Here’s a quick quiz for you. Which nutjob wrote the following about the murders in Paris:
Although Muslims may not agree about the idea of freedom of expression, even non-Muslims who espouse it say it comes with responsibilities. In an increasingly unstable and insecure world, the potential consequences of insulting the Messenger Muhammad are known to Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
Within liberal democracies, freedom of expression has curtailments, such as laws against incitement and hatred.
Those who work at this newspaper have a long and disgusting record of going way beyond the mere lampooning of public figures, and this is especially true of their depictions of religious figures. For example, they have shown nuns masturbating and popes wearing condoms. They have also shown Muhammad in pornographic poses.
Stephane Charbonnier, the paper’s publisher, was killed today in the slaughter. It is too bad that he didn’t understand the role he played in his tragic death. In 2012, when asked why he insults Muslims, he said, “Muhammad isn’t sacred to me.” Had he not been so narcissistic, he may still be alive. Muhammad isn’t sacred to me, either, but it would never occur to me to deliberately insult Muslims by trashing him.
Anti-Catholic artists in this country have provoked me to hold many demonstrations, but never have I counseled violence. This, however, does not empty the issue. Madison was right when he said, “Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as the abuses of power.”
Actually, that’s a trick question, because the first two paragraphs are from radical London cleric Anjem Choudary while the last three paragraphs were written by homegrown lunatic Bill Donohue of the Catholic League.
There’s a reason we call some of these people the American Taliban.
ruemara
That awful Catholic League guy, Bill Donohue?
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
I was wondering when folks were going to notice what Donohue said.
Sirkowski
Was she wearing a skirt?
CONGRATULATIONS!
Donohue is lying. I’m going to try to find the quotes from the Schaivo case. But he has definitely espoused violence in the past. The past for wingnuts may not exist, just like science and female sexuality, but it matters to us.
Big ole hound
Hmm. Free speech up for debate again? Consequences for insulting a diety which result in incitement and hatred. Sounds like FOX News at it’s finest or any Sunday talk show.
Amir Khalid
Your second link goes to the Anjem Choudary piece, same as the first link.
Howard Beale IV
@ruemara: Ah-yep.
Note that The Catholic League symbol consists of a sword, so for all practical purposes The Catholic League is a militant organization.
Or I can be really twisted and say that their symbol is an upside-down cross, which means they’re a Satanic cult, which actually is probably more accurate.
Valdivia
it was a seamless transition!
Interesting that USA Today published him.
Carnacki
Although to be fair, Bill Donohue is fine when right wingers attack the current pope and also has done so himself on many occasions. So he’s for inflammatory rhetoric except for when he’s against it.
Just Some Fuckhead
When will the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics condemn Bill Donohue.
MattF
Well, Donohue did note that murder is, generally, a no-no. What more do you want?
Corner Stone
A half dozen or so BJ commenters?
dedc79
@Corner Stone: you beat me to it.
Dave C
@Corner Stone: heh. Sad but true.
MikeInSewickley
JC,
Spread this far and wide. This puts the whole “It’s only Islam” mantra on trial by showing how it most often isn’t the religion, it’s the nutjobs who practice it for their convoluted uses.
Perfect piece.
Belafon
@Howard Beale IV: The upside down cross is not a sign of a Satanic cult, not matter what the movies convince you of. Peter was crucified and chose to be hung upside down. The symbol commonly used for Satanic cults is the old symbol for Suphur.
Amir Khalid
Anjem Choudary’s take on freedom of expression and how it has no place in Islam is an interesting one. Needless to say, I think he’s full of crap. If he were right, Muslims’ opinions on everything would have been predetermined, and we’d agree with each other 100% of the time, which we obviously don’t.
shelley
The whole ‘Catholic League’ is pretty much just Bill Donohue and a website.
trollhattan
Assholes are forever. I think my doctor said that.
O/T It’s always mentally disturbed young males who do this. Except when it isn’t.
We already had the couple who drowned the dog in the river tied to a bowling ball, now this. I’ve got nuttin’.
