Saturday, January 9, 2010

extremism against cartoonists

Have we seen this yet? It's kind of dated, but the new news is that the cartoonist (Mark Fiore) is receiving death threats. Over this. This cartoon.



Remember the Danish cartoonist who was nearly murdered by a crazed Somali Muslim over his depiction of the prophet Muhammed?

As Fiore says on his blog, 'muslim extremist, meet tea party extremist.'

What do we call death threats over political statements again? Oh yeah. Terrorism.

If we needed more proof that some of the teabaggers are dangerous nuts who take seriously the irresponsible rhetorical fire-bombing by the likes of Beck, Limbaugh, Malkin, Palin and Bachmann, we need look no further. This also illustrates the disconnect these people have between what they say they stand for and what they actually stand for: after all, if they were truly standing up for the Constitution and our freedoms, they wouldn't seek to silence voices with which they disagree.

No, extremist fundamentalists all have more in common with one another than they do with anyone else. That is to say, the actions and the rhetoric of extreme fundamentalist Muslims is more similar to that of extreme fundamentalist right-wingers in this country than right-wingers are to moderates or any other Americans for that matter. Same with fundamentalist Israelis and any other fundamentalist group, including the fundamentalist Muslims they despise: all of these groups seek only to go back, to tear down, to control, and to destroy any progress the human race has made since their ancient, ridiculous books were handed down by illiterate tribesmen. They seek a return to an imaginary simpler time, and anyone who stands in their way or even politely disagrees is deserving of a violent end.

After all, if God has told you that you're supposed to be the big winner, that your way of life and belief system is the bestest and rightest, and yet you see others functioning in the world just fine without your beliefs, then maybe it's not such a great leap to imagine that God wants you to destroy them.

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