The Danger of Radical Islam

Insh Allah... It does put a rather different spin on the ID vs science struggle... At least Buffalo Bill Dembski is not going to strap on a bomb and go for a walk in a crowd. Some of his followers? Maybe. Radical Muslums? Yes.

I'm happy to see that newspapers in France and Germany have shown some support for free speech in Europe by reprinting the offending cartoons. From the editor of Soir:

There is no right to protection from satire in the West; there is a right to blasphemy

This is a belief system that brutally keeps women in permanent submission, that would destroy all notions of religious liberty or freedom of conscience once in power, that seeks the death of homosexuals and infidels and anyone else who does not bow to their barbaric and outdated theology.

Fred Phelps?

Skemono-

Fred Phelps is certainly in the same league, though he at least hasn't shown any propensity for violence to achieve his goals.

Ed--you hit the nail on the head. The only reason to like the Bush administration is because President Bush recognizes the danger posed by this new and virulent form of totalitarianism. The biggest failure of the Clinton presidency was to pooh-pooh Osama bin Laden and his declaration of war. I still find it outrageous that there was no retaliation for the attack against the USS Cole in light of the '93 WTC bombing and the attacks against American embassies in Africa.If the military would take me (they wouldn't) I would be happy to join and fight to kill these bastards. This new form of totalitarianism is much worse than German Nazism. The fight against it will be how history remembers the 21st century.

There is a serious threat here to liberty around the world, being pushed by these radical factions seeking to indulge their sense of personal offense with violence and being aided by ridiculous pronouncements from UN officials and many others around the world.

hallejuha brother! though unfortunately the radical factions take succor from the norms in most of the muslim world where islam and the prophet are immune from public criticism. on this issue, i do not agree that "Thankfully, they are opposed by moderate and sane Muslims around the world as well and it is imperative that we do everything we can to strengthen the hands of our natural allies wherever they are." the reality is that the anger of muslims at this offense is natural and normal. the monotheistic religions (and even non-monotheists, see anaxagoros' trial for atheist in athens) take attacks on their faith seriously. for them, religious values are ontologically preeminent and fundamental, attacking their opinions is equivalent to attacking themselves. this was common in the west until recently, the enlightenment liberty to blaspheme is a recent innovation, in states like england still have anti-blasphemy laws on the books. moderate muslims might oppose violence, but they certainly agree with the impulse and sentiment of the radicals. the comparison with christianity is not apropos because christianity has been gelded by the enlightenment. to be clear, christians have been desensitized by 2.5 centuries of heathen secularist attacks on their religion. islam has yet to have its voltaire, hume, or god willing, diderot.

David wrote:

The biggest failure of the Clinton presidency was to pooh-pooh Osama bin Laden and his declaration of war.

I don't think the evidence supports this claim. Clinton took Bin Laden very seriously. He signed a presidential directive allowing the assassination of Bin Laden, which is a rare occurence, and twice launched missile attacks to kill him. One of them apparently missed by less than half an hour (he had just left the spot they bombed). Of course, he was accused of "wagging the dog" when he did so by the Republicans (and to be honest, I suspected the same thing at the time), but it turned out that in fact they nearly did get him. There was actually a litany of articles that appeared in the late 90s, one of them written by the man who became Bush's first governor in Iraq (I forget his name; it wasn't Bremer, it was the first one), that accused Clinton of being too focused on getting Bin Laden and ignoring other security threats.

As far as Bush goes, I think he's essentially correct on the real threat from Islamic radicalism, but I think he may well have made the problem worse with the invasion of Iraq (note that this is not a definite statement. My thoughts are rather jumbled on the matter and have ben for a long time. The bottom line is that only time will tell for sure).

There's also a difference between people who disliked the caricatures and thought of them as bigoted and chose to protest them, and those who start assassinating artists and such. The right to protest is an american value also, not just the right to speech.

It's interesting how the right (for a lack of a better term) gloat over these brouhahas, but are rendered speechless when someone "mocks God" by depiction or satire. And, the left is quick to condemn these caricatures of Mohammed, but are quick to pass around any humorous caricatures of "God."

If the military would take me (they wouldn't) I would be happy to join and fight to kill these bastards. This new form of totalitarianism is much worse than German Nazism. The fight against it will be how history remembers the 21st century.

How is islamic fundamentalism any different than christian fundamentalism in the early modern period? That's not fun for the minority, but it's certainly more liveable than nazism. They don't compare, really, on any level.

