Thou shalt Not Speak the Name "Mohammed"

Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch reports that more of the American television industry has caved in to pressure from violent Muslims. Free speech? Well, Derek Devereaux's cartoon portrait of Mohammed qualifies. The South Park story follows.

Living in fear of Muslim masters is dhimmitude. We don't go for it here. Please send this cartoon of Mohammed to others and tell them you won't stand for dhimmitude either.
Comedy Central submits to Islamic intimidation -- now South Park cannot even say the word "Muhammad"

This is why Islamic supremacists issue threats and practice intimidation in the first place: because it works. These Hollywood dhimmis are only making sure that this sort of thing will happen again. an update on this story, and a Free Speech Death Watch Alert: "'Muhammad' now a dirty word on 'South Park,'" from The Hollywood Reporter, April 22 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

Now "South Park" can't even say the words "Prophet Muhammad."

After last week's episode of the Comedy Central series sparked a threat (and yes, it was certainly a threat) from a radical Islamic website, the network has cracked-down-for-their-own-good on creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone during last night's continuation of the show's storyline.

For those who missed the drama, the show's 200th episode last week mocked the one "celebrity" that the series has been largely unable to depict, the Prophet Muhammad, who was hidden from view in a bear costume. A U.S.-based website RevolutionMuslim.com then warned Parker and Stone they could end up like Theo Van Gogh (the Dutch filmmaker who was murdered by Muslim extremists after depicting Muhammad on his show) and even posted the address of the show's production office. The site has since been shut down.

Last night, "South Park" continued the controversial Muhammad storyline, but with a key difference: every instance of the words "Prophet Muhammad" was bleeped out, making the episode practically incomprehensible, especially to anybody who missed the previous week.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/04/comedy-central-submits-to-islamic-intimidation----now-south-park-cannot-even-say-the-word-muhammad.html#comments

Let Us Do Nothing While Yet There Is Time.

As a great French philosopher once said, "I might not like what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it if I'm not busy that day."

When it comes to heroic rhetoric in Canada, there is no shortage of people trying to stop it. Speech heroic could be potentially harmful and hurtful to someone's feelings someday somewhere maybe potentially. Free speech, sometimes a good thing, is sometimes a bad thing. Sometimes "free speech" is Hate Speech.

You, as a private citizen, can't know all there is to know about the whole of the nation and Humanity, nor how the the world feels about various things that could be deemed insulting to them. How could you know about people's feelings, those from around the world, unless you were an expert in sensitivity and one trained in spotting racism and hate? Come on, you can't know all that. It takes an expert.

Lucky you, there is a collection of fine women and men who are expert in sensing hurt feelings and emotional harm done by hate-speech mongers, those writers and poets and bigots among us, those like that Canadian author Mark Steyn. Thankfully, among us walk investigators and adjudicators of Human Rights Commissions and Tribunals. Experts in finding hate wherever it lays, however deep, no matter how hidden from the lay person. Yes, B.C. has it's Human Rights Tribunal; and those who work for it, who work for you, have found Mark Steyn. Will they expose him as a hate-monger? Will we find the truth about hate? About Steyn? Only if the Human Rights Tribunal can do their work.

Mark Steyn is a best-selling Canadian author, writer of America Alone. America. Need we say more?

In a tolerant society, how can we tolerate hate? How can we tolerate Steyn? How can a tolerant society tolerate Steyn's hate-speech? Who will stop him?

Mohammed Elmasry, head of the Canadian Muslim Congress, he who unsuccessfully attempted to bring Shari'a law into the family court system of Ontario in 2005, is hurt, is deeply hurt, by Steyn's racist and islamophobic book. Elmasry has filed a complaint against Mclean's magazine for republishing part of Steyn's book. Hate speech. The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal will hold a hearing to decide what to do, will decide for us if we as a society can tolerate such writing in this nation. They are Human Rights experts. They know hate speech.

You? Not so much.