SRW1
Bill Donnohue has every right to call Stephane Charbonnier and his colleagues douchebags, though his timing certainly stinks.
Bill Donnohue has every right to protest his heart out against whatever he may see as blashemic criticism of whichever religious believes.
Bill Donnohue is a f*cking a**hole for insinuating that Stephane Charbonnier and his colleagues are responsible for their murderous executions.
Mandalay
What am I missing? I didn’t see anything to mock, or be offended by, in those two paragraphs you quoted from Anjem Choudary. Is the idea that criticism of Islam should come with responsibilities what bugs you?
Actually it’s quite an achievement on your part to find inoffensive quotes from Choudary since he is certainly an extremist, and usually generates plenty of wacko rhetoric. And since he has spent his entire life in England he hardly qualifies for the American Taliban.
trollhattan
Also O/T: welcome to the nation’s most expensive senate race.
Villago Delenda Est
@Just Some Fuckhead: Yes, I know. I’m waiting for that myself.
Shakezula
@shelley: True but the Washington Post has given him space and when Hagee made some anti-Catholic crack, he delivered his apology to Donohue.
chopper
@MattF:
That’s his ‘macro’.
CrustyDem
I find the comparison between the two writers culturally insensitive and unfair. One comes from a theocentric background where questioning his faith is a crime of heresy and punishable by death, whose religion has practiced a belief that non-believers should converted or killed, who wishes to replace the current government with a theocracy, and that his way is the only way; The other is, of course, a muslim.
Mandalay
@SRW1:
He is gloating because they had been ruthless in also mocking Catholicism in the past.
Donnohue’s “we-are-all-Muslims-now” schtick is as transparent as it is shameless.
Belafon
OT: I don’t think the store should have declined to print the photo, but does the woman understand that the gun comes first: http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/local/dallas-county/2015/01/08/store-declines-to-print-engagement-photo-with-shotgun/21429959/.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mandalay: I think the fine cleric should realize that many in the west mock Mohammed out of ignorance, or because the actions of some of his followers are not well thought of. You know, like those guys who shot up Charlie Hebdo the other day.
He commits the same error that Donohue makes…of protesting too much, and therefore encouraging those who are trolling them.
Villago Delenda Est
@CrustyDem: WIN
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: Well, those who don’t agree with him should all be put to death for that.
Mandalay
@trollhattan:
Bummer. For all her lesser faults (e.g. marijuana), she was head and shoulders above almost every other politician on the Iraq war. She is one of the few very who need not squirm when asked about her position.
Elizabelle
Whenever I hear anything about Bill Donohue, it makes me triply glad we’ve got Pope Francis.
Donohue is a bully, deploying religion as his weapon.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Corner Stone: This. And I’m really disappointed in some folks who’d I previously considered to be rational people.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Belafon: So much win in that story:
Translation for the slow: We can’t be lumped into the category of a gang, we’re WHITE!
Amir Khalid
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
I wonder whom you’re referring to.
Villago Delenda Est
@CONGRATULATIONS!: White people do not form gangs.
They form armed mutual protection associations. Who believe in 2nd Amendment remedies, particularly for people who breath while black.
smintheus
Decades ago I was at a highway rest stop in Italy that sold touristy knick knacks, including china figurines of nuns in habits that had a moveable trap door between her legs. I don’t think left-wing Paris magazines have a monopoly on obscene portrayals of Church officials.
Elizabelle
OT: per this NYTimes story, even murdering Islamist extremists have some standards:
Interestingly, the woman whom they forced to let them into the building and then spared was Coco, the cartoonist who drew a famous cartoon of the prophet, naked with a star coming out of his ass.
And one woman was killed at Charlie Hebdo, a psychoanalyst who wrote a biweekly relationship advice column. She was Elsa Cayat.
trollhattan
@Mandalay:
Love Boxer as much as I love Nancy SMASH but this is the least surprising surprise in California politics. Will be an interesting horse race and one on which I’m not placing any bets as of now. Should it be Harris v. Rice I think my head will explode with irony overload.
CarolDuhart2
Given that Feinstein is in her 80’s, the question may well be if Feinstein also decides to not run, and creates a double opening.
