Thursday September 20, 2012, 9:28 am
We need to speak out for our free speech rights assertively. Muhammad is not sacrosanct in Islamic culture but should not be accorded any such treatment by the West, because it will be seen as an acquiescence to Sharia. Sharia deserves the same scrutiny -- if not far more -- than other religions as it moves into the West.

Thursday September 20, 2012, 10:06 am
Mean to say that Muhammad IS sacrosanct in Islamic culture.

The "Perfect Man" according to Islam (Muhammad himself) to be emulated. We must all know what he did and what he's about.

Thursday September 20, 2012, 10:06 am
It has never been about the film it has been about our perception of allowing hundreds of thousands of Muslims to riot, murder and wreak havoc and not criticising it because Mohamed was "insulted". No-one said how appalling it was that it happened on 9/11 to disrespect the dead in America.

I would add that the stupidity of the West in believing that Muslims can be civilized is how Stevens came to be murdered. Obviously not all Muslims were involved and I will repeat my respect for the very few that offered their apologies publicly because it was dangerous for them to have done so.

Thursday September 20, 2012, 12:21 pm
noted thanks !

Thursday September 20, 2012, 12:21 pm
Mohammad: the perfect man to lead others to a living hell.

Thursday September 20, 2012, 12:57 pm
Thanks for the article.

Thursday September 20, 2012, 3:43 pm
I'm not going to expend another moment worrying about Muslims being insulted- they are insatiable. Grievance is the game- Islam is the name. Any excuse to be violent and kill people- their outrage is compulsive.

Thursday September 20, 2012, 5:10 pm
They will never udnerstand! For they don't even want to! WORSE! They are UNABLE to understand, they're retarded and everytime you try and speak with them, they don't get anything you say! Because they don't want to learn how to be peaceful, they will never be, that's in their genes, they're born truly evil.

Thursday September 20, 2012, 5:12 pm
Yeah, next to some other ideas I've heard, this is a great one.
I think I'll go to a theater and yell 'GUN!' during a Batman movie. Good idea?
Or maybe I'll go to a dinner theater and, 5 minutes after the lights are out, yell "FIRE!". Good idea?
I once told my girlfriend, while we were having unprotected sex, "I'm CUMMING!"
THAT was NOT one of my better 'ideas'. (Let your imagination supply her response)
Is there really a reason WHY, even in the name of Free Speech, that this makes any sense?
It puts our troops in danger, for one. Good idea?
The actress who's lines were re-dubbed in that movie has received Death Threats. All of the other actors are scared to death. Some have families and 'hit squads' do NOT differentiate due to age.
This is stupid on so many levels. Even Free Speech has common sense limits.
Go ahead. MAKE your movies.
But when some Gold Star Mother starts beating down your door and on your head, do NOT ask the police to stop her.
She'll just be exercising HER Right to Free Speech.

Thursday September 20, 2012, 5:52 pm
Freedom of Speech is sacrosanct. However with that Freedom comes responsibility. I would not curse or swear at my neighbours if they upset me - just walk away. However we know that radical Islam is not like that and if we offend them we had better be prepared to stand up and be counted., I had an aquaintance who did this when the IRA were active.............they murdered him. So the best thing we can do - is voice our protests by signing, noting and writing on these posts - and joining secure parties.

Thursday September 20, 2012, 5:55 pm
John, you are wrong. It is policy duty to protect us, taxpayers, having all rights to the freedom of speech, even for stupid speech.

Those who cannot take it must learn NOT to come to watch movies they don't like. NOT to get financial aid from countries they hate. NOT to abuse and insult others.

I hope all Islamists got a good lesson of tolerance.

Thursday September 20, 2012, 6:14 pm
Thank you, Bob A. Every time Muslims go berserk over a perceived offense -- and I would bet that there is no end to those -- we grovel. This in turn, encourages more violence. We become Sharia compliant.

The difference between calling Fire in a theater where there is none, is that people believe that they are in all likelihood going to be burned or suffocated to death. The reaction -- people being trampled to death is because people are in fear for their lives. There is no corollary in the Islamic world with this movie. The Muslims are having a temper tantrum that their supremacist views have been slighted, and they react worse than irrationally, they kill and rejoice in the blood split.

