Remarkable, Especially Considering the Source

The left, writes Jeffrey Taylor, has Islam all wrong.

How right he is. I only hope his side (yes, he is on the left, publishing these views in Salon, also on the left), wakes up before it's too late..

The Left has Islam All Wrong

Taylor writes: 

This is no call to disrespect Muslims as people, but we should not hesitate to speak frankly about the aspects of their faith we find problematic.  But it’s not up to progressives to suggest how an ideology based on belief without evidence might be reformed.  Rather, we should cease relativizing and proudly espouse, as alternatives to blind obedience to ancient texts, reason, progress, consensus-based solutions, and the wonderful panoply of other Enlightenment ideals underpinning our Constitution and the liberties characterizing Western countries.  

The only path to victory in this war in defense of free speech lies through courage.  We cannot wimp out and blame the victims for drawing cartoons, writing novels, or making movies.  We need to heed Gérard Biard, Charlie Hebdo’s editor-in-chief, who declared, as he received the PEN award, that “They don’t want us to write and draw.  We must write and draw.  They don’t want us to think and laugh.  We must think and laugh. 

 They don’t want us to debate. We must debate.”  

In doing as he urges, we will give the terrorists too many targets to attack and convince them that we will not surrender, not cede an inch.  That means the media needs to begin showing Charlie Hedbo’s Muhammad cartoons.  We must stop traducing reason by branding people “Islamophobes,” and start celebrating our secularism, remembering that only it offers true freedom for the religious and non-religious alike.  And we should reaffirm our humanistic values, in our conviction that we have, as Carlyle wrote, “One life – a little gleam of time between two eternities,” and need to make the most of it for ourselves and others while we can.  There is nothing else.  

This is not a battle we have chosen; the battle has chosen us.  

It’s time to fight back, and hard.

Oh, and for those castigating Geller for inciting violence against Islam and blaming the folks at Charlie Hebdo rather than thanking them for their courage in standing up against tyranny, there's this.

The winning cartoon, which, by the way, most news outlets did NOT publish:

Are We Charlie, Really?

Follow up to previous post: 

Listening to Mark Steyn literally fuming at those who are expressing "solidarity" with the murdered Charlie Hebdo journalists. These same people are the ones who are appeasing the radical Islamists. 

Here's Steyn on The Kelly File, saying much the same thing. 

One observation: why does Megyn Kelly refer to Mohammed as "the prophet" Mohammed? Would she refer to Jesus as "Lord and Savior" in an interview? 

The Mighty Pen?

Posting here two editorial cartoons following yesterday's despicable massacre in Paris. Putting on a brave face. 

The question is, Will there be anyone left with the courage to continue the "mission" of those who died? It's not entirely clear that western media and political leaders won't continue to kowtow to radical Islam. One day after the attack, President Obama's press secretary announced that Obama will be placing a priority on fighting Islamaphobia. Even today, some news outlets either won't print or are obscuring the offending cartoons from Charlie Hebdo (even while will permitting offensive images of Jesus Christ). 

So while yes, in the immediate aftermath of this assault on freedom of the press, millions of people are raising their pens in an expression of solidarity with the journalists and cartoonists who died in the massacre (Je suis Charlie), others are chiding them, among them this horrible man named Bill Donahue from the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, who wrote that it's " too bad [Stephane Charbonnier] didn't 'understand the role he played in his tragic death."

So yes, raise your pens, raise your signs. But after that, will we write? draw? publish? We can only hope. 

Rob Tornoe 

Lucille Clerc