Well, that didn’t take long. On Tuesday, I wrote: “So now, because of the attack on Salman Rushdie, Dreher has at least temporarily abandoned his naive kumbaya irenicism and is acknowledging again that there is a jihad threat.” On Thursday, The American Conservative, where Dreher doth bestride the narrow world like a colossus, published this piece by Michael Warren Davis, denouncing Rushdie and tepidly granting that it wasn’t good that he was stabbed while arguing strongly that such reactions are entirely warranted and appropriate, and those who don’t resort to them are just self-centered secularist cosmopolites with no values.
Commentary interspersed below.
“Rethinking Salman Rushdie,” by Michael Warren Davis, The American Conservative, August 18, 2022:
If someone insults your mother, you clock him. As a man, at least, there’s really nothing else you can do. It may not be strictly legal, but it’s perfectly honorable. Conversely, if you don’t want to get clocked, don’t insult anyone’s mother. Legally, he may be in the wrong. Morally, though, he’s right.
Free speech has limits—legal, yes, but also moral. You can’t shout fire in a crowded movie theater without legal consequences, and you can’t rip on someone’s mom without having to square up.
This is simplistic and reductionist to the point of parody. “As a man, at least, there’s really nothing else you can do.” Nonsense. Even Davis’s idea of what it means to be a man is a brutish caricature of a lout who goes around slugging people in response to insults. As a man (or as a woman), there is plenty you can do if someone insults your mother. You can respond with your own insult. You can make a joke. You can leave. You can ignore it. Davis might insist that none of these are masculine responses, but then he claims that free speech has “moral” limits, and he seems to be a follower of the one who said: “If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matthew 5:39). Was the one who said that not a man?
Davis’ assumption that there is only one possible response to insult, and that is violence, is an echo of the jihadist assertion that he is tacitly defending (so it’s no surprise that he is defending it, because he agrees with it). The Islamic Republic of Iran recently responded to the Rushdie stabbing by saying it was his own fault for insulting Islam. Many jihadis speak about their attacks as if they were forced to do them and bear no responsibility; the victim bears all the responsibility because he or she insulted Islam.
But this is not the way reality really works. No human being who is not under some threat or other compulsion is forced to respond in a certain way to anything. The response one chooses to make is up to each person. That’s the basis of thinking human beings have responsibility for their actions.
Also, there is a huge difference between a fistfight and a premeditated assassination attempt. There is also a huge difference between publishing a work that people may choose to read or ignore as they wish and personally insulting someone to his face. “Fighting words” may be a factor in determining legal culpability in a face-to-face encounter, but it does not apply to publication. In the long, raucous history of American political insults, the answer to one person publishing insults is for the other person to be free to publish his thoughts — or even insults — as well. But Davis seems to find the publication of material that insults Islam to be objectionable in itself:
Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses didn’t violate the legal limits of free speech. But, as even his staunchest defenders will admit, it was deliberately insulting to Islam. Though Rushdie now calls himself a “hardline atheist,” he was born to a Muslim family in Mumbai, a city with a large Muslim minority. He knew what he was doing. He knew that he was offending the deepest convictions of two billion Muslims around the world. He wasn’t offering an intelligent critique of their faith. He was mocking it. That’s not incidental to the book. For Rushdie’s biggest fans (like Christopher Hitchens), it’s part of the appeal.
Maybe so. But so what? Does Davis want material that is deliberately insulting to Islam or that mocks it to be outlawed? Or does he simply want people to be decent enough to refrain voluntarily from offending others’ deepest convictions? But what if he encounters someone whose deepest convictions include obviously abhorrent beliefs, such as the idea that murder is an appropriate response to insult? (An implausible hypothetical, I know!) Would mockery, which can be a powerful rhetorical tool, not be appropriate even then? Michael Warren Davis has served as Editor-in-Chief of Crisis Magazine and as U.S. Editor of the Catholic Herald. The Catholic saint Thomas More said that the devil was a proud spirit who could not endure to be mocked. Was More not endorsing mockery as a bracing and possibly salutary antidote to pride? Will Davis repudiate More?
