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| South Park Death Threats | ||||
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Whatever you think of South Park, it's completely ridiculous that a tiny group of insanely (literally) religious Muslims - in New York, no less - should have this kind of effect. According to this article, and to this brief announcement from the show's creators, it was Comedy Central that actually censored the show, following death threats from Revolution Muslim, a lunatic group of "probably fewer than 10 extremists."
Then again, the whole idea of riots and murder because of perceived insults belongs in the dustbin of history (that part of our history which was particularly loony, at that). I must admit that I hear some fundamentalist Christians with "fatwa envy," apparently dreaming of the good ole days when they could burn heretics alive. Some of those people actually seem jealous of how insane extremist Muslims can be. But in general, you don't get this kind of lunacy from other religious groups.
These days, civilized believers generally understand that you fight speech with other speech. I'm not a big fan of South Park, though some of the shows have indeed been very funny (others, not so much). But if you don't like it, don't watch it. If you think that your religion is being criticized unfairly, speak out. But death threats? How stupid is that?
I don't mean to tar all Muslims with the same brush, but rational Muslims do need to speak up at times like this. Loudly! You need to make it clear that this kind of behavior - the death threats, I mean,... obviously - is unacceptable, period. If you're too cowardly to speak up, then you're just letting the lunatics hijack your "peaceful" religion. And you're letting them keep you in the Dark Ages, when you could be part of a modern, civilized, diverse society.
And speaking of cowardly, Comedy Central doesn't come off very well in this, either. OK, they don't want their people in danger, just because of some lame comedy show. But we Americans need to learn that terrorism works best on cowards. I realize that Fox "News" and other right-wing politicians constantly push irrational fear on the American public, but have we all become timid little people with no backbone whatsoever? Just because they constantly try to scare us, to advance their own political goals, that doesn't mean we can't stand up and boldly resist their campaigns of fear.
And look at the outsized effect this particular threat has had. Look at the publicity this tiny little group of lunatics have received (note that I'm deliberately not linking to their website). Should Comedy Central have paid any attention to these people at all? Honestly, is it any wonder that these people use terrorism and threats of terrorism when they seem to work so well on us? Why don't we understand that our own cowardice, our own over-reaction to things like this (and to isolated incidents like the "shoe bomber," the "underwear bomber," etc.) just plays into their hands?
As a people, we are already hopelessly gullible, it seems - and, admittedly, not too smart - but are we really cowardly enough to let less than a dozen religious nuts intimidate us like this? I'm not at all religious, but Muslims are not my enemy. Violent religious extremists, of any persuasion, are my enemy, and the enemy of every civilized human being. Are we too cowardly to stand up to our enemies?
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