

After two terrorists tried to kill Pam Geller on Sunday, I should have seen Muslims falling over themselves to stand with her in solidarity. Instead I read nothing but criticism of her, even from non-Muslims. Good grief. What the hell is America coming to?

I hope I disabused anyone of the notion that I’m not hawkish against America’s enemies, as I now wish to discuss why I don’t like the idea of a “Draw Muhammad” contest. Pam Geller isn’t the first to do this. Recall Molly Norris and her “Everyone Draw Muhammad Day,” which I objected to on Ricochet as well.

Islamofascists don’t hate me because they are Muslim. They hate me because I’m not Muslim. They are beyond intolerant of my religion, and I don’t want to exist on their plane by being intolerant of anyone else’s religion (to which I have Cpl. Kahn in mind, not them). I must remain better than them in all things, religious toleration and manner of speech included.

While I despised the artist Serrano’s work “Piss Christ” and Chris Ofili’s work “Holy Virgin Mary” (showing the blessed mother surrounded in elephant dung and pornographic images), I knew my recourse against them is the marketplace of ideas, not bullets or beheadings. Yet I certainly don’t wish to join Serrano and Ofili in disrespecting the sacred images of others. Why would I want to be Cpl. Kahn’s Serrano? To prove the First Amendment exists to someone else? I’m armed with too many good words and ideas to stoop to being another’s blasphemer.

Islamofascists have no respect for my religion or my right to have it. They wish to demoralize my religion and strip me of it, and then make me wear Islam like a straitjacket. I don’t want to be like them.

I also don’t want to be like Barack Obama, who is on an offensive against Christianity the likes of which none of us has seen from an American President. Every time the subject of Islamofascist terror comes up, he brings up the 1,200-year-old Crusades in a whirling dervish of relativistic spin. What he fails to admit is that the enemy back then was voracious Islamic jihadists pushing their way West, turning churches into mosques and establishing by force their religious caliphate governments over unwilling Christians, as they did in the area of modern Spain, for example. I guess some things never change. We are still fighting the same enemy with their same goals. Unlike Obama, I can separate the good from the bad here. Islamofascists are the bad.

My problem with drawing Muhammad is that it is a very low form of speech. It is an attempt at insulting irreverence toward a religion or even at blasphemy (I understand that word can be subjective). In short, it has us acting like them. We are scorning their religion for no other purpose than proving we have the free will and legal right to do that. We do… but when else does our side, conservatives in particular, take an anti-religious stance? Even our conservative atheists don’t do that.

Pam Geller has no real interest in the finer aesthetics of historical and contemporary artwork involving Muhammad. Her art show was a pretext to be “provocative,” as in to seek a response. It’s unassailably true that she calculated a very high risk that the response would be violent, evidenced by her spending $50,000 on armed security, a swat team and bomb squad. Of course she was right, as she knows the enemy better than our own President.

Whether she meant to or not, she accomplished something very valuable – she proved that either ISIS or ISIS wannabes (same murderous thing) are here in America. There had been no real confirmation of that, but she laid the bait and caught the animals. Now no one in the Obama administration can still claim ISIS isn’t our main worry instead of the Crusades. I hope.

It’s not lost on me why she did it. If all things were equal I don’t think Pam intends blasphemy, sacrilege or irreverence toward anyone. She knows when a Jehovah’s Witness is turned away from her door, or she refuses an Evangelical’s request for cash on television, or ignores a Hare Krishna at the airport, none of those folks will try to kill her. Islamofascists are doing just that to others around the globe and they tried to kill her Sunday.

Pam has an American urge to fight back. I get that. She did. She made her point. If no Muslim tried to kill anyone, my money says Pam never draws Muhammad. That’s why she isn’t bothering to provoke Jehovah’s Witnesses. She’s calling out the aggressors.

What I suggest she do now is take her well-made point and not do this again, as a way of returning to her perch far above them on the decent human scale. Let’s put aside that baiting the hook with our friends is fraught with peril. Instead lets prove our American exceptionalism; our sublime use of language and civilized communication.