Davis goes on:
No, he didn’t deserve to be stabbed last week. That should go without saying. But getting stabbed doesn’t make him a hero, either. On the contrary. Rushdie is a first-rate wordsmith, but a very banal blasphemer. His treatment of Islam was shallow and flippant, and Muslims have every right to be angry with him. We’re not obliged to lionize him because some have overreacted so terribly….
Yes. As Davis correctly says later on, “the fact that someone tried to kill an author doesn’t make that author’s books any good.” No problem there. But Davis takes National Review‘s Charles Cooke to task for defending the freedom of speech, as he doesn’t find that freedom worthy of a strong defense. Davis writes:
Later, Cooke mentions the Charlie Hebdo shooting of 2015. The comparison is apt, but not for the reason he thinks. The magazine’s offices were targeted by radical Muslims over their crude, satirical drawings of Mohammed. Twelve people died in the attack, while eleven more were injured.
And what was the point of it all? For what cause did those twelve give their lives? The answer is, insulting Muslims. Speaking to the press after the attack, Charlie Hebdo’s editor said they would go on mocking the faith “until Islam is just as banal as Catholicism.” That’s it. But dying for a cause doesn’t make it right, and Charlie Hebdo doesn’t even have a cause. They give offense for the sake of being offensive. How tragic….
Or maybe they died for the very freedom to give offense, to say what they saw fit, and to exercise the freedom of expression. Without the freedom of speech, any tyrant can claim that he must silence some opponent — for mocking his deeply held convictions, doncha know. The freedom of speech is the foundation of a free society.
This is what Rushdie’s champions are really getting at. Whatever Cooke may say, most critics of The Satanic Verses don’t think the book should be banned or its author beheaded. They are saying that human beings should be more respectful of each other’s convictions. Religion shouldn’t be treated as something banal. Art shouldn’t be flippant….
This is an extremely dangerous argument. What if someone’s religion is indeed banal, or someone’s art is indeed flippant? Who is going to police this? Yes, in a perfect world everyone should be respectful of each other’s convictions, but this is not a perfect world, and where would Davis draw the line? People constantly tell me that by quoting what the Qur’an and Sunnah really say, I’m not respecting Muslims’ convictions. Do the Muslims sources, then, not contain the material I quote? Should I refrain from quoting it because some Muslims claim they’re offended when I do? Many Muslims have maintain that counterterror measures offend their deepest convictions. Should we, then, abandon all efforts to resist the jihad so as not to insult anyone?
Davis goes on to argue that The Satanic Verses is a bad book, “because mocking other people’s religion is childish. And it’s boring. It doesn’t make for good art.” That’s really of little moment, and doesn’t belong in his piece, as it’s off topic. The Satanic Verses may be the worst book ever; the question at hand is whether Rushdie should be allowed to publish it and live in peace in the contemporary West. Davis may hate the book; that’s his business. But he’s coming very close to saying it should be banned, or that the attack was justified, and that’s quite a different matter.
Except for libertarian ideologues, no one really believes that all “expressions” should be treated as equals. Most folks aren’t willing to divide humanity between Rushdie fanboys and Khomeini acolytes. We can condemn violent extremism without endorsing a frivolous nihilism. We can support the right to free speech while urging our countrymen to exercise that right more responsibly….
This is the problem with libertarian conservatives. Their deepest loyalties are to legal abstractions. If someone insults your mom (or your God), they expect you to shake his hand and cry, “I may not agree with what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it!”
That is why Russell Kirk referred to J.S. Mill, that most classic of classical liberals, as a “defecated intellect.” And it is why they are more dangerous than violent extremists, even violent Islamic extremists. Because when a man is willing to fight for his God (or his mom), it means he loves something more than himself. He might do terrible things in the name of that love. His heart may be in the wrong place. But at least he’s got a heart. What do the classical liberals have? Theories. White papers. A brain in a vat.
Here we come to the heart of Davis’ argument: “when a man is willing to fight for his God (or his mom), it means he loves something more than himself. He might do terrible things in the name of that love. His heart may be in the wrong place. But at least he’s got a heart. What do the classical liberals have? Theories. White papers. A brain in a vat.”
