West Apologizes for Exercising Right of Freedom of Expression

This is bullshit! I have never in my life seen the entire Western world pandering to a bunch of religious wackos in such an extreme way.

Let’s review some facts here. A Danish newspaper publishes a series of cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad. This severely rankles the religious sensibilities of Muslims, whose religion bans depictions of people period, let alone one of the holiest figures of their faith. Denmark has 5,432,335 people, about only 200,000 of which happen to be Muslim. That means about 3.7% of all Danes are Muslim, so clearly it’s a tiny minority group there.

But what a private company publishes in a free country with a relatively small Muslim population is apparently monumental enough for Muslims to storm Danish embassies. Not just the Danish, either! A few countries republished the cartoons in a blatant defense of freedom of speech-and their nations have had embassies attacked as well. Even unrelated nations, who happen to be a part of the European Union, have indirectly had their assets attacked when a Palestinian mob hurled stones at a European Commission building and stormed a German cultural center in Gaza City. What do the leaders of these attacks have to say for themselves?

“We should have killed all those who offend the Prophet and instead here we are, protesting peacefully,” Mahmoud Zahar, a top leader of the militant Islamic group that won the January 25 Palestinian elections, told Italian daily Il Giornale.

“We should have killed them, we should have required just punishment for those who respect neither religion nor its holiest symbols,” Zahar was quoted as saying.

Oh, how nice of you pathetic fundie bastards to allow men to live after they so criminally voiced their own opinions!

The Vatican isn’t any help either… you’d think that if nothing else, good old hard-nosed Catholics would at least stand up to a bunch of Muslim thugs in foreign countries trying to order about the religious affairs of Europe. But nope!

In its first official comments on the caricatures, the Vatican, while deploring violent protests, said certain forms of criticism represent an “unacceptable provocation.”

“The right to freedom of thought and expression … cannot entail the right to offend the religious sentiment of believers,” the Vatican said in a statement.

Granted, maybe they’re doing this to try to eke out a niche in European government for their own church, but still… thanks for nothing, Ratzinger.

This isn’t even the worst part yet. Remember those stats I quoted? Well, America has about 5 to 8 million Muslims out of a population of 280 million. This means that only 1.7% to 2.8% of Americans are Muslim, far less than in Denmark and far less consequential to the religious landscape overall given that the levels of highly-devoted adherents to Christianity are far higher here. Yet what do American institutions have to say about all this?

CNN has chosen to not show the cartoons out of respect for Islam.

You pussies! Have some journalistic integrity for once and stand up to those who would try to silence your right to a free press. But at least CNN has the excuse of not wanting to lose revenue from offended Muslim readers. What excuse does our own turncoat government have?

In a strongly worded statement, a U.S. State Department spokesman said Friday that the U.S. respects freedom of expression, but the publication of cartoons that incite religious or ethnic hatred is unacceptable.

So our own government is telling us we have freedom of expression unless it hurts some religious nut’s widdle feewings? Do we live in fucking Iran or what here? What about the First Amendment? It guarantees us a free press, free expression, and freedom to worship or not-all of which are being ignored by Mullah Shrub & Co. Oh yeah, and these idiots are also trying to pass a UN resolution condemning offense towards religion.

See here, you idiot Muslim rioters. I have plenty of sympathy for the fact that people are saying/doing a lot of very offensive things against your faith. It happens to me all the time. But do what I do: get over it. Nobody’s trying to ban Islam, we’re not doing anything (in this particular case) to actually harm you, and if you want to get technical there’s some Europeans that are just about as morally outraged about the fact that you’re burning their flags as you are that they drew your prophet. People fought and died for those flags, just as people fought and died for Muhammad’s teachings. But you both have the right to express yourselves however offensively you wish, so stop trying to force your opinions on other countries.