The American Spectator : The Cartoonists Shall Enter First

Text Size

Special Report

The Cartoonists Shall Enter First

By George Neumayr on 4.29.10 @ 6:08AM

Village idiots vs. Islam's useful idiots in the South Park controversy.

"Nobody kills the village idiot," said filmmaker Theo Van Gogh before an Islamic militant shot and stabbed him to death. As Van Gogh learned too late, the world of Islam will kill the village idiot once he becomes the last public figure who tells the truth about it.

Lenin called liberals in the West who make excuses for totalitarianism "useful idiots," and they still exist in great numbers, having transferred their sympathy from Communist totalitarianism to Islamic totalitarianism. Only a few raffish village idiots like Van Gogh and Trey Parker haven't joined this cowardly cavalcade.

It is a frightening measure of the West's unseriousness about encroaching Islam that the only unvarnished critique of it as irrational and dangerous comes not from philosophers and politicians but from cartoonists and eccentrics. This explains why Islam fears the West's village idiots far more than its useful ones; why it sues a Brigitte Bardot and suppresses a South Park skit; why it pins a note on Van Gogh's corpse saying: "I know for sure that you, O America, are going to meet with disaster. I know for sure that you, O Europe, are going to meet with disaster. I know for sure that you, O Holland, are going to meet with disaster."

The useful idiots got the message. They shed few tears for Van Gogh, dismissing him as a bloated and sated anti-Islam provocateur who had it coming. Without any irony, a magazine called the Index on Censorship eulogized him sourly as a "free-speech fundamentalist" and dangerous blowhard for having produced a documentary about Islam's mistreatment of women called Submission. The rubbish and rancidity in Van Gogh's previous work hadn't bothered them very much. But his final gasp of truth-telling about Islam certainly did.

Now the useful idiots, who normally cast themselves as fight-to-the-death Voltairean liberals, turn on Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park for a mild poke at Islam, even though they had chuckled previously at and profited off their parodies of other religions. This cartoon controversy recalls the Danish one, when the Western media simultaneously shielded viewers from a relatively innocuous drawing of Mohammed in an obscure journal (CNN "has chosen to not show the cartoons in respect for Islam," its prim disclaimer ran) while rolling out enthusiastic coverage of The Da Vinci Code. Why not? the media figured. Christians simply don't riot.

If the executives at Comedy Central, who are often so proud of their "boundary crossing" (such as the time Sarah Silverman had a disappointing "one-night stand" with God), want an example of a really outré image of Mohammed, they should crack open The Divine Comedy. Dante puts him not in a bear suit but in hell, with his "guts hung between his legs": "No barrel, not even one where the hoops and staves go every which way, was ever split open like one frayed Sinner I saw…"

If South Park's treatment of Mohammed has to be censored, then perhaps the useful idiots should start bowdlerizing, or even better yet, confiscating the classics. Why, for example, should Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire sit blamelessly on shelves at Barnes & Noble and Borders? It describes Mohammed as an "eloquent fanatic" whose "operation of force and persuasion, of enthusiasm and fear, continually acted on each other till every barrier yielded to the [Muslims]," and whose "voice invited the Arabs to freedom and victory, to arms and rapine, to the indulgence of their darling passions in this world and the other."

Thomas Aquinas's Summa Contra Gentiles will have to go too; he was less than impressed with Mohammed, writing that those "who believed in him were brutal men and desert wanderers, utterly ignorant of all divine teaching, through whose numbers Mohammed forced others to become his followers by the violence of his arms."
Islam's useful idiots in the West are like the "People of the Pact," except they give up rights in their own lands. The historic "People of the Pact" were Westerners who surrendered freedoms while residing in Muslim countries. They agreed to pipe down about anything important in order to live and trade there without harassment. Today, the "capitulations" take place at home and without the firing of a single shot, except an Islamic one into the belly of a village idiot or two.

About the Author

George Neumayr is a contributing editor to The American Spectator.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (70) | Leave a comment

Brian Mc| 4.29.10 @ 7:17AM

Spot on assessment and description of what's going on out there...

Meanwhile, it is a living hell, here, in America as we watch ourselves being attacked from without while libs incrementally shackle our liberties while dismantling our defenses both spiritual and material, from within.

