February 13, 2006
Framing the Debate Properly
Jay Tea of Wizbang had a flash in the middle of the night about Cartoongate. Specifically, he realized that nobody is asking the right question here. Everyone is focusing on whether or not printing the cartoons is “sensitive” enough, or whether, even with the rights of free speech, whether it was in good taste.
But that’s not the idea at all. Muslims are not rioting because they’re “offended”. They’re rioting because a tenet of Islamic law, disallowing one to depict the prophet Muhammed (gfap) in drawings, has been violated.
As Jay Tea points out, this isn’t a question of whether it’s in good taste to print those cartoons, it is a question of whether or not we submit to following Islamic law:
There’s been something that has been bugging me about the Cartoon War, some aspect that was just wrong, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Finally, while I slept last night, it clicked in my head — the fundamental question that so few seem to be addressing:
Do we have the right to not obey Islamic law?
As civilized, decent human beings, we certainly are obligated to take into account the sensibilities of others when we decide whether or not to take certain actions that may offend them. Indeed, that is the crux of the argument of the apologists, and it is a valid argument.
But the power of that argument — as persuasive as it may be — ends at the point of compulsion. We SHOULD respect them, and SHOULD consider them, but is has no duty assigned to it.
The Islamist world is not inflamed over a dozen cartoons published by a single newspaper in Denmark. (To be perfectly honest, they’re more inflamed by three counterfeit cartoons passed off as legit by a group of Danish Imams than the original Dirty Dozen, but that’s irrelevant to this point.) They are outraged because that newspaper carefully considered whether or not to respect Islamic law, and chose not to. Following that, the Danish government considered whether or not to enforce Islamic law against the newspaper — and came to the conclusion that they could not.
Let’s not forget that the ultimate goal of the jihadists is the worldwide spread of Islam and Islamic law. Where they cannot yet directly bring about submission to Islamic law, they hope to bring it about through the threat of terrorism. Whether or not the cartoons are insensitive is not the issue here: standing up for freedom in the face of those who wish to enslave us is.
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This post (and Wizbang’s post) actually kind of describes what GFAP is all about…if you read the postscript, you’ll notice that the whole thing that inspired it was the BBC’s insistence of using PBUH whenever they mention Muhammed, yet they have no problem with printing the words “God,” which many Christians and Jews refuse to write, preferring instead of write “G-d.”
The difference, of course, being that Christians and Jews don’t blow shit up when they get pissed off. I didn’t really particularly like putting that in, (I have more than a few Muslim acquaintances, and I know that this would offend them), but this isn’t about what I like, or for that matter, what they like. This is about, as you say, not submitting to any one particular group’s set of beliefs.
All that said, I can’t help but wonder what I’ve unleashed. We’ll see where it goes, if anywhere, I guess. :-p
People who do not understand this should take a good hard look at this article:
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20041114-103944-4700r.htm
There is no doubt that Americans cannot see the situation in the same way as the Dutch. But considering how worked up we get about Latino immigration, we should be able to understand. Imagine if Mexico was Arab, and you might get some idea of what Western Europe is facing as it gets about half a million new Muslims a year.
“Today, Muslims are a majority among children under 14 in the Netherlands’ four largest cities.”
How would you like to be a Dane living there? How might you view the cartoon incident?
Last I read, their duty was to either convert the infidels or be killed.
I say we have no choice but to recognize their right to force us to comply with their laws. Well, there is an alternative. Be killed.