I’m not worried about California electing a Republican Senator in a Presidential year. I am worried that the Republicans may find someone with very deep pockets that forces a very expensive race. Donors there tend to give to the Democratic Presidential Candidate because California’s locked in.
trollhattan
@CarolDuhart2:
Pretty much this. Last November’s turnout was historically low, one result being a significant drop in the number of signatures required to get a ballot proposition approved–watch for floods of them in ’14 and ’16. I’d give DiFi a 1 in 10 chance of running again.
ETA, because there will be a governors race, unlike last time, there will be much greater off-year ballot interest than last year. Many Dems will need to decide which office to go for, which could create its own vulnerabilities.
CarolDuhart2
@CarolDuhart2: And it’s very possible due to age. Feinstein knows that if she resigns now, her replacement would definitely be a Democrat. If she’s feeling not too well….
TriassicSands
Religion.
I wish it would just disappear. Forever.
trollhattan
@CarolDuhart2:
Hmm, true enough. Don’t know the California rules, but presume the governor appoints the successor–is there also automatically a special election for the balance of the term?
CarolDuhart2
Would Rice run? The Republicans could consider this as a way to divide the minority vote and create that very expensive race fueled with outside money. Fiorina is a 2-time loser and considered a RINO by California Republicans (another reason Republicans in California aren’t competitive). Nobody else could run statewide, Arnold is too scandalous and old to run for another office. Rice may be it if she accepts an offer.
MomSense
@Amir Khalid:
So am I.
Another Holocene Human
@MattF:
Ah, no. Donohue as an orthodox Catholic would be the first to correct you that all kinds of killings are completely licit under Catholic doctrine.
Matter of fact, Jesus never even said stonings were a no-no, just implied you’d better be more holy than the stonee. Well, the RCC can work with that, just have the executioners do an Act of Contrition right before the Auto da Fe and you’re golden!
Origuy
Just to clear things up, here’s the timeline for California:
2016 Boxer’s seat up for election
2018 Governor up for election; Feinstein’s seat up for election
Remember that the primary for statewide elections will be a “top two past the post”, so many Democrats could split the vote, or two popular Democrats could beat out a third-running Republican.
If Feinstein were to retire early, the governor would appoint someone to fill the post until the next regular statewide election, not necessarily the balance of the term.
samiam
“American Taliban”….Lol….wr0ng way Cole still trying to sell Kos’s failed book with the catch phrase that never did stick.
Same with that Florida congressman Kos darling who lost his seat after trying to smear his Repub opponent with that label. I think he called him “Taliban Dan”. Is there nothing that Cole/Kos touches that does not result in losing elections, talking points, and public conversations, and just basically being wr0ng?
feebog
@CarolDuhart2:
Doubt that Rice would have much impact on the AA vote in a race against Harris. She would draw less than 10% IMO. There are going to be Dems tripping over each other for the nomination, should be interesting.
beltane
@Another Holocene Human: I believe the Church did have reservations about the shedding of blood, which is why they preferred to immolate their victims instead. Executions which were bloodier in their methods were usually turned over to the secular authorities for implementation. Blasphemy was a crime in most Western countries until fairly recently.
Another Holocene Human
@Villago Delenda Est: A lot of people in the West mock Muhammed out of animalistic, sadistic urges unleashed by the magic known as tribalism. The receiving end of these “sticks and stones” attacks are very well attuned to the perceived threat on their persons and livelihood. They may be ridiculing Islam but the motive is to intimidate Muslims and immigrants. Tribalism is a cheap and immoral way to feel better about yourself and have solidarity with your similarly stupid neighbors.
Liberals and academics don’t react in horror to this kind of baiting because they have no sense of humor, are race traitors, or out of any great love of [name the religion] except for the one or two scholars of religion who always end up speaking out. They react in horror because they know this kind of verbal ugly is one short trolley stop before some truly horrific interethnic violence and I think we all know which party is going to be doing most of the perpetrating.