Curly Smith| 4.29.10 @ 7:52AM

While you might be able to find Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and Thomas Aquinas's Summa Contra Gentiles at one of the bookstores, hidden away and misfiled in the Cooking Section, you most certainly won't find them at a University or School library. They've already been censored, along with all of the other "Old White Men" literature.

juniper| 4.30.10 @ 9:50AM

I was searching for some maps of the middle east about a month ago and Yale has removed all the ones showing islamic-conquered countries. the titles were there but the maps removed. Of course they kept the maps showing crusader conquests and maps of present-day Israel. I found maps at Harvard(online) that had not been censored but for how much longer? This is outright Stalinism!!

steve warner| 4.30.10 @ 11:39AM

Islam is garbage. Allah is Satan. Mohammed is dogpoop.

Israel is by any standard the greatest country on Earth. Get a clue.

sarki bashari mohammed| 5.2.10 @ 12:37PM

Steve, You dont know Islam; you dont even know that Allah means God and you dont know Muhammad. Neither do you know Israel (Ezra-ill?). My advice: keep your opinions to yourself. There are guys (fundamentalists) who for this, will stick a sword in your entrils. Besides, this is provocative, man; not free speech.

RBPat| 5.2.10 @ 1:40PM

@mohammed - speech can be both "provocative" and "free" - they aren't mutually exclusive descriptors. Mr. Warner has every American right to express his opinion - he need not "keep it to himself" as you demand. Islamist fanatics who terrorize, along with their cowardly supporters who can keep their "opinions" to themselves.

Sarki bashari Mohammed| 5.2.10 @ 1:51PM

RBPat. Agreed, they are not mutually exclusive, but the former arises because of the later. If your belief in free speech extends to everyone, why should you demand others to keep their opinion? Or is free speech exclusive to Americans?

Dixie Pixie| 5.2.10 @ 6:57PM

As Ronald Reagen once observed if freedom dies in America then there is no place to go.

If I may answer your question as to if free speech is exclusive to Americans.
The answer is YES.
No other country supports the American style of free speech.
Certainly there are no free speech rights to criticize Mohammad in any Muslim country.

traeh| 5.18.10 @ 4:53PM

EXAMPLE FROM ONE OF THE CORE ISLAMIC TEXTS, SHOWING THAT MUHAMMAD SAID THERE IS TO BE NO PUNISHMENT FOR ONE WHO KILLS A PERSON WHO INSULTS MUHAMMAD:

Here, from Sunan Abu-Dawud, a hadith collection considered canonical by mainstream Muslim scholars, is a hadith that shows Muhammad supporting the murder of a woman by her husband, merely because she used to speak to her husband insultingly about Muhammad:

Sunan Abu-Dawud, Book 38, Number 4348:

Narrated Abdullah Ibn Abbas:

A blind man had a slave-mother [a slave who bore children for him] who used to abuse the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) and disparage him. He [the blindman] forbade her but she did not stop. He rebuked her but she did not give up her habit. One night she began to slander the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) and abuse him. So he [the blindman] took a dagger, placed it on her belly, pressed it, and killed her. A child who came between her legs was smeared with the blood that was there. When the morning came, the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) was informed about it.

He assembled the people and said: I adjure by Allah the man who has done this action and I adjure him by my right to him that he should stand up. Jumping over the necks of the people and trembling the man stood up.

He sat before the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) and said: Apostle of Allah! I am her master; she used to abuse you and disparage you. I forbade her, but she did not stop, and I rebuked her, but she did not abandon her habit. I have two sons like pearls from her, and she was my companion. Last night she began to abuse and disparage you. So I took a dagger, put it on her belly and pressed it till I killed her.

Thereupon the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) said: Oh be witness, no retaliation is payable for her blood.
http://www.usc.edu/schools/col.....l#038.4348

There are other examples in the core Islamic texts of Muhammad having those who insult Islam killed.

steve| 9.11.10 @ 9:12PM

I'm sure glad I live in Cleveland Hts, and far from all you sand monkeys.

I know Islam, I've read the Koranshit, the Hadithcrap, and the Siragarbage. Islam is Satan. Quit your shit religion!

Alan Brooks| 4.29.10 @ 3:29PM

Yes, but a CARTOON?
How immature are the chattering classes going to become?
People confuse being young in head with being young at heart.