We can’t prove any points by having more draw Muhammad contests. Where would that end? Shall we draw one on Cpl. Kahn’s tombstone? Or on our own?  Shall our legacy be, “Here lies the winner of the blasphemy contest?” Do we want that for ourselves? If we are going to set insult, blasphemy and sacrilege as our low bar, then are we not a mere deviation away from a Kristallnacht against Muslim owned businesses, mosques and homes? How low are we willing to let ISIS drag us?

A laudable goal would be to get others to accept the virtues of free speech, but I’m certain that a poor commercial for it is teaching them first that insults are as protected as compliments. They certainly are, but that’s a terrible attempt at persuasive advocacy.

It’s not lost on me how difficult convincing these people of anything will be. There is always going to be a huge challenge to assimilating Islamic people who have lived with dictators and Sharia law into American culture. I’m not sure it’s possible.

There is a distinct cultural difference that comes from a nation with Christian lineage than an Islamic one. Americans are rapt in the free will endowed upon us by our Creator, and love our country not only for its religions founders who escaped Europe and the Star Chamber, but also for weaving the thread of free will and free religion throughout our founding documents. As a matter of history (religion too, of course) that lineage comes from the resurrection of Jesus, whose life informed the enlightenment period philosophers, whose work informed America’s founding fathers.

People from countries with medieval Islamic lineage have no enlightened period from which to draw an understanding of the value of the individual and his free will. America is just not a good fit for them. Perhaps it can’t be. The cultural divide may be too wide.

Look at the mistake Lebanon made with a faulty attempt at assimilating Muslims. Lebanon was once a majority Christian nation that was thriving and Beirut was the jewel of the Middle East. After the creation of Israel, they opened their borders to Palestinians who they hoped would assimilate into Lebanese culture. They didn’t. As their immigrant numbers grew, with it grew the military and political strength to basically conquer Lebanon from within, and they turned it into another Middle Eastern hellhole. We’d be smart to take a lesson from that and start gearing immigration policy toward the likelihood of assimilation based upon shared values.

Perhaps we will always be in a state of war with Islamofascists and nothing will convince them to give up murder of outsiders and oppression of their own insiders. Until we settle on that realization, we must continue to lead the race for better ideas.

Degrading religious symbols won’t due as one of our identifiers. It’s un-American and uncivilized at its core. It’s legal, mind you, and yes I’d die for anyone’s right to disparage religion. However, my dying words are equally permitted to be, “Hey Pam Geller, how about you raise our discourse to a superior place?”

I know that one point of the First Amendment is to protect the expression of the worst of ideas. That doesn’t mean we have put those ideas in practice to prove it.

Look at Charlie Hebdo. Had 12 of them not been killed and they laid before us their usual work of drawing nuns getting raped by priests using crucifixes, none of us would consider them artists, rather useless, juvenile insult-makers.

No wonder 200 writers are boycotting Charlie Hebdo’s receipt of a PEN American award for “Courage in Free Speech.” PEN American confuses vulgarity with award-worthy speech. Were any of their drawings really courageous?

I suppose if I were to walk through the poorest section of Baltimore yelling the N-word, I can get shot and killed too. Would that in any way make me courageous? Must I do so to prove I may? Would my death elevate my speech to award-worthy? I see no difference between that and Charlie Hebdo, but I do note that their editor strained all credibility yesterday by saying Charlie Hebdo drawing Muhammad was different than Pam Geller drawing Muhammad. I understand he said so with a straight face. The only difference I see is that Pam thankfully didn’t die.

Like Pope Francis said after the Charlie Hebdo attack, “One cannot provoke, one cannot insult other people’s faith, one cannot make fun of faith. If a dear friend were to utter a swear word against my mother, he’s going to get a punch in the nose. That’s normal.”

That quote bothered people. Americans in particular hold our free speech rights dear, so the thought that anyone might punch us for words is troubling. Of course punching is still frowned upon; however, America has always had a “fighting words” exception to free speech. “Fighting words” aren’t protected by the Constitution.

