Still LOL here at HazZzmat as we read CNN's online version of the escalating "Cartoons of the Prophet" controversy here. The article, which concludes without a single link to the offending cartoons, ends with this stunning disclaimer:
CNN has chosen to not show the cartoons out of respect for Islam.Well, burn my britches. Do I recall last year when CNN founder Ted Turner dissed Catholics for wearing ashes on Ash Wednesday by calling them Jesus Freaks? Or all his other snide asides, duly reported by CNN whether he offered phoney apologies or not? Guess all religions are equal, but some are more equal than others.
Then again, on a related note, here's a choice comment from an Instapundit reader who is not at all happy about our own State Department's typically lefty response to the flap:
Reader John Friedman emails: "I'm sorry. Did I miss the State Dept. analysis of 'Piss Christ?' Perhaps you could link to it."Read the main piece here.
We are now starting to hear some of the usual appeasement bleating in fashionable European circles when the Euro governments should be sticking to their guns. Fact is, as we stated elsewhere yesterday, from a strictly theological point of view, those cartoons ARE blasphemous for Muslims, just the way "Piss Christ" and "Elephant Dung Virgin" and lots of South Park episodes are for Christians. We actually agree. We're just not sure that the correct solution is asking the Iranians to nuke Denmark. (That'll show 'em.)
But what's the deal here with lefty intellectualoids, in particular, stumbling all over themselves to appease Muslim outrage while those impassioned Islamofascists don't give a rat's derrière about stupid Christian infidels? Do we detect some kind of double standard here among European elites or in the peace-loving world of Islam? Or have Christians simply not stabbed enough journalists and filmmakers to death yet to make an impression?
On the other hand, we have to wonder about all the Islamofascists jumping around in a rage and burning Danish flags when they danced in the streets in 2001 after a few of their fellow fanatics wasted over 3,000 innocent American lives in the Pentagon and the WTC. Or the ones who praised Allah as they clamored for re-runs of the Danny Pearle beheading video. We really have to wonder why beheading and mass-slaughter of innocents is okay, but a cartoon gets death threats for the perps. Is there some sense of proportion missing here?
Lately, I hear of people who are afraid of a terrorist attack on this year's Super Bowl. Millions are being spent behind the scenes as a hedge against the possibility. Do Muslims have a similar level of fear during the Hajj?
If our Islamic friends in the Middle East and elsewhere really want us to play nice, perhaps they might consider putting away their bloody knives and suicide vests, investing in their economies, providing infrastructure for their people, leaving the Israelis in peace, and maybe even writing outraged letters to European editors who run uncivilized cartoons and caricatures.
Naaaahhh....
UPDATE: Power Line weighs in here. Plenty of pix, putting themselves on the line, and noting that the radical clerics are stirring the pot. Who knew?
Power Line also comments on what, sadly, should be the obvious. Why are folks in the press being called upon to practice "restraint" so as not to "antagonize" the Islamofascists? Isn't that censorship? Doesn't that mean that the terrorists win? Aren't we living in a democracy where we say Tom Toles can trash our soldiers in the Washington Post and where portraits of the Blessed Virgin slopped over with elephant excrement can hang in the Brooklyn Art Museum and be proclaimed art? What if this torques soldiers and Christians off? Should we censor this, too?
This kind of debate should actually be unnecessary. But it IS necessary because the last 50 years of creeping moral relativism has blurred moral distinctions into an entropic mess. Wonk seriously wonders whether this country any longer possesses the moral fiber and conviction to counter the Islamofascists and expose their little game.
If blasphemy is okay for one religion but not okay for another, what kind of standards are we proclaiming, anyway?
Precisely.
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