02/11/06 Everything You Know is Wrong...

I have decided to try something new. Every week,(until i get bored with it...) I'm going to post something called "Everything you know is wrong..." I'm going to take something from the news and bash the shit out of it. let's see how this goes... Hopefully it won't come off as arrogant. (But fuck it if it does...)

There are very few things that we as humans believe in that don’t have another side. We forget that our freedoms usually come with some sort of reciprocity. There is kinetic reaction that can sometimes be more damning that we first thought.

My favorite of these little mistruths is freedom of speech. We as westerners live in a world where free speech is a theoretical right. (Unless your words breach the Patriot act… Then Hello Camp Delta…) yet when this right is tested, the ramifications can be wholly chaotic.

Case in point. A Danish newspaper prints a series of racist cartoons, and with that manages to incite hysterical rage in the Middle East. People have been killed because of it. Imagine that… Killed because of a cartoon. Lives have ended because someone drew a picture that challenged a belief system. What kind of a world do we live in?

Could it just be me, or has this been totally blown out of proportion?

I understand that people could be insulted by the content of these cartoons. I’m an atheist and they insult me, but at not point would that motivate me to murder someone. Killing someone over this really seems a lot like overkill. Whatever happened to the concept of a strongly worded letter? Perhaps a phone call or two might have done the trick. I’ve pissed off a lot of people over the years with some of the things I’ve had to say, but at no point did I ever think I might get whacked for it. (Maybe the odd punch in the stomach…)

Perhaps though, the rational escapes me because I don’t live in that world. I don’t have that strong a belief in faith. My world is not restrictive. I don’t understand the way of life that comes from living elsewhere. My taxes don’t go to a government that insists I believe what they do. But does that excuse barbarism? Likely not.

I have other things that fill my life other than God. That alone makes these violent actions horrific to me. I am unable to wrap my head around that kind of rage. I would be hard pressed to get that angry about anything. Perhaps that’s a flaw in my own character.

But the people that printed the cartoons are equally responsible for those unfortunate deaths. There can ironically be a hefty price for freedom of speech. That may sound ludicrous, but in reality it’s true. It is important to realize that these cartoons were pointed at a faith that wholly rejects any kind of scrutiny. This is a faith that has inspired people in all too recent memory to strap on bombs and walk into crowded places. More specifically it’s a faith where some of its more extreme fundamentalist practitioners are inspired by martyrdom.

The newspaper responsible might as well have pointed fireworks at a giant can of gasoline. They just should have known better. I agree with their right to freedom of speech, (and will defend it…) but you would have had to know that this would be a grim Wile E. Coyote moment. They should have known there would be little rationality in the reaction to their printing. Why would you pick at those people? What did it serve to do?

People died, businesses that took years to build were destroyed, and a just about billion people want your heads. Speech isn’t all that free after all, is it?