So in Davis’ view, someone who is willing to commit an immense moral evil because of misguided love for his God or his mother is preferable to the bloodless classical liberal who sits by and theorizes about it. Well, I suppose that’s what I’m doing here, but Davis sat down and typed out his article, too, so perhaps he’ll allow me to theorize long enough to respond. Just as a man whose mother is insulted may respond in all manner of ways, so also a man who is willing to fight for his God may fight in all kinds of ways other than killing an author or suppressing a book. He may engage in apologetics and refute arguments against his belief. He may write his own treatise explaining why the book in question is wrong and offensive. And so on and on.
Davis may find this passionless and desiccated as he slips on the gloves for another round against those who have dared to insult him, but what he is arguing against is actually the very hallmark of a civilized man, going back to the very beginnings of the Western civilization he professes to admire so deeply. Socrates, I’m sorry to inform Mr. Davis, was no bar brawler. And the freedom of speech is worth protecting and defending.
Gregory D. says
A dead pedophile is not your mother. He didn’t carry you, birth you, feed you, bathe you, shelter you and educate you.
If you can really find parity between the two, the chances are you are mentally unstable… as the above picture of Michael-Warren-Davis strongly indicates.
By the way… it’s 1.2 billion Muslims and shrinking. The 2 billion figure is an aspirational, supremacist boast that has no basis in reality.
somehistory says
there is no comparison between the two; he’s just pretending he would “clock someone” for talking about his mother. Would she admit that she is his mother?
Gregory D. says
Only with her pimp’s permission.
JB says
Good news to hear Islam is shrinking. Seems counterintuitive
considering Ahmed commands four brood mares, and unlimited infidel slaves.
Fortunately sodomized young boys & prepubescent girls aren’t
fertile.
mgoldberg says
I wonder what people who think ‘insulting’ another religion is understandably resulting in a punch in the mouth, say about that religions adherents slaughtering, and enslaving peoples of the other religions. Would that excuse a punch in the mouth… or perhaps necessitate something other than that?
I would think that freedom of speech means that’s it’s okay to be disagreeable about ‘religions’, scoff at them, deride them and say whatever things might be felt. Especially if it’s what the prophet of the religion himself said……..
Freedom of speech means causing ‘offense’ is always possible, should never be punishable, ,and the ability to debate the statements, issues, beliefs protected and encouraged. Now, we live in tyrannic times, with the walls closing in ever tighter.
somehistory says
Yes, how can it be an insult when the filthy creep…or his *creators*…said and bragged, about?
Roland says
Does Michael Warren Davis know anything about Islam? He seems to live in a world of abstractions
CogitoErgoSum says
He’s one of those guys who thinks smoking a pipe makes him look smart. Either he knows smoking is bad for his health and doesn’t care or he is just stupid. He has the same problem when it come to Islam. He knows about it and just doesn’t care or he’s just stupid. Come to think of it, either way he is stupid.
somehistory says
I saw something in my inbox about g soros buying up, or trying to buy up, ‘conservative” sites.
Is this ugly idiot a soros plant?
Looks rather wimpy…so sorry Wimpy…so he must be fantasizing about “clocking” someone. and if his mother complained about mozlums and was attacked by the likes of the creepy terrorist who went after rushdie, and raped her, or cut off her head, what kind of thing would he be saying then?
John Alder says
As far as I am concerned all religions are fair game when it comes to jokes,mocking or just plain criticizing . You can call me the happy heritic or the jolly blasphemer. 😊 😈
mortimer says
So Davis doesn’t believe the freedom of expression is worthy of being defended or dying for? Tell it to the soldiers, sailors and airmen who died for freedom in two wars. The squadron motto of one my relatives is still ‘FOR FREEDOM’.
Davis condescendingly writes: “They give offense for the sake of being offensive. How tragic….”
Well, what is ‘tragic’ is that Davis will not honor the sacrifices of those who died for freedom.
The right of free speech is that we may OFFEND and say something someone else does not like us to say. Islam is authoritarian and denies free speech to everyone but the mullahs.
