jordan
Q: What’s yellow, and equivalent to the Axiom of Choice?
A: Zorn’s Lemon.

Quite an interesting happening occurred today at Right Wing Nuthouse. To give you some background, last week he posted about the need for Empathy and Understanding in the Cartoon Case:

I have tried to imagine anything similar in my own experience th…

“In the very outset, at first meeting with them (referencing tribesman and townsman of ME, was found a universal clearness or hardness of belief, almost mathematical in its limitation, and repellent in its unsympathetic form…

…They were people of black and white, who saw the world always in contour. They were dogmatic, despising doubt, our modern crown of thorns. They did not understand our metaphysical difficulties, our introspective questioning. They knew only truth and untruth, believe and unbelief, without our hesitating retinue of finer shades.

This people was black and white, not only in vision, but by inmost furnishing: black and white not merely in clarity, but in apposition. Their thoughts were at ease only in extremes. They inhabited superlatives by choice. Sometimes inconsistents seemed to possess them at once in joint sway; but they never compromised; they pursued the logic of several incompatible opinions to absurd ends, without perceiving the incongruity…

…They were a limited, narrow minded people, whose inherent intellects lay fallow in incurious resignation. Their imaginations were vivid, but not creative. There was so little Arab art in Asia that they could almost be said to have no art, thought there classes were liberal patrons, and had encouraged whatever talents in architecture, or ceramics, or other handicraft their neighbors and helots displayed. Nor did they handle great industry: they had no organization of mind or body. They invented no system of philosophy, no complex mythologies. They steered their course between the idols of the tribe and the cave. The least mobid of peoples, they had accepted the gift of life unquestioningly, as axiomatic. To them it was a thing inevitable, entailed on man, a usufruct (means: The right to use and enjoy the profits and advantages of something belonging to another as long as the property is not damaged or altered in any way), beyond control. Suicide was a thing impossible, and death no grief.”

on and on…

To get a sense of the sad, maybe Churchillian, state of affairs, peruse the transcript of Meet the Press. In all his pomposity and churlishness, Russert exchanged barbs on the NSA controversy with the ranking Senate Republican. He began by obfuscating the facts about the allegation L. Libby released classified information on direction of superiors (see Powerline discussion). Then his puerile behavior turned to defending the indefensible (treason in effect) using parsed legal definitions, equivalence and recrimination. Another nail in the coffin performance by the Fourth Estate (and for all the free speech chicken littles, information has never been as democratized as it is today).

There are no moderate muslims. Back in July when I first started becoming political in the blogosphere, I dipped my toe in the waters of terrorist website jihadwatch.org, and pulled out an article by a muslim columnist for the London Free Press, where he said that there are no moderate muslims. The London Free Press article is gone, but relevant quotes from the article are still available at http://iamthepaperboy.blogspot.com/2005/07/there-are-no-moderate-muslims.html.
The upshot is that in muslim society violence is to be expected and never questioned.

So it’s not surprising that they have such extreme reactions to such innocent cartoons. In fact, only two of the twelve cartoons depict Mohammed as being violent. The majority of the cartoons either depict Mohammed as being peaceful, are abstractions, or contemporary social commentary about the violent tendencies of muslims. This is why I believe the cartoons should be published widely, to show the world the true nature of this controversy, that the muslims are intentionally over-reacting as a way of furthering their global jihad against western civilization. I plan to publish my own in-depth analysis of all of the cartoons within a day or two.

Islam is attempting to raise itself out of its torpor. Decades of stagnation within the “Arab Street” have come to a head. No longer will the continued attacks on the Jews and Zionism as the great enemy or the United States as the “Great Satan” suffice. The world itself is the target and the establishment of the Great Caliphate and the Dhimmitude of all non-believers the only acceptable result.

We knew this regarding the fanatics, terrorists, and Islamo-Fascists for some time. But we have held out hope for the Moderate Muslim world. The problem has been the Moderates’ silence in the face of continued terrorism. The deafening quiet heard from the Muslim Moderates when the African Embassies were bombed, the Bali bombings, the USS Cole, Suicide bombers in Israel, and then 9/11. What would it take for the moderate muslim to raise himself up. We have found out - cartoons.

When we all bow to the Muslim world and offer our necks to the sword of Islam and humbly beg to live in servitude to the will of Allah - only then will the Muslim world feel content. How else can you view the evidence?

Does this mean that the president has to apologize for Iraq? NSA? The NYT? Getting elected?

I guess that you simply “grew” while writing.

I’m inclined to agree with your original thoughts rather than the retribution crowd, but not for multicultural or sympathetic reasons. Check out http://ktcatspost.blogspot.com/2006/02/my-enemys-enemy.html. Hugh Hewitt makes the argument that we don’t want Danish cartoonists setting the time and place of our cultural conflict with Islam. I’d argue that we don’t need to stand up for the cartoonists any more than we need to stand up for Hollywood’s “The Last Temptation of Christ.”

The Islamofascists rioting over cartoons adds exactly what to our list of reasons to oppose them? It’s like having your neighbor blow up your toolshed and kill your dog, but then getting even angrier when his watering moistens your sidewalk.

Nice, but no cigar…”laying into” isn’t good enough any more. It’s time to take that bastard out…out….before it’s too late to do it without killing a lot of other, more or less innocent Iranians.