Discussion: Phoenix Man Plans ‘Draw Muhammad’ Cartoon Contest

TPM Article Topics
21

…the guy may be an attention-whore, but so what? I will never understand how drawing a picture of someone’s god would be considered ‘provocative’. The problem is not this attention whore, the problem is religious fundamentalists who think they have the right to use violence against those exercising free speech. Furthermore, why should anyone refrain from doing something like this for fear of some nut job acting out because of it? I don’t think we should self-censor ourselves because of extremists. Does anybody wring their hands about offending Fred Phelps and his band of queer-hating idiots?

I wouldn’t join them for the simple fact that I don’t care for people with his beliefs, and I don’t have a chip on my shoulder about Islam per se. Let me throw this thought experiment out there: if Fred Phelps said, “I take the Ten Commandments very seriously, and I will use violence against anybody who makes an image of the Lord”, wouldn’t there be a fair number of liberals and atheists rushing over to Topeka to draw pictures of his god in front of his church? Sure there would be. Would any of us say, “oh you shouldn’t do that, it’s very offensive and Christophobic to do that?” or “You deserve what you get for provoking them”? Very few would!

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22

Bobby Jindal is donating the crayons and paper.

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23

It’s been years and years for me.

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24

You mean like a mobile installation? Great, sounds very avant-garde!

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In polite society adults don’t go out of their way to insult or provoke someone for its own sake. And then when their provocation is successful castigate the target of their stunt for overreacting in response and in doing so dishonoring the First Amendment. The First Amendment permits you to walk up to a couple and say “My, you have a damned ugly woman on your arm, mister!” The fact you can legally do it does not argue for the wisdom or propriety of doing so. And protesting the resulting punch in your nose is damned weak tea.

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Well, there’s all kinds of questions begging here. Where’s the line between provocation and over-reacting? It is quite common for liberals to insult all Christians and indeed all religions in general (yes, I am assuming that liberals are more likely to be atheists than conservatives are).

There is also quite a difference between “I’m going to punch you for offending me” and “I’m going to kill you for offending me”. Pretty much any sane person would understand smacking someone around for an extreme insult, even if it’s not legal to do so (and it’s not). No rational person would condone killing someone over any type of insult.

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I think we all agree that people should have every right to draw Mohammed and not face the threat of violence, if that’s how they want to spend part of their Saturday, or whatever. The debate though over these kinds of things is whether or not they should be carried out the way they are. They’re inviting violence in a public forum where many other people are put at risk that otherwise may not share their views or are even aware that such a contest is taking place. They’re asking for a war in somebody’s neighborhood. It’s incredibly irresponsible.

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28

His 15 minutes of fame countdown begins Friday evening. He’ll make an ugly corpse.

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29

The psychopath who mowed down 69 children in Norway and eight government officials in Oslo followed Pam’s writings. Rantings.

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31

I agree these people are deliberately trying to provoke. What I completely disagree with is the notion that they should self-censor themselves because some religious nut might do something stupid. It is little different than saying women should always dress modestly because otherwise they are inviting rape. In every case, if you force yourself sexually on someone, you’re at fault.

If the police are inconvenienced, so what? isn’t free speech worth standing up for? Why should this even come to the point where police are required to maintain order? In a sane world, these nutjobs would stand on the sidewalk drawing their crude stick figures and garner no more attention than some nut with a sandwich board proclaiming ‘the end is nigh’.

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32

Nor would a sane person instigate a deliberately provocative act solely for its own sake. They want to draw cartoons of Muhammad simply because they can? I think not. It’s in the hopes of provoking a reaction from the Muslim community, plain and simple. And if the Muslim community reacts with indifference, ignoring the event? Well, that is not the reaction the attendees are hoping for. Why stage it in the hope Muslims will ignore it and all proceeds peacefully? To what end? Everyone already knows what they propose is legal. No one is disputing their First Amendment rights. Sure, two crazy guys in effect disputed the right previously at a similar event, but no one WANTS that to happen again, right? Or do they…

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33

it’s not a question of sanity, it’s a question of being an asshole. Yes, these people are assholes. They are jonesing for a confrontation of some sort. But should something happen, the fault lies entirely with those who think that violence or murder is an appropriate response to having someone mock their religion.

Once again… if Fred Phelps declared that drawing pictures of his god required the “artist” to be put to death, there would be a stampede to Topeka to draw pictures of his god in front of Westboro Baptist Church, wouldn’t there be? Would there be all this concern for the feelings of Fred Phelps?

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34

Seriously?

There’s a power dynamic at work. When Bill Maher, whose generalizations are really quite annoying, wags his finger at liberals over this shit, he sees himself as defending the underdog. The Iranian or Saudi dissident that lives under an oppressive theocratic regime. In this situation the Muslims that attend the Arizona mosque are the underdogs being picked on for their religious beliefs. The WBC people have more in common with Ritzheimer by trying to provoke a response. For what? To prove they’re beliefs are superior?