Louis Jenkins| 4.29.10 @ 8:27AM

Unfortunately I will be "packing" something too. They may take me out, but it will be with one, or two, or perhaps three going with me. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

Steven B| 5.1.10 @ 4:38PM

I'm with you. Pray for the best, prepare for the worst.

Becky| 4.29.10 @ 9:35AM

I' glad to see the reference to the fact that it is a cartoon that is leading the free speech defense. It makes the other lip service providers of that right something of a real life joke (or caricature) .

I listened to an interesting interview on issuesetc.org a few weeks ago with the son of the founder of Hamas. I found it fascinating that he claimed Islam is actually in a very weakened state. I didn't get the impression he believed Islam was a peaceful religion, nor did he want to see it flourish here.

Wasn't the propaganda campaign what actually did the US in in Vietnam? Didn't the Communists say that was crucial in their victory?

Alan Brooks| 4.29.10 @ 3:32PM

Put away childish things. If you like cartoons, stuff them where the Sun don't shine.
No one has to always enjoy the silly effluvia Americans like!

Tom Osterman| 4.29.10 @ 10:19AM

I think there's something more going on here. I think Parker and Stone have had targets on their backs since they did "Team America: World Police." Their spoof of Hollywood leftists, the Famous Actors Guild, probably earned them some enemies. Also, the left is forever finding pretexts for censorship through political correctness. This is just the latest case, and it won't be the last.

1FreeMan| 4.29.10 @ 11:09AM

I stood in that stadium, the one in Kabul Afghanistan, where the tortures and murders were carried out to the joy of an assembled Muslim-Taliban crowd. They killed their own brutally because a burka slipped and someone saw her hair, or because a neighbor had a problem and "outed" his enemy as an apostate, because someone wanted a divorce but could only be shed of her if she died... or.. or just because. This religion of hate, violence and death has been a scourge of our civilization for 100's of years!

Coal Carrier, your comment threw me! What a great statement. Thinking of the limousine liberals squealing "what happened" as their drug-sex crazed lifestyle is suddenly outlawed is just sad. Muslims will kill to get their way. PERIOD.

Ryan| 4.29.10 @ 12:25PM

I'm no huge South Park fan (it's mostly garbage with a few seconds of comic genius thrown in, so not worth it), but if there's one thing we need to know...

DON'T get on their radar. You'll get hoisted by your own petard and then laughed at...over and over again.

Appleby| 4.29.10 @ 3:04PM

Ditto-- I am one of those who would have seen Team America if only it had not been packed to the guts with filthy language. I cannot understand why Christians and particularly Catholics do not get equally exercised about their poo-poo-head *humour* too.

What ever happened to humour that was FUNNY?

Louis Jenkins| 4.29.10 @ 1:03PM

So Bill Clinton is at it again. He says that more illegals will help fund the budget. What kinda of x@$# is that? The money from the US is the 4th largest mechanism of income for Mexico. (If not more.) Yeah, I know we're talking Muslim here, but this is the closest to the topic.

Dixie Pixie| 4.29.10 @ 1:50PM

There is something about US-Saudi Foreign Policy that has bothered me for some time.

In 1945 FDR and Ibn Saud cut a deal where the USA oil companies could drill for and sell Arabian oil provided the Saudi kept their money in American banks. In exchange the USA would protect the Saudis from foreign interference. This deal has been known for decades.

For the 65 plus years the US government has pored over 4 Trillion dollars in oil money into the country. The US has sold top of the line military equipment to the Saudis including F-15 fighters, M1 Tanks, AWAC aircraft and Patriot air defense systems. The US has even went to war in Gulf War I and Gulf War II, in part, to protect the Saudis from Iraq. The only regional the Saudis have left is Iran. The US has neutralized all others. As a result a Saudi Caliphate controlling the regions Muslims is a real possibility.

The Saudis have been promoting Wahhabism Islam by setting up, funding and staffing madrasah religious schools through out the middle east and wherever possible. It was the Saudi madrasah of Pakistan which created and trained the Taliban. The same Taliban that has been military conflict with the USA for over eight years. In a very real sense the Saudi have been waging a proxy war against the USA for years if not decades. A real big clue was around 50% of all foreign fighters caught or killed in Iraq was Saudi nationals. The ultimate insult is the Saudis demand the US government protect them while attacking us.