If the movie was truly dubbed and the actors and actresses were made part of this slight by deceit, then this is wrong. It still doesn't excuse the very, very bad, bratty, murderous Islamic outrage that Islamic belief itself provokes.

Thursday September 20, 2012, 6:44 pm
According to Mohammad Qatanani, Imam of one of the largest mosques in New Jersey, free speech that is critical of Islam poses a national security threat and "should be investigated by the Department of Homeland Security," The Blaze reported Thursday.

“We, as Americans, have to put limits and borders [on] freedom of speech,” he told The Blaze.

"He explained that while Americans may 'have the freedom' to speak their mind, ultimately, they 'have no right to [talk about Muslim] holy issues' as it will incite 'hatred or war among people,'” Tiffany Gabbay wrote.

The religious leader also said that speech that denigrates Islam puts Americans at risk both in the United States and abroad. The solution, therefore, is to scrap the First Amendment and replace it with sharia law "for the ultimate 'good' of society."

Gabbay noted that Qatanani was "nearly deported in 2008 for failing to disclose his former ties to the terrorist organization Hamas on a 1996 Green Card application."

Stressing the online anti-Islamic video that some claim is behind the riots and protests at U.S. embassies, Qatanani said that Homeland Security needs to prevent artists from producing works that are critical of Islam or the prophet Mohammed.

“They [Muslims] think our [American] freedoms are too much,” he said. “The freedom of the American people is so different from their [Muslims'] freedoms. We believe freedoms have limits and rules, otherwise we will get people into trouble…Freedom according to Islam must be according to the Quran and Sunnah. You can do [anything] you like within the teachings of these two resources. This is the difference and main reason [for the conflict].”

He also told The Blaze that it is okay, however, for Muslims to mock Jesus or Moses.

"An interesting point to note was that throughout the discussion, Qatanani repeatedly called for peaceful action and condemned violence as being anathema to true Islam. Conversely, he referred to the attacks on U.S. embassies abroad that left a U.S. ambassador, two Navy SEALs and one additional civil servant dead, as merely 'a bad reaction,'” Gabbay added.

On Monday, we reported that Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil said the United States should amend the law to prevent free speech critical of Islam.

On Wednesday, a post at RadicalIslam.org said that European politicians were bowing to Islamic pressure to limit free speech.

"German political leaders are now equivocating about their commitment to free speech," Soeren Kern wrote. "German Chancellor Angela Merkel, commenting on the anti-Islam movie, said, 'I can imagine there would be good reasons to outlaw the film' – a reversal of her statement of just two years ago, when, commenting on the Danish cartoon controversy, she declared: 'Free speech is one of the greatest treasures of our society.'"

Thursday September 20, 2012, 7:21 pm
The Muslim definition is an insult is saying something they don't want to hear about Muhammad or don't want others to hear about Muhammad, even if those things are true based on the Muslim sources. Since when is truth an insult? I know the truth hurts, but apparently for Muslims it means hurting innocent people when truth about Muhammad is told!

Let's say for argument sake the movie is 100% incorrect. To blame the movie makers is to say the Muslims have a reason to murder people, riot and damage property! What happened to holding people accountable for their own actions? I recall an episode of Law and Order. ADA McCoy stated "my right to be angry ends at the other guy's nose." In other words, you can protest, you can yell, but you can't attack someone just because you are upset. Once we give Muslims a pass, we bow to Islam in saying that Muslims are superior to everyone and it is acceptable for them to kill for what they deem an insult to Muhammad. Muslims get this superiority complex from Islamic teachings based on the Qur'an, telling them they are the BEST of peoples.

Here is an interesting slippery slope. If Muslims demand special treatment of Muhammad or they will kill, what happens if Christians demand special treatment of Jesus or they will kill? (That would be against the Bible by the way.) What if another group says if Muslims are given any special treatment then they will kill? If we allow special treatment for Muslims and Muhammad, then why not allow it for everyone else? Because it will be chaos. The only way to maintain civility is for everyone to be subject to the same rules, including Muslims. If non-Muslims can tell the truth about Muhammad and Muslims don't like it, too bad! People lie against Jews all the time, against Christians all the time, against Jesus all the time, against other groups all the time. We fight back using the law. if something is truly slanderous, then there is the law to fight against it.

