But Dafydd... wasn't the problem with "Piss Christ" that it was funded by the National Endowment of the Arts? I distinctly remember folks using that work of "art" as a lever to end funding for the NEA. Sure folks didn't want the artist to offend Christians, but most argued that he had a right to do so; the bigger point was that it was being funded by the Taxpayer.

The cartoons of Mohammed were NOT funded by the Danish taxpayer, but published in a private paper, in response to the problem an author was having trying to find an illustrator for her book.

I agree that the cartoonists should NOT have drawn mocking pictures of the Islamic Prophet. A much greater test would have been to draw very COMPLIMENTARY photos of Mohammed, and see if flags were burnt, heads were threatened, etc. After all, I don't believe that the Author looking for an illustrator was looking to denegrate Mohammed, just illustrate him.

Mr. Michael

Mr. Michael:

I agree that the cartoonists should NOT have drawn mocking pictures of the Islamic Prophet.

Then we agree; all else is window dressing.

One of the points about Piss Christ was that it was partially funded by the NEA; but what about the Last Temptation of Christ, Ted Rall's cartoons, and the Tom Toles cartoon?

There is one thread that links all of these, what Hugh Hewitt calls (quoting the Declaration of Independence) "a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind." Hewitt -- and the State Department -- and I are not calling for censorship but for the exercising of editorial discretion.

I'm grateful that you clearly understand our point; I'm mystified that it eludes some of my favorite bloggers.

Dafydd

So your position on point one is that we shouldn't draw the cartoons, not because Islam occupies a special position above other religions, but because it occupies a special position below religion.

Regarding your hypothetical on the second point, the Danish experiment would never have been conducted because Jews have never issued death fatwas against writers such as Islam has done against Salman Rushdie. Your argument again becomes equivalent to saying we should also have known that Islam occupies a sub-civilized level and therefore not stirred them up. You certainly validate the Islamic clerics who say that if Rushdie had been killed no one would have dared draw the Danish cartoons.

The Islamic method of resort to pre-civilized technique is powerful and your arguments provide no defense.

PBSWatcher:

So your position on point one is that we shouldn't draw the cartoons, not because Islam occupies a special position above other religions, but because it occupies a special position below religion.

Only if you think I applaud similar cartoons against Judaism, Christianity, or Mithraism.

In fact, I think that cartoons whose only purpose is to offend, insult, berate, enrage, and upset people shouldn't be published (I don't care if they're drawn) unless there is a really good reason to do so -- a reason powerful enough to override simple human decency. I apply the same reasoning to Piss Christ, that stupid Turkish movie starring Billy Zane, Elephant Poop Madonna, Ted Rall, Tom Toles, the foul antisemitic cartoons in Arab newspapers, and, yes, these anti-Moslem cartoons as well.

Your argument again becomes equivalent to saying we should also have known that Islam occupies a sub-civilized level and therefore not stirred them up.

If you don't know that much by now, there's no hope for you, PBSW!

You certainly validate the Islamic clerics who say that if Rushdie had been killed no one would have dared draw the Danish cartoons.

Thanks, PBSWatcher; that's certainly a logical equation: Big Lizards has always shown itself to be greatly in favor of fatwas against Western writers.

For heaven's sake, you're normally a bit more rational than this; I want to pick our fights carefully to have actual meaning, to win them all, and to civilize the Moslem culture... not exterminate it.

Can you understand this principle? Having the right to do something repugnant doesn't make it a good or decent thing to do.

Dafydd

Not quite, PBSWatcher... the position on point one is that we shouldn't draw/print the cartoons because Islam IS a religion. Not above it, not below it... IT! Bad idea all around to denegrate the religious beliefs of others. Go ahead, disagree with their teachings; if you feel the urge you can even attempt to disprove the facts surrounding the religion. But to denigrate the religion is bad, no matter which religion you have decided to denegrate.

The fact that others have done it to yours is not an excuse to do wrong.

And I don't know that Dafydd has defended the Radical Islamists, but that he has attacked the printing/posting of the images in question in order to infuriate the Radical Islamists. That is to say, posting/printing the denigrating images is wrong; doing it to inflame others into a murderous rage is irresponsibly wrong. Pointing that out is not validating the violent response, it's just showing that doing so is immature.

Dafydd,

Thank you very much. I was watching this story with growing unease, but since many of my favorite bloggers were in favor of publishing the cartoons, I was doubting my gut instinct. Thank God (literally) that you were able to articulate it cleanly for me. Now I can say, "well, to quote Big Lizards ..."

Quite simply, since I am part of that vast, shadowy group of the "religious right", I have an obligation to reach out in love, not in stupidity and secular rhetoric. This strikes me as much the same as going to a tribe that has never heard the name of Christ, burning their altar, mocking their priest, then turning around and saying, "let us tell you about how Jesus can change your life."

