Sunday, February 19, 2006
MOTOON TUESDAY ANNOUNCED
William Tucker, columnist at The American Enterprise, has a fine idea:
Let’s pick a day—I nominate February 28th, two weeks from today—in which every newspaper in America and every TV news station in America will display the offending cartoons. For the faint-hearted there’ll be safety in numbers. It will inform the public and restore our self-respect. It certainly won’t ingratiate us with world of Islam, but what’s the difference? At least they’ll know they’re facing a united front ...
And if you’re planning to bomb The American Enterprise offices in retaliation for this column, please don’t bother. I hardly ever set foot in the place. I live at 430 4th Street in Brooklyn, right around the corner from the ice cream storeowner who was just sentenced to 18 years for smuggling $11 million to terrorists in the Middle East and two doors up from a fireman who was killed on September 11th. I’m home every day.
UPDATE. Flemming Rose explains why he published the cartoons in the first place:
Has Jyllands-Posten insulted and disrespected Islam? It certainly didn’t intend to. But what does respect mean? When I visit a mosque, I show my respect by taking off my shoes. I follow the customs, just as I do in a church, synagogue or other holy place. But if a believer demands that I, as a nonbeliever, observe his taboos in the public domain, he is not asking for my respect, but for my submission. And that is incompatible with a secular democracy.
On incompatibility, this guy (photographed in NYC) agrees:
