Zeroization What it is

If you want to see what this is all about, I suggest a visit to the Mohammed Image Archive.

You can decide for yourself just how offensive the cartoons really are. Then, you can recognize that it doesn’t matter how offensive you think they are, because somewhere in your mind, pehaps in the back of your mind, you value free speech.

The Boston Globe has a piece on the current flap titled “We Are All Danes Now.” It’s a good start, but I think the author misses the point; he uses the words ‘radical Islam.’ That’s begging the question – if what we are seeing is radical Islam, where exactly is the moderate Islam? Well, as far as I can see, all Islam is radical. There simply does not exist a sufficiently vocal ‘moderate’ Islam that anybody would be led to believe exists. The religion is based on notion of war between the muslims and the infidels – and the punishment for apostasy in Islam is death. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the religion (or any religion, really) is incapable of reform and eradication of its most hateful doctrines, I just don’t see how it’s happened yet – and these latest eruptions are poor indication that anything is going to change soon.

One of the trends I’ve observed in this culture, even is this world, is the notion that people have a right not to be offended. An apology for any offense seems to be a foregone conclusion, be it from a publication or a politician. The tendency to cave in to extreme elements and apologize for some offense, real or imagined, is in itself offensive. It’s an offense to an open society where free speech is actually valued.

The latest has to do with some depictions of Mohammed in the Dutch Magazine, Jyllands-Posten. Apparently the author thought it was pretty outrageous that nobody was willing to take the tremendous risk of illustrating a children’s book about Mohammed. I also think it’s outrageous that such mind control be tolerated.

The fact of the matter is, some people, in this case muslims, who are easily offended need to be told to fuck off. Thinking people need to put some force behind their ideas and stand their ground. You may not like the actions of the Dutch magazine in question, but refusing to apologize was the right move. The tragic repercussions are being perpetrated by mindless servants of a religious doctrine. It’s one thing to expect followers of the creed to obey the doctrine, it’s another to expect everybody else to follow suit.

Somebody ought to do something like this, but for the Koran. That would get them riled up now, wouldn’t it.