Matthew wrote:

There's also a difference between people who disliked the caricatures and thought of them as bigoted and chose to protest them, and those who start assassinating artists and such. The right to protest is an american value also, not just the right to speech.

I think this depends on the form of protest. It's one thing to write angry letters or even picket outside of the newspaper. To take to the streets of a city and shut down half the city over it? Absolutely not. Still less to riot and overturn cars and break windows. Being offended does not give people the right to disrupt the lives of others or destroy property.

Ken wrote:

It's interesting how the right (for a lack of a better term) gloat over these brouhahas, but are rendered speechless when someone "mocks God" by depiction or satire. And, the left is quick to condemn these caricatures of Mohammed, but are quick to pass around any humorous caricatures of "God."

And then there are those of us who are consistent in saying that I don't care what you call your God, you don't have any right not to be offended by what others think about it. You think Serrano's Piss Christ is offensive? So do I. But wanting him thrown in jail for obscenity or blasphemy is far more offensive and corrosive to our principles of free thought.

I think a limit that could be proposed is that speech that directly incites violence against a group should be banned.

This seems to be the stance of the Danish government, as I've read that they withdrew for three months the broadcasting license of a Copenhagen radio station after it called for the "extermination of Muslims".

Will wrote:

I think a limit that could be proposed is that speech that directly incites violence against a group should be banned.

This seems to be the stance of the Danish government, as I've read that they withdrew for three months the broadcasting license of a Copenhagen radio station after it called for the "extermination of Muslims".

I think that's a fairly reasonable limit, though even there I can foresee gray areas. In the US, we do have exceptions for inciting a riot, threatening violence and speech that makes a breach of the peace imminent; those exceptions are reasonable and are very narrowly drawn, as they should be. The problem is that the lines have started to blur as people complain about criticism that "exposes a religious group to ridicule" or to "harrassment". We cannot afford to allow those exceptions to broaden or we may as well throw out the first amendment entirely.

On a related note, yesterday the British parliament rejected Blair's religious hatred bill by one vote. Blair didn't vote, the silly bugger.

Reporting from Aarhus:

The front page of the Jyllands Posten yesterday read "Rasmussen will not apologize" in big letters (and in Danish, of course). I have to say, I am very proud of the man...I just hope he doesn't back down in the face of pressure.

Some background on the issue: This is not a deliberate attempt by the newspaper to anger Muslims. And most of the cartoons do not make fun of Muhammed. The whole reason they were published in the Jyllands Posten in the first place was because an author, K�re Bluitgen, was planning to write a "family" biography of Muhammed and couldn't find an illustrator because people were afraid to do it. So he appealed to the paper, who took up the cause and asked artists to submit depictions. Some mock Muhammed, some merely depict him artfully, and some mock the author Bluitgen and the paper for what was judged to be a publicity stunt.

Additionally, the paper stated that it published the cartoons "as a test of whether Muslim fundamentalists had begun affecting the freedom of expression in Denmark.� Well, I'd say they've got their answer!

It makes me livid that the U.N. is getting involved. It's not an issue of being pro or anti-Muslim, "respectful" or "hateful"....I see it as a choice of either protecting freedoms in Denmark and the Netherlands or not doing so. You can't even say that the people whose freedoms stand to be protected are on opposite sides in the different countries, since the Jyllands Posten is by no means anti-Muslim. It has made that clear. The question is about whether European countries should go on defending people's right to express themselves, or if they should suddenly capitulate on that because of outright fear of everything that Islam represents. Losing rights for the sake of security-- but it's okay, because only the bad people will be affected, right? Where have we heard this one before? In the Netherlands some are claiming that they want to ban the burqa so that Muslim women can become part of Dutch culture: "We want you to be integrated, assimilated into Dutch society." Am I the only one who gets a bad taste in her mouth when hearing the word "assimilation" used here? Is it so easy to forget how the American Indians were "assimilated," or the aborigines in Australia? The Danish queen has recommended that Muslims try to be more of a part of Danish society. But you know how she has suggested they do that? Learn Danish. I think that's a qualitatively different sort of thing than ordering them to abandon garments which are representative of their faith. I don't see people in burqas often, but I do see them every now and then, and headscarves are common. It seems to me that there is a way to encourage Muslims to be part of a European society which respects who they are, and one which doesn't. It doesn't require compromising the principles that the country itself holds dear.

