Danes Burn Mohammad Effigy (With Fobidden Image And All, And With Video)

Instead of burning a witch in effigy as is the usual seasonal-festival custom, they buried a more relevant figure of fright, "for a Mohammadan-free Denmark," as the group says.

Certainly a world free of "Mohammadans" who seek to impose their medieval diktats on the rest of us through terror would be a nice thing.

While I'm generally of a mind that one shouldn't needlessly offer insult to the deeply-held beliefs of the religious, when the religious folks in question seek to enforce this general code of politeness by bombings, arson, maimings, and murder, insulting their religion becomes not only excusable, but well-nigh necessary.

In a similar vein Christopher Hitchens writes it's impossible to satisfy the vitriolic, violent-minded "Islamic Rage Boy" of internet fame, so it's about time we stopped trying.

This mental and moral capitulation has a bearing on the argument about Iraq, as well. We are incessantly told that the removal of the Saddam Hussein despotism has inflamed the world's Muslims against us and made Iraq hospitable to terrorism, for all the world as if Baathism had not been pumping out jihadist rhetoric for the past decade (as it still does from Damascus, allied to Tehran). But how are we to know what will incite such rage? A caricature published in Copenhagen appears to do it. A crass remark from Josef Ratzinger (leader of an anti-war church) seems to have the same effect. A rumor from Guantanamo will convulse Peshawar, the Muslim press preaches that the Jews brought down the Twin Towers, and a single citation in a British honors list will cause the Iranian state-run press to repeat its claim that the British government—along with the Israelis, of course—paid Salman Rushdie to write The Satanic Verses to begin with. Exactly how is such a mentality to be placated?

...

Rage Boy keenly looks forward to anger, while we worriedly anticipate trouble, and fret about etiquette, and prepare the next retreat. If taken to its logical conclusion, this would mean living at the pleasure of Rage Boy, and that I am not prepared to do.

Thanks to CADaddy.

posted by Ace at 06:37 PM

| Access Comments