WebMagician: Standing Up For Freedom Of Expression And Against Political Correctness

The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword

Never have these words rung more true than with the publication of a handful of political/religious cartoons. If you've been wondering what all the uproar and rhetoric is about, here are the actual cartoons that the so-called-Muslim fanatics are attempting to blame for inciting their rabid-dog-like mania.

The original page that was published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten (and subsequently by several other newspapers in Europe in an expression of support), printed these 12 cartoons — shown in the graphic image below on the right-hand side of the page. Each of the small cartoon images is hot-linked to a larger image, and will open in a new browser window when you mouse-click on a specific cartoon.

The claim continuously being cited by those who have sided against the publication of these caricatures, is that the cartoons were published simply to incite the Muslim world. What leap of logic dictates that political commentary must automatically be labeled as deliberately racist or inflammatory?

Should someone be asked to apologize for the cartoons? Absolutely not! Political-correctness is NEVER correct.

Here's a couple of reality-check questions, for those living here in the western world. Are groups of people running around firing rifles into the air a common sight when you walk down the street in whatever community you live in? Are public beheadings common in your town?

Those aren't scenes from some movie, they are a daily fact of life for the people who live in many Islamic/Muslim Arab/Middle-Eastern countries. Countless journalists stationed in those countries report on these kinds of events and present those images in newspapers and television newscasts day in and day out. Terrorist psychopaths kidnap and behead innocent civilians, blow up school buses full of their own country's children, and riot in the streets on virtually a daily basis. And they do it all while screaming "Allah is great, praise the Prophet, death to the West".

By most standards the cartoons are quite lame — especially in comparison to the kind of material that is often featured in sex rags such as Hustler — but the one that depicts Mohammed wearing a bomb-turban, is categorically making a very political statement about Muslim militants and their religious fascism. It reflects the reality that many people in the West truly do view the Middle-East as a terrorist culture. Do not label it as deliberately inciteful simply because you disagree with its message (or because you didn't even "get" its point).

Yet the mere display of these caricatures has caused thousands of supposed Islam/Muslim followers/believers to devolve into mobs of hysterical, foaming-mouthed zealots. One could say that it speaks volumes about how weak their faith must be — but that would mean according these barbarians even a semblance of religious, moral, or ethical values — qualities which they do not have.

The world as a whole is not subject to the intolerance and repressive extremism that exists in most parts of the Arab/Middle-Eastern world. The cartoons are valid political commentary, the expression of which is a fundamental cornerstone of a free society. The drawings may not be to everyone's taste, and therefore the very same freedom that permits the publication of these cartoons, is also available to those who wish to criticize the cartoons, their creators, or those who published them. Such criticism however, does not include the frenzied violence that is currently streaming so insanely from these militant extremists around the world.

These radicals are not representative of anything remotely related to the Islamic religion, for they live purely for any excuse to commit acts of violence, and are therefore nothing more than vile criminals.

Let's not lose sight of that fact; it has nothing to do with cartoons.