It is very hard to show a vast majority of the world that there is a better, more sensible way to live if you spend a good majority of your time treating their current sensibilities as if they were meaningless. How long will it take them to see that a people who lack the self-control to be respectful in disagreement lack the self-control to do anything other than indulge themselves? Probably about as long as it took the imams to call for the heads of the cartoonists.

Kudos to you, Hugh, and the State Department for standing in the way of a very strong tide. Keep up the good work on this and on all of your other endeavors.

"that's certainly a logical equation: Big Lizards has always shown itself to be greatly in favor of fatwas against Western writers."

I did not say and I don't think I implied that you favor fatwas. But your response to them is to advise everyone not to do anything which might generate one. Thus your response validates their strategy. Whether you acknowledge a special place for Islam or not, your methods give it one.

As far as "Piss Christ" etc., I oppose taxpayer funding, but beyond that I let the "art" fall on its own demerits which it does rather quickly. The interesting thing about the Danish situation is that the Islamic response proves the point that the art makes.

The Danish paper solicited and published the cartoons because an author wanted to publish a book about Mohammed and was unable to obtain an illustrator. Imagine the difficulties of the next such author. Their fatwas and your response will that task virtually impossible.

The response from the Muslim world is real emotionally but false logically. It is a selective response milked by Islamic leaders aiming to control the Western press. Today it is images of Mohammed, tomorrow it is unfavorable reporting of Hamas, the day after it is mentioning Christmas. Perhaps you would like to see the law passed which just failed in the British Parliament outlawing speech which insults religious leaders. Then we would find out rather quickly just what, if anything, the imams do NOT find insulting in our culture.

Your response and that of Hugh Hewitt plays right into their strategy and is equivalent to signing up for dhimmi status.

Forgive me, my liege...

But I think you are starting to blather.

At the end of the day equality is rooted in Christianity:

"You shall know the truth and it will make you free"

What EQUIVALENCE there is rests in our humanity, not in our philosopies. Jesus said, "I am the way, the Truth and the life."

It is easier to 'get along' by ignoring these words, but it won't work. Truth is truth. It is tremedously inconvenient, but the religions of this world are not compatible.

Pick one, and live with it.

Forever.

PBSWatcher:

Perhaps you would like to see the law passed which just failed in the British Parliament outlawing speech which insults religious leaders.

Have you fallen into complete dementia?

I have guiding principles, but I also use the facts and circumstances of each case to decide my response.

In the case of the Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie -- did you actually read it, by the way? -- the dialog between two Indian passengers on a plane as they plummet earthward, eventually transforming into the Devil and an angel, was the occasion for a philosophical exploration of good and evil as they related to the Koran, among many other issues. I consider that to be of far greater value than those sophomoric cartoons... and easily enough to justify its publication.

Do you notice, PBSWatcher, that you're getting angrier and angrier in this discussion, leaping to more and more ludicrous suppositions? Such as that I might support a law banning the giving of offense, when I have stated over and over here that I want publishers to exercise more discretion, not for them to be sat upon by governments.

Do you think your arguments here are real logically... or perhaps just real emotionally?

Dafydd

Mareseydoats:

Forgive me, my liege...

Liege? I'm not the Lizard King. Actually, I think that was Jim Morrison; but the king is dead!

Dafydd

The reaction of the offended, the peaceful adherents of the Prophet Muhammad, is more "when your a Jet your a Jet all the way....

Not angry, Dafydd. Sad, and extraordinarily concerned. The stakes are existential. I see extremely intelligent people going through impossible contortions to excuse the inexcusable and I despair of our ability to preserve ourselves.

Let us review the bidding. After years of suicide bombings in Israel, the United States, Britain, and Allah knows where all else around the world, in dozens of countries, a Danish cartoonist, in the hardest hitting image, portrays Mohammed with a bomb for a turban. This is hardly even satire or caricature. It is about as close as a political cartoon can get to being an objective fact. The Islamic response? Death fatwas are ordered, bombings are planned, Muslims in the homeland of free speech parade with signs "Prepare for the Real Holocaust", "Europe Your 9/11 is Coming", "Behead those who insult Islam." Q.E.D.

How are we to respond? Hugh counsels "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind." I suggest a decent respect for the decent opinions of mankind. We have a highly uncivilized 800 pound gorilla in the room. One possibility is always to avert our eyes. Does the gorilla's behavior improve? On the contrary. The gorilla has always behaved this way and always will until trained otherwise. The gorilla has caused us to subvert one of our most deeply held values. One of our primary methods of dealing with such problems is now off the table.

How does your approach make the situation better? We will have taken "the high road." I suppose, as my mother used to say, "virtue is its own reward." But there is also a high road to hell. The gorilla is still in the room. Your original post does not offer any help in modifying his behavior. Your responses to my comments nitpick phrases but do not respond to the thrust. I suggested that you might like something along the lines of the British law because it is an idle daydream to suppose that we will all be silent and not mention the gorilla.