What about referring to an ethnic group as the Sons of Apes and Pigs? What about advocating wife beating? What about advocating the murder of homosexuals? How about advocating in public the killing of civilians in war? You see, you might think these are bad things, but you would be mistaken-- because of you not being an expert; and you might not realize that such as above is commanded by Allah in the Koran. Elmasry advocates tKoranic things, it's true, but it is Steyn who is the hate-monger. It takes an expert to understand these things, which is why we have the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal to think for us. You don't know the fine details of hate. How could you? It takes an expert to understand. It takes a hearing.

That hearing is occurring now in Vancouver. Hate-speech? It could happen to you.

Let us be thankful that bureaucrats trained in understanding things for us have taken on such an arduous task. Praise them. And let us do nothing while yet there is time.

For more details, please search:
http://covenantzone.blogspot.com/
Or: http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/

The Soul selects her own Society--

The Soul selects her own Society--

Then--shuts the Door --

Human Rights for Hate Mongers?

Free speech or hate speech? Have you done or said something wrong? Are you a hate monger? If someone accuses you, what then?

Are you tolerating things you honestly don't like? Are you silently putting up with behavior that actually upsets you deeply? Are you nervous about saying so? You'd be right to fear, right because you could end up ruined for complaining aloud. You could be grabbed by Canada's Thought Police. You, a normal person, could be destroyed financially, socially, by law, all for saying the wrong thing in public.

Welcome to the State of Fear.

Mark Steyn, Canadian author, author of America Alone, maybe he's a hate-monger. He wrote a book. Someone complained. Now there is a hearing. The State will decide if Steyn is a hate criminal. Like you, he has opinions. He put his in print. He will be on trial for it. He will face the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal. Hate crime. He will face the State of Fear.

Are you nervous about a remark you once made? Afraid someone will take offense? Concerned that you've said something you shouldn't have? That would be normal. That would be life in a Velvet Fascist police state where things are really, really nice-- or else!

Did you say something you shouldn't have? You didn't mean it, right? Are you scared? That'd be normal. In a State of Fear.

Writers and poets throughout the land, the times they are a'changing. You can't say that. You'll be reported.

Are you a Nazi and a racist? Does it matter what you are so long as someone accuses you? What could you do about it? Who'd risk defending you? Could you defend yourself? Aren't you guilty for just being alive? Don't you feel guilty?

All of our lives and our history, it's all so evil. Shouldn't we pay? Aren't we all guilty of something? Aren't you?

There is a religious movement in Canada that works to save you from your sins, even those you won't acknowledge, even ones you're not aware of. You are guilty because you are a sinner. So says the Religion of Human Rights advocacy, a government religion, a state religion, a religion of bureaucrats in offices, of clerks forever probing. Accusing. Finding hate. Finding -- you.

You said....

Remember that remark? that joke? that look you gave? Someone might, and it might come back to haunt you. In a State of Fear.

Your private life is not private in a State of Fear.

The government, the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal, investigators and prosecutors of hate crimes, are forever searching for things of evil intent, for evil thoughts and deeds. For hate crimes. Maybe-- for you and what you said.

We all commit thought crimes. We are all guilty. Even you. It doesn't take much. Sometimes it takes nothing at all to be branded a hate monger, a racist, a thinker of bad thoughts. It's a crime.

Mark Steyn, a Canadian author, is so charged, and he is guilty-- just as you are. He faces ruin, as could you. The Thought Police. Clerks of the Human Rights Tribunal. Who is Mark Steyn? A man like you. It's his time to face the courts. He is guilty of thinking, of writing, of expressing opinion.

You, poet and maker of your mind and life, choose, and shut the door. In a State of Fear, bureaucrats kick it open and expose you. You are guilty.

B.C. Human Rights Tribunal. It's not about Human Rights. It's not about fee speech. It's about fear. A State of Fear.

http://covenantzone.blogspot.com/
http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/

Who Is Mark Steyn? You might Never Know.

Monday morning at 8:00 we'll be outside the courthouse on Robson st. here in Vancouver to protest in favor of Steyn's rights and yours to speak freely.