That is why we must fight for the right to offend … not offense for its own sake or for ‘fun’ but to CONFIRM that we have the right and have not surrended it to ISLAMIC BARBARIANS who would cut our HEADS off or fill us with bullet holes over mere words.
somehistory says
Evidently, neither does “mortimer” believe in the freedom of expression for anyone but himself and his ilk.
Herb says
If you cannot say offensive things the. You don’t have free speech
somehistory says
And others aren’t allowed to put muzzles on someone because of what they decide is the *reason*….like “fun” for saying whatever is offensive if freedom to express oneself is really *free* to speak. it is not the authority of another to decide when to apply the freedom or to limit what can be said because they don’t like the *reason* it is said
Infidel says
So what is conservative about “The American Conservative” journal?
Hans says
Infidel, I am afraid they half-baked Conservatives or spume Conservatives
Davis, failed completely to make a righteous point-of-view. His arguments were
not facts nor social norms, but rather self-seeking deification of Mo Mo and radical
Muslames.
The bible and other religions are defiled on a daily basis and yet there are no
visceral hatred or attacks by those afflicted by Mulames. Davis, clearly needs to
come up with a new playbook.
gravenimage says
I know I’ve read some good articles in the American Conservative over the years–this is *not* one of them…
mortimer says
Look, ‘TRUTH’ is unimportant to the mullahs! What is ‘offensive’ to Muslims is the loss of their HONOR, IMAGE, or PRESTIGE.
The mullahs are permitted to LIE about Islam if it increases the HONOR and PRESTIGE of Islam. They can MAKE UP spurious ‘Islamic’ that do not exist and they can CONTRADICT real Islamic teachings if that helps the KUFAAR to admire Islam.
Islam is often just an ILLUSION or MIRAGE … since often THAT is what the mullahs WANT US TO THINK!
The mullahs are professional TRICKSTERS manipulating words to conceal the deadly intent of ISLAMIC SUPREMACISM.
That is why we need the FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION to counter the intentionally misleading narratives of the TREACHEROUS MULLAHS.
mortimer says
addendum: hey can simply MAKE UP spurious ‘Islamic’ *TEACHINGS* that do not exists … if it increases the honor and prestige of Islam
Hans says
Mortimer, Islame is nothing more than organized crime.
They share many of the same “ethos” as the mob.
1] You cannot leave the organization
2] There is no room for dissent
3] Disrespect the boss and get wacked
4] Must mutilate or kill
5] Become a non-productive social unit
6] Contempt for society and fellow man
7] Hate and envy
somehistory says
All so very true, Hans. mozlums should be arrested under the RICO Act, prosecuted and imprisoned. Once they serve their terms, deport the non-citizens, and monitor those who are allowed to stay in country.
Michael Copeland says
Instructing “Radicalisation”
https://gatesofvienna.net/2018/01/instructing-radicalisation/
James Lincoln says
I’m not an attorney, somehistory.
But to me, the RICO act should apply.
somehistory says
Thank you, James. I’m not an attorney either, but I did study law, public safety, anti-terrorism and if one looks at what RICO says, it’s easy to see that islam is just like the organizations for which the Act was written.
Engaging in extortion, human trafficking, prostitution, money-laundering, ..and other “organized crime” is what RICO is all about stopping.
somehistory says
thanks, Michael. very informative. all should be arrested, imprisoned and deported.
gravenimage says
The American Conservative denounces Rushdie, complains that his book was ‘deliberately insulting to Islam’
………………………….
Yes, just appalling. I rarely cross post, but I replied at length to this disgusting article yesterday. I hope no one minds my reposting this here:
Nick, thanks for posting this appalling article. That this comes from the American Conservative–a publication that has generally seemed very sane is just disgusting.
First, it posits that you are not a man unless you initiate violence against others for purely verbal insults. But this is gross–thugs do this, not real men. And behaving like a thug is *anything* but honorable. The response to speech should be speech. If someone insults your mother, you have the right to respond in kind, *not* to put the insulter in the hospital.