You may avert your eyes while you still have the freedom to do so. I will not.

hmm...naturally, i have my own take on this.
1. the cartoons were originally published in september.
2. hardliners added even more offensive cartoons to the booklet circulating in the ME.
3. portraiture is actually expressly forbidden in the Qu'ran. the fundamentalists are using the cartoons to drive a wedge between the moderates and the West.

some entities are using this whole issue--it is contrived, staged. the fundamentalists are running the media, the moderate muslims, AND the bloggers.
all your righteous indignation over lack of tolerance, reprinting the cartoons, pics of protesters, all coals to newcastle. the fundamentalists are hoping to bring on the war between civilizations.

the SD is doing the right thing, trying to defuse the situation.
but the rest of you suckers (except for Dafydd) are being played like a ten pound trout on twenty pound test.

those ignorant, backwards, intolerant, cave-squatting, kaffiyeh'd muslims are kicking our asses in the meme wars. if we can't get a little smarter in our counterpropaganda, i think we're doomed.

...then we're stupid. And we'll all die.
--Zora, from Blade Runner

First, allow us to thank all of you at Big Lizards for your understanding and wise choice to not offend other peoples' religious beliefs through the choice of publication.

Please let us introduce ourselves. We are Weanists. As such we ban the use of the various singluar pronouns. The use of the first letter in the word "Individual" as a word is deeply offensive to us...indeed blasphemous. As are the first two letters of the word "MEdiocre" as well as the possessive forms such as the first two letters of "MYopic" as well as any use of the word "you" that is not referenced to at least two people.

Given the integrity of your convictions, we assume that all of your various past transgressions were innocent mistakes, and are hereby forgiven. We are a peaceful and tolerant religion. And of course, all of you at Big Lizards recognize that the internet itself, and especially the blogoshpere, is a publishing mechanism. So all of you will henceforth refrain from publishing these blasphemous words on your various blogs and other internet sites. You are, of course, men and women of your convictions.

We are a peaceful and tolerant religion. It is acceptable to us for all of you to use these blasphemous words verbally in our absence, or indeed type them into your computers so long as they are not published on the internet. Of course, now that all of you know, any future transgressions against our peaceful and tolerant religion will be met with a legal sentence of stoning for any of the male parts of you and gang rape for any of the female parts of you.

We thank all of you for your conviction to not publish blasphemies.

"portraiture is actually expressly forbidden in the Qu'ran"

Is that actually true? Can someone provide a quotation? I have seen it asserted both ways without evidence.

In any event, regardless of whether it is prohibited or not, portraiture has been practiced in the Islamic world and the west right up to the present day. has a historical archive.

portraiture is forbidden.
my muslim friends all tell me that, and i can look up the cite in pickthal for you later.
islamic portraits exist, but Muhammed's face is veiled, or he is depicted as a cutout or outline.

Zombie did not delineate which were actual islamic portraits in her archive. the bulk of the imagery is from other cultures, portraying Muhammed.
Zombie is not without bias.
She is a longtime LGF commentor.

Dafydd:

You post a very interesting essay. I agree that I've always disapproved of the way "artists" of the secular left have deliberately and needlessly provoked the Christian community. So why should I not sympathize with the offended Muslim community?

I was doing some re-evaluation, until I read the "Weanist" post above, which brilliantly encapsulates the reducto ad absurdum of your argument.

Muslims want us all dead, so we "provoke" them by living. The cartoons are, as you say, "window-dressing".

lloyd:

The difference, I believe, is that Dafydd isn't saying "Cater to the sensiblities of any religious group" so much as "Pick your battles carefully, and don't _pointlessly_ offend anyone." If someone can tell me the point behind running those cartoons when they did, the reason it was necessary to do it _right then_, then there would be some evidence that the newspapers which ran them had some agenda other than "Hey, this will cause a sensation and increase our sales!"

There's a large qualitative difference between choosing not to run a cartoon that will simply upset Islamists who are already more than a little annoyed with "the West" without any gain for "the West", and avoiding all use of the words I, me, and my, which would upset just about everyone who is not a "Weanist". The first case is one of choosing not to throw gasoline on an already burning fire, the latter is inconviencing the majority for the benefit of a minority.

Binder:

I see your point. I would repectfully respond that there is and can never be any necessity or point behind newspaper cartoons or editorials. They are simply a stream of consciousness reflecting the kaliedescope of modern culture. They represent "freedom", which Muslims apparently now regard as a zero-sum game.

Whose fault is it that we have an "already burning fire"? Could we have avoided that fire through judicious publication in respect of Muslim opinion. I think not.