Here in Vancouver Canada a famous and entertaining writer, Mark Steyn, will be making a special guest appearance before a kangaroo court held by Death Hippies who don't like the fact that Steyn wrote poo-poo words. No, not dirty words that would get his mouth washed out with soap, I mean other poo-poo words that the nanny-state doesn't like. Nothing naughty. In fact, Steyn's a very bright and articulate intellectual. It's that, you see, he's not behaving himself on the playground of the nation to the satisfaction of the p.c. minders here. They are very upset with Mr Steyn, and he's been called to the principal's office. I know it's the principal's office because the princi-pal is my "pal." Steyn is called before the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal to get spanked. He was a bad boy. To which I say, "Fuck off!"

Like so many people today, Steyn wrote something the government has decided they can be upset about. It really doesn't matter what it is that upsets the government. Who the hell do they think they are to tell the people what to say or what to think? Personally I think, and I even write it: The government can fuck off! Bad boy that I am, I just don't care that a gang of bull-shit bureaucrats who aren't elected by anyone at all can haul a writer into a court of quasi-legal standing in the community and harass and bankrupt anyone as they please. They do it to Steyn, they might do it to me, and they'll come for you too someday. I don't really care what they do to you. You might be no good at all and have nothing to say that anyone wants to hear. You might be a rotten bastard altogether, and I might be happy to see you suffer. But even so, I think I have to stick up for you so the government doesn't get into the groove and come for me next or maybe my friends. I help you so I can do good for a guy I do like and tend to protect, he being me. Your free speech is my free speech.

Free speech. I'll be defending Steyn's and yours and that of my friends and the free speech of people I don't know and some I don't like. I'm doing it for myself. Yeah, OK, I'm doing it for the world too, cause that's the kind of guy I like to be though of as.

Don't let the government get away with this crap. No one elected the thought police. Even if someone had, they would still have no place in a democracy and they would be rightly turfed at any cost. The thought police of the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal are bad and the work they do is evil. I kid you not, these people are evil. This, friend, is Velvet Fascism, and fascism not less for being "nice."

Monday morning at 8:00 we'll be outside the courthouse on Robson st. here in Vancouver to protest in favor of Steyn's rights and yours too to speak freely. Meet us there. Free speech is an essential aspect of democracy. We're losing it. The thought police are going crazy, and we have to stop them somehow. They won't stop of their own accord. They're out of control, and we have to stop them. Government sponsored psycho baby-sitters have tied up the parents of the nation and we're being tortured in the basement for our own good. No, I really don't like it. Monday morning, Robson st. at 8:00.

Here's the upscale version of why;

http://covenantzone.blogspot.com/2008/05/we-are-all-mark-steyn-call-for-slogans.html

A widening net

I think I'm missing something when I read the following piece: A Dutchman complains to the police that he's being victimized by a Dutchman who draws cartoons. The cartoons are 'racist.' A Dutchman converts to Islam, but what race does that make him? I would have thought he'd still be Dutch. What do I know? Obviously not as much as the ten cops who arrested the cartoonist. Ten cops to bust a cartoonist. That's gotta be some deadly pencil he wields. Quick on the draw, maybe. And the paper? Well, maybe it's criminal paper somehow. Yeah, ten cops to bust a guy for cartoons. It's as good or better [read "worse] than Rachel Davis or Bill Simpson complaining about Death Hippies at the Carnegie Centre in Vancouver, Canada. Worse perhaps than Mark Styne, Ezra Levant, and company. And that's just the locals. Wafa Sultan, Ayaan Hirsi Ai, Ibn Warraq, Ali Sina, all those racists, what are we going to do? It looks like the Death Hippies will arrest everyone. And the way to do it is to create a police state so the whole place, walking or sitting, is a prison.

The Dutch authorities have arrested the cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot (a pseudonym. Nekschot means deathblow, litt: "shot in the back of the neck" [An interview with Nekschot here]). The judicial authorities in Amsterdam said yesterday that the cartoonist was arrested as a suspect for the criminal offense of "publishing cartoons which are discriminating for Muslims and people with dark skin."