(And if you don’t get my drift, time to bone up on lynching in the United States, especially 1872-1964. Or, hm, Julius Streicher and the Holocaust. Very well documented example. Or more close to home, the 2010 Summer of Hate instigated by Fox News and the “random” acts of terror on Jews, Sikhs, Muslims, etc.)
CarolDuhart2
@feebog: When have the Republicans been realistic about the odds? I’m thinking more in terms of forcing a very expensive election against a newcomer because of scads of outside money, keeping California resources in California instead of funding the Democratic Presidential nominee.
Also if Rice decides to run, it clears the field on the Republican side
John Cole +0
@Mandalay: The point was that the pieces are interchangeable. Not everything Donohue wrote was offensive, either.
beltane
@Another Holocene Human: If we really want to make a point about the importance of free speech, perhaps each of us should post something we personally find disturbing, something that is directed at our own personal tribe. Posting cartoons mocking Mohammed, Thor, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn’t really mean much unless you are a follower of one of these entities.
Another Holocene Human
@beltane: Really? From my reading, granted I’m no expert, torture was no big deal, especially if done to lower classes, well into the Modern period, and the Church had their own legal system and courts and like any landlord were engaging in torture as well. They came up with so many … interesting devices. At the end of the High Middle Ages the Church lost control of a lot of lands, and that happened again during the Protestant Reformation, but at what point did they change their ways? Torture was still no biggie into the 18th century at least in Central Europe.
Also, the reason for burning the victim was twofold. First, they deny the “Christian” burial which is supposed to be whole body so the deceased can rise again when Jesus returns, at least this is the charming folk belief although in Northern Europe due to shortage of cemetery space the monks may have been disposing of bodies a little more expeditiously. Secondly, Jesus tells Peter that whatever he binds on Earth is bound in Heaven and whatever he looses on Earth is loose in Heaven. Therefore, Peter is the vicar of Christ and can pass judgment on Earth for God and for all time. So a bishop, on behalf of the Pope-Peter-can condemn a heretic to Hell. Once this has been done, they burn the condemned. This is why when they tried Wycliff posthumously, ending in a conviction, they exhumed his body and burned it as well. This is why they burned Joan of Arc. Today we often understand her execution as political. While it had political overtones, remember that she did hear voices. The Inquisition confronted mystics like Joan and would determine whether the voices were heavenly or demonic. This could hinge on the orthodoxy of the claims and the visions being conveyed by the accused. (Teresa of Avila was also investigated, but cleared.) Which isn’t to say that there wasn’t political motivation in the outcome. But that’s why she burned.
Ecclesiastical courts AFAIAA didn’t turn over anybody to secular courts unless they had to. Right up until Italian unification and to this day in the Vatican City, the Church asserts the right to operate their own law courts and execute their own laws for persons under their jurisdiction. At one point they were the lords of most of central Italy.
Another Holocene Human
@samiam: You’re a barrel of laughs. Psycho Dave coined the term American Taliban. It was the name of a pamphlet he self-published and distributed in the mid 1990s. It was directed at hate preachers like Falwell and Robertson, and had a lot of material about Rushdooney and Dispensationalism, as well as the theocracy talk during Pat Robertson’s abortive presidential campaign in I believe 1988.
And the term has never gone out of style since.
Wow, his website is still up, no need to go to Internet Archive:
http://www.weirdcrap.com/
Read it and weep!
Mandalay
@John Cole +0: Gotcha. My tinfoil hat is not receiving subtlety at the moment. I will adjust accordingly.
Paul in KY
@Belafon: That’s weird not to print that photo. Equally as weird as taking it in the 1st place.
Another Holocene Human
America’s Taliban: In Its Own Words is still in print!
Paul in KY
@Another Holocene Human: No. Jesus said basically ‘let he among you who is without sin cast the 1st stone’.. That pretty much excludes anybody older than 3 from casting stones (which Jesus knew).