Dafydd, you might enjoy this.
for the coolio God Emperor of Dune quote at least. ;)

Binder: Hellfire and Damnation be upon all of you! Clearly you lack respect for any religious sensitivity that is not an already burning fire. We Weanists (prounounced like Pianist with a W) will not be treated as a second class religion. If people like you need an already burning fire in order to respect us, then we will come for you and consume you!

However, we are a peaceful and tolerant religion. Apologize profusely for your deliberate blasphemy and make a large donation to one of our charities and you may have one last opportunity to avoid being Fortuyned or Van Goghed.

Binder: "If someone can tell me the point behind running those cartoons when they did, the reason it was necessary to do it _right then_, then there would be some evidence that the newspapers which ran them had some agenda other than "Hey, this will cause a sensation and increase our sales!""

As it was initially stated, the point behind running those cartoons when they did (last fall) was because an author had been seeking an illustrator for his (benign) children's book on Muhammad, and couldn't find one; the paper claimed to be (and succeeded in) drawing attention to the issue.

Many people (including the SD) are arguing that all of the cartoons were offensive. I'd say, they should have just printed the one that looked like an illustration from a (benign) children's book on Muhammad, to see the reaction -- most sane people would not find it offensive, yet even that illustrator has apparently received death threats. Best way to have people show themselves for what they are is not to give them an excuse to overreact to an obvious insult, but rather to let them go entirely ballistic when no insult has been made. (As much as we all enjoy the irony of "they drew pictures implying we all blow people up when we're angry! How awful! Let's go blow them up!" it's still probably not worth people getting killed over it...)

try this.

PBSWatcher:

You may avert your eyes while you still have the freedom to do so. I will not.

Dude, have you even been reading this blog? Did you read my posts on Patterico's and Captain's Quarters before we launched Big Lizards?

Yeesh.

Say... when did you come to this sudden revelation that Islamism is dangerous? What year? I mean, what year are you on record, in published writing, warning about the looming, "existential" danger?

Dafydd

Cowardly poltroon "Blank:No One":

I'm curious: do you really think nobody has thought of this argument before? The response should have been immediately apparent: I decide what is offensive based upon my standards, not that of militant Islamists. I just finished arguing that I would certainly have published Rushdie's the Satanic Verses, which many Moslems found deeply offensive, because I did not find it so, and because it has a point and a purpose.

But I would not, for another example, publish a pornographic picture of Jesus or an antisemitic cartoon -- or cartoons whose sole purpose is to ridicule Islam.

(The only one of these published cartoons that I probably would have published is the one with Mohammed in Paradise saying to a long line of charred suicide bombers, "stop! We've run out of virgins!" That one, at least, had a point, distinguishing between ordinary Moslems and killers.)

I marvel that you could not have thought of this response to your silly vamp on your own, without it having to be explicitly told you. But then, you were also too timid to put an identifying name on your comment.

Dafydd

Matoko Kusanagi:

Thanks, I liked the Winds of Change essay... though I would have liked to see more specificity; it's a touch too airy-fairy.

Bring it down to earth: we're in a war with a very large, radical sect of Islam; all of our dealings with Moslems should be undertaken with that in mind. Everything we say or do should be decided through the prism of the war: will this help win the war? Or will it hinder it?

Propaganda aimed at moderate Moslems, telling them they can be Moslem without having to support the wackos, is high and noble; I completely applaud, e.g., our earlier policy -- now foolished dropped because of liberal whining -- of paying for favorable newspaper articles in the Iraqi press... though I second the suggestion of one of the Iraq the Model brothers (or perhaps Ali, who broke away with his own blog) that we should be paying a lot more -- and demanding a higher quality of propaganda.

But by the same token, I utterly oppose stupid cartoons that simply lash out indiscriminately against all Moslems, for the reason that it will drive the moderates towards the extremists, and that it's vulgar, offensive, and insulting, making us in the West look like nothing but anti-Moslem bigots... which also plays into the hands of the jihadis.

These European publishers are blunderers, and I despise blunderers, especially in wartime.

Dafydd

Adrianne Truett:

Best way to have people show themselves for what they are is not to give them an excuse to overreact to an obvious insult, but rather to let them go entirely ballistic when no insult has been made.

A good suggestion, but it's premature, I think: virtually all Moslems would agree that Mohammed should not be depicted at all. I frankly consider this primitive... but this isn't the time to have that basic argument. First, let's convince them that the jihadis are destroying Islam.

Then after that is accomplished, and they reject jihad, we can convince them that they have no right to demand infidels conform to the rules of the faithful -- that Allah will know who is righteous enough to enter into Paradise without the help of earthly punishment.

And finally, only when the religion has already been tamed -- as Christianity eventually was -- can we work on changing actual religious rules in the Koran. It was a long time before Christianity and Judaism were able to learn to ignore ignore biblical laws that conflicted with modernity, and there are still quite a few who refuse... though hardly any Jews or Christians who force their wives to live separately during menstruation every month, for example -- fortunately!

