Too Cowardly To Print Muhammad Cartoons?
The British Daily Mail recently posted a story about the French satirical paper Charlie Hebdo‘s new comic book life of Muhammad; they illustrated the story with a photo of a man standing in front of the Charlie Hebdo offices after Islamic jihadists had firebombed them. The man is holding one of the earlier issues of the paper that featured cartoons of Muhammad, but the Daily Mail pixelated out the image of Muhammad that was on the front cover of the paper the man was holding.
This is the suicide of the free press. The Daily Mail is generally better than the other papers in Britain in covering the jihad threat, but it is also careless, sensationalistic, and — as this proves — execrably cowardly. The Daily Mail is hereby signaling that violent intimidation works, and that all you have to do to get the West’s vaunted “free press” to cower before you and give up its freedom is lob a few bombs, kill a few innocents, and make a few threats.
The Daily Mail editors would probably protest that they simply did not want to give needless offense to Muslim readers, and certainly a case can be made for avoiding giving needless offense to anyone’s religious sensibilities. But there is no way this argument can be sustained in light of the obvious fact that no one in the mainstream media is concerned about hurting the delicate sensibilities of Christians or Jews by publishing images insulting to those religions; indeed, such images are likely to get National Endowment for the Arts awards and praise from the New York Times.
No, the sensitivity to offending Muslims on the part of the Daily Mail and all the innumerable publications that didn’t run any of these Muhammad images, despite their news value, even in pixelated form, is wholly and solely due to the fact that when such images are published, an uncomfortable number of Muslims tend to riot and kill in response. But that is no reason for the Western press to go wobbly about the freedom of speech; indeed, it is all the more reason for it not to do so.
The proper response to violent intimidation is not for its victims to curtail their activities and to change their behavior. That only encourages the bullies. The proper response is to stand up to them, show them that they will not get their way, and do all one can to protect those whom they may harm. This would show the world that the West will not give up its principle of free speech, our foremost bulwark against tyranny, and will stand for our principles against attempts to intimidate us into enforcing Sharia blasphemy laws upon ourselves.
Instead, the Daily Mail, like so many others, capitulates. Among British papers, the The Independent showed no greater courage, although the often-dhimmi Telegraph did — albeit at a distance.
These are the descendants of folk who put up with George III and stayed there…
U.S. Attorney’s office protected Rezko friend Dr. Ronald Michael
http://illinoispaytoplay.com/2013/01/09/u-s-attorneys-office-protected-rezko-friend-dr-ronald-michael/
Muslims are using the same tactic that Hitler and the Nazis used before WW2. No one wanted another war with Germany (especially after Germany had rearmed and was putting on parades showing its military strength). This allowed Hitler and the Nazis to commit aggression against other countries while the democracies tried everything they could to avoid a direct conflict with Germany. Then when the democracies were forced to fight, they faced a much more powerful Germany than they would have faced earlier if they had decided to face up to Nazi Germany.
This is the exact same tactic the Muslims are using today. They hold the threat of violence over our heads and get away with it. We cower before their threats, censor our own media to avoid anything that might “anger” them. We have become “dhimmi” in our own societies even though we are the majority and possess the means if necessary to use sufficient violence to teach them a lesson they won’t forget. Islam is a lot like Nazism, like Soviet and Chinese Communism, and should be properly seen not as a religion, but an aggressive political philosophy that poses as a religion.
NO. Islam is NOT “an aggressive political philosophy that poses as a religion.”
Politics has been best described as “power-trading,” but in islam, there’s no give-and-take “trading” at all – it’s ALL “Take.”
Islam is Submission to the threat of force; islam is extortion, and extortion is a crime.
So obviously Islam is ONLY an ancient, ongoing extortion-racket CRIME-syndicate, and the only “religious” part in it, is where they say:
“God told us to commit these crimes!”
(Capisce?)!
I’m waiting for Piers Morgan to rag on Muslims the way he’s ragging on American gun and freedom proponents.
That is never going to happen. See the invasion of London by the Muslims. They already have areas that are submitted to the Sharia.
“…after all, who could be in favor of “intolerance, discrimination, and violence based on religion or belief”?”
“…the sensitivity to offending Muslims … is wholly and solely due to the fact that when such images are published, an uncomfortable number of Muslims tend to riot and kill in response.”
Answers the question, doesn’t it? — Islamofascists favor such behavior, mostly unopposed by their religious kin, which in reality means that almost all µslims do favor such behavior. Certainly their “botherhood” does. — And we, their targets, are supposed to agree?! “Out of my cold, dead, hands…”
“…to address and combat intolerance, discrimination, and violence based on religion or belief.”
Based on their own criteria for intolerance, Islam should be banned.