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35

Yeah, seriously. Why is that such a hard question to answer? You know what the answer is. Maybe YOU wouldn’t go. I wouldn’t either, because I don’t think they are worth the trouble. (even though I can fly for free.)

opposition to religious extremism should apply to ALL religions, not just to those whose politics you don’t like. Do Muslims get an unfair amount of crap in this country from the right-wing? Absolutely. That doesn’t give Muslims carte blanche in my book to have some special exemption from having their religion mocked. People like you and I do it all the time to fundamentalist conservative Christians. I do not understand why fundamentalist conservative Muslims get a pass, just because the right-wing indicts all Muslims for the actions of a small minority of extremists.

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Bingo. The targets of these inflammatory provocations are religious minorities.

It’s so annoying to see people react to these deliberate provocations with hand-wringing over presumed liberal calls for “self-censorship.”

No one is disputing the legality of these actions.

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37

He may be secular, but this racist jerk is no progressive. And he is not threatening anyone’s religious values, except those of the Muslims he is trying to incite to violence. He couldn’t be threatening your religious values because Jesus never knew about Islam, it did not exist when he was alive, and he taught tolerance and peace, not hate and violence, towards all people. He is in fact threatening your religion by his actions much more than Cruz or Carson could by making it appear violent and intolerant of others. He is a bigoted troglodyte pretending to be an American. He has no idea what Islam is about, and he has only his cowardice and hate to drive him. That the leader of the center is asking that no one there engage with the people who will be attending is admirable and wise. Perhaps if more people truly understood the history as well as the teachings of Islam, then people like this moron would not be taken seriously.

(Disclaimer: I am white, 62 years old, and female, and I am also an interfaith minister who has taken the time to understand modern Islam and what it teaches. My mother’s ancestors were on the Mayflower, signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and my father’s family were Swedish immigrants who taught their children English and instilled in them a fierce sense of pride in things like education and tolerance. My father was a veteran of WWII, and studied history all his life as part of being a good citizen. He was also someone who traveled extensively world wide and did business all over the world with people of different nations, races, and religions, and some of these people were guests in our home as I was growing up. He and my mother were both Republicans to the day they died, but both had become appalled at what was happening to that party and its affects on this nation. They both lived in Arizona in their last years and are buried in the VA cemetery there.)

The terror machine started by Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld and kept alive by the likes of Pam Geller and FOX News has done more damage to this nation than any Muslim has ever done. They have taken a nation of brave people and turned them into scared children who see the boogey man in every person who is not white, Christian, or American by birth. They have created an atmosphere in this nation that is causing people to violate the Constitutional rights of others, use free speech to generate fear as a way of controlling the politics of this nation, and they have single-handedly given the likes of the fascist Koch Brothers et al a place to rule. Now they are showing, once again in Phoenix, just what a hateful place we now live in.

I hope that the event is peaceful. I hope that no one, especially the police, get trigger happy. I hope that this event becomes just another non-event. Unfortunately, seeing what I have seen in Phoenix over the last decade, I doubt if that will be the case and I fear people will be killed or hurt as the result of this person’s hiding behind his free speech rights without taking his responsibilities seriously under that same Constitutional right.

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38

We don’t live in a sane world, though. We live in a world where religious extremists are fully willing kamikaze commercial jets into buildings full of innocent people, among other heinous acts. I agree fully with you that we shouldn’t have to self-censor, but the guy in this article is actively inciting violence (he’s recruiting bikers, implying they should bring guns, and holding a type of contest known to provoke violent extremist reaction) in an arena in which he’s jeopardizing the lives of a lot of people that don’t want anything to do with this. Terrorists, and violent religious extremists are infinitely more awful, but you can’t deny that what this guy is up to is incredibly irresponsible.

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39

holy missing the point Batman. The point is not ‘is it legal’. The point is, ‘should you not do it because some guy might lose his shit and over-react’. Drawing a picture should never be considered a provocation to extreme violence, and should such a thing happen, blaming the victim is despicable.

I’m done here… have a nice day.

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Another clusterf*ck in the making by an Islamaphobic Rightie dumbazz’…what could go wrong?

Imagine the drain in time and monies on local law enforcement, the harm it puts policemen in, and the complete inconvenience and community interruptions and danger to the surrounding area’s citizens who would like to go on with their lives just so chest-thumping Ritzheimer can get his jollies.
Further, the point that this scummy load of Phoenix bikers is making with this event is less about free speech than it is about expressing their hatred of Islam directly to Muslims. This is evidenced by the obscene comments on the group’s page, the vulgar t-shirts that the group will sell (and wear) ahead of their gathering, and the fact that the organizers have chosen to intentionally antagonize Muslims at their mosque by arriving en masse, insulting their religion to their faces, intimidating them with their weapons, and expecting that they quietly embrace all of this in the name of the First Amendment.

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41

“inconvenienced”?

Round One of this insultorama almost got cops killed.

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