Ed, what a post!

I too agree with Ken's comments above about the way the right and left treat this issue, and I think both reek of hypocrisy.

As a Christian, I completely understand that there will be people who disagree with my notions of God, and mock the way I feel about it. And as wrong and sad as it is, Christians can (and do) mock people who don't share their notions of God.

But the moment anyone turns to the state like a 3 year old tattling to Mom, and expects the state to stop someone from offending them, is the moment that freedom disappears. Not for a moment should the government step in to "fix" the problem.

I think a limit that could be proposed is that speech that directly incites violence against a group should be banned.

well, that's not what we're talking about here.

militants are threatening europeans in the gaza strip over an offensive cartoon in denmark. there is a word for this sort of behavior, it is the antonym of civilized.

Is it so easy to forget how the American Indians were "assimilated," or the aborigines in Australia?

the analogy is not apt because the american indians and aboriginals did not welcome the newcomers in, they were dispossessed. the comparison with muslim immigrants is fundamentally asymmetrical because they migrated to europe for work or asylum (in the latter case it was a cover, let's be honest). while the american indians and aborginals were marginalized and dispossessed the new muslim immigrants can avail themselves of welfare benefits. i think that comparisons like these fundamentally turn the debate sour, because whether or not it is in the spirit of enlightnment liberalism to ban the burqua, th ediscourse gets derailed when people use strained analogies. muslims are neither jews in nazi europe nor american indians being marginalized in their own land. and, the comparison really trivializes both what jews and american indians went through. muslims are socially marginalized, jews and american indians forfeited their lives.

The Danish queen has recommended that Muslims try to be more of a part of Danish society. But you know how she has suggested they do that? Learn Danish. I think that's a qualitatively different sort of thing than ordering them to abandon garments which are representative of their faith. I don't see people in burqas often, but I do see them every now and then, and headscarves are common. It seems to me that there is a way to encourage Muslims to be part of a European society which respects who they are, and one which doesn't. It doesn't require compromising the principles that the country itself holds dear.

who decides what is "representative of their faith"? ultimately, society. here in the USA we've had burquaed females who don't want their pictures taken for photo id because it violates the "tenets of islam." that could come as news to the 95%+ of muslim women who don't cover up for their faith. the key is that it is an interpretation of a religion, and as an atheist i say that most definitions for a religion are socially mediated. western society can help muslims change their religion however they want to by the way it reacts to them. i have dealt with many 'liberals' who acede to the sex segregation and, frankly, patriarchy, of muslim cultures, even immigrants, "because it is their way." "the way" only emerges in a discourse with general society, and if general society simply takes a step back you will have kurdistan in malmo and cophehagen and marrakesh in morocco, instead of european muslim communities.

as an unbeliever to all the unbelievers out there who have to live with the reality that most of our fellow citizens are religious or superstitious, etc. (even most europeans acede to a belief in god, even if they disavow conservative christianity, see the world values survey), there are two points that i want to get across

1) we should take a stance of nominalism toward religions. we should treat it as a naturalistic phenomenon emerging from human psychology, and try to deal with it as best as we can. there is no "islam" or "christianity" in a set of creeds from which you deduce religion, religion is lived. we can't influence creeds, but we can influence how people live.

2) religious people are not nominalists, they believe in religion as a fundamental ontological reality, it is the ground of their being. though we view it as a naturalistic phenomenon, they do not, and we need to take that into account. so, though i don't think christianity really justifies world peace, or world war, i realize that christians go around thinking that their creeds really do effect how they view the world, instead of social context effecting how they interpret their creed. ergo,

3) i really think that the plainest reading of the koran implies a lot of nastiness. but, i think the same can be said for the bible (i've read both, the bible MANY times). but, if religious people say that their "religion is about peace" i'll go along with it, as i think it's make believe anyway, but a make believe that is compelling for most, and a fact of the natural world in which i operate.

This new form of totalitarianism is much worse than German Nazism.
Nonsense.

I agree that people have a right to ridicule. I wonder if the Danish newspaper would as readily publish cartoons ridiculing Jews in Auschwitz, and if the Danish government's reaction would not have been different in this case.

"I think a limit that could be proposed is that speech that directly incites violence against a group should be banned."

It is. Funnily enough it's called "incitement to violence".