That is why initiating assault is *illegal* throughout the civilized world.
And the idea that it is immoral to say anything negative about someone’s mother is absurd in any case. If you are some idiot on a street corner catcalling about someone’s mother being ugly this is not particularly praiseworthy, but what if one has a moral argument re someone who may also be someone’s mother? Would this mean that no one can say anything critical about, say, Hillary Clinton? Elizabeth Warren? They both have children–does that mean they can physically assault their critics? Then, this author himself has declared no woman deserves the right to vote–isn’t that insulting? Should all of the children of women who consider this insulting sock Michael Warren Davis in the mouth? I doubt he’d actually welcome this…
Then, the idea that daring to criticize the horrors of Islam is immoral is sickening. Does this mean that saying anything critical about Islam’s sacralization of robbery, piracy, slavery. rape, and mass murder is immoral? What a grotesque assertion.
Then note the claim that stabbing Salman Rushdie is simply an overreaction–but that Muslims had every right to be murderously enraged for his daring to say anything negative about Islam. *Sickening*.
Then, the claim that crushing freedom of speech is about protecting people’s feelings is disgusting, nor is this virtuous. And the idea that you only believe your faith is important if you are willing to violently prevent people from criticizing it is simply grotesque.
Then, this creep puts references to the horrifying massacre of editors and cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo in the passive tense–twice. As if these poor people killed themselves, instead of being murdered by Jihad terrorists.
He only considers this tragic because he doesn’t think that freedom of speech is a grand enough cause to die for–and he never once entertains the idea that people exercising their freedom of speech have the right to live.
Then, he wrings his hands over Muslims who have not actually tried to murder Rushdie for getting more kudos–good grief. And the sad fact here is that actually *very few* Muslims have affirmed Rushdie’s right to write freely.
Then, he lauds Muslims trying to crush freedom of speech as “earnest”–as, apparently, those criticizing Islam cannot be. *Ugh*.
And of course critics have the right to treat any religion as banal, and they have the right to be flippant about it if they so desire. Just as with the example above, people have the right to criticize the critics of religion if they so desire–they do *not* have the right to initiate violence against the critic.
And Rushdie does not deserve to live only if you consider his book a work of great art–for one thing, this will always be subjective. For another thing, many *do* consider both the Satanic Verses and other books in his oeuvre to be works of great art. But Jihad terrorists are not going to care about the literary merit of works criticizing Islam in any case. Most of them have never read Rushdie at all.
And the idea that if you support freedom of speech that this–somehow–undermines the cause of free speech is grotesque. This is one situation where the artistic merit of the work really is immaterial.
If you don’t like someone’s work you can choose to not buy, read, or watch it–you can also decide to critique the work. What you *don’t* have is the right to assault and murder the creator.
And positing that the alternative to violent extremism is frivolous nihilism is of course grotesque.
Then, the claim that if you are not a fan of frivolous nihilism–which as this creep would have it is any criticism of any faith, no matter how savage, that you might as well turn to violence yourself is sickening.
I would rather have any number of vacuous works in print than the specter of thugs murdering artists. That Davis does not is damning to himself.
Then he sneers at anyone who defends freedom of speech of works they may not personally admire–but no doubt he actually knows that civilized people are not going to storm his office and murder him for writing this piece of vicious tripe.
In fact, while he would never admit it, he is clearly counting on it.
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2022/08/uk-afghan-muslim-migrants-reject-homes-in-scotland-and-wales-its-cold-and-they-dont-speak-english#comment-2438087
Hans says
Very well stated, image, indeed ! You took Davis apart,
seam by seam. BTW, they do not post comments at the
end of their articles.
john smith says
Spot on Gravenmage, an excellent response
gravenimage says
Thanks so much, Hans and John. And it does not surprise me that the publication allowed no comments–especially given its calls for crushing freedom of speech.