In CHAPLINSKY v. STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, 315 U.S. 568 (1942), the Supreme Court upheld the arrest of a man under the “fighting words” exception to the First Amendment, when he called a police officer a racketeer and a fascist. The Court held:

It is well understood that the right of free speech is not absolute at all times and under all circumstances. There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which has never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or “fighting” words — those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality. “Resort to epithets or personal abuse is not in any proper sense communication of information or opinion safeguarded by the Constitution, and its punishment as a criminal act would raise no question under that instrument.”

Strange concept in exception to the First Amendment – criminalizing face-to-face words of confrontation.

I do note that in all cases that have gone before Supreme Court under the fighting words doctrine since then, the prosecution has failed, so the obvious trend is toward expanding free speech. Chaplinsky has not been over turned so it is still good law, but it is barely law. See, TERMINIELLO V. CITY OF CHICAGO , 337 U.S. 1 (1949) (conviction for anti-Semitic remarks at a rally overturned); COHEN v. CALIFORNIA, 403 U.S. 15 (1971) (wearing shirt to court reading “[Expletive] the Draft” deemed not fighting words); GOODING v. WILSON, 405 U.S. 518 (1972) (conviction overturned after yelling “White son of a [expletive], I’ll kill you,” and “You son of a [expletive], I’ll choke you to death” because the statute in question outlawed more than fighting words); the same reasoning was used in LEWIS v. CITY OF NEW ORLEANS, 415 U.S. 130 (1974) and HOUSTON v. HILL, 482 U.S. 451 (1987).

If you have a fear that the Court might someday uphold a law banning the drawing of Muhammad, fear not. That would be nearly identical to the cross burning case of R.A.V. v. ST. PAUL, 505 U.S. 377 (1992). There the St. Paul, Minn., Bias-Motivated Crime Ordinance, prohibited the display of a symbol, as follows:

Whoever places on public or private property, a symbol, object, appellation, characterization or graffiti, including, but not limited to, a burning cross or Nazi swastika, which one knows or has reasonable grounds to know arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender commits disorderly conduct and shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.

Sounds like one could include a Muhammad drawing in that list.

Justice Scalia found the law unconstitutional, most notable in these paragraphs:

Although the phrase in the ordinance, “arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others,” has been limited by the Minnesota Supreme Court’s construction to reach only those symbols or displays that amount to “fighting words,” the remaining, unmodified terms make clear that the ordinance applies only to “fighting words” that insult, or provoke violence, “on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender.” Displays containing abusive invective, no matter how vicious or severe, are permissible unless they are addressed to one of the specified disfavored topics. Those who wish to use “fighting words” in connection with other ideas — to express hostility, for example, on the basis of political affiliation, union membership, or homosexuality — are not covered. The First Amendment does not permit St. Paul to impose special prohibitions on those speakers who express views on disfavored subjects.

Then this:

As explained earlier, the reason why fighting words are categorically excluded from the protection of the First Amendment is not that their content communicates any particular idea, but that their content embodies a particularly intolerable (and socially unnecessary) mode of expressing whatever idea the speaker wishes to convey. St. Paul has not singled out an especially offensive mode of expression—it has not, for example, selected for prohibition only those fighting words that communicate ideas in a threatening (as opposed to a merely obnoxious) manner. Rather, it has proscribed fighting words of whatever manner that communicate messages of racial, gender, or religious intolerance. Selectivity of this sort creates the possibility that the city is seeking to handicap the expression of particular ideas. That possibility would alone be enough to render the ordinance presumptively invalid, but St. Paul’s comments and concessions in this case elevate the possibility to a certainty.

Of course you also get a couple of lines only Scalia can summon:

St. Paul has no such authority to license one side of a debate to fight freestyle, while requiring the other to follow Marquess of Queensberry rules.

And then:

Let there be no mistake about our belief that burning a cross in someone’s front yard is reprehensible. But St. Paul has sufficient means at its disposal to prevent such behavior without adding the First Amendment to the fire.