What bothers me, it is US Foreign Policy to nurture and protect a Wahhabi philosophy abhorrent to american ethics, culture and laws. Why we are still partners with these people is a mystery to me.

Now we are paying the price for the government foreign folly in forfeited security and liberty.

Dixie Pixie| 4.29.10 @ 3:52PM

Bredng10 --- It is worse than you can believe. The Bush and Saudi families have been joined at the pocket book since Bush 41 was a wildcatter. The bonds were so strong the Saudi ambassador was considered to be the 4th Bush Brother. DOD Undersecretary Wolfowitz had a Saudi mistress. When the VP Cheney was in the oil equipment business the Saudis were one of his best customers. The list goes on and on. The Obama / Saudi connections will not be known until after the administration leaves office. You can count on that.

As long as the Political and Business Elite genuflect before Saudi wealth the US People will not be free. As long as the Saudi can buy political power from the Political and Media Elite then Sharia Law will advance. Trey Parker and the South Park crew is just the latest Muslim roadkill.
There will be more.

Just remember the Saudi only want everyone to be a Wahhabi Muslim. They only want to rule every Muslim under a Saudi Caliphate. In short the Saudis only want to rule the world.

Toolbag| 4.29.10 @ 8:10PM

I'm not sure it is the Saudi Government so much as it is Saudi fanatics. I'm not saying members of the government aren't involved. Part of Bin Laden's agenda is an over throw of the Saudi Royal family partly due to there cooperation with the US. I think they need to begin to police up there own.

Dixie Pixie| 4.29.10 @ 8:42PM

Greetings Toolbag

Then please explain to me how the operation and methodology of the Saudi religious police R.E. “Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice” differs from the early KBG or the Gestapo.

My point is Wahhabi fanaticism is the heart and soul of the Saudi government.
Osama bin Laden differs only in who should run the Saudi Caliphate not in the goals.

Toolbag| 4.29.10 @ 9:47PM

I think you are confusing an internal morality police effort for foreign policy. I'm not saying that the Saudi government does not embrace strict Shuria law I'm saying that it does not drive their foreign policy. In fact as of 2006 they have made efforts to rein in the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.

"In May 2006 it was announced that the committee would no longer be allowed to interrogate those it arrests for behavior deemed un-Islamic. Prior to this, commission members enjoyed almost total power to arrest, detain, and interrogate those suspected of violating the Sharia.- Arab Reform Bulletin, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, June 2007"

Dixie Pixie| 4.29.10 @ 11:08PM

Greetings Toolbag
By the way, I love your handle.
I wish I had thought of it first.

Thanks for the update.

My point is Wahhabi fanaticism drives Saudi Arabian foreign policy.
For the last 65 plus years it has been Saudi policy to promote Wahhabism through out the Middle east and beyond. It is the root cause of many of the USA troubles in the Middle East and at home. The South Park affair is one of many incidents Saudi Arabian foreign policy has caused.

Toolbag| 4.30.10 @ 1:23PM

I agree that Wahabism is one of the evils that is threatening US freedoms. But I disagreee with the Saudi Arabian Government actually being complicit. However I would also like to say that they haven't done much to arrest the spread of it either. So purhaps their biggest crime is complicity through inaction.

Dixie Pixie| 4.30.10 @ 6:28PM

Greetings Toolbag
I hope this day sees you well

The Baptist have been evangelizing around the world.
The Methodist have tried to convert Asia and Africa.
After decades of missionary work there are more Anglicans in Africa than in England
The Roman Catholics successfully converted all of Latin America with sword and Bible.

Why do you find it strange that a family controlled religious theocracy would try to propagate Wahhabism through out the Muslim world and beyond. No other Religion has stopped trying to propagate itself.

What would be unbelievable is the Saudi government not to trying to recreate a Saudi Caliphate to dominate the Muslim faith and then the world. After all they have Gods word from Mohammad that the entire planet will become Muslim. And that the Muslims would be ruled from Mecca. Naturally the Saudis believe that since they hold Mecca, then God has promised the Saudi family mastery of the entire human race. To them they are just collecting on what God promised.

