Pissing on Denmark

It's rather bracing to see a little bit of spine sprouting in Europe. Check out the following comment from Danish journalist Per Nyholm:

I think it was the long departed H.C. Hansen, one of the great Danish statesmen of the last century, who – as the communists were demonstrating in front of Christiansborg [the Danish Parliament] – cast his gaze across the palace square and remarked: “I will not be pissed upon.”

Then he did what was necessary.

I feel that currently my beloved country is being pissed upon rather too much. Denmark has not been neglecting its duties on the international stage. We have supported poor people with acts and advice, we have worked for peace, we have sent soldiers, policemen and experts to all the far flung corners of the world. We have democracy, a rule of law and a welfare state. Not all is perfect, but we harbor no malice towards our fellow men.

And yet Denmark is being pissed upon. The spokesman of the US State Department is pissing on Denmark, the British Secretary of Foreign Affairs is pissing on Denmark, the President of Afghanistan is pissing on Denmark, the Government of Iraq is pissing on Denmark, other Muslim regimes are pissing on Denmark. In Gaza, where Danes for years have provided humanitarian aid, crazed Imams encourage people to cut off the hands and heads of the cartoonists who made the drawings of Mohammed for the Jyllands-Posten newspaper.

Excuse my choice of words, but all this pissing is pissing me off.

Right answer, Per.

He further observes:

That is why I say: Freedom of Speech is Freedom of Speech is Freedom of Speech. There is no but.

Right again.

HazZzmat has commented ad nauseam in this space in other contexts as well as this one, that free speech also carries with it a certain sense of responsibility and decorum, and we are frequently unhappy with the vicious and false characterizations of Christianity in our own media and vigorously defend the right of individuals to protest stuff like that.

That having been said, however, it's not the intent of the current (and government funded) cartoon jihad being waged in the Middle East via Syria and Iran to merely protest an exercise in a foreign country that they view as having been in bad taste. It is the attempt of repressive foreign regimes to fund activities that they intend to use to impose dubious Islamic standards upon a government not their own, and one that has gone out of its way (perhaps too much) to be a good neighbor in the middle East. This is, in fact, the attempted censorship of the West and its values by rogue governments and Islamofascists. Period.

Characterizing these nonstop demonstrations as "sincere" at this point is beyond the pale and reminds one of the similar bleatings in the media when France was undergoing its own torchings a few months ago, driven, again, we think, in large part by rogue mullahs and perhaps aided and abetted by foreign governments intent on imposing a kind of dhimmitude on the West.

Read the rest of Nylom's observations here, along with a good bit else.

And a hat tip for the link to Little Green Footballs.