What
Can You Do?
to
link here: http://www.HungarianBookstore.com/danishmuslimcartoons.htm
The Muslim
Cartoons
What can you do to stem this infringement on freedom?
- Link
this site to yours, or to post the cartoons yourself.
- Donate
to our site or check out our sponsors. This helps us keep promoting these pages.
(Even a dollar helps). We use Paypal.
- Use
the Google searchbox above. It is the Google you know, and can be usedl search
for important terms like jihad, terrorism, Islam, cartoons, but can help us,
- Join
our discussion group and have a conversation with people from all points of
view.
- Write
your senator
and ask for his or her public denouncing of violence and a declaration that we
need a free society.
- In
the United States, we are learning to embrace diversity.
This does not mean
you agree or even like it. It does mean we are learning that a gay man and straight
man can work side-by-side. It needs to mean that this melting pot neither pretends
we are the same nor ignores what we have in common. - Figure
out what is freedom in your life and live it out.
My
Opinion
Being offensive for its own sake accomplishes nothing. These cartoons,
although some, if not all, Muslims, may find them offensive and blasphemic are
not posted here for that reason. This is not some pompous effort to look scornfully
at Islam
or Muslims
or what they believe. It is about preserving and supporting freedom.
The
United States did not invent freedom or freedom
of speech,
and we certainly have not perfected it. In fact, many here will argue that we
have ourselves often breached it. That said, it is among the reasons we parted
ways with England in the 1770s.
My motivation is hardly for reasons of
disrespect, and not so that I might insult some Muslims or their faith. As a Christian,
I deeply understand what it means to know the pain of having one's faith ridiculed.
However, I enjoy the freedom to say loudly what I believe. That same freedom allows
pictures of Christian
symbols
in urine to be published. That is a cost of freedom. The balance of freedom includes
the suffering through the thoughts of others which are viscerally contrary to
our own. When
Salman
Rushdie
faced death for his book, The
Satanic Verses
I remember thinking how awful that a few words would draw such a response. I thought
of book burnings and of books being banned. It is a hard issue, but burning
or banning
a book
does not compare to threatening to kill the writer, or, in this case, the cartoonist. This
issue is bigger than the freedom of speech or censorship.
It, like what Rushdie still lives with, with what 9-11
felt, is only symptomatic of core hatred among an influential group of Muslims.
All Muslims? Of course not. However, this vocal and deadly group is leading men
to suicide
bombings,
and now, to bear arms against cartoonists.
While
the cartoons have little to do with the HungarianBookstore.com,
I realized I could, in a small way, support freedom of speech and the rebuke of
bullies. The freedom to offer the books we do is only possible because of the
freedom Hungarians themselves did not enjoy for 40 years under communist rule.
If
no one stands, will we be forced to forever lay down?
Michelle
Milkin's blog commentary
Publish
or Not? Muhammad Cartoons Still Vexing U.S. Editors - Editor and Publisher
Claudia
Rosett on Cartoon Jihad "Rage Against the Western Machine:
We’re
at war. But only one side seems to get that." - National Review Online
THOSE
MUHAMMAD CARTOONS! - Daryl Cagle (more cartoons by various cartoonists)
At
Mecca Meeting, Cartoon Outrage Crystallized - New York Times
(Buy subscription New
York Times - National Ed )
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