The Saudi government must keep its religious activities hidden because they are such a small country in a world dominated by the USA Superpower. When a small country is trying to foster a religious / political philosophy abhorrent to American ideals in every way, then staying politically undercover is a survival imperative. If the full extent of Saudi political / religious activities came into the light the USA would squash the Saudis like a bug . Ergo, the Saudis will deny everything until they feel it is safe to reveal themselves. That is the source of your confusion.

Interestingly a partial conformation of my Saudi theory was in the mysteriously disappearing "Aleph" post later in this thread. Since the post is gone you will just have to read Walid Phares books to find out more.
Another big clue is James Woolsey's “The Elephant in the Middle east Living Room” article on Saudi policy.

R.E. http://old.nationalreview.com/.....140823.asp

I hope this helps you.

GW| 4.29.10 @ 1:54PM

Well, all we can do is stand with South Park and Van Gogh. Put "offensive" images up of Muhammad. Continue to tell the truth of the Islamic religion and how, despite what others say, the religion was founded on violence and continues in the same spirit today. Tell the truth of how Muhammad was a pedophile war-monger. Tell people how the Koran was passed down orally for generations, and that no original manuscripts exist today. Continue to tell of the treatment of gays/women/non-Muslims/etc in fundamentalist Muslim countries.

You can whine about the weak-kneed liberals of the West ignoring the problem of Islam, or you can continue to tell people who these 7th Century throwback Islamists are. So what if CNN wouldn't show the images! Fox can/should show them. Drudge can show them. AmSpec can show them.

Doug Lee| 4.29.10 @ 3:53PM

Trey Parker is no hero, in this or any other matter. I used to love South Park, but nowadays I understand how utterly morally bankrupt it is. I will defend his right to free speech, as well as that of other reprobates like Nazis, Liberals, Communists (I know, I'm being redundant), but I will not consider any of them to be anything but vile.

steve warner| 4.30.10 @ 11:41AM

take your head out of the sand.

Islam is garbage. Allah is Satan. Mohammed is dogpoop. I don't even like South Park, but I love what they did!

Sarki Bashari Mohammed| 5.2.10 @ 12:49PM

Dixie, so you dont know why? I will help you out. You are a nation of materialists. There is nothing spiritual or ethical to guide you. even when people complain, they do it on the basis of free speech and liberty, freedom, blah-blah-blah. If it were a muslim country in this quagmire, it will sever relations with saudi. But you need the petro dollars.

La Realidad| 4.29.10 @ 2:07PM

"who believed in him were brutal men and desert wanderers, utterly ignorant of all divine teaching, through whose numbers Mohammed forced others to become his followers by the violence of his arms." I think St. Thomas Aquinas said this best. Remember the beginnings of Christianity was changed through influencing the culture, the beginnings of Islam was spread by the sword.

JimH| 4.29.10 @ 3:57PM

Muslims are not alone. Read the Old Testament. In more recent history Charlemagne and others were not loth to use similar tactics.

Rich Rostrom| 4.29.10 @ 7:15PM

JimH: La Realidad wrote "the beginnings of Christianity". Christianity was entirely non-violent for its first 300 years. Its founder was a pacifist martyr, as were his most important followers.

Islam was at war with the non-Moslem world from Day 1. Mohammed was a warlord who slew his enemies in battle and divided the loot among his followers. (Sura 8 of the Koran is "Al-Anfal" - the spoils of war.)

There is a difference.

Ryan| 4.30.10 @ 8:38AM

Calling Christ and the apostles "pacifist" reads too much into the text. At least, they say nothing about war; at most, Paul promotes the idea of the state having authority to enact justice.

Sarki Bashari Mohammed| 5.2.10 @ 1:00PM

You dont even know history. So, from Day 1, there was already a Muslim world? Muhammad and his followers were first chastised and attacked before they took up arms. just like the US is doing after 9/11? if you can justify one, why not the other?Do you allow resources to waste after vanquishing your enemy? what of Iraq's oil the US is siphoning? Wise up man, you dont know the world and its workings.You are just being spoon fed with selected news? Have you ever heard of the St Bartholomey massacre in Paris involving the Hueggnotts? Both parties were christians.

Sarki Bashari Mohammed| 5.2.10 @ 1:00PM

Mark Twain| 4.29.10 @ 2:18PM

Mosques are plenty, graveyards are plenty, but
morals and whiskey are scarce. The Koran does not permit Mohammedans to drink. Their natural instincts do not permit them to be moral.