Muhammad had people killed and / or approved of people being killed for what he deemed as an insult to him. Non-Muslims need to see Muhammad for what he really is, a lying, raping, murderer, and resist gradual turning of the West into Islamic territory. Muslims need to see Muhammad for what he really is, a lying, raping, murderer, and abandon Islam.

This country is founded on free speech. Either we choose that or we choose to play by Islam's rules. There is no room for both. As it is written in Scripture "you can't serve two masters."

Thursday September 20, 2012, 8:15 pm
Thank you, Imran. You put it very, very well!!

Friday September 21, 2012, 12:59 am
The biggest embarrassment to islam is muhammad Thief,Murderer,Torturer,Rapist and Immoral example for mankind-- but what choice have muslims in this-- NONE because the same belief sysem that results in the murder of others would murder them also
so they are rioting to defend the wrong as they are blind to truth.

Friday September 21, 2012, 4:11 am
Islam = domination not integration.
It's hard to believe that the French government has had to close embassies and schools in over 20 countries because a fringe magazine dared to publish some caricatures of Mohammed.
The world has gone completely nuts.

Friday September 21, 2012, 5:04 am
Islam has only been able to survive for 1400 years because of fear and terror. It has been death to criticize of leave it since Mohammed had people killed for doing so. If real honest questioning and criticism of Islam were allowed, only the most ignorant, uneducated would remain in it. It is a house built on the sand of hate, intolerance, and fear.

Islam is the only religion that doesn't teach the Golden Rule (except for fellow Muslims). It does not teach turn the other cheek, not to judge or stone others, to forgive wrongs, to love even enemies. It teaches the exact opposite of all of these things.

Many Muslims, particularly in the West where they have been influenced by Western values which are rooted in Judeo-Christian values, actually believe Islam teaches the same values, but, sadly, they've never read their own holy books to see the hate and intolerance commanded there (I have), but the Orthodox Muslims who really do know and believe what Mohammed taught, understand what it teaches very well and they are the ones who threaten the freedom and peace of the whole world.

Dr. Zudhi Jasser, a Muslim who is trying to get Muslims to reform Islam and renounce all the hate and violence it teaches, estimates that 20% of all Muslims are Orthodox True Believers who DO believe in every word Mohammed taught, including killing non-Muslims etc. That is nearly 300 million people! That's a lot of people who believe they'll go to Allah's Big Brothel in the sky if they slit your throat for 'offending' Islam (easy to do too).

So many western leaders and media say the same things as John T - don't offend the Muslims. They are willing to give up our freedoms and let these primitive thugs reign of terror force us to live in submission to their barbaric tribal laws. What a shame!

Jesus is demeaned and ridiculed in the western media often enough, yet no one riots or murders. Only Muslims. That should be enough proof for any reasonable person to what true Orthodox Islam is all about and reason enough to fight against it, just as we have against all other tyrannies from Nazism to Communism etc.

Friday September 21, 2012, 6:49 am
Send a Green Star to Beth S.

Sending a Green Star is a simple way to say "Thank you"
You cannot currently send a star to Beth because you have done so within the last week.

Friday September 21, 2012, 12:52 pm
On the Freedom to Offend an Imaginary God

'The latest wave of Muslim hysteria and violence has now spread to over twenty countries. The walls of our embassies and consulates have been breached, their precincts abandoned to triumphant mobs, and many people have been murdered—all in response to an unwatchable Internet video titled “Innocence of Muslims.” Whether over a film, a cartoon, a novel, a beauty pageant, or an inauspiciously named teddy bear, the coming eruption of pious rage is now as predictable as the dawn. This is already an old and boring story about old, boring, and deadly ideas. And I fear it will be with us for the rest of our lives.