It appears then that any fear about the necessity to protect Pamela Geller’s right to draw Muhammad is misplaced. I only object to her willingness to do so.

I know that in a free society with free speech, it comes with the territory that occasionally you have to take one on the chin. America is obviously forgetting that, particularly with the rise of this silliness called “micro-aggressions” and the like. I acknowledge oversensitivity exists. There really is no agreed-upon yardstick for what is legitimately speech of bad manners and what is oversensitivity toward otherwise innocuous speech.

I know that many don’t understand how drawing a cartoon is sacrilege, me included. However, if Serrano didn’t think “Piss Christ” was sacrilege, does his conclusion delegitimize my claim that it was?

“South Park” skillfully pointed out that Muslims are holding us to an undefined standard, when they drew Muhammad in a bear suit and basically asked if that is still a drawing of Muhammad. Touché.

At least on matters of religion, I prefer to be deferential to the aggrieved, accepting that I really might not understand them as Serrano misunderstood me. What does it cost me if I maintain my right to say, draw or do something but avoid doing it for the sake of another’s feelings? Nothing.

So I would fight like hell for the right to draw Muhammad. I would die for Pam Geller’s right to do it and would fight a war to kill her aggressors. But toward the good ends of being civilized in a plural society, I choose not to draw Muhammad, for the same reason I refuse to call someone the “N” word.

Published in Culture, Law
Like this post? Want to comment? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

There are 211 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. user_3444 Coolidge
    user_3444
    @JosephStanko

    How can you fight for the right to draw Muhammad unless someone actually draws Muhammad? I’m not sure the right exists in any meaningful sense if no one dares to exercise it.

    • #1
  2. user_423610 Member
    user_423610
    @Spencer3861

    Let’s not question that there is a right to do something like this. Even so, just as I would not have have my religion purposely insulted, so I would not have the religion of others insulted. There ought to be ways to criticize that are better than this.

    • #2
  3. TG Thatcher
    TG
    @TG

    The murderers of the Charlie Hebdo staff had two goals: punish the “transgressions,” and discourage others from drawing any more cartoons similarly insulting to Mohammed. Their *method* of discouragement was far beyond merely unacceptable.

    They achieved the first goal, and lacking a time machine, we can’t do anything about that. The second goal is broader and more forward oriented, and something we can affect. If we allow that second goal to be achieved, the practical effect is to encourage and validate the method. And we’ll probably then get even more of it.

    I’m sad that fighting this fight will distress people who don’t deserve to be distressed. But their distress is not as important as establishing that murder (and attempted murder) is *not* an effective tactic.

    • #3
  4. Eugene Kriegsmann Member
    Eugene Kriegsmann
    @EugeneKriegsmann

    My reaction when I saw the contest was that it was in bad taste and an unnecessary gesture made, mainly, to evoke the very response it got. I don’t question Pam Geller’s right to do it, just her judgment in choosing to make the point that way. At the same time, my objecting to it, on any grounds, seem to put me in a camp with people with whom I have no desire to be. Thank you for your well written (per usual) piece, Tommy. I can stand with you comfortably, but not with the buffoons in the media whose reasoning and logic I could not abide.

    • #4
  5. Ricochet Moderator
    Ricochet
    @OmegaPaladin

    How about displaying classical / respectful Mohammed pictures?  The taboo against depiction is recent, and the pictures are elegant examples of classic art.

    • #5
  6. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    There’s more going on with the response to Geller than freedom of expression (ie the right to draw whatever we want to) or criticism of Islam.

    Compare the response to her and to South Park drawing Mohammad in a bear suit.

    Compare the response to her and to people like Hirsi Ali or Irshad Munjee.

    • #6
  7. Drusus Inactive
    Drusus
    @Drusus

    I agree completely with this post. Well said.

    • #7
  8. Eric Hines Inactive
    Eric Hines
    @EricHines

    I don’t want to exist on their plane by being intolerant of anyone else’s religion….