When I, a thoughtful and unblessed Presbyterian, examine the Koran, I know that beyond any question every Mohammedan is insane, not in all things, but in religious matters. I cannot prove to him that he is insane, because you never can prove anything to a lunatic — for that is a part of his insanity and the evidence of it.

Sarki Bashari Mohammed| 5.2.10 @ 1:08PM

The original Mark Twain would have done better. the quaran does not permit muslims to drink and you call them immoral. If a drinking person will have natural instincts, why shouldn't a sober one has it? You will fail to prove the muslim insane because you may be always ineberated with whiskey.

Chris C., Los Angeles| 4.29.10 @ 2:21PM

While numerous non-Muslims have castigated Muhammad over the years, it should be kept in
mind that some of the most devastating insights to Muhammad's character came from devout Muslims, themselves. The earliest biography of Muhammad was written by Ibn Ishaqa about 100 years after Muhammad died. While the original text was lost (perhaps destroyed), it was later reconstituted by Ibn Hisham, and can be obtained today in English as "The Life of Muhammad," translated by A. Guillaume. Ibn Hisham acknowledged that he had omitted things which were disgraceful to discuss or would distress certain people. Nonetheless, the redacted biography still paints Muhammad as a child rapist, a bandit, a murderer, and a warmonger. No wonder Muslims get upset when people try to discuss their Prophet.

FeralCat| 4.29.10 @ 2:23PM

The Founding Fathers, Mr. Liberal
Would never okay the way you do your cowardly thing
Ding ding ding, ding ding ding
And you’ll get yours eventually, Mr. Liberal
Cowering from that Islam stuff like you do
Boo hoo hoo, boo hoo hoo

Where are you, Geert Wilders?
Our nation turns its longing eyes to you
What’s that you say, Mr. Liberal?
You want to keep Mr. Freedom far away
Hey hey hey, hey hey hey

Coo coo ca-choo, Mr. Liberal
Mohammad appreciates you more than you will know
Woo woo woo, woo woo woo
Allah blesses you, yes, Mr. Liberal
He may grant some small temporary mercy to those who cower and liberty betray
Hey hey hey, hey hey hey

Stan| 4.29.10 @ 7:16PM

There's no apostrophe in the possessive version of "Its", so your sentence that ends with, "...and it's military" is incorrect.
Use "Its" when you're referring to possession; "It's" is a contraction of the two words, "It is".
But don't worry; Jesus forgives. And stop putting words in Allah's mouth. Your "Leaders" have fed you a steady diet of lies and wishful thinking.

Dixie Pixie | 4.29.10 @ 7:36PM

Greetings Aleph

Shouldn't you close your post with a maniacal laughter connoting flapping bats and madness????
Or at the very least a alpha-numeric string denoting such.

If not, then thank you for confirming the main point in my above post.

Stan| 4.29.10 @ 8:10PM

Eh, it's fun to step on a bug, but not to wipe the resulting crap off the bottom of your shoe.
I should have realized this was a plant, meant to show Aleph and his Leftist buddies how easily we'll fall for the bait.
Okay, fine, they got me this time - but I wonder what they will say when the *actual* terrorists are about to slit their throats, or fly their plane into a building?

Dixie Pixie| 4.29.10 @ 8:50PM

Greetings Stan

What tipped me off was Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet .

Dixie Pixie| 4.30.10 @ 1:08PM

Greetings Stan

Did you notice the Aleph post has disappeared !!!!
WTF
A discussion about a thread post is meaningless without the original post.
I would like to hear from the TAS moderator on why the Aleph post was removed.

Just what are the rules for TAS Online thread posts.
Is there a TAS Handbook that can be downloaded?
Or did the Obama Internet Brute Squad start the long awaited crackdown.

Toolbag| 4.29.10 @ 8:14PM

May 20th is "Draw the prophet Mohammed day"

Tyler S.| 4.29.10 @ 3:29PM

You can't just label everything you disagree with as liberal. I'm a liberal, and a huge fan of south park. Comedy Central has earned my contempt for censoring this show. Censorship in all its forms is an evil, and should not be tolerated by any free people.