Our panic and moral confusion were at first sublimated in attacks upon the hapless Governor Romney. I am no fan of Romney’s, and I would find the prospect of his presidency risible if it were not so depressing, but he did accurately detect the first bleats of fear in the Obama administration’s reaction to this crisis. Romney got the timing of events wrong—confusing, as many did, a statement made by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo for an official government response to the murder of Americans in Libya. But the truth is that the White House struck the same note of apology, disavowing the offending speech while claiming to protect free speech in principle. It may seem a small detail, given the heat of the moment—but so is a quivering lip.

Our government followed the path of appeasement further by attempting to silence the irrepressible crackpot Pastor Terry Jones, who had left off burning copies of the Qur’an just long enough to promote the film. The administration also requested that Google remove “Innocence of Muslims” from its servers. These maneuvers attest to one of two psychological and diplomatic realities: Either our government is unwilling to address the problem at hand, or the problem is so vast and terrifying that we have decided to placate the barbarians at the gate.

The contagion of moral cowardice followed its usual course, wherein liberal journalists and pundits began to reconsider our most basic freedoms in light of the sadomasochistic fury known as “religious sensitivity” among Muslims. Contributors to The New York Times and NPR spoke of the need to find a balance between free speech and freedom of religion—as though the latter could possibly be infringed by a YouTube video. As predictable as Muslim bullying has become, the moral confusion of secular liberals appears to be part of the same clockwork.

Consider what is actually happening: Some percentage of the world’s Muslims—Five percent? Fifteen? Fifty? It’s not yet clear—is demanding that all non-Muslims conform to the strictures of Islamic law. And where they do not immediately resort to violence in their protests, they threaten it. Carrying a sign that reads “Behead Those Who Insult the Prophet” may still count as an example of peaceful protest, but it is also an assurance that infidel blood would be shed if the imbecile holding the placard only had more power. This grotesque promise is, of course, fulfilled in nearly every Muslim society. To make a film like “Innocence of Muslims” anywhere in the Middle East would be as sure a method of suicide as the laws of physics allow.

What exactly was in the film? Who made it? What were their motives? Was Muhammad really depicted? Was that a Qur’an burning, or some other book? Questions of this kind are obscene. Here is where the line must be drawn and defended without apology: We are free to burn the Qur’an or any other book, and to criticize Muhammad or any other human being. Let no one forget it.

At moments like this, we inevitably hear—from people who don’t know what it’s like to believe in paradise—that religion is just a way of channeling popular unrest. The true source of the problem can be found in the history of western aggression in the region. It is our policies, rather than our freedoms, that they hate. I believe that the future of liberalism—and much else—depends on our overcoming this ruinous self-deception. Religion only works as a pretext for political violence because many millions of people actually believe what they say they believe: that imaginary crimes like blasphemy and apostasy are killing offenses.

Most secular liberals think that all religions are the same, and they consider any suggestion to the contrary a sign of bigotry. Somehow, this article of faith survives daily disconfirmation. Our language is largely to blame for this. As I have pointed out on many occasions, “religion” is a term like “sports”: Some sports are peaceful but spectacularly dangerous (“free solo” rock climbing, street luge); some are safer but synonymous with violence (boxing, mixed martial arts); and some entail no more risk of serious injury than standing in the shower (bowling, badminton). To speak of “sports” as a generic activity makes it impossible to discuss what athletes actually do, or the physical attributes required to do it. What do all sports have in common, apart from breathing? Not much. The term “religion” is scarcely more useful.

Consider Mormonism: Many of my fellow liberals would consider it morally indecent to count Romney’s faith against him. In their view, Mormonism must be just like every other religion. The truth, however, is that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has more than its fair share of quirks. For instance, its doctrine was explicitly racist until 1978, at which point God apparently changed his mind about black people (a few years after Archie Bunker did) and recommended that they be granted the full range of sacraments and religious responsibilities. By this time, Romney had been an adult and an exceptionally energetic member of his church for more than a decade.