I wonder if the Danish newspaper would as readily publish cartoons ridiculing Jews in Auschwitz, and if the Danish government's reaction would not have been different in this case.

i agree that it is an exaggeration to say that islamism is equivalent to nazism (godwin's law here). but the cartoon analogy is not apropos. we don't even know if muhammed existed, we know that millions of jews were incinerated in auschwitz. one act trivializes the sincere beliefs of a group of people, another trivializes the deaths of millions.

which is illustrative about the mass psychology in the muslim world, threats of attacks on europeans in the middle east bespeak a mind set which can not brook blasphemy. i don't think this is abnormal, sikhs rioted over a blasphemous play in england last year. the enlightenment is hard work, and we can't assume that people are born jeffersonians. remember that jefferson & madison's repealment of establishment of the anglican church in virginia was radical, and his rejoinder that he "cares not if his neighbor believes in 20 gods" was also rather offensive to many.

razib said:
the analogy is not apt because the american indians and aboriginals did not welcome the newcomers in, they were dispossessed. the comparison with muslim immigrants is fundamentally asymmetrical because they migrated to europe for work or asylum (in the latter case it was a cover, let's be honest).

That is true, however the analogy is appropriate to the extent that a group which is viewed as barbaric is being asked (and perhaps forced, soon) to discard characteristic trappings of their culture in order to become more like the great "civilized" culture in which they are trying to live. In other words, those who are encouraging assimilation are doing something uncivilized-- restricting religious expression-- for no other reason than to force "them" to become more like "us." But two wrongs don't make a right. You don't restrict people from a repressive culture in order to show them repression is wrong.

who decides what is "representative of their faith"?

They do, of course. It's their faith. If a person says "This is representative of my faith because I say so," on what ground do you stand in contradicting them? It is certainly not the role of a governing body to make theological judgements, by any means.

i have dealt with many 'liberals' who acede to the sex segregation and, frankly, patriarchy, of muslim cultures, even immigrants, "because it is their way."

That is definitely not what I am suggesting-- in fact, I am saying quite the opposite. Making new laws specifically to target Muslim immigrants and restrict their freedom of speech and religious expression is tantamount to becoming more like the oppressive countries from which they are escaping. I am saying that if European countries wish to demonstrate that they are not oppressive, they should welcome immigrants with open arms and award to them the same rights and responsibilities given to every other citizen. To say "Welcome, embrace the freedom you have here...but also live by our laws. That is your duty, as it is ours." That is the way to encourage integration.

That's why it just kills me for the Dutch to say, in effect, "We think the burqa is restrictive....and so we're going to legally prevent you from wearing it."

Roman said:
I wonder if the Danish newspaper would as readily publish cartoons ridiculing Jews in Auschwitz, and if the Danish government's reaction would not have been different in this case.

To stick in "in Auschwitz" is unfair. The cartoons of Muhammed were not making fun of his suffering, or the suffering of any group of Muslims. And that's sort of the point-- there is no Jewish law or prohibition against depicting any Jewish icons (that I know of, anyway!) so there is no need to make an issue of it by doing so.

However, there is an issue with Holocaust denial. I would be interested to see if the Jyllands Posten would publish pro-Nazi cartoons or drawings along that line.

i agree that it is an exaggeration to say that islamism is equivalent to nazism (godwin's law here). but the cartoon analogy is not apropos. we don't even know if muhammed existed, we know that millions of jews were incinerated in auschwitz. one act trivializes the sincere beliefs of a group of people, another trivializes the deaths of millions.

I know they differ in taste, but from the POV of freedom of speech they situation is similar.

Anyway, I'd be very pissed off by any newspaper publishing such cartoons anyway. But the Muslims get it really backwards. They could call their brethren for a boycott of the newspaper (don't buy, don't post ads) -- this would be legal and sane.