John Cole +0
@samiam: you’re talking about Alan Grayson, the current Rep. in Florida, you twat. He won a seat back, moran.
beltane
@Another Holocene Human: Burning was the preferred method of execution by the ecclesiastical courts. Crimes against the state usually involved beheading for aristocrats, and various forms of mutilation for everyone else. The concept of a separation between church and state was murky so in some cases it was not easy to discern between treason and heresy (this is what made the Tudor era so interesting). However, persecution of heretics really needed the cooperation of local authorities to be effective. This is why the Inquisition in Spain itself was more brutal than in the Spanish territories of Southern Italy, which also had a large Jewish population. In the latter region, the civil authorities dragged their feet and were not as enthusiastic as their Iberian counterparts.
Another Holocene Human
@Paul in KY: That’s why the Catholic Church introduced the sacrament of penance, so you could be cleansed of all your sin. Repeat as frequently as necessary.
What did you think last rites was about?
Another Holocene Human
Not to mention, “Say your prayers.”
Another Holocene Human
@John Cole +0: Not only that, he took his kids to Disney World after he won.
Given Florida politics of course that isn’t as facetious as it sounds. He was supporting a local jerb cremator.
Another Holocene Human
@beltane: I thought the deal was that aristocrats were beheaded because commoners were hanged, and the worst crime of all was to be common.
I’m sure they were mutilating away but an awful lot of folk got hanged, also, too.
That is, until the invention of the prison colony. Georgia or death. Australia or death. Has a nice ring to it.
Paul in KY
@Another Holocene Human: I was only commenting on your comment: ‘Jesus never even said stonings were a no-no, just implied you’d better be more holy than the stonee’.
IMO, Jesus was obliquely saying that the capital punishment of stoning was wrong in all practical applications.
Paul in KY
@Another Holocene Human: Being beheaded was considered a better way to go than a medieval hanging, which did not involve a drop.
beltane
@Another Holocene Human: Commoners were hanged for normal crimes like theft and murder. Treason involved hanging plus mutilation, not only to punish the guilty but to set an example to the little people watching the spectacle. Dick Cheney would have been a happy, happy man back then.
beltane
@Paul in KY: Yes, it was considered more merciful and dignified than hanging, which does not always go as cleanly as planned.
beltane
OT, but the manhunt in France is beginning to seem like a redux of the Boston Marathon bombing aftermath, with the two brothers now being reported to have robbed a gas station. I truly hope they are caught alive so more can be learned.
trollhattan
@beltane:
Enhanced, for Dick.
Paul in KY
@beltane: Forgot the ‘drawing and quartering’ aspect that accompanied a hanging for treason or something like that.
beltane
@Paul in KY: Guy Fawkes was able to escape that fate only by jumping from the scaffold and breaking his neck. Good times.
Paul in KY
@beltane: I was reading a book about the Wars of the Roses & during the reign of Richard III, they executed a dude for treason & he made some kind of quip when they slit him open & started burning his entrails. Something like ‘Now I’m really in trouble’.
Guy Fawkes was a quick thinker there.
Mandalay
Nigel Farage, the right wing leader of Britain’s UK Independence Party, was saying this within 12 hours of the Paris murders:
I had to google the term “fifth column“. It’s not good:
The far right parties in Europe must be jerking themselves senseless right now.
beltane
@Mandalay: Andrew Sullivan notoriously labeled critics of the Iraq War as being fifth columnists. It’s a well known wingnut fapping term.
Bill
How Can They Hate Us For That Which Does Not Exist?
We live in a free and liberal society where the proper response to another incident of violence committed by Islamic radicals is to blame Muslims and Arabs for hating our freedoms and bomb individuals hundreds of miles away in retaliation.
We live in a free and liberal society where the proper response to another incident of violence committed by domestic radicals is to blame politically moderate elected officials for being honest about institutionalized racism and gun violence.
We live in a free and liberal society where the proper response to a few dozen Islamic fundamentalists killing 3,000 people in one morning is a decades-long war against largely unaffiliated Islamic governments and people that kills hundreds of thousands and injures and displaces millions of Arabic and Islamic people.
We live in a free and liberal society where the proper response to thousands of state agents extrajudicially killing a minimum of 3,000 unarmed American people of color per decade while unjustly incarcerating millions more through a systematic war of oppression explicitly designed to disenfranchise and disempower minorities and political undesirables, is nothing. Nothing except for beating and arresting those who dare speak in favor of retaliation or serious reformation.