This is not a right versus left issue or even a western culture versus islamic culture issue. This is, plain and simple, an issue of giving in to bullying. I know all you intolerant types never pass up an opportunity to paint Islam as the great satan comin to get us, but I ould point out that there have been simialr issues over episodes poking fun at catholics and scientologists.

Doug Lee| 4.29.10 @ 3:45PM

Actually, it IS a right versus left, conservative versus liberal/progressive issue. It's all about being "politically correct," and as Webster.com tells us, "It so happens that the Left invented this phrase: it entered Communist lingo in the 1930s to praise loyalty to the party line." It's meaning has (slightly) changed over time, and nowadays it's more of a "tactic" employed by Liberal/Progressive/Marxists than anything else. It is used to squelch speech by Liberal/Progressives, in a way they perceive to benefit them ideologically. In their role as "useful idiots," western Liberal/Progressives have made it politically incorrect to in any way criticize or possibly antagonize Muslims, no matter how ridiculous the Muslims are.

Look around, Tyler, and see who is voicing concern over the suppression of speech critical of Muslims or that Muslims might find offensive -- by far and away, you will see that extremely little of that concern is coming from Liberals, while all of the "enabling" activity -- giving the Muslims what they want -- is coming from the left.

Certainly, this is a right/left, liberal/conservative issue.

JP| 4.29.10 @ 4:59PM

First they came for Cartman, and we did nothing..next it was Beavis and we did nothing; then they came for Homer Simpson....

John Parker| 4.29.10 @ 6:53PM

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of
commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity.
The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities - but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and
proselytizing faith. It has already spread
throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome."

Winston S. Churchill "The River War" 1899.....
In the original version, that is. Deleted from recent versions for fear of offending guess who?

Sarki Bashari Mohammed| 5.2.10 @ 1:28PM

Get what we have been saying? islam and christianity are not antagonistic of each other. One has been hijacked by materialism (science in its present form) and the other by nationalists (fundamentalists). Otherwise why should Churchill confirm that Christianity, a religion of God being sheltered my material science?

Mi-Matt| 4.29.10 @ 7:26PM

I think this article has it wrong, in part.

The true Village Idiots are the lot of people screaming and foaming about the terror of Islam and the threat it represents to the West, especially to the potential clipped opportunities for all those Village Idiots to continue to drink beer at 3AM floating in a boat on a Georgia swamp all a'waiting for aliens to come on back and take up for some 'speriments. Tin foil hats are the ready, of course.

Come on. South Park as the New Voice of the Bubba Crowd? It can't get any funnier... unless it was more accurate: like the 3 Stooges opposed to the terrors of Islam. Close enough for the Bubba Crowd.

Islam is a noble religion. Those who stand against it are neither American nor noble. Bigots, racists, intolerant bubba brains we'll always have with us... it's when people start listening to those Village Idiots, we start having the problems.

South Park as the New Voice of the Bubba Crowd? Well, stranger things have happened in politics and culture.

RDH| 4.29.10 @ 10:10PM

Mi-Matt - as you spew your opinions about the "South Park,Bubba Crowd, 3 Stooges, etc." ...... you show your own prejudice and ignorance.
We used to have a thing here in America called "freedom of speech" but it appears that is no more and no longer tolerated.
You show your own intolerance while putting down another whomever they may be ...... if they live with me in peace and are not causing harm to anyone or anything ....... I could give a sh!t what you / they do, think or say.
The moment that you try to interfere with my life because of how I choose to live my life simply because it doesn't adhere to your personal beliefs ...... Then, I will show you my teeth and not rest until I am either full or bored.

-----------------------------------------------------------

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.
- Thomas Jefferson

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.
- Thomas Jefferson

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
- Thomas Jefferson

For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.
- Thomas Jefferson

Sarki Bashari Mohammed| 5.2.10 @ 1:35PM

Since you quote Jefferson and he is no more, tell me how can a free people have a well organised and armed militia. the military is not a free place or the Gay/Lesbians issue in US military woudn;t have cropped up. ONLY ANIMALS ARE FREE.

Eric(OfConservativeMind)| 4.30.10 @ 6:59AM

You must not be awake, or living, in any state of awareness. Indeed, your ad-hominem wears thin, just like the thin gruel that feeds your soul. You speak of Islam like you have no belief in anything but the secular world, then condemn those who choose to see Islam through the scope of its radical backwardness.