They do, of course. It's their faith. If a person says "This is representative of my faith because I say so," on what ground do you stand in contradicting them? It is certainly not the role of a governing body to make theological judgements, by any means.

this is wrong. when a gov. has to make a law or decision in regards to religion it has to choose which interpretation to follow. as an example, the state of israel defines (to a good approximation) rabbnical "orthodox" judaism as normative. reform and conservative judaism are not religious judaism there. similarly, when people ask what islam is about, they ask imams or make distinctions between different types of believers. there are muslims who think homosexuality is fine. but most muslims do not think so. is one group following islam while the other is not? you can point to the koran and hadith and find condemnations of homosexuality, but you can find condemnations of many things, and contradictions. norms, and perceptions of "religion X" emerge within a social context. for an example closer to home between 1820 and 1960 there were repeated 'americanist' controversies in the american catholic church because th church-state separation was considered fundamentally anti-catholic by many catholic thinkers, especially in europe. american catholics rejected this, and were called out for heresy in the 1910s. but eventually their pull and power became strong enough to the point where a modified form of americanism, so to speak, was established as normative in vatican ii.

my point is that saying that 'religious believers make the religion' is simply dodging the problem that you have to distinguish between religious believers if you have to approach religion in the public square. if you have freedom of religion and laws against X, you have to make sure that individual A who is violating law X because of their religion are within the established bounds of said religion. how do you figure this out? you appeal to particular sources, and you often know ahead of time what these sources will say.

please see the impossibility of religion freedom by winnifred sullivan. a city in florida had to determine what was catholic, or jewish, and religious officials were brought in. a judge had to decide whether the officials were credible or representative, and had to adjudicate between disputes on both sides of a supposed religion.

Making new laws specifically to target Muslim immigrants and restrict their freedom of speech and religious expression is tantamount to becoming more like the oppressive countries from which they are escaping. I am saying that if European countries wish to demonstrate that they are not oppressive, they should welcome immigrants with open arms and award to them the same rights and responsibilities given to every other citizen. To say "Welcome, embrace the freedom you have here...but also live by our laws. That is your duty, as it is ours." That is the way to encourage integration.

first, in general, i am skeptical of 'burqua laws,' so please keep in mind i am making a general, not specific, case.

the issues with burqua laws and head scarves is the bounds between pragmatism and liberty. in many american cities at high schools particular forms of dress are banned because they have gang associations and cause problems. one reason some activists argue against burqua's and head scarves is that they say that these signs and symbols of association and non-association are tools used to control females by traditionalist males. the liberal order assumes humans are individuals, who make their decisions of free volition, but the reality is that they exist in a social matrix. just as school uniforms are sometimes introduced ostensibly to blur class distinctions (rich kids wearing brand name vs. poor kids wearing walmart), the issue with head scarves and burquas on the grounds does have to do with a common public place where people meet as equals, and a rejection of the segmentary societies mediated by clan and paterfamilias that is common in many muslim (and non-muslim) nations. in other words, there is more than principle at work here, there are real social dynamics in french elementary schools where girls are attacked as whores and treated like outcastes for not wearing head scarves. in the united states it is hard to understand this sort of behavior because muslims do not live in ghettos and tend to be self selected professionals (immigrants).

my understanding is that many of the muslim immigrants in places like the netherlands and germany are from the backward elements of their own societies, and western affluence has bred in their a traditionalism (some segments) that is not even found in the 'home country.' eg, there are aspects of anatolian village culture preserved only in germany, just as footbind was found in some chinese diaspora communities in sarawak as late as the 1970s. the european 'immigrant' situation is not similar to the american one in many ways, and it is complicated. france, germany and the nordic countries have all tried various models, without great success so far (assimilate, segregate and multiculturalize). time will probably absorb the newcomers, but it will be a rocky road, and i think a level of european adversarilness to the new culture is necessary to hasten that.

Gretchen is right and I've written the same thing many times. The issue is simply one of governmental authority. The government does not have a right to tell someone that they cannot practice their religion unless doing so harms the rights of another or harms them against their will. I find burqas quite distasteful, but that doesn't mean they should be banned. There may be narrow practicalities that require invasion of those rights, like the decision to require a Muslim woman to have her picture taken without it to get a driver's license for identification purposes, but that hardly justifies telling people that they must change their religious practices merely because we don't like them. We have no more right to tell a Muslim that they can't wear a headscarf than we do to tell a Sikh to cut his hair or a Jew not to wear a yarmulke.

Just a little comment from Denmark.

We haven't had any riots here - there have been to bomb threats against the newspaper bringing the drawings, and there have been issued death threats against the artists.

This is bad enough, but the only action in the streets have been one or two peaceful demonstrations - which i also covered by the freedom of speech.

I can tell you we are sick and tired of this thing in Denmark, it is many months since the drawings were shown, and it has been round the media a dozen times these months as domestic politicians and grassroots have been taking advatage of the case.