The theological theory I espouse here is that the Bible (A and B), the Koran, the Book of Mormon, and other religious sources may have been inspired by God, but they were not necessarily dictated by God, word for word. Some of what is found in the book (whichever one a particular person uses) is the actual will of God; but some is simply the distilled prejudice of the age or of particular men.

Jews have had centuries of such discussions: what is outmoded and what is ageless? They have split the laws of Tanakh into rules that were intended only to apply to the governing of ancient Israel at that time in history, and laws that were intended by God to apply to everyone everywhere.

Christians have had some such discussions; the Catholic Church -- which is the oldest Christian institution, I believe -- is unsurprisingly the most advanced in this, changing doctrine as it becomes apparent that something (opposition to evolution, for example) isn't a moral law but somebody's reflex reaction to a changing world... while still retaining moral laws, such as those banning abortion.

Moslems haven't had very much discussion of this at all. The study of the Koran, particularly in the madrasses that the Saudis set up all around the world, still leans heavily on simple rote memorization of all passages, which are given pretty much equal weight.

Moslems should eventually start distinguishing between an actual workable moral code and the absurdities of trying to follow every precept literally and to the last jot and tittle, which manifests in the sharia code of laws... useful for wandering nomads but not for nations.

But that's a long-term treatment, not useful for immediate relief.

Dafydd

I think that a major point is being missed here, namely that this particular situation (I was tempted to call it a major kerfuffle, but I figured that would be oxymoronic) is a dagger in the heart to multi-culturalism.

We civilized Westerners extend tolerance and understanding to those who do not wish to tolerate or understand us. The incidents above tell the West that the Muslim immigrants the Europe welcomed into France and Denmark and Germany and Great Britain are not assimilating into Frenchmen or Danes or Germans or Britons. They have, in effect, welcomed guests into their homes who will try to rearrange the furniture and set mew house rules.

Your point that the responsibility that comes with freedom ought to tell us not to needlessly insult or offend others. The trouble is that our Western culture, especially with the internet explosion, has taken our Western culture in the direction of saying exactly what we think, defending it all on free speech grounds, and frequently doing so anonymously.

Indeed, you have just done so yourself! You wrote, in the comment immediately above:

Moslems should eventually start distinguishing between an actual workable moral code and the absurdities of trying to follow every precept literally and to the last jot and tittle, which manifests in the sharia code of laws... useful for wandering nomads but not for nations.

That looks to me as though you have just said that Muslims are backward barbarians, absurdly clinging to an outmoded code, and incapable of governing anything larger than tribes, and certainly not nations.

I'd guess that you, despite your expressed concern for Islamic sensibilities, never intended or saw it that way; your Westernized culture sees it as simply good advice.

Dana Pico:

That looks to me as though you have just said that Muslims are backward barbarians, absurdly clinging to an outmoded code, and incapable of governing anything larger than tribes, and certainly not nations.

I'd guess that you, despite your expressed concern for Islamic sensibilities, never intended or saw it that way; your Westernized culture sees it as simply good advice.

I argue they should not be needlessly offended, not that anything which might give offense should be eschewed. You make the same error as the anonymous churl above, thinking that offense should be judged solely in the eye of the offendee.

Giving good advice is necessary for everyone, even those who rarely take it (perhaps especially for such people). What Ted Rall, Tom Tolles, and the authors of most of these cartoons publish, however, it not "good advice," which the Moslems urgently need, but snide and unhelpful insult.

And I certainly am not anonymous!

Dafydd

I do not believe the cartoonist that drew the picture of Mohammed with a bomb for a turbine was insulting Islam but pointing out that the terrorist that bomb innocent women and children are hijacking and degrading the Islamic faith by their own actions. If the people of the Islamic faith do not want to be thought of as cold blooded killers then it is up to them to stop condoning the terrorist by their silence and to start denouncing their cruel and uncivilized behavior as blasphemous. If the people rioting do not condone killing but actually agree and support the killing of innocent women and children then I think we (Westerners) need to know it and stop pretending there is a silent majority of muslims that want peace if that majority does not exist.

If there had been a cartoon about a priest molesting a child and Cardinals were hiding the fact. I think most of the outrage would be toward the catholic church because at one time it was based on fact not prejudice. That cartoon would be offensive but based on real life events with the intent of shamming the church into cleaning up their act.

The crucifix in urine did not have a point that I am aware of it was just meant to offend Christians. It was also publicly funded which just adds insult to injury.

If the truth offends us we probably need to be offended if that is what it takes to make us recognize the truth. But to offend just for the sake of offending is pointless and rude.

I don't think calling the other side of the moral coin you flip here "bigots" is good enough.

What may be laudable and civilized sensitivity at zero hour becomes inexcusable two days later, in the face of faces wrapped and banners proclaiming “Prepare for the real holocaust” two days later(http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004448.htm)

When the enemy amongst you identifies himself as such you are no longer dealing with the niceties of publication mores.

