She may have invited trouble, but it didn’t have to RSVP. She was making the point that freedom of speech is being encroached upon by well-meaning but cowardly people and the rest of us have to remember why it is so important. There is nothing inherently hateful about drawing an image of Mohammed, just as there is nothing inherently hateful about displaying a stuffed pig. What IS hateful is committing violence against something that offends your itty bitty precious feelings. And for the rest of us, we would all do well to remember that offense is a very personal thing and it might be anyone else causing offense next time. By dressing provocatively, or a man kissing his husband goodbye in public. Ugly expression is the canary in the coal mine and if it is allowed to be suppressed, you can be the more ambiguous kind will be next to wear a target.
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And what do you think should be done about people choosing to be provocative? If anything.
Why not? Because he might behead you or shoot you? What about poking the puppy? Is it ok to mock Jews or smear the Virgin Mary with feces because Jews and Christians aren’t expected to shoot or behead anyone?
“And what do you think should be done about people choosing to be provocative? If anything.”
Actually, these attacks on cartoonists and people who have purposefully insulted Islam, are small potatoes. Very small numbers. The big numbers of people killed in the name of Islam come in the form of people being executed, in current times, because they live. Breathe in…breathe out, zoosermom. According to the radical Islamists, you are offending Islam, because you are allowed to exist. The fact that people like you and me are still walking this earth is provocation enough. Stop instigating trouble by living!
How was she making the point that freedom of speech is being encroached upon by holding the event she had the freedom to hold?
Excuse me, but the “rest of us” don’t need Pamela Geller’s nasty stunts to remind us of our rights and why they’re important.
Recognize them as the inflammatory offensive provocateurs that they are.
As everyone seems to agree, they are within their legal rights with respect to freedom of speech. That does not mean that anyone has to endorse their views or think of them in any favorable light. (Of course, violent attacks on them should not be endorsed or supported either – violence certainly falls on the wrong side of the law in many cases, and most would say that if the suspects lived, they should be prosecuted for the violence, regardless of the offensiveness of their targets.)
I’m breathing just fine, thank you! But I would like to know if others are bothered by what Ms. Geller did and want to complain about it, which is fine, or if they want the government to prohibit such things.
The fact that she could and did hold the event, despite the opposition is the point she was making. To provoke discussion. Which she did.
Maybe some people do, maybe some don’t, but she was entitled to act on her belief that she had to make this point.
The question is what different people think is nasty and where the line is drawn. No one has the right to not be offended.
Sorry I deleted my comment after you guys posted. I didn’t think anyone had posted. I stand by my earlier statement.
I am all about free speech. BUT doing something on purpose with the SOLE intent to create mayhem and intense anger just to get a reaction is WRONG in my book.
Do what you do, go about your day and stand up for free speech but don’t go out of your way to create havoc and danger in everyone elses lives just because you can…
NOTHING.
Family Guy has done a big number on Jesus many times, as well as any other number of people/symbols/images that people hold dear. For some reason, I don’t see a lot of comments insinuating that Seth MacFarlane does what he does in order to provoke violence against himself, his staff, and the millions who watch and laugh along. And his brand of insult is delivered in a much more in your face manner than Pam Geller’s cartoon contest, held in a small venue in a previously unheard of suburb in Texas.
People in this country are allowed to produce provocative art which can be found to be in bad taste. What’s more astounding is the notion that we should advocate the suppression of ideas which offends one particular group, not because it’s more morally reprehensible to insult Mohammad than Jesus, but because insulting Mohammad “incites followers to violence,” whereas Christians just might get their feelings hurt. The Christians should just deal, but when it comes to insulting Muslims, boy do we change our tune. The burden to “behave” is apparently on the people acting within their legal rights, not on those who have absolutely NO RIGHT to demand that everyone else see a drawing as worthy of the death penalty.
They should be denounced by decent people. Who then, apparently, must explain ten thousand times, that it’s wrong to shoot the provocateurs, and that we’re not asking the government to shut them down. As I’ve said above, these people are NO DIFFERENT than the Westboro Baptist Church, and people seem to have no problem denouncing them while understanding that shooting them would be bad.
I agree that to the radical Islamists, just being alive and not Muslim (doesn’t matter if you are Christian, Hindu, or Atheist) can “provocative” enough. I mean, what provoked the Boston Bombing? What is offensive about a marathon?
Who is “us”? You got a mouse in your pocket?
So because YOU don’t need to be reminded, the people who WERE interested in this issue should not have hosted or attended this small affair? Seeing how it was not inflicted on “the rest of us,” and was only attended by people who wanted to be there, they should be free to rent a building, display drawings, and talk amongst themselves about their freedom of speech rights to their little hearts’ content.
I think they’re a bit worse than the Westboro Baptist Church. More akin to that crazy Florida preacher who wanted to flush a Koran down the toilet.
Then again, maybe we’re all a little to used to the Westboro Baptist Church. And now that Rolling Thunder drowns them out so well, who cares about them?
All these groups want publicity more than anything else.
Wasn’t the Boston Bombing enough to prove this? What is added by holding a contest to draw Muhammed?
It occurs to me that Geller may not actually have gotten what she wanted. What she may really have wanted was for the federal government to try to shut down her event.
Heller is a hypocrite. She is hoping to have the Koran banned.
I especially love how she recently compared herself to Rosa Parks.
You know she’s out there when Fox commentators are shocked by her comments.
She’s an inspiration. To people like Anders Behring Breivik.
That’s what I think.
I for one know nothing about this lady and don’t intend to find out. If I’d seen flyers or advertisements about this event, I would not have had any desire to go. So she and her agenda are rather irrelevant to me. I do, however, feel strongly that people of her kind not be blamed for the actions of law breaking, irrational, fanatical, “religious” people who believe that the entire world must cater to their beliefs; well, not only cater to them, assimilate those beliefs or be lifelong targets for death as “infidels.”
“Please don’t bother the crazy people with your perfectly legal and peaceful exercise of free speech” is really the tail wagging the dog, imo. If everyone would just ignore the Pam Gellers of the world, they would have zero effect on the world. There is no reason why Muslims can’t be expected to do the same and just let the haters hate and go on about the business of following their religion in their own hearts, to hell with what others do or say. That’s the way the rest of us are expected to behave, and the standards should be no different for them.
Attracting/inciting some (incompetent) followers of Daesh/IS/ISIL/ISIS into a failed attack may be a decent consolation prize for her and her group, though.
What if your kid had been strolling past the venue when this happened and had gotten caught in the cross-fire? As it happened, only the attackers got killed, but completely uninvolved bystanders could have been killed as well. I can have two ideas at the same time: I can support a person’s right to hold a totally irresponsible and evil event.
Ms. Geller is not responsible for the violence that occurred anymore than a woman wearing a mini skirt is responsible for violence against her. It is the perpetrators of the violence who are responsible. If I were Kate Upton and wearing a bikini top on 42nd street, I can reasonably expect that some men will be provoked by my attire, but that doesn’t mean I deserve to be raped. I’m not a fan of being intentionally hurtful and all of the many Muslim people I know are the finest people I have ever met. I was at a meeting this week and none of them could care less about Pamela Geller’s event, but they are mortified by the behavior of the shooters. Most really don’t care what other people do, except the extremists and the precious, and just want to live their lives. I wouldn’t have done what Ms. Geller did, but it disgusts me that people decided to get violent.