    Drawing and publishing Mohammed is not intolerance of Islam; it’s an enforcement of free speech.  Don’t conflate the meaning of Piss Christ with the meaning of such a publication.

    …my recourse against them is the marketplace of ideas….

    Indeed.  Here, the idea of free speech.

    After they stop trying to kill us, not before, there won’t be any need to enforce our freedom of speech by speaking so bluntly.

    Full stop.

    Eric Hines

    • #8
  9. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    Nice work, Tommy.

    To me, this is a lot like hockey. In hockey a lesser skilled team will generally employ cheap shot tactics against a highly skilled team to get them off their game. The highly skilled team gets frustrated and starts mucking it up with the goons instead of focusing on scoring. This evens up the fight and gives the lousy team an even chance.

    Geller is the highly skilled team here and is getting drawn into the sloppy game.

    • #9
  10. user_231912 Inactive
    user_231912
    @BrianMcMenomy

    While reading your well-written & useful piece, a sad but revealing thought experiment occurred to me.  Imagine if instead of being intercepted outside the hall, the 2 jihadist thugs made it inside and killed several people before being stopped.  Would the reaction to Pam Gellar be muted because of the sickening act of 2 evil people, or would it be amplified by some version of this?

    “Look at what Pam Gellar’s bad judgment led to; several innocent people died so that Pam could make her point.”

    Large segments of our society have taken blame-shifting and raised to an art form; no matter what egregious act is performed, the perpetrator will point to some circumstance, real or imagined, and expect to be absolved (or at least understood).

    Like you, I would hope that good judgment (for once) and civility would keep me from participating in a “Draw Mohammad” contest.  We must also watch carefully for the line that divides civility and self-censorship; one can become indulgent all too easily.

    • #10
  11. kelsurprise Member
    kelsurprise
    @kelsurprise

    Well said.  Thank you.

    • #11
  12. 9thDistrictNeighbor Member
    9thDistrictNeighbor
    @9thDistrictNeighbor

    How many have actually taken the time to look at the images from the exhibition? No “Charlie Hebdo,” these. Some were less well-executed than others, but the “winning” Bosch Fawstin work is an elegant masterpiece of dignified speech.

    • #12
  13. iDad Inactive
    iDad
    @iDad

    The issue isn’t whether the Supreme Court will affirm a statute banning cartoons of Muhammed.  The issue is whether threats of violence will effectively banish any expression that certain Muslims find offensive.

    To suggest that everyone should censor themselves because somebody else might find their expressions offensive is to grant the heckler his veto.

    • #13
  14. Funeral Guy Inactive
    Funeral Guy
    @FuneralGuy

    Wrong wrong wrong! What good is it to say I’ve got the right to draw a picture of Mohhammed…ah…but I’m not gonna ’cause I respect their religious sensitivities. I’m not scared or anything, but I’m a good person. (Don’t chop my head off…OK?)

    • #14
  15. user_3444 Coolidge
    user_3444
    @JosephStanko

    9thDistrictNeighbor:How many have actually taken the time to look at the images from the exhibition?No “Charlie Hebdo,” these. Some were less well-executed than others, but the “winning” Bosch Fawstin work is an elegant masterpiece of dignified speech.

    Check out his winning drawing plus other works on his blog.

    In addition to the winner I particularly enjoyed Obama’s Position on Iran… and What Would Mohammad Do?

    • #15
  16. Raw Prawn Member
    Raw Prawn
    @RawPrawn

    TG:

    I’m sad that fighting this fight will distress people who don’t deserve to be distressed.But their distress is not as important as establishing that murder (and attempted murder) is *not* an effective tactic.

    TG has it exactly right. The only way I would modify it would be to mention that more and better people than the leftist loons at Charlie Hebdo have been murdered in the name of Islam. The islamists’ purpose is not to produce converts, it’s to produce obedience.

    A wise and reasonable, dare I say superior, choice to refrain from doing anything that might set them off, is effectively obedience. Islamists use violence because it works. We should hope that islamists, unlike liberals, will stop doing stuff that  doesn’t work.

