Killing Cartoons Into Submission

Columnist Kathleen Parker points out the cowardice that Islamofascism inspires amongst those who believe that slandering Dubya equals "speaking truth to power":

Glaringly missing in a history of killed cartoons is one by Doug Marlette that sparked Muslim outrage a few years ago. I know it's shocking that Muslims were outraged, but try to stay focused.

The cartoon depicted a jihadi driving a Ryder truck with a nuclear bomb in back with the caption: What Would Mohammad Drive?

Wallis says he fought unsuccessfully for the cartoon's inclusion, but "I know why it didn't run and you know why it didn't run." He did note with admiration that Norton was the only publishing house of 15 he approached that had the "gumption" to touch the book.

As the world knows by now, some Muslims have no tolerance for irreverence when it comes to their Prophet. When Marlette, now with the Tulsa World, drew the cartoon in 2002 for the Tallahassee Democrat, the paper pulled it from its Web site and kept it out of print editions after several thousand e-mails and death threats jammed its server.

The 2005 cartoon controversy that caused a worldwide outcry following publication of a dozen Mohammad images commissioned by the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, further illustrated Islamist intolerance for Western principles of free speech.

Marlette, a Pulitzer Prize winner, isn't known for taking prisoners.

"I wonder how Norton authors like Sigmund Freud, whose books were burned by the Nazis, or feminist Adrienne Rich's burqa-averse poetry would fare with the Muslim censors and Norton's editorial appeasers," he said.

"Norton has no moral obligation to risk the lives of their employees to publish a cartoon, but they should acknowledge they killed the cartoon because they were frightened for their lives because of a drawing and didn't want their offices bombed."

Many doubtless would agree with Norton's decision, figuring that the possibility of mortal threat is a pretty good reason not to publish a controversial cartoon. But, in fact, it is the very reason to publish.

Not to be gratuitously in your face, but to be purposefully in your face. To make clear that free speech -- even drawn opinion -- not only trumps special interests, but also requires a bold and sometimes insensitive defense.

Instead, by capitulating to intimidation (even if we call it sensitivity), we embolden the forces that have no interest in freedom. We telegraph to Islamist totalitarians, whose ultimate goal is subjugation of the West, that death threats and riots will silence us into submission -- the literal meaning of "Islam."

In the country that helped midwife free speech into civilization, that may be the definition of irresponsible.

You see this symptom of the suicidal ideology of liberalism everywhere, from terrified editors - who wouldn't think twice about publicizing a chocolate Jesus statue meant to mock Christians at Easter - to an emboldened Iran brazenly kidnapping 15 British sailors who are so constrained by political correctness that they didn't even attempt to defend themselves.

The West is weak and getting weaker and unfortunately for those of us who kinda like not living on our knees, there is little in the way of leadership coming from either political party. The Dems, naturally, are in cahoots with the tyrants because they share the same totalitarian agenda, but where the f*ck are the Stupid Party people?!? Thank God we had Reagan and not a feckless chump like Dubya (or his dad for that matter) when the Cold War was raging.

This is why Muslims should've been Time's People of the Year. They are so violent and put so much fear in the hearts of the power elites that they punked out and named us (i.e. "You") as people of the year rather than risk the consequences of shining an honest light upon the Religion of Peace.

If people want to commit suicide, that's their pathetic call. But making everyone else die with them? Absolutely not!



Translation: I will not surrender/I will not submit. (More)