tim gallagher says
So this idiot seems to think that islam does not deserve to be insulted. He seems to think that islam, this barbaric, evil religious ideology, deserves to receive respect. I don’t understand his mentality. I think islam deserves to receive endless insults, day after day, and I applaud Rushdie for being one of many people who have insulted islam. Insulting islam is the same as insulting Nazism, it is the right thing to do. If islam ever does change into something more civilised and decent, which it never will do, then maybe it will one day deserve some respect. That islam would ever change and become something even half decent and civilised is about the most unimaginable thing ever. All of islam’s barbaric, outdated crap is set in stone and deserves all the insults it receives. It is 2022 and islam, in so many ways, wants to drag humanity back to living like primitive 7th century Arabs. It deserves no respect at all and this clown should wake up..
somehistory says
Tim, it will change when the day comes you can fill your fridge with fresh meat and ripe fruit and then unplug and wait thirty days…open the door and find plenty of good things to eat.
One cannot reform or improve pure garbage. And islam is worse than pure garbage.
tim gallagher says
I agree, somehistory. There is not a chance in the world that islam will ever change. It is rotten to the core, pure garbage as you say – the child brides, the calls to go out and murder non-Muslims, the honour killings, and on and on the evil in islam goes. It is up to Muslims to wake up and leave the ideology behind and join civilised non-Muslim society. If only that would happen then some real progress would be made. I can’t believe these people who tell us that islam needs to be respected and not insulted for all its barbaric content.
somehistory says
tim, if no one tells the Truth about what the book is all about, that it is pure filthy evil, how will those who are devoted to what it says ever see the “light”?
Too many want to treat mozlums with kid gloves and never upset their little applecart.
I believe we must tell the brutal Truth, no matter who may complain or condemn us.
islam is evil, rotten and straight from satan the devil. there is no time to try to soft-pedal it or pretend that their ‘prophet’ really was one and that he should be copied.
tim gallagher says
I agree, somehistory. Islam deserves about as much respect as nazism. It needs to be constantly insulted for being the primitive load of garbage that it is. These people who think that islam deserves respect must know almost nothing about its nature. Thinking back, I was one of those people a bit over 25 years ago and I can recall thinking that islam was probably OK and just another acceptable religion, but once I looked into islam’s nature a bit I changed my mind completely. Whatever will help demolish islam is what needs to be done. It is a load of hideous, primitive and evil rubbish.
somehistory says
tim, at one time, I didn’t know much about it either. I was even told by members of my own congregation that mozlums weren’t that different from us.
they were wrong, so very, very wrong. when I began to actually have interactions with, them, on a business basis, or as co-workers, I began to see just what it is all about….and even then, I didn’t realize all of the evil they do to little babies, small children, to their own daughters, etc. The more I have learned, the more disgusted I have become and the more determined to say exactly what it is all about….and I don’t care who may object. the more objections, the more I’m going to speak.
the mozlums themselves may be *human*…but their actions are those of the devil and everyone who doesn’t know that, is sorely lacking in accurate knowledge.
tim gallagher says
Yeah, somehistory, I began to notice some pretty bad behaviour from Muslims out here, and then I read a few books out of the library, including Robert Spencer’s “Islam unveiled”, to try to understand what the hell was wrong with Muslims. I also remember that I learnt a bit about islam from a website that an ex-Muslim, Ali Sina, had, I think it was called Faith Freedom and also I learnt plenty from Jihad Watch. I’m pretty sure that I first read those quotes from the Koran calling for Muslims to go out and kill non-believers, which I then checked in the local library by looking at a copy of the Koran, and that was enough for me. I’ve been opposed to islam ever since and have written to our politicians here trying to wake them up because they all seemed to know bugger all about islam’s nature. I think a few of them might have woken up since then.
tim gallagher says
Oh, I meant to say that I’m pretty sure that I first read those quotes from the Koran about killing non-believers here at Jihad Watch quite a few years ago and then checked them out in the Koran.
gravenimage says
Good exchange, Tim and Somehistory.
Jerry says
Michael Warren Davis overlooks a few little problems.
Even if Islam was a true and honest religion not only it permits iits adherents to insult all others but also advocates the genocide of all others.
But Islam is not a true religion.