Unlike the founders of most religions, about whom very little is known, Mormonism is the product of the plagiarisms and confabulations of an obvious con man, Joseph Smith, whose adventures among the credulous were consummated (in every sense) in the full, unsentimental glare of history. Given how much we know about Smith, it is harder to be a Mormon than it is to be a Christian. A firmer embrace of the preposterous is required—and the fact that Romney can manage it says something about him, just as it would if he were a Scientologist proposing to park his E-meter in the Oval Office. The spectrum between rational belief and self-serving delusion has some obvious increments: It is one thing to believe that Jesus existed and was probably a remarkable human being. It is another to accept, as most Christians do, that he was physically resurrected and will return to earth to judge the living and the dead. It is yet another leap of faith too far to imagine, as all good Mormons must, that he will work his cosmic magic from the hallowed ground of Jackson County, Missouri.

That final, provincial detail matters. It makes Mormonism objectively less plausible than run-of-the-mill Christianity—as does the related claim that Jesus visited the “Nephites” in America at some point after his resurrection. The moment one adds seer stones, sacred underpants, the planet Kolob, and a secret handshake required to win admittance into the highest heaven, Mormonism stands revealed for what it is: the religious equivalent of rhythmic gymnastics.

The point, however, is that I can say all these things about Mormonism, and disparage Joseph Smith to my heart’s content, without fearing that I will be murdered for it. Secular liberals ignore this distinction at every opportunity and to everyone’s peril. Take a moment to reflect upon the existence of the musical The Book of Mormon. Now imagine the security precautions that would be required to stage a similar production about Islam. The project is unimaginable—not only in Beirut, Baghdad, or Jerusalem, but in New York City.

The freedom to think out loud on certain topics, without fear of being hounded into hiding or killed, has already been lost. And the only forces on earth that can recover it are strong, secular governments that will face down charges of blasphemy with scorn. No apologies necessary. Muslims must learn that if they make belligerent and fanatical claims upon the tolerance of free societies, they will meet the limits of that tolerance. And Governor Romney, though he is wrong about almost everything under the sun (including, very likely, the sun), is surely right to believe that it is time our government delivered this message without blinking.'

Friday September 21, 2012, 1:04 pm
We must find our way to a time when faith, without evidence, disgraces anyone who would claim it.

Friday September 21, 2012, 1:24 pm
The whiners and hypocrites complaining about this movie should STFU and go get a life! It's only a movie; if you don't like the idea don't pay to see the movie! I think I'll contribute to a project to generate a movie based on Salman Rushdie's 'Satanic Verses' (Great fiction novel by the way!) to honour both Rushdie and freedom of expression!

Friday September 21, 2012, 1:49 pm
I don't want to put limits on freedom, I just want people to be accountable for lies and mistatements. I want people to be truthful and use some common sense.

Muslims need to realize that people are going to says things about their religion or prophet that they don't like, tough get over it grow up.. This morning on Care2 their was an article on Jesus and a picture and some comments one might say were unflattering of and to Jesus. I haven't heard of any Christians rioting or killings because of it.

Friday September 21, 2012, 5:27 pm
I wish anyone making snuff movies involving animals or people could face the wrath of God/Allah or who ever is in charge. Do you really think Mohammad gives a rat's ass about what people guess that he looked like? Was the idea not to have his image as one that could be worshiped? Do we worship the cross, plastic, wood or otherwise? Do we worship the paper image of Jesus or the concept of Jesus? Is swearing on the Bible binding even if you do not believe in it or God?
100 years from now protestors, movie makers, actors are all gonna be a pile of bones and dust.

Saturday September 22, 2012, 6:04 am
Green stars to MJ M for the "Freedom to worship an imaginary god" piece....good one!

Monday September 24, 2012, 2:26 pm
It's all about control....they want to control the whole world and they want to control it THEIR way!! In spite of how many people they murder and abuse!!!! What's worse is to let them because of political BS!!! Those who cry "don't be mean to Muslims" are the problem!! It's pure and simple PC BS!!!

Monday September 24, 2012, 2:27 pm
And in that PC BS is the fact of controlling our freedom of speech...what more do they need to win then!?

Sunday October 14, 2012, 4:08 pm
In the 1930's it was "Crimes against the Germanic People".
We all know the result.