Two gunmen were killed this week in Texas after opening fire on a security officer outside a contest for cartoon depictions of the Prophet Muhammad, hosted by the New York-based American Freedom Defense Initiative that would award $10,000 for the best cartoon depicting the Prophet of Islam.
The event featured speeches by American Freedom Defense Initiative president Pamela Geller, who explained before the event that she planned the contest to make a stand for free speech in response to outcries and violence over drawings of Muhammad. And she said in a statement, that the shooting showed how “needed our event really was.”
So is free speech needed so that we can piss off people about their religious believes, get a security guard almost killed and then enjoy the gunning down of the two nut-bags who responded to this taunting? Because you can call it free speech if you want but that’s exactly what many of my former high school students would call their common everyday harassment and bullying of other classmates, in their efforts to avoid reprimand or punishment.
Do we really need to taunt ISIS (who soon took credit for the shootings) and 1.5 billion other Muslims around the world who believe in Islam, by making fun of Muhammad? Yes, I know they have a cadre of terrorists within their midst, who often act violently and irrationally at the drop of a crayon, but does that make 1.5 billion people wrong about their beliefs or targets for mockery?
At school, those bullies would always like to target other kids who they knew could easily be “set off” just with a little push, then they would stand back and laugh and sneer with an air of superiority about them. Of course, all any of those targeted kids would have to do then is mention one of those bully’s mothers and then the bullies would explode in a mad and angry frenzy like a bunch of whirling dervishes on speed!
Everyone and every belief system, has their frailties…don’t they?
So why can’t we just live… and let live? And use our freedoms to do some good in this world, like draw cartoons of ourselves, hold them up to the mirror and see if we start laughing? If we don’t then it’s time to pull that plank out of our own eyes and stop worrying about the spec in everyone elses.
I know somebody else said that first but…who was it again?
ipledgeafallegiance 