It is purely the invention of a marauding war lord to justify his crimes agains all other and thr rest of humanity and serve as propaganda to recruit criminal thugs to plunder for him by offering them four fifth of the loot when successful and immediate transfer to his fake paradise if they are unsuccessful snd die on Jihad.
And Islam is not only a clear and present danger to all others.
It’s also mutually homicidal between different factions of the cult of death and that’s why after the Taliban gained relative control of Kabul, for example there is still no end to mutual Islamic suicide bombings there.
Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY) says
Michael Warren Davis writes, “You can’t shout fire in a crowded movie theater without legal consequences.”
Does he really believe this? I think I’ll follow his advice. The next time I see a fire breaking out in a crowded theater, I’ll keep my silence.
(And when I see a building burning down, I’ll shout, “Theater! Theater!”)
saturnine says
I don’t subscribe to The American Conservative but if I did I would love to cancel the subscription and then re-subscribe and then cancel it, and then subscribe again and then cancel it and then subscribe again and then cancel it. (Sahih al-Saturnine)
Devasur says
As I have already said just like leftists the conservatives to are in alliance with islamists. People here jumped on me for saying the truth. now behold it has come out.
Andrew Blackadder says
Somebody insulted me a few years back, I said something they didnt like, so he called me an F**king moron, so in response I asked him if liked me….Hell no… He replied… So does this mean you will never speak or have anything whatsoever to do with me ever again… I asked… Thats right…he said…. Oh good, I replied, as I thought for a minute you are going to tell me that you will be in my life and now I can see you wont, thank gawd for that as you and your opinions mean nothing to me and so I do not need anybody like you in my life, so bye bye… He was stunned as he walked away.
I always look at the source of the information, who is saying it, who wrote it, and then I make an decision of how important it is in my life.
cheeflo says
Well played, sir.
VICTORMc. says
ISLAM is the curse of the earth (MY earth that is) nothing to do with this pretend nether world these people seem to occupy
Pray Hard says
I read more and more people like this guy who “think” they are conservatives when they’re actually liberals. The other thing is that many religious types will defend all “religions” because they know that if/when the veil is torn, it can’t be sewn back and that includes theirs. My bet is that he’s never “clocked” anyone and wouldn’t/couldn’t if the situation arose. And, oh, there is nothing “manly” about the actions of moslems. Their actions are not based on courage or conviction. Their actions are based in pathology. I was still something of an idiot about islam when 9/11 was perpetrated on America and I was astounded at the “courage and determination” of those moslems. But, read, read, read and 21 years later, I’ve realized that it took nothing more than islamic pathology to fly those planes into skyscrapers. Liberals look at rabid dogs and want to adopt them. What could possibly go wrong?
cheeflo says
“Conservative” and “liberal” are imprecise words outside of clarifying context. His opinion actually is conservative and illiberal, but only in the context of the practice of Islam, not Western Enlightenment thought.
Barbara says
Certainly Rushdie is a morally repugnant character. However, writing insults against Mohammed is not grounds for vigilante violence. Good people can just avoid his books and not associate with him.
gravenimage says
Barbara, how is saying anything critical about the appalling warlord, pedophile, caravan-raider, slaver, rapist, and mass murderer “Prophet” Muhammed “morally repugnant”?
Nick Marcus says
Are you a Islamist troll
TTTCOTTH says
This reads like a parody
gravenimage says
I only wish it were…
cheeflo says
“Most folks aren’t willing to divide humanity between Rushdie fanboys and Khomeini acolytes.”
Khomeini acolytes are … and there are hundreds of millions of that ilk.
gravenimage says
True, cheeflo–*very few* Muslims have come out in favor of Rushie’s having the right to write what he wants about Islam.
And the idea that these positions are morally equivalent is grotesque, as well. How is supporting a peaceful author–whatever ones assessment of his work–the same as supporting *his murder*? More false claptrap from Davis.
So what does it mean if someone isn’t willing to take one side or the other here? It means that they in some way consider threatening murder an appropriate response to someone peacefully expressing an opinion they disagree with about an ideology. How sickening is this?
And cheeflo, I don’t think I’ve seen you posting here before. If you are new to Jihad Watch, welcome!