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Originally Posted by Charlatan
That's a rather simplistic list. You leave out the part where Western forces bomb and kill Mulims in (at least) the tens of thousands, and few in the west are outraged.
I am not defending the Muslims actions here, I am just pointing out that inflammatory lists, like this, that take a myopic approach to a complex situation, don't help.
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Yes, Charlatan, my thoughts exactly. Thank you for saying this. I know for a fact that Muslims can come up with a much longer list of the offenses the West has committed against the rest of the world... not ideologically, but politically and economically. Shall we begin with Israel, people??
Also, all of you who are comparing Christ to Mohammed are blowing in the wind. Our Western version of Christ has very little of the ideological power of Mohammed in the Islamic world. As such, I invite people to think of WESTERN equivalents, and I mean EQUIVALENTS, to the portrayal of Mohammad.
What icon of America, if someone destroyed or made fun of it, would send us into a warlike state?
Hmm, maybe a couple of tall buildings?
Or, on a more mundane level, how would this country react if some newspaper published cartoons making fun of soldiers in Iraq? Would we sit around and take that peacefully? Probably not. People would be ALL over the newspapers' asses for desecrating the rights of people to go fight for our freedom.
Consider what OUR country holds near and dear... NOT Christ, he's long gone from anyone's care about what's sacred. But we do hold things VERY dearly around here, and if people threaten or mock them, you can bet your ass we get violent about it.
Once again, I am NOT justifying the use of violence to respond to sacrilege. But at what point do we justify the use of violence (e.g. going to war) to defend what we perceive to be sacrilege? Obviously, we seem to think it's justified in our case... and yet we condemn the Muslims for their own reactions, without looking at the provocation.
Both sides have erred here. The Europeans are idiots for thinking they could get away with this. They KNEW what they were getting into... integration of immigrants is THE massive problem in Europe right now, and that is what is feeding into this. Remember those riots in France?? Yeah, it is all tied together folks. There is something MUCH bigger going on here than just a bunch of stupid cartoons. It is more complex than that, that's all I'm saying. And I thought the TFP would be more sophisticated in its treatment of the subject.