I wonder if your mounting this high horse would have occured had the Muslim response been civilised?

This is now all about threat and escalation, and your peers should publish OR be damned.

I thought you were wrong to side with the bomb throwers and iconoclasts, after reading this, now I'm sure:

If you get rid of the Danes, you'll have to keep paying the Danegeld

P.S. Can you make this a hyperlink before posting?

"I argue they should not be needlessly offended." Huh???

Muslims believe that Jews are monkeys and pigs. How do they avoid needlessly offending Muslims?Did Theo Van Gogh needlessly offend Muslims before he was butchered? Leon Klinghoffer? Bill Clinton before the '93 WTC attack? For crying out loud, simply having a clitoris needlessly offends these savages! Don't you get it? They have a zero tolerance policy. Each breath we take offends them. We can't shut down our entire public discourse to avoid offending a 7th century mentality.

LeftTenant:

The way you make a link in XHTML is a little complicated, but once you get the knack, it makes sense.

You start with some words you want to become a link to some URL. Let's say the words are Here's the link.

You will surround those link words with an "anchor" tag (<a>... </a>) that takes the following form:

<a href="URL">Here's the link</a>

...But instead of typing URL inside the quotation marks, you will type the entire URL to which you want those link-words to link (I think the "href" attribute stands for hypertext reference).

For example, to make the link-words link to Big Lizards, you would type the following in the comment box:

<a href="http://biglizards.net/blog">Here's the link</a>

What you get will be an actual link to Big Lizards, so:

Here's the link

Voila!

Dafydd

Lloyd:

Lloyd, you might profit by clicking here.

See especially #2.

Dafydd

Dafydd,
I am deeply disappointed with you. While my handle is deliberately a distortion of 'anonymous' I have used it multiple thousands of times in many forums since the mid nineties. I am not exactly publising my social security number, but it is identifiable. I have never found someone else using it with the rare exception of someone posing as me to discredit me in a discussion. My point in using it as a handle is that I never want to be the point, I don't want people to agree or disagree with me, but with the ideas I present. The posts should stand on their own, and not be credited or discredited by whomever posted them.

You could learn a tremendous amount about me and the way I think using only that handle...for instance something we share: I also had a guest post at CQ (during the Eason Jordan episode.) My handle met its intent. Whether you agreed or disagreed with me (and I have also posted here a few times without you objecting) you didn't associate my posts with anything but themselves. The ideas and posts stand or fall on their own merit. That is the point of blank no one.

And while no doubt others have presented ideas similar to my own so too have others presented ideas similar to your own. I read you because of the usually interesting way you present them. I think my presentation was interesting. Feel free to disagree, but the post was indeed my own. Search (I will no longer use google as a verb) "Weanist" and see what you find. Nada.

Furthermore, obvious from my second post, I stuck around for a few hours ready to respond. Hardly a cowardly act.

To the meat of the matter, if you are right and you are making judgement about the cartoons themselves with your own value system and not assuming the value system of the car swarmers, please tell me what was so offensive (in your own value system) about all of the cartoons. Some of them were indeed offensive. But what of the cartoon of a cartoonist furtively drawing a picture of Mohammed? What in your value system makes that offensive? What of the picture of the prophet walking out of the desert leading a donkey on a rope? What is offensive with that one? What about the picture of a modern school boy named Mohammed (not even an image of the Prophet) making fun of the reactionary nature of the cartoonists assignment? What is offensive in your value system of the juxtaposition of Mohammed with the moon and star symbol of Islam?

The cartoon that seems to be getting the most play (besides the faked ones added to be truly inflammatory) is the bomb as a turban. In a later post, you said, "First, let's convince them that the jihadis are destroying Islam." Is not that the exact point of the bomb as turban, made far more compellingly than your verbiage? And if large numbers of Muslims are truly offended by the linking of bombing and their religion, they should have been on record long before this cartoon by the actions of their co-religionists. But I must have missed it when they burned bin Laden in effigy.

Finally, I suggest you avoid accusations of cowardice while sliding into dhimmitude.

"what year are you on record, in published writing, warning about the looming, "existential" danger?"

This is silly, Dafydd. I am not on the record as saying anything to anyone about anything until I started my blog in Nov 2004. My credentials are irrelevant, as are yours. Arguments from authority always are. My criticism is not of your past history, whatever it may be. It is of your current response.

The current situation is a perfect teaching moment. It amply demonstrates the true nature of Islam -- the violence, the bullying tactics, the utter incompatibility with any Western notion of freedom. It may also be a galvanizing, catalyzing moment, lifting millions of folks out of their liberal, P.C. multi-cultural delusions. To regress to those modes of thinking at such a moment and say "Sorry, our bad, the cartoons should never have been published," is to dangerously prolong the delusion.