What are your principled beliefs? It seems to me the average poster at TAS is a conservative, with some libertarians and liberals sprinkled here and there. Perhaps a little Christianity to boot.

I personally share some antipathy here with Islam as it has been explained to me, as well as what little I have learned. It's a religion that establishes theocracy, the intermixing of religion and government. It promotes a culture of misogyny and intolerance of new ideas. The religious councils that rule over Islamic societies have the last say for every individual, and their Sharia Law is draconian at best. For those who follow the Koran, it is apparent that it becomes increasingly violent the further one reads into the Suras. Those who follow Islam and preach tolerance and peace do not have an ideological leg on which to stand when they preach from the Koran. Apparently Islam worships the Moon God of Arabia(hat tip to G. Gordon Liddy). The more violent sects of Islam have backing from the Koran to act as they do, and they plan to convert or kill by the sword. Those infidels lucky enough not to become beheaded become very unlucky because they then have to endure torturous slavery. American women and other infidels captured by these jihadists are raped, beaten, and then usually beheaded.

You're such a noble soul, to grace us with your presence here. Like a Statist promise, all flash and no substance....

Brian | 4.29.10 @ 9:07PM

Funny the aclu does not attack muslims the way they attack christians. A cross in the desert? How about minuet's? That religous symbolism isn't it?

Tucci78| 4.29.10 @ 10:31PM

--
I would never expect American "Liberals" to defend Trey Parker in any way, at any time.

In a recent interview, Trey Parker was quoted (speaking for himself and Matt Stone):

"We hate liberals, more than we hate conservatives - and we really hate THEM."

Pretty much fits all of us libertarians.
--

John Carlson| 4.30.10 @ 1:30AM

Either publish a drawing of Muhammad or STFU. We don't need anymore media people/magazines clicking their tongues about the cowardice of Comedy Central, while carefully failing to publish a drawing themselves. Anybody who doesn't publish a Muhammad drawing is a coward, and that includes YOU American Spectator, and YOU George Neumayr.

dcd| 4.30.10 @ 6:36AM

This is the weak spot in the islamist structure. Keep prodding them and goading with comedy and speech. Constantly stir up riots and destruction until they collapse. Like aiming a sprinkler at a hornets nest, eventually angry buzzing makes the whole hive collapse.

MattZ| 4.30.10 @ 8:29AM

Liberals aren't monolithic. A lot of realize that all organized religion carries with it serious risks from overly righteous fundamentalists; Islam is just the most threatening, at the moment. Just take a cursory look around the message boards on this very site in order to see the toxic effects of any faith.
MZ

steve warner| 4.30.10 @ 11:43AM

quit rationalizing your own stupidity. Islam has always been garbage. And always will be. It should be obliterated from Earth.

Sarki Bashari Mohammed| 5.2.10 @ 1:45PM

See the difference? No muslim has ever called Christianity garbage. Abuse the Queen and see what follows next, O you liberals and free speechers!

GavInTucson| 5.4.10 @ 2:26AM

Why bother with words when beheadings are much more efficient?

Sarki Bashari Mohammed| 5.2.10 @ 1:41PM

MZ, this summarizes everything said.

WAKE UP| 4.30.10 @ 5:35PM

Interesting paradox here: Parker and Stone are offensive, sophomoric idiots (how quickly we forget that it's not so long ago they were pissing us off with some other irreverent juvenile approach to something-or-other), and the popularity of their product/s does not speak well for the degree of sophistication of the great unwashed public.
HOWEVER, that's called freedom of speech; it's also called market forces; and in that context they are free to let their chips fall. We must support their right to do that on principle alone - never mind the content.

So far, so fine...except that now of course they've also done us a huge favour; they've managed to winkle out from under cover someone with a true Islamic agenda (interesting how the converts are the most rabid). This is a weathervane moment, and Parker and Stone must be supported and protected, and their right to free speech upheld, even though they are, in more sophisticated eyes, sophomoric idiots. Adversity creates strange, even unlikeable, bedfellows indeed.
-------------------
Footnote: and as a matter of course, of course, the threatening Islamist should be prosecuted with the full force of the law.