Recommendations

I'd like to start the week out by recommending you check Ben Stein's latest editorial over at the American Spectator. Ben, as usual, shoots straight on the stifling of freedom of expression and the self-censorship of the "mainstream" American press.

But the media censors itself about the cartoons mocking the prophet of a religion many of whose adherents want to destroy our country and our way of life. We will fight to the death to protect the artists who create Piss Christ, but we'll also fight to the death to protect the feelings of the people who hate us and kill our children. We have surrendered our free expression to people who are at war with us. They kill us in the name of a religion and we bow and scrape to that religion while letting people dump on Christianity and Judaism.

There's a word for this, beyond the words Stockholm Syndrome and the words Political Correctness. The word is cowardice. Or maybe an even shorter word: defeat. Wake up, America. This is serious.

And so it is... It's one thing for the government to try and chip away at our freedoms. It goes beyond pathetic when the "Watchdogs" of government, the press, self-neuters themselves to avoid affending the Left's new favorite religion. The New York Times, always leading the way in making jackasses out of the left through their own action, stated they didn't want to offend any religion by depicting such issues as the evil 12 cartoons. Either to flaunt their hypocrisy in our face or just out of their own ignorance, they then proceeded to show a picture of the Virgin Mary covered in porno images and dung.

Islam seems to have developed a certain celebrity status among the Left, but I'm at a bit of a loss as to why. Islam has not gone through its Reformation and Renaissance periods. It has not produced thoughts on freedom and individual liberty. It is a conflict religion, born in war (Mohammed conquered Mecca when it wouldn't convert) and bathed in its justifications. Say what you will about Christianity and the violent periods it sustained after most of Europe became Christian. Christianity went through a period of Reason and Enlightenment where the great thinkers of the day revived early Christian teachings and applied them to man's desire for individual liberty and freedom. Islam has not done this, nor is there any guarantee it will, so I'm still at a loss as to why the hedonistic Left would be so enamored by a religion that is high on human right's abuses and discrimination against women.

Now as the jihadis line up to take a shot at me, here's the obligatory, I'm not saying Islam should be banned, restricted, or vilified just because I don't personally like the religion. It just stuns me that the Left and "mainstream" is so willing to censor itself for a religious philosophy espoused in many dictatorships (sorry, emirates and kingdoms) that would have gladly censored them without any help or dhimmitude on their part. It sets a dangerous precedent to start down that path, and its reassuring to see old warhorses like Ben Stein take a stand in that regard.