I'll Say What I Want

All over the Middle East this week, violent Muslim extremists are protesting at embassies and storming consulates and attacking diplomats.  They are burning cars, throwing rocks, and even murdered an American ambassador.  This is happening in Libya, in Egypt, in Yemen, and in Indonesia.  It is far from an isolated incident, sparked only by a few radicals.  These people are indeed radical, but you can bet that they aren't few.

Explain to me how peaceful and understanding you are again.  

Why did they get so upset? Because of this ridiculous video that was posted on YouTube:

Now, if you were able to withstand the horrible special effects, the abysmal writing, and the nearly unbearable acting, you would see that the film is pretty unflattering to Islam in general, and to Muhammad in particular.  But the most offensive thing about the movie is its horrible production quality.

The film was made by a radical Coptic Christian man living in California.  What is a Coptic Christian, you ask?  Why, that is a sect of Christianity that formed in Egypt.  As such, Egyptian Christians view themselves as Copts, or Coptic Christians.  For a more detailed description, click these words.

So what does that mean?  
It means that the makers of the film are freaking EGYPTIANS.  Think about that for a minute.  Why are the crazies storming the U.S. embassy, when the people behind the film (directed by a man called Nakoula) claim to be Coptic Christians?  Riddle me that, Cairo.

This is Nakoula Basseley Nakoula.  Or The Shadow.
I'm not 100% on that one.

Sure, the guys behind the movie moved to California, and have become American citizens.  But this was hardly a production of the American government, or even of an American religious group.

This really means that these wacky radical groups are just anti-American, and that no amount of "cultural sensitivity" will make them behave peacefully.  Apologizing to these assholes is exactly the wrong way to go.

This guy wasn't teaching kindergarten before the evil video made him crazy...

The U.S. government has exerted a ton of effort to convince me and a lot of other people in the military, the state department, and other agencies that we should be more sensitive to the viewpoints of Muslims, and that then they wouldn't be so motivated to attack us.  Basically, we simultaneously adopted the Bush Doctrine of preemption and the practice of apologizing to everyone for offending them with our freedoms.  This makes no sense.

So our policy is that if you harbor terrorists, we will come and destroy your country, but we will carefully tiptoe around your religious leaders and mosques.  That way we can still be friends, right?  Wrong.  

Since when is it such a big deal to offend people?  I'm offended by some things, too.  I don't like the treatment of women in many of these countries, the use of medieval punishments for minor crimes,  the wearing of man-dresses, etc.  But I take the position that different people view the world in different ways.  Live and let live, right?  If my little blog offends you, don't read it.  If your shitty you-tube video is insulting, I won't watch it.  Simple.  

I find man-dresses offensive.
Let's storm the Sudanese Embassy.

What makes these guys terrorists is that they don't argue against the video's ideas, and point out how terrible it is.  Instead they try to scare people with their craziness to prevent behaviors they don't like.  Why should we try to placate bullies like that? Because they say they are religious?  Bullshit.

These guys used a lot of religion in their platform, too.

The ironic thing is, if all these protesters hadn't made such a huge stir, I would never have watched that little silly film.  Even if I'd stumbled onto it on the internet, I wouldn't have made it more than a few minutes watching that piece of crap, and wouldn't have ever even seen the offensive parts.  Now it has like 5 million hits, thanks to you guys making such a big deal about it.  Way to go.

Jihad!!!

That is all beside the point, however.  The real point is that here in America, we have this thing called the constitution.  Perhaps you've heard of it.

This is why YouTube shouldn't pull the video,
and it's why the White House shouldn't ask them to.

The thing is, the constitution doesn't just protect the speech you like.  That speech doesn't need protection.  The constitution is there to protect the speech you hate.  

If reading the constitution is too hard, you can watch this movie...

In order for a society to remain free and open, it cannot allow its freedoms to be restrained by intimidation.  It is very important to remember that the kooky Egyptian guy in California didn't hurt anybody.  Some assholes in Egypt did, and what they did isn't understandable or pardonable just because they were offended.