Friday, February 03, 2006

Somebody wrote to me asking about my post below.

"Muslims consider it offensive to show Mohammed, and the cartoons were actually insulting even if they didn't. Don't you think Muslims had a reason to be insulted?"


1) Yes. Muslims had a reason to be insulted.

2) Non-Muslims are not bound by Muslim law, and can post any cartoon they please, including Mohammed's face, if they want to. It may not be wise, it may not be considerate, but they are allowed.

3) Muslims have every right to express anger when they do so. Or to boycott. Or to protest. Whatever. They do NOT have the right to threaten violence. That's crap.

4) I have no idea why the U.S. decided to stick its nose into a religion/free speech conflict between the nation of Denmark and the Muslim religion. That was just stupid.

Hope that clears that up.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You hope that your reply clears something up. I'm not even sure what you hope is cleared up by your reply.
I find it odd that you responded to a message that was not posted on your site, while ignoring mine. I find it odd that you chose to pretend, in your reply, that the previous post in question actually involved cartoons offensive to Muslims, when your post was primarily taken up with an anti-Bush cartoon (which, btw, I applauded), and dealt with the cartoons that the Islamic sphere is taking offense to only secondarily. And I find it very odd that you now, in this post, pretend that somehow the involvement of the American government is responsible for the strange and lamentable riots over these cartoons.
That you'd rather not reply to me I find silly, but not altogether unreasonable. But why pretend, to the detriment of the intelligence of your faithful readers, that the (quite idiotic) Islamic cartoon riots are somehow the fault of the current American government? Frankly, I rather wish they were, given the rights and wrongs of the matter, but they are not.

--Stephen Miller

Iggy said...

1) You may take the fact that I did not reply to you as a compliment. As I said elsewhere, I have been frightfully busy in "real life." I responded to the email simply because it was quick and easy to respond to. Your comment - which I have not responded to - I put aside for later simply because it was complex and would require considerable thought and was NOT quick and easy to respond to - and then I basically failed to make time for, for which my apologies. Not only did I just move, but I was sick all weekend, probably due to fatigue.

Also, the email I got seemed to be assuming that I was Moslem-bashing, so, under the illusion that others may also have misunderstood me, I thought I should clear that up.

But I am not sure why you think I was implying that the riots were the fault of the Government: that wasn't my intent at all. I simply stated that I thought it would have been wiser for the American Government to stay out of it. I certainly don't they were responsible for them. That would be silly.

Anonymous said...

It seems I owe you a few apologies, then. I certainly ought not to suppose that my posts here take any precedence over your real life problems (and I do not mean for there to be even imaginary scare quotes over the preceding phrase). And, perhaps, I should not have assumed that you were trying to blame the current administration when you complained that they had stuck their nose into a matter between Denmark and Muslims.
That said, I want to apologize if I've insisted too much that you respond to my rather annoying posts (I intend them to be annoying, but not so much so that they are bothersome, y'know, and I apologize for conflating your rather natural anger against the Bush Administration (natural does not mean I agree with it) with any endorsement of the current idiocy going on about these cartoons.

--Stephen Miller