I'll not trouble you further. This has become too much like an argument between spouses, always branching off onto irrelevant tangents to avoid coming to the real issue. No need to reply. I doubt I'll check back. I've learned from my previous attempts on this thread that I can't expect a response to my actual argument, and it really doesn't matter which phrase you randomly launch on this time.

Nobody:

Is not that the exact point of the bomb as turban, made far more compellingly than your verbiage?

No.

Finally, I suggest you avoid accusations of cowardice while sliding into dhimmitude.

Think about what you just wrote, and of what you have accused me (and everyone who does not agree with you). Now consider why I do not particularly feel like responding to the rest of your comment.

Dafydd

PBSWatcher:

This is silly, Dafydd. I am not on the record as saying anything to anyone about anything until I started my blog in Nov 2004. My credentials are irrelevant, as are yours.

How do you know whether it's relevant until I continue with my point?

You accused me of "avert[ing] [my] eyes" to the danger of militant Islamism. Averting one's eyes means pretending not to see the danger, or else seeing it and deliberately refraining from noticing or passing along the warning.

Yet I am in print, in the Heinlein Journal, warning about this danger -- which I called "world Islamic fundamentalism" -- back in July 1997, issue #1, the print panel titled "Are We There Yet? examining Heinlein's 1950 predictions in "Where To" concerning the year 2000 A.D." That's four years before 9/11, in case you're keeping count; and I believe I even mentioned bin Laden by name, though I'm not sure (I know I discussed al-Qaeda).

That panel continued for six issues over two and a half years... so it was quite substantial and long-lasting. I believe I was the only one out of six or seven futurists to raise such a Cassandra-like warning, as a matter of fact. I think this makes it pretty clear that I am certainly not averting my eyes, for heaven's sake.

Will you admit that this line of questioning is hardly "irrelevant" to the question of your accusation against me?

Then please accept my assurance that I am mindful of the danger... and accept my explanation that I am not crawling and debasing myself before Moslem oppressors, as the Nameless One (who has never met me, so far as I know) accused me of doing -- but rather sincerely offering my opinion that these asinine cartoons were a colossal blunder that do not in any way help the war against Islamist jihadism, but rather hinder it.

You don't have to agree with me; but please do me the courtesy of assuming that I have actually thought this over at least as long as you... rather than assuming that I'm some quirky teenager or twenty-something who leaps to conclusions after a scant moment's hesitation.

Thanks,

Dafydd

PBSWatcher:

I'll not trouble you further. This has become too much like an argument between spouses, always branching off onto irrelevant tangents to avoid coming to the real issue. No need to reply. I doubt I'll check back. I've learned from my previous attempts on this thread that I can't expect a response to my actual argument, and it really doesn't matter which phrase you randomly launch on this time.

Gosh, I love it when people make grand, sweeping pronouncements -- then conclude by loudly announcing that they will not return to read the response!

It's like people who call in to a radio talk show, call the host a bunch of names, and then hang up on him.

Since you're not going to read my response, I'll write it for the benefit of those who stay engaged in the conversation.

The current situation is a perfect teaching moment. It amply demonstrates the true nature of Islam -- the violence, the bullying tactics, the utter incompatibility with any Western notion of freedom.

What percent of Moslems are participating in this surge of violence?

Does the recent Catholic-priest ephibophilia and pederasty scandal serve as "a perfect teaching moment" to demonstrate "the true nature of [Christianity]?" I'm pretty sure you would say no, it was a tiny minority of priests, and at worst it demonstrates the institutional cowardice of the Roman Catholic Church at that time... not of Christianity in general or even the body (membership) of the Catholic Church.

So why do you not extend the same principle to Moslems, but rather hold every Moslem in the world accountable for the threats and violence that a tiny minority are making right now?

Oh, I forgot: you don't want to respond to any counterarguments.

Dafydd

Dafydd,
I apologize for reacting in anger to the insult you offered. I allowed myself to be provoked and I became the issue, the opposite of the point of the handle. For that I am sorry.

We obviously disagree fundamentally on our approach to this threat to our shared civilization. I do indeed think your path, at least as I understand it, leads eventually to dhimmitude. I didn't accuse you of being a dhimmi now. I offer that not as an insult but as a critique of results I expect of your position. A Kantian/Multiculti based attempt to appease a non-responsive so called moderate Muslim core on their terms will be the doom of our enlightenment based culture. We must fight this clash of civilizations on our cultural battlefield, not theirs. And yes, that includes cartoons.

If you would be so kind, please no react to the my comments rather than my handle, as in the first instance, or my reaction, as in the second.

The Nameless One, who you accused of cowardice despite having never met. (I hope you take that as a harmless jab given your jabs at me in using me as a prop in posts to other people.)

