Hewitt's Hour On Kartoonistan
Hugh Hewitt, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved and Joe Carter on Kartoonistan -- what a great hour of radio that was!
I'm soundly in the Prager/Medved camp and think the Hewitt/Carter bunch have missed the boat on this one. The latter think we should moderate our freedom of the press, winning Islam over with respect for our system.
"Islam" in this case is non-radical Islam, which by the Hewitt guests' accounting includes somewhere between 50 and 90 percent of all Muslims. All agreed it was pointless to try to move radical Islam.
Hewitt/Carter thinks respectful use of the first amendment will do the trick with this bunch. I think it's fine to ask people to be thoughtful and respectful, but that it's also perfectly acceptable to depict a prophet who endorsed the forceful spread of his beliefts with a bomb on his head. Discouraging such a fair -- if painful -- representation would chill free speech.
Besides, since we debate amongst ourselves so robustly, they would see through that hypocrisy of a double standard, and would only learn that rioting, burning and killing gets results. Whereas, if they see Christian anti-abortion crowds marching quietly for their beliefs, surrounded by jibes and jeers of SanFran radicals, and they compare this to their hooligan brothers, they will see the true power of calm and sure religious integrity and free speech.
Prager pointed out that we do not influence Islam, Islam influences Islam, choosing its battles, as radicals pick up offenses that the world's Muslims would neither be aware of or affected by, and use them to whip people into a frenzy. How wise he is!
We put up with this (Piss Christ):
and this (from a newspaper in Qatar):
... all the time without rioting. Islam has once again represented itself to the world as an immature and intolerant religion. The more often Muslim crowds take to the street demanding the world have greater integrity than they do themselves, on-the-fence Muslims will become de-radicalized, which is good. And politically correct appeasers will see the nature of the threat radical Islam poses, which is also good.
We should not start a campaign of knowing and deliberate provocation, and this was not such a case. Kartoonistan began all because illustrators were afraid to illustrate a children's book sympathetic to Muhammed.
I'm soundly in the Prager/Medved camp and think the Hewitt/Carter bunch have missed the boat on this one. The latter think we should moderate our freedom of the press, winning Islam over with respect for our system.
"Islam" in this case is non-radical Islam, which by the Hewitt guests' accounting includes somewhere between 50 and 90 percent of all Muslims. All agreed it was pointless to try to move radical Islam.
Hewitt/Carter thinks respectful use of the first amendment will do the trick with this bunch. I think it's fine to ask people to be thoughtful and respectful, but that it's also perfectly acceptable to depict a prophet who endorsed the forceful spread of his beliefts with a bomb on his head. Discouraging such a fair -- if painful -- representation would chill free speech.
Besides, since we debate amongst ourselves so robustly, they would see through that hypocrisy of a double standard, and would only learn that rioting, burning and killing gets results. Whereas, if they see Christian anti-abortion crowds marching quietly for their beliefs, surrounded by jibes and jeers of SanFran radicals, and they compare this to their hooligan brothers, they will see the true power of calm and sure religious integrity and free speech.
Prager pointed out that we do not influence Islam, Islam influences Islam, choosing its battles, as radicals pick up offenses that the world's Muslims would neither be aware of or affected by, and use them to whip people into a frenzy. How wise he is!
We put up with this (Piss Christ):
and this (from a newspaper in Qatar):
... all the time without rioting. Islam has once again represented itself to the world as an immature and intolerant religion. The more often Muslim crowds take to the street demanding the world have greater integrity than they do themselves, on-the-fence Muslims will become de-radicalized, which is good. And politically correct appeasers will see the nature of the threat radical Islam poses, which is also good.We should not start a campaign of knowing and deliberate provocation, and this was not such a case. Kartoonistan began all because illustrators were afraid to illustrate a children's book sympathetic to Muhammed.
posted by Laer at 5:28 PM
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