I think I'm just going to have to file my entire twenties under the heading shadenfreude when it comes time to write my bio. Thank god I read Princess when I was in high school. I was able to come to my own conclusions back before anyone was really paying attention or editing themselves. People are people no matter what color or where. Bullies are bullies. Jerks are jerks. Fanatics are fanatics. Decent reasonable people practice their religion in decent reasonable ways.

"They want to test our feelings," protester Mawli Abdul Qahar Abu Israra told the BBC.

"They want to know whether Muslims are extremists or not. Death to them and to their newspapers," he said.
[snicker]

I also highly recommend reviewing some of the cartoon sections and archives of muslim/arab newspapers. Especially check the material covering the subject of jews and/or Israel coming out of the state-controlled newspapers in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Then we can talk.

Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
Example 4
Example 5
Example 6

As Instapundit observed: "Once again, the message is that if you blow things up, or even look as if you might, we'll be nice to you. And once again, I note that this is a very unwise message to send."

It is nice to see other people echoing my thoughts. Although I'm afraid that Virgina Postrel clearly does not see what the second correspondent sees or what is demonstrated in my links above.

I tell my family that that's just how things work in a free society: while I don't agree that the newspaper should have done something so culturally insensitive, they do have the right to do that, and attempting to make Danish society pay as a whole for it is utterly ridiculous.

It doesn't matter, I'm told. It literally means nothing to them, because in their world, everything should revolve around them and their culture, and God made the world for Muslim Arabs to control.

And this is the kind of mindset the Danish people are contending with.

It's not the action that bothers them, it's that it's about them. They're not receiving the special privileged treatment (no pictures, nothing negative ever said or printed,) that their holy book says they deserve. When you understand that you're dealing with people with the emotional maturity of Paris Hilton, the religious fanaticism of Pat Robertson, and a shitload of weapons, the situation resolves itself into a very clear picture.

posted by Rachel 2/06/2006

. . .