Apparently some Muslim organisations from Denmark have been touring the middle-east with not only the 12 drawings, but other - more damning drawings, and hyped up stories about the persecution of muslims in Denmark (there is rascism in Denmark against Muslims, but not downright persecution!)

The trouble brewing now is enough to make you cry - the issue has been lost a long time ago, and now we are deep into politics,

/Soren

Soren--

There were riots going on in Aarhus immediately after the cartoons were published, near the beginning of November.

you have to make sure that individual A who is violating law X because of their religion are within the established bounds of said religion

Man this really pushes the boundaries of viable religious freedom. The US judicial system has been surprisingly good at not practicing this sort of arbitrary selection of one set of sectarian practices over another. It has been this "reasonable" environment in which the great diversity of religious sects have flourished, especially in the last 150+ years. If we were to limit ourselves by adopting sets of "established" theological dogmas to determine this or that religiously protected behavior (we accept Synod X not Bishop's group Z) we are in fact violating the beauty as well as the text of the First Amendment. Although we, as a nation, have been complicitous in the exclusion of many american indigenous religions and religious practices, we still are doing a fine job of separating church and state (yes we don't call it temple v state, or mosque v state, or zazen v state) and need to continue, and be vigilant.

Fundamentalism is just that; and radical fundamentalism, in any religion, has manifested itself in destructive and violent ways across the planet throughout human history. This applies to Christians as well as Muslims, Sihks as well as Buddhists, Jews as well as Hindus. Restricting speech or condemning artists really hasn't ever solved the problem.

If we were to limit ourselves by adopting sets of "established" theological dogmas to determine this or that religiously protected behavior (we accept Synod X not Bishop's group Z) we are in fact violating the beauty as well as the text of the First Amendment.

one of the arguments of w. sullivan in the impossibility of religious freedom is that the american bias toward confessional-creedal individualistic protestant sects has aided in church-state separation. prior to the 1960s one problem with roman catholicism is that the irish & irish american dominated heirarchy was that i conceived of church state relations in a very old fashion way where the universal church was the aided by the universal state, or at least the state allowed the church its space and acknowledged its special role in the spiritual lives of the population. this is fine in predominantly catholic countries, but it didn't do as well in the USA, and the parochial school system was in large part a rebellion against perceived protestant-secular bias in the educational system.

anyhow, sullivan's point is that a rise in the number of people who come from more liturgical religious traditions, which includes the new latino immigrants, whose catholicism has been less 'protestantized' than that of white ethnics, is reviving this confessional problem. and this time, establishment protestantism is far less assertive vis-a-vi the religious pluralism of this country, and we are kind of at an impasse. to see what i mean in terms of liturgy, and practice, consider that there was a law that struck down in new york where local authorities were enjoined to prosecute people who faked kosher qualifications, in that they really weren't kosher. how do you know what's kosher? well, some of it is easy, but there are lots of gradations too, and you have to go to a rabbbi, of various schools, to figure out what is and isn't kosher. so the state got involved in this mess of figuring out what is and isn't kosher. this isn't as much a problem with confessional protestantism because it isn't as legalistic in the religious sense, though some of the temperance movement came close.

anyway, so that's why though i take the spirit of ed's assertion, i think in practice is a lot dicier than that, because operationally almost all states have special exceptions for beliefs of religious traditions. whether we like it or not, it is a fact of life that religious opinions are given far greater weight, and that weight has legal ramifications (eg, christian scientists have pushed for exemptions from child abuse laws, religious groups can usually get a different standard in relation to animal cruelty [ritual slaughter specifications], and cultural defenses criminal cases in common lawish traditions always seem to have greater weight when you have a religious justification, for example a iranian jewish man who killed his wife about 10 years ago for infidelity said that divorce was simply impossible in that subculture so he had no recourse [i don't know if this is true, and usually the courts don't, so they often need to rely on 'experts']).

The United States condemned the cartoons on Friday, siding with Muslims who are outraged that newspapers put press freedom over respect for religion.

"We ... respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility. Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable," said State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper.

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2…

That about sez it all.

Avi's post title is a hoot:

They played right into my hands: they let me know they exist!

Sounds like something Newman would say when he thinks he's finally got the upper hand on Seinfeld this time.

The real dingbats always seem to have a ludicrously inflated image of themselves.

^^Oops! My bad. That post above was supposed to go in another thread. That's what I get for having too many tabs open in Firefox...