The cartoonist was arrested on Tuesday, while the police searched his house for "discriminating evidence." His computer, backups, usb sticks, mobile phone and a number of drawings were confiscated. Nekschot was released two days later but it is possible that he will be charged following a complaint in 2005 by the Dutch imam Abdul Jabbar van de Ven, an indigenous Dutchman who converted to Islam.

[....]

Nekschot, a friend of the late Theo van Gogh, the Dutch film maker who was ritually slaughtered by a Muslim fanatic in 2004, hides his real identity in order to avoid unnecessary risks. Hans Teeuwen, a Dutch stand-up comedian and friend of Nekschot's, told the Dutch media yesterday that the police had told Nekschot as they released him earlier that day that "he has now lost his anonymity." Teeuwen said this was "a rather intimidating remark."

As spokeswoman of Xtra, Nekschot's publisher, said today: "He was arrested with a great show of force, by around 10 policemen." The spokeswoman asked that her name not be used because the cartoonist and publisher have received death threats. Nekschot told the Dutch newspaper Het Parool today that police officers had told him: "What you draw is worse than what they did in Denmark. Do you realize what can happen to you if your identity gets known?" The cartoonist fears for his live if he is being sent to jail. "As the maker of those cartoons my life is in danger in prison," he said.

Nekschot's work is rude and often sexually explicit. As such it is characteristic for the Dutch liberal mentality and not beyond the limit in the Netherlands. In his cartoons, however, he mocks the multicultural society, and that does seem to be beyond all bounds.

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3257

Marisol at Dhimmiwatch leads with this:

"We suspect him of insulting people": Dutch cartoonist could face years in prison

He could end up serving more time than some jihadists in European criminal justice systems do on terrorism charges.

[....]

A spokeswoman for the Amsterdam public prosecutor, Sanne van Meteren, said Nekschot remains a suspect in a criminal investigation.

"We suspect him of insulting people on the basis of their race or belief, and possibly also of inciting hate," she said.

Each is a crime punishable by up to a year in prison under Dutch hate laws - or two years for multiple offences.

Van Meteren said prosecutors were investigating a complaint that dates to 2005. They are now focusing on eight or nine published cartoons, she said, but prosecutors are not disclosing which ones.

[....]

http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/021046.php

Let's face it: most people in the West do not care at all about freedom of speech. They don't care one little bit. They'll apathetically accept a police state without a complaint. It's the nature of things. Only a few will try to preserve and extend our right to freedom. Yes, there's a high price to pay for it. You might end up in jail. But really, what's the difference? You might get out one day and find yourself in a better place than the one you left rather than languishing in a deteriorating place on the outside. Erich Fromm knew it first-hand. We're learning quickly:

"We have been compelled to recognize that millions in Germany were as eager to surrender their freedom as their fathers were to fight for it; that instead of wanting freedom, they sought ways of escape from it; that other millions were indifferent and did not believe the defense of freedom to be worth fighting and dying for. We also recognize that the crisis of democracy is not a particularly Italian or German problem, but one confronting every modern state. ....

[F]reedom is not less endangered if attacked in the name of anti-fascism than in that of outright Fascism. This truth has been so forcefully formulated by John Dewey that I express the thought in his words: 'The serious threat to our democracy' he says, 'is not the existence of foreign totalitarian states. It is the existence within our own personal attitudes and within our own institutions of conditions which have given a victory to external authority, discipline, uniformity and dependence upon The Leader in foreign countries. The battlefield is also here-- within ourselves and our institutions.' "

Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom. Avon: New York. !941; rpt 1966; pp. 19-20.

It doesn't matter who you are. If you live in a police state and you don't care, then things will become worse daily. Whether you care or not, daily your life will worsen. So, in the event that things get drastic, we'll stand on the street-corner soon in Vancouver to wave our placards in support of Styne when his hearing comes up. What a great thing to be arrested for fighting for freedom.

No? Then see what it is to live in a prison without even needing to be arrested. Your whole state a prison, and never any escape from it. Your life itself a prison.

