You are correct, Bahu, that Muslims do not have a historical monopoly on bigotry & intolerance, but they've certainly cornered the market of late. Furthermore, it was Christians & Jews, for the most part, who fought to end the tyranny perpetrated by those German Christians. And it was Christians & Jews, for the most part, who put an end to slavery. The Muslim faith may not be a religion of violence, but it is certainly a religion which accepts and tolerates, and in countless instances openly advocates, violence against infidels. As soon as those peace-loving Muslims rise up and put an end to the terrorism being carried out in Allah's name, I'll accept your comparison as valid. It is sad that there are apologists like you who excuse terrorism as somehow justified. Cheers,

AMEN!

"It is through the peasantry that we shall really be able to destroy Christianity," he said in 1933, "because there is in them a true religion rooted in nature and blood." His countrymen would have to choose: "One is either a Christian or a German. You can't be both." -Link

Hitler, like many people in politics, liked to put on the uniform of religion to appease the masses, but in reality he had no such personal affiliation. It's hard to make "if anyone would take away your coat, give him your cloak also" jive with the Final Solution.

Bahu: can you really say that Mohammed with a bomb for a turban is any less timely or valid than other political caricatures? Uninspired? Maybe, but Islam is the direct reason many terrorists give for what they do. Is it really the political cartoonist that is associating violence with Islam, or is he just offering a rendition of what terrorists preach daily?

You are correct, Bahu, that Muslims do not have a historical monopoly on bigotry & intolerance, but they've certainly cornered the market of late.

---Daiwa

This is very true. What pops my cork is that the whole world seems to want to rehash Christian offenses over and over, but to give the Muslims a pass.
A series of Crusade that took place a thousand years ago? SHAME!
An Inquisition that took place a few hundred years later? DAMN YOU ALL!


Demonstrate violently and burn some buildings in a riot? Poor, poor militant protestors.

Murder dozens of innocent Jewish children in a hail of gunfire aimed at a school bus?
Pity the freedom fighters.

Blow yourself up with a nail-packed bomb in the middle of a busy, crowded marketplace?
"A bomb was detonated today by a Palestinian martyr......"

Makes me sick how we're just supposed to tolerate them and their hate.

I'd like someone to point me to the front-page articles in Arab newspapers about the rage of Christians rioting in the streets of America over the burning down of 5 churches in the South last week. I am offended in the extreme that these symbols of God, these holy houses of sacred worship, have been destroyed and I feel I would be justified in throwing rocks at people randomly, maybe even getting out the Glock & going looking for a large gathering of people. (Note to Carnivore: just kidding.)

That's about how stupid this whole business has been.

Cheers,
Daiwa

Island Dog

One is a religious symbol and revered all over the world. The other is a political and economic symbol. In any case they are not to be equated.

One is a religious symbol and revered all over the world. The other is a political and economic symbol. In any case they are not to be equated.

A "political and economic symbol"? What an ass you are - utterly intellectually bankrupt and without a soul. I'd spit in your face if I could and feel good about it.

That image, Bahu, represents some 3000 innocent souls murdered in the cruelest way possible in the name of that effing "revered symbol".

Forget the Cheers,
Daiwa

That image, Bahu, represents some 3000 innocent souls murdered in the cruelest way possible in the name of that effing "revered symbol".

Now you have a feel of how Moslems feel when their symbols are ctitisised. Your response is truly amazing. This is exactly the response in Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan. Except that you are angry over one symbol the others over another.

" Now you have a feel of how Moslems feel when their symbols are ctitisised. Your response is truly amazing. This is exactly the response in Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan. Except that you are angry over one symbol the others over another."

A vast oversimplification of a situation wherein Palestinians are also abused and held in siege by fellow Arabs, who block their access to their own nations as well, and make restrictions on their work and migration just as heinously as Israel.

On another blog you bemoaned people who tread heavily. Respect is a necessity, you said. "There, now you see how it feels" doesn't offer respect, it even goes toward validating the act as a balance. People get worked up talking about these things, and I think though we aren't well acquainted that you do not feel that way.

You, and Muslims all over the world, must understand that while this cartoon is an insult to you, the demand that our freedoms be changed to meet the Islamic standard of "respect" is a great threat to us. What we publish in our newspapers doesn't change the way Muslims in other coutries go about their business. The demands from Islam seek to change the very fabric of what we call freedom, and they are demands that are pushed forward under threat of violence.

must understand that while this cartoon is an insult to you, the demand that our freedoms be changed to meet the Islamic standard of "respect" is a great threat to us. What we publish in our newspapers doesn't change the way Muslims in other coutries go about their business

As you put it "OUR FREEDOMS" cannot be changed. True enough, but what about respect for the values symbols and religion of nearly a third of humankind. Surely "Our Freedom" does not include the right to insult and humiliate them. Now there is a tit for tat exchange over what the West considers unacceptable;trivillsing the Holocaust for example and that is an invitation to dangerous undercurrents.

Insult is not something we are protected from. You accept that criticism is valid, but you draw the line when it becomes insulting.

Who decides what is insulting, the insulted? Then how easy for those in power to silence a critic by simply crying foul. Hamas associates Islam with bombs. For me to take this insult seriously is to overlook decades of Muslims ignoring the fact that they, themselves, associated their religion with violence and terror.

Why didn't they riot when they said it was a Muslim's duty to support terrorism? Drawing a picture, or taking innocent lives in Allah's name; which do you consider a more heinous insult toward Islam? After decades of being called an "infidel" worthy of killing, pardon me if I see this anger toward the association as anything but self-serving.

Regardless, I don't wish to insult you, and I hope you know after all this time I do respect you and your views very much.

Regardless, I don't wish to insult you, and I hope you know after all this time I do respect you and your views very much

This is an intellectual discussion and I too have high esteem for you views.In fact thogh I do defend the Moslem point of view and do see the hurt where it lies, I do not endorse Terrorism and killing innocent people. In the heat of the moment we may sometimes verlook that point. However, the fact that today we have an Islam that is stridently militant has to do with the geo politics of the Middle East and therefore we must separate Islamic sates and societies as Politcal formations and Islam as a orld religion. Conflating the two crated the problem.

Now you have a feel of how Moslems feel when their symbols are ctitisised.

I hope you are not comparing the icon of Islam with 3000 people murdered by followers of that icon.

That's exactly what he has done.

Grand.

I think many Muslims are idolizing Muhammed more than is good for them.

Daiwa

Have you ever Read the Quatrains of Nostradamus? I do not know if they are true or not but I have read the translations. I do know we used them in our PR campaign during WWII.

Below is the one on the 25 (Not 27) year war:

n N. epistle to Henry II:

"...The Antichrist returns for the last time...
All the Christians and infidel nations will tremble...
for the space of twenty-five years.
Wars and battles will be more grievous than ever.
Towns, cities, citadels and other structures will be destroyed...
So many evils by Satan's prince will be committed that
almost the entire world will find itself undone and desolated.
Before these events many rare birds will cry in the air.
NOW! NOW! and sometime later will vanish."

The meanings are clearer now. Both the Christian and Muslim nations are trembling.
Structures are being destroyed.
The rare birds are the planes that sound the two explosions and then vanish.