    Islamic tolerance amounts to “I will refrain from killing you if you lick my boots and pay me.” Your tolerance, reasonableness, restraint or good taste will be interpreted as weakness and incitement to more violence.

    • #16
  17. user_48342 Member
    user_48342
    @JosephEagar

    I agree that it’s low to mock another’s religion.  But that’s how real politics works: not the partisan theater kind, but real, raw power plays.  You have to stoop low if you are to survive, and while I would never draw these sorts of cartoons, I do think people like us should be grateful there are others who will.

    • #17
  18. iDad Inactive
    iDad
    @iDad

    It is an attempt at insulting irreverence toward a religion or even at blasphemy (I understand that word can be subjective).

    No. it isn’t.  It is to demonstrate that radical Muslims cannot control discourse by labelling what they don’t like “blasphemy.”

    In short, it has us acting like them.

    No, acting like them would be trying to shoot up a Jesus cartoon contest held by Muslims..  This just one of the several false equivalences set forth in the post, including comparing the cartoons to shouting racial epithets.

    I’m armed with too many good words and ideas to stoop to being another’s blasphemer.

    Radical Islamists consider your “good words and ideas” blasphemous.

    • #18
  19. Walker Member
    Walker
    @Walker

    Tommy, Thanks for your cogent response.  Last night, I felt like the only one on the site with a similar (although perhaps a briefer) opinion.  I came back to the site with some trepidation just now to post a link to a Washington Examiner article about how some Fox News journalists are also concerned about the lengths that this action by Pam Geller has gone to (http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/fox-news-personalities-get-behind-i-support-free-speech-but/article/2564104).  Thanks for being a voice of reason on a most emotional topic.  I really appreciate it!

    • #19
  20. user_3444 Coolidge
    user_3444
    @JosephStanko

    Spencer3861:Even so, just as I would not have have my religion purposely insulted

    What is the big deal with having one’s religion insulted?  It happens routinely on the more heated religious and SSM threads here on Ricochet and I take it in stride.

    South Park has mocked my religion, and many others, repeatedly and mercilessly.  It’s also freakin’ hilarious, I love the show.

    There’s something seriously wrong with people who can’t take a joke at their expense every now and then.  We should be lecturing them that they should grow up and developer a thicker skin rather than lecturing artists, comedians, and cartoonists on how they should be more sensitive and never ever hurt anyone’s feelings.

    • #20
  21. user_3444 Coolidge
    user_3444
    @JosephStanko

    Tommy De Seno: I know that many don’t understand how drawing a cartoon is sacrilege, me included. However, if Serrano didn’t think “Piss Christ” was sacrilege, does his conclusion delegitimize my claim that it was?

    If you think his work is sacrilege then don’t go see it at an exhibition and don’t buy a print.  Problem solved.

    If Mr. Serrano came to your house, knocked on your door, and when you answered shoved his picture in your face then maybe I could buy the comparison to “fighting words.”  But the mere fact that he created a work that you find offensive does not mean he set out to deliberately provoke you personally, nor that you are justified in reacting as though he did.

    • #21
  22. EJHill Podcaster
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    Freedom is a muscle. If you don’t use it, it atrophies and it becomes useless – especially at the moment you need it.

    Respect is a two way street. Until Islam matures I say draw the prophet all day long. For every Cpl. Khan there is a Nidal Malik Hasan, or two, or three. When Pam Geller holds one of these events and NOBODY shows up from either side then free speech and Islam are both safe. To surrender unilaterally and to be patting yourself on the back for showing your sophistication and good taste is naïve.

    Nor can you equate this with the “N-word.” Why? Because black people don’t even have the decency to stop using it.

    • #22
  23. shelby_forthright Member
    shelby_forthright
    @spacemanspiff

    “No wonder 200 writers are boycotting Charlie Hebdo’s receipt of a PEN American award for ‘Courage in Free Speech.’ PEN American confuses vulgarity with award-worthy speech. Were any of their drawings really courageous?”