Kurt Westergaard and the Danish Cartoons in the Open

There's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. If everyone who stands up to Islamic fanaticism must either die or hide, then the West will become an armed camp of prisoners and guards, no one else remaining. Theo van Gogh dead; Ayaan Hirsi Ali in hiding; Geert Wilders in a poice compound every night; Salman Rushdee scurrying around furtively; Fleming Rose in America; the Danish Cartoonists under guard; and the long list of others underground goes on. When do we stop running to run nowhere, stop hiding when there is nowhere to hide? Well, today is a good day.

The Times

February 13, 2008
Newspapers defy Muslim fanatics to support Kurt Westergaard

David Charter in Brussels and Marcus Oscarsson in Stockholm
Denmark's three main newspapers will take the provocative step today of reprinting a cartoon showing the Prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb instead of a turban after the arrest yesterday of three suspected Islamic terrorists for plotting to murder the artist.
The cartoon by Kurt Westergaard was one of 12 depicting the prophet which triggered riots around the world leading to dozens of deaths when they first appeared in 2005. The violent backlash demonstrated starkly the incendiary interface between Islam and the boundaries of freedom of expression in Europe.
Mr Westergaard, who has spent three months moving between secret addresses while security services tracked the alleged plotters, was back at work yesterday to draw a self-portrait for today's editions. It shows him still clutching his pen and a Danish flag, but he is obscured by a dark and bloody cloud featuring Arabic script which declares: "Glorious Koran."
[....]
Mr Westergaard's image of Muhammad, which he intended to show how Islam was being used by terrorists, was regarded by some Muslims as one of the most offensive of the cartoons published in his Jyllands-Posten newspaper in September 2005.

[....]
What if a newspaper in another country, Islamic or not, print the headline "All Danish People are no better than Dogs"�, is that ok in the name of free speech? I bet you the Danish government would be up in arms. There is NO such thing as free speech WITHOUT responsibility.
The newspapers in Denmark knew exactly what they were doing, making the inference that all Muslims are terrorist.
Waqar, Walsall, UK
would these papers print anti semetic or racist cartoons? thsi shows that the argument of Freedom of speech is nonsense, it has always been so. There are laws in every country to deny freedom of speech and discriminate on gender or race.

The Iranian newspapers challeng to print anti semetic cartoons was not taken up by the danes as they didn't seem to to relate this to freedom of speech.

The Danes seem to have learnt nothing from the affair, if you insult and disrespect someone, don't be surprised when they show you the same contempt.
Akram, London,
[....]

Mr Westergaard revealed yesterday that he and his wife, Gitte, 66, had been living at various secret locations since death threats were first made three months ago.

[....]

"Of course I fear for my life after the Danish Security and Intelligence Service informed me of the concrete plans of certain people to kill me," he said in a statement. "However, I have turned fear into anger and indignation. It has made me angry that a perfectly normal everyday activity which I used to do by the thousand was abused to set off such madness. I have attended to my work and I still do. I could not possibly know for how long I have to live under police protection.
He added: "I think, however, that the impact of the insane response to my cartoon will last for the rest of my life. It is sad indeed, but it has become a fact of my life."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3355938.ece?token=null&offset=12

The joke is on those of us in the West who think the impact of fascism as it emanates from both Islam and the Left is not important and visceral in our personal lives. Too bad, but try sitting on the tube train or a double-decker bus in London, or sit in an office tower in New York City, or go to school in Belsan, Russia, or take a subway in Madrid, and then think how little this affects you. Or read a paper at Tivoli, do any usual or ordinary thing, like write a column at Maclean's Magazine, then ask yourself if your life is what it was and what you think it should be. Do nothing, go to the aeroport at Glasgow. Go disco dancing in Bali. Go to the beach at Cronula. There's nowhere to run. Not to the shopping mall in Colorado, not to work in Texas or Kansas. There's nowhere to hide. Ignore it all you will, if you do nothing about the spread of fascism in the hope it won't find you, play dhimmi and hope the fascists will ignore you, none of that will work because there is no hope for the fearful or the ignorant. It's time to stand up and post your cartoon. Show it off. Let the world see. There is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

Bravo, Geert Wilders

" 'It is difficult to anticipate the content of the film, but freedom of expression doesn't mean the right to offend,' said Maxime Verhagen, the Netherlands Foreign Minister."
http://poligazette.com/2008/01/21/anti-islam-movie-cause-for-great-concern/

A marginal Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, is close to releasing for the world's viewing a ten minute movie about the Qur'an. So what.

