Four Nerds

I'm getting a bit sick and tired of Europe these days. If you hadn't heard, there's been an uproar in the Middle East (big shock) over the publication of several political cartoons in a Danish newspaper that depicts the prophet Muhammad as a terrorist. One has him with a bomb under his turban. The cartoons first appeared in September of last year and recently have been reprinted in several European papers.

Well, let's just say that Muslims around the world didn't take this too well. Apparently there's a rule in Islam about creating images of God or Muhammad. Seems it's linked to idolatry and they don't like it so much. Mix that with images depicting him as a terrorist, and you've got a bit of an issue. There have been riots. A Danish embassy was burned to the ground. Several people have been killed. Yet these papers have continued to reprint the cartoons, even as recently as this past weekend. The claim it's in the name of free speech and freedom of the press.

Bullshit. They're doing it for shock value, pure and simple. They've artificially created this huge scandal as a way to insert themselves as these great champions of freedom. It's crap. It's not journalism. It's tabloidism.

You all know by now that I am unabashedly liberal and I fully believe in freedom of speech. I disagree with censorship of any kind, no matter how much I find it distasteful or repugnant. You should be able to say whatever the fuck it is you want to say, without fear of persecution or reprisals. Freedom of speech is absolute in my mind.

However, with that freedom comes a certain responsibility. The Danish papers knew that there would be riots and protests, yet they are still reprinting these cartoons. You'll notice that the images have not been shown in the American press, or on the television news. Yet the story has been reported across all American media. Once the initial printing happened, and it became an issue, there was no need to continue reprinting these cartoons.

It's called tact, Denmark. Look it up. This isn't about freedom of the press and you know it. People are dying. Just because you have the right to say something, doesn't mean you have to say it. I don't want to censor you guys. I just want you to show a little tact and common decency.

I've always defended our European friends. When that idiot in Washington came up with "freedom fries," I defended France. Heck, I was born in Europe. But this time, they're dead wrong. We get this sense in America that Western Europe has the air of being a highly progressive place. It's a load of crap. Sure, they have universal health care, and pot's legal, blah blah blah. In some cases, they're ahead of us, that's true. But this is also the same place that makes monkey noises at black soccer players and throws bananas on the field.