I don’t know if it’s cowardly, really. Consider that they know their governments won’t back them in this. All the governments ever do is talk about how bad “Islamophobia” is and how people need to be nice to Muslims. Our service members are expected to bend over backwards to Muslims in the field. The governments consider burning Korans – even accidentally – a terrible thing to do, whereas mocking Christians or other religions is considered free speech.
The governments set the tone. When you know your government will simply join in on castigating you, why sacrifice your own safety or that of your family?
I would say it is the appeasing governments who are cowardly, not the individuals.
“I don’t know if it’s cowardly, really. Consider that they know their governments won’t back them in this.” … “The governments set the tone.”
The government only sets the tone when a population ALLOWS them to set that tone.
Courage is not standing up only when you know the weight of government is supporting you. Courage is standing up for what you know to be right, even if NOBODY is standing in front of you, or even beside you. If this has to be explained to you, it probably means you are a coward.
You are right; I am a coward. About this, anyway. Even if I wanted to draw such cartoons, I wouldn’t, as I don’t want to be killed for it.
Easier to believe that if the media was not so in the bag for certain politicians, politics, etc. They act more as accomplices and if these people were culturally against Islam both government and media would be reacting differently. The West is still militarily superior to Islam it just chooses appeasement for its own reasons.
The sad part is that if the press was as neutral as its own ideals say it should be and the gov’t cared about its real job in protecting its citizens this would not be happening.
We’re just about a half-step away from Proggies telling us that we’re Anti-Muslim bigots for not being willing to voluntarily put our necks to their scimitars.
Since 2004, up to 884 innocent civilians, including at least 176 children, have died from US drone strikes in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan. A new report from the Stanford and New York University law schools finds drone use has caused widespread post-tramatic stress disorder and an overall breakdown of functional society in North Waziristan. In addition, the report finds the use of a “double tap” procedure, in which a drone strikes once and strikes again not long after, has led to deaths of rescuers and medical professionals. Many interviewees told the researchers they didn’t know what America was before drones. Now what they know of America is drones, death and terror.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yMOzvmgVhc&feature=player_embedded
There are no innocent Muslims.
And you have no reasoning or research skills! Got a reasoning problem? Get some! Get away from the government run media for truth. The web is world wide. Stay away from the MSM! Do not be a SERF!
Since 2004, up to 884 innocent civilians, including at least 176 children, have died from US drone strikes in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan. YES there is!
There are millions of innocent Muslims; don’t be an ass.
#7. This is Obama’s “clean” method of dealing with the bad guys. Much tidier that having all those soldiers and Marines blasting their way into enemy compounds to get to the jihadis. Now when Bush did the drone thing, liberals considered him to be a beast and a brute, and the outcry was ferocious. But with Obama? Not so much. After all, his intentions are good – and that is what really counts.
I don’t know, but giving needless offense in defense of free speech seems the least we can do, especially when the the “other side” does it all the time.
Who wants to help me set up a newspaper so we can print all the anti-Muslim cartoons anybody can devise? Bring some heavy weaponry with you to the office.
Exactly. The day we regain freedom of speech is the day we’re willing to fight and possibly die for it.
Terrific post. So when will PJ Media post the cartoons?
Probably the first and last time I’ll ever agree with you.
Hey PJ media Idont see you guys running any muhammad images. You want to run a story about to cowardly to print. PRINT IT YOUR SELVES.
One of the first times I wrote to a conservative website publisher was to raise the question of Yale Univerity Press’s cowardice in not publishing muhammed cartoons, as promised to the author of a book about that very thing.
So, ARE there images or AREN’T there? See, if nobody prints them, we…can’t…know.
I haven’t printed any images of the founder of islam either, but if someone asserts that I did without producing proof…it’s ridiculous. Why assert, or even talk about, what is not being published when, by NOT publishing a thing, it’s impossible to know if it ever existed in the first place?!
WSJ online does a funny thing (James Taranto actually), called the Bottom Stories of the Day. They are usually headlines about things that will not happen as in, “Congress will take no action on thus and such,” or, “Octomom not pregnant,” that sort of thing.
We already know that the world is scared sh*tless of islam. It reminds me of the old Saturday Night Live sketch about,”…and this just in, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.” Well, the west is still peeing its pants.
So everybody is scared. God forbid we should do anything about it.
I salute saudis who have perfected the 20 and 21 st war game. No arms and soldiers needed now from saudis. Just their book and mullahs are doing the job by converting poor and uneducated class in a country and making sure they remain poor for many many generations doing the job of saudi destroying all converts nations internally. jai Ho Saudi. You are great No one gets this game plan yet even after 1400 yrs..
56 islamic nation still poor and all are ready to kill and die even after 1400 yrs of these facts
There’s a site that is quite philosophical about christianity, muslimism, cartoons and life in general, http://www.jesusandmo.net/