Blank:No One:

If you'll look at the third in this series of three posts on the Cartoon-Mohammed Affair, Abbott and Costello Meet Radical Prophetism, it should allay your fears that I am proposing either a multicultural response to Moslem aggression or appeasement of the radical imams.

I want to fight and win the war; but I believe the best way to do that is to fight on fields and at times of our choosing, not of theirs... and this blunder gave the jihadis the enviable opportunity to set both to their own satisfaction, as well as rattling and confusing our Moslem allies in this war.

Even if you disagree, I hope you at least understand my orientation here: we're not arguing over the goals but rather the strategy to achieve them.

Dafydd

We are indeed arguing strategy; I never thought otherwise.

Perhaps you could address some of the points of my third post, for instance, what is offensive about a furtive cartoonist drawing Mohammed? Muslims are not genetically inferior, they are not as a group stupid. Any reasonable truly moderate Muslim recognizes that the cartoonist isn't sweating because the cartoonist fears the moderate Muslim. It highlights what the radicals are doing to the whole of Islam well...and quite frankly I don't think it is offensive. Why do you? Why shouldn't it be published?

You made a distinction between choosing the time and place of the battles in this cultural war. The time is now and always. The place our whole culture including cartoons. You mentioned how the car swarmers and flag burners were a small minority. How many moderates heard and recognized the message of the cartoons? How many recognized some of the truth in the mocking? How many steeled themselves to defend their religion against those who debase it? How many intelligent moderates saw the absurdity of bombing embassies in retaliation for being accused of bombing?

Cartoons are a dangerous weapon. They can be misrepresented, as by the imams who had to add fake, truly offensive, cartoons to stir the rabble. But they can be effective. You are a wordsmith, but perhaps you too could add a cartoon, one you think more appropriate and effective, into the cultural arsenal of the west.

From the new post you just linked:

"Europe seems to have two responses to Islamist jihadism: they either retreat and cower in fear... or else they drop trou and moon the entire Moslem world!"

Up until now, the Europeans really had only the first response. Their strategy was largely appeasement with the intention of letting America, once again, bear the primary burden of defending the west. They were not primary actors in this clash of civilizations...their objective was to say, do and offend (both sides) as little as possible. They tried desperately to play the moderate between the cultures. Europe left America and moderate Islam alone to struggle against the radical Islamists instead of joining the west and the moderates struggling against the radical Islamists. Europe's second response may not have been particularly effective, but I welcome a new ally into the struggle. With these cartoons, Churchill might have just replaced Chamberlain as Prime Minister in this culture war.

Dafydd, here is one cartoon i liked. ;)

Dafydd:

As a self-appointed public intellectual of the "wimp state", you might profit by reading this: http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn05.html

Mark Steyn: "One day, years from now, as archaeologists sift through the ruins of an ancient civilization for clues to its downfall, they'll marvel at how easy it all was. You don't need to fly jets into skyscrapers and kill thousands of people. As a matter of fact, that's a bad strategy, because even the wimpiest state will feel obliged to respond. But if you frame the issue in terms of multicultural "sensitivity," the wimp state will bend over backward to give you everything you want -- including, eventually, the keys to those skyscrapers. Thus, Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, hailed the "sensitivity" of Fleet Street in not reprinting the offending cartoons.

No doubt he's similarly impressed by the "sensitivity" of Anne Owers, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons, for prohibiting the flying of the English national flag in English prisons on the grounds that it shows the cross of St. George, which was used by the Crusaders and thus is offensive to Muslims. And no doubt he's impressed by the "sensitivity" of Burger King, which withdrew its ice cream cones from its British menus because Rashad Akhtar of High Wycombe complained that the creamy swirl shown on the lid looked like the word "Allah" in Arabic script. I don't know which sura in the Koran says don't forget, folks, it's not just physical representations of God or the Prophet but also chocolate ice cream squiggly representations of the name, but ixnay on both just to be "sensitive."

And doubtless the British foreign secretary also appreciates the "sensitivity" of the owner of France-Soir, who fired his editor for republishing the Danish cartoons. And the "sensitivity" of the Dutch film director Albert Ter Heerdt, who canceled the sequel to his hit multicultural comedy ''Shouf Shouf Habibi!'' on the grounds that "I don't want a knife in my chest" -- which is what happened to the last Dutch film director to make a movie about Islam: Theo van Gogh, on whose ''right to dissent'' all those Hollywood blowhards are strangely silent. Perhaps they're just being "sensitive,'' too."

I got it!
You rock
Freedom vs. Liberty
Your'e free to be an ass, even in war time, but to protect our liberties we have to be civil. Why? So we don't make more enemies while trying to sell freedom which can look anti-religious and inherently ugly to the insanly religious.
Agreed, I just think your'e confusing the Danes with being secularist jerks when in fact they are the victims of classic agitprop.

Thanks for hissing in, . Now you can slither in with a comment, o wise. (sign out)