Well, two problems with that essay. To respond I must be a 'member' and
that means giving them my e-dress which I'm loathe to do. The second is
that I can't quite make out what the writer is trying to say, other than
he's against the extremists. But he rather sounds like one himself. So let
me paraphrase what I think he's saying, maybe I missed something.
On the face of it, members of group A burning the holy book of group B in
retaliation for Group B burning the national emblem of group A is not going
to calm the situation down. Quite the opposite, as of course Group B knows
and I rather wonder just how many Group A extremists there really ARE who
want to burn those holy books. It would really suit the paranoid in me to
say "Ah, so Group B dresses up as Group A, burns something that looks like
or may even BE Group B holy books, and all hell breaks loose on Group A who,
on the face of it, did nothing but state the obvious. which is:
A paper exercised its legal right to publish satire. The offense taken to
the satire was [blown] out of proportion to the point of the thing and the
publisher apologized, because their purpose was to make a point, not start a
fight. In civilized society this is the end of the story because the
paper's government can't and shouldn't do more than say, "We wish thay
hadn't written that." Or if they're smart dismiss it as a manufactured issue
by extremists.
If the only text I've seen of the "offensive joke" was valid, moderate
Moslems would find some wry humor in Mohammed shown saying, "Hey, cut down
on the suicide bombings guys, we're running out of virgins for you in
Paradise." I would venture a guess that almost NONE of the people 'outraged'
over the cartoons have seen them (they are banned and people have been fired
for republishing them so that their own readers can assess the 'offense' for
themselves) And the real "outrage" expressed is over the Danish government's
refusal to do anything to harm a paper exercising its legal rights.
What has, of course, completely been ignored is that all religions
eventually get satirized. Sometimes by their own adherents. Maybe that's
what's completely cheesing off the Muslim clerics? What if their own people
start ...gasp... laughing at them!!! It's very difficult to feel outraged
and martyred by being laughed at. It's much more humiliating to be laughed
at and left to live than tortured to death. Once you're dead your troubles
are over and you don't have to face the results of your stupidity.
I read a few of the comments and man, I've never seen so many trolls in one
place before.
Elena
-----Original Message-----
From: OliveStarlightOrchestra_at_yahoogroups.com
[mailto:OliveStarlightOrchestra_at_yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of Joy McCann
Sent: Saturday, February 04, 2006 8:19 PM
To: OliveStarlightOrchestra_at_yahoogroups.com
Subject: [OliveStarlightOrchestra] Free Speech and Irreverent Cartoons
Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom is looking for comments here, and
wants a broad spectrum of political philosophies represented in his
post on the controversy over those Danish cartoons:
http://www.proteinwisdom.com/index.php/weblog/entry/19801/
Yahoo! Groups Links
Received on 2006-02-04 21:21:17