We live in a free and liberal society primed for mass domestic race riots and domestic terrorism and we are doing nothing to address this besides suppressing dissent and hey, look over there! More crazy Muslims shot people! Bomb ISIS! More drone strikes! Expand the War on Terror!
We live in a free and liberal society that, as part of a larger campaign of bombings and assassinations in the 1960s and 1970s, trained and financed Orlando Bosch and others to bomb a Cuban civilian airliner and kill dozens of civilians. We live in a free and liberal society that in 1992 pardoned Bosch, helped resettle him in Miami, and prevented his associate from being extradited for trial because Venezuela could not provide a satisfactory guarantee that he would not be tortured.
We live in a free and liberal society that routinely “renders” suspects to dictatorships far worse than Venezuela for torture at the hands of foreign agents. We live in a free and liberal society that within ten years of Bosch’s unconditional pardon embarked on a global war against terrorism wherein we engaged in wars of aggression on false pretenses and killed hundreds of thousands of non-combatants. We live in a free and liberal society that bombs media outlets and kills unsympathetic journalists in Iraq and Palestine and Cuba and Nicaragua and Philadelphia and Birmingham and elsewhere in the name of nationalism, tradition, stability and realpolitik efficiency.
We live in a free and liberal society that disappears thousands of prisoners of war and political prisoners into a worldwide network of secret gulags where they are tortured and worse. We live in a free and liberal society where none of the leaders who order or encourage this torture will ever be prosecuted. We live in a free and liberal society where the bureaucrats responsible for the torture won’t even be punished for surveilling and intimidating the elected officials tasked with overseeing said bureaucrats.
We live in a free and liberal society that has, in the last month, arrested, jailed, and charged with making terroristic threats at minimum dozens of young men who have, in effect, done nothing other than post hip hop lyrics and paraphrased Malcom X quotes on Facebook. That is, engaged in public speech using language which has, since at least Brandenberg v. Ohio, been explicitly protected by the First Amendment.
While even leftist American political commentators engage in a pointless pants-pissing match over whether we should assess Islamic fundamentalists murdering journalists as more or less important than Adam Lanza murdering schoolchildren because he is a raving lunatic or Anders Breivik murdering schoolchildren because he is a raving fanatic, the United States of America is busy turning popular and formerly protected political sentiment into terroristic thoughtcrime.
We are to fear the supposedly chilling effect that these latest attacks will have on journalistic and editorial critiques of radical Islam. We are to ignore, as our media and NGOs largely are, that the Department of Justice is assisting local police and prosecutors in portraying vague violent sentiments and online political speech as illegal threats. Formerly protected speech against the state and state agents is being redefined as terrorism if state agents report that said speech made them anxious or uncomfortable. That is truly horrifying and represents a far more chilling threat to speech and the stated values of our Constitutional Republic than does a thousand stateless religious radicals bombing television stations and press offices.
The war raging isn’t one of Western Secular Freedom v Islamic Theocratic Tyranny, but rather one of the Neoliberal Globalization and Technocratic Totalitarianism of the Elite v. Everyone Else. I can understand how spending decades immersed in attitudes of American Exceptionalism, arguments for Western Colonization, and agitation against the external ‘others’ can make people not see the the forest for the brilliantly lit trees of faux “liberty” and “freedom.” But I urge us all to start squinting and try to look past the glare.
Mandalay
@beltane: And now you have made me find out what “fapping” means. I wish you hadn’t.
Bitter Scribe
Wait, what? This Donahue is sticking up for Muslim assassins?
cbear
@Bill: Excellent. Well done, sir.
drkrick
@Bitter Scribe:
Of course he is. Pat Buchanan endorsed the fatwa against Salman Rushdie when it was issued. These folks understand medieval-style theocrats.
Debbie(aussie)
@Bill: Beautiful.
Please ask Jones or Anne to have it front paged. After all the tong and froing (hmm) of the threads over the past 24 hours, it is a thing of beauty.