"During a visit to the European Parliament in Strasbourg last week, Ahmad Badr al-Din Hassoun, the Grand Mufti of Syria, said that, were Wilders was seen to tear up or burn a Koran in his film, 'this will simply mean he is inciting wars and bloodshed ... It is the responsibility of the Dutch people to stop him.' "
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2243805,00.html

Well, how about 'what' being that the Grand Mufti of Syria is making death threats in the statement above? He's free to threaten the Western world, and we're free to ignore him. However, it'll be damned hard to ignore dead bodies and burning buildings and whatever else Muslims have in store if Wilders' film hits the aether. So whadda ya do? Do you stop Wilder's from provoking the collective insanity that is the Muslim ummah? Where do you stop? Do you ever stop? Will we in the world at large be forced to become Muslims ourselves from fear of risk of offense to Muslims if our very kuffar nature offends them? We've already allowed ourselves to be placed unwittingly in a state of high dhimmitude by our politicians and intelligentsia. Many of our fellow citizens through natural conformity to the prevailing norms of sociable conduct perpetuate the dhimmitude. So, where does it end? Does it end?

There is a rush recently to silence anyone who criticizes Islam, notably in the case of Ezra Levant, Maclean's Magazine, Mark Steyn, and many more, including the Dutch politician Aayan Hirsi Ali, co-maker of the Dutch film Submission, the showing of which got Theo Van Gogh killed by a Muslim. Now Wilders is on the verge of showing a film of his own, one the Mulsims are already protesting, one the Grand Muffy of Syria is threatening violence over.

What do the Dutch say? Here's a fine piece of analysis from the national broadcasting corporation:

Wilders and the Dutch image

Dutch woman in Bahrain fears film's repercussions

By Conny van den Bor*

22-01-2008

It has been bothering Marjo Rashid-Stals for weeks. It has been giving her stomach aches. And now that Geert Wilders' anti-Qu'ran film is about to come out she's had enough.

So she has written a letter to the Dutch government pointing out that as a Dutch citizen in Bahrain she is afraid of the repercussions the film could have for her. She is also afraid of the Netherlands' image. This is part of the letter she has written to the Dutch government:

"I'm deeply ashamed. Will I soon have to apologise for an entire country?

.
..my heart fills with fear when I think of what will happen after the release of Geert Wilders' film. What will happen with the so-called dialogue between the West and the East? What will become of our image in the Islamic world?"

Marjo feels powerless. She has been living with Arab people for years.

How should I react towards people who feel insulted by Wilders' film? How can I defend myself if I am deeply ashamed? I can only offer my excuses and attempt to explain that not all Dutch people are like Wilders. But should I have to apologise for an entire country?"

"Is there anyone left who still believes in something? I beg the government to do something before it is too late."
http://www.radionetherlands.nl/thestatewerein/otherstates/080122-wilders-dutch-image

The whole piece is sentimental, a phoniness permeating its every line; and it is a call to cowardice and self-pity. The official narrator chides the reader for not doing enough to stop Wilders from being a bad person. That's the official Dutch line. If this, dear reader, is what you want from life, to be forever treated by your government like a kindergaartener, then do nothing while the government slowly but silently smothers you in blankets that will keep you immobile till the end. It is a velvet fascism. It is a fascism nonetheless. If you don't resist it, you will become enveloped in it. You might not like it.

Free speech doesn't give one the right to offend anyone. Friend, what do you make of a government that comes up with a position like that?

There is certainly a lot of free speeech going on in the Arab world, at least concerning Geert Wilders: [T]he populist MP can claim 66,000 hits on the Arabic-language version of Google, most of them concerning his controversial statements about Muslims and the Qu'ran.
http://www.expatica.com/nl/articles/news/RNW-Press-Review-_-Tuesday-22-January-2008.html

Me? I'm going to watch some video.