    The is just obtuse and disgusting. Their offices were firebombed in 2011 and still they didn’t stop. Would that any of us were half as courageous. Ask Salman Rushdie about their courage.

    • #23
  24. Byron Horatio Inactive
    Byron Horatio
    @ByronHoratio

    Maybe some religions deserve a special dose of mockery and blasphemy directed at them for their lack of modernity. Maybe if the faithful did not burn, murder, and pillage at any slight against their religion, then I would be inclined to call it bad taste when someone insulted the founder. But in this instance, the jihadists and their fellow travelers and enablers are de facto fascists. And frankly Muhammed was a brute. No civilized society would accord so much respect to a warlord who founded a death cult. (Incidentally, a man who put artists and poets to death in his own time for falling foul of him)

    The best medicine for authoritarians is unrelenting mockery. I say have another event.

    • #24
  25. Dex Quire Inactive
    Dex Quire
    @DexQuire

    America didn’t do anything but just be here — that was provocation enough for the 9/11 jihadi attackers.

    So they attacked and we began to be lectured about how peaceful Islam is.

    But the only reason politicians and journalists are talking about Islam in the first place is because of the violence done in its name.

    America has nothing to be ashamed of in its treatment of Muslim immigrants.

    The preemptive piety of the US media & politicians (and now writers) facing Islam is ridiculous and hypocritical—and cowardly.

    • #25
  26. Ricochet Member
    Ricochet
    @LibertyDefender

    Tommy, you’re just plain wrong.  Surrendering free speech rights in the face of ideological extortion will only lead to more demands of surrender to that ideology.  Molly Norris was correct before she chickened out – if we all draw Mohammed, the jihadis can’t kill all of us.  I’m Spartacus!  For this post, I have changed my avatar to the drawing I submitted on Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.  By any rational calculation, no drawing, no cartoon is “fighting words” sufficient to lose First Amendment protection.

    In his Best of the Web column for the Wall Street Journal, James Taranto today (May 6, 2015) made a pretty good analysis of the rank indecency of the Washington Post’s implication that Pam Geller ought to apologize for hosting the Draw Muhammed event:

    American Catholics—and Mormons and other Christians—who respond with violence to religious insults do not appear to exist. The same cannot be said of American Muslims, even if those inclined to such violence are a tiny minority.

    I can’t wait to see what Mark Steyn has to say about this one.

    • #26
  27. TKC1101 Member
    TKC1101
    @

    I can only hope cartoon parties become a regular event in small towns everywhere. Heavily armed small towns.

    If we held fifty cartoon parties a week for a month it would burn this insane meme out. Bullies are only effective when they divide you.  Terrorism only works when you act terrorized.  History shows us that extremist movements must be stopped early and consistently. Appeasement and fear of offending is not a winning strategy.

    I would suggest we include Jesus and other figures in the contests. Let’s not be non-inclusive, now. Maybe hold the finals on a show like American Idol…

    I do wish we could make it happen, only to see Bill O’Reilly explain it to us on TV.

    Note- comment appears elsewhere.

    • #27
  28. Byron Horatio Inactive
    Byron Horatio
    @ByronHoratio

    The winning drawing in the Draw Muhammed contest was not some inflammatory hack piece, but was a profoundly clever and powerful statement that managed to satirize jihadists while championing the right for absolute freedom of speech.

    • #28
  29. James Lileks Contributor
    James Lileks
    @jameslileks

    I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it, with the understanding that you won’t.

    Exegesis of the proscriptions that arise from interpretations of the hadith forbid depictions of all the Islamic prophets, including that Issa fellow. ISIL would feed the contents of the Louvre to the pyre.

    • #29
  30. shelby_forthright Member
    shelby_forthright
    @spacemanspiff

    Tell you what, Tommy: why don’t you write Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and ask him what we can or cannot say. Then get back to us.

    By the way, this is the cartoon that started this controversy 5 years ago. The woman who drew it is still in hiding.

    norris2

    Maybe someday she’ll get to live her life again. I mean: there are so many fighting like hell for her right to free speech…

    • #30
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.