"Sensitivity" can have brutal consequences - Mark Steyn

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | 2/5/06 | Mark Steyn

[joonbug]

The irony is that the groups pushing multiculturalism are the very groups that have the most to lose.

Under Sharia, there are no "women's rights" or "reproductive rights". Gays would probably be sent for "reeducation" or just killed. The MSM in this country would be silenced.

To the left, be careful what you wish for...

[DCPatriot]

If established law says it's okay to shoot looters on sight, then it should follow that you can shoot to kill these characters who seem to swoon while setting fires and creating havoc and mayhem...all under some ridiculous perceived slight.

[Travis McGee]

Thus, NBC is celebrating Easter this year with a special edition of the gay sitcom "Will & Grace," in which a Christian conservative cooking-show host, played by the popular singing slattern Britney Spears, offers seasonal recipes -- "Cruci-fixin's." On the other hand, the same network, in its coverage of the global riots over the Danish cartoons, has declined to show any of the offending artwork out of "respect" for the Muslim faith. Which means out of respect for their ability to locate the executive vice president's home in the suburbs and firebomb his garage.

MSM= cowards and hypocrites.

[Youngman442002]

I think our military should adopt the cartoons and put them on thier new BDU's...that way they would know the enemy....

[USS Alaska]

CARTOON

OBSENE CARTOON

REALITY OR CARTOON?

Hitlery, Sheets, Turbin and the Swimmer

[lawgirl]

Fabulous piece by Steyn. I am 100% in agreement.

[kalee]

As usual when Steyn says what he has to say there is not much else to be said. Thanks for posting this.

[Wilhelm Tell]

And on the other hand are folks who do not accept the give-and-take, the rough-and-tumble of a "diverse" "tolerant" society, and, when one gently raises the matter of their intolerance, they threaten to kill you, which makes the question somewhat moot.

Mark Steyn is brilliant as usual, even when he states the obvious. The problem is many people are afraid to state the obvious.

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

Excellent point, however I take no comfort in that.

[MarMema]

On the other hand, the same network, in its coverage of the global riots over the Danish cartoons, has declined to show any of the offending artwork out of "respect" for the Muslim faith. Which means out of respect for their ability to locate the executive vice president's home in the suburbs and firebomb his garage.

Steyn definitely gets it!

... the "sensitivity" of Burger King, which withdrew its ice cream cones from its British menus because Rashad Akhtar of High Wycombe complained that the creamy swirl shown on the lid looked like the word "Allah" in Arabic script....

And here is where we are headed if we don't put a stop to this all, right now.

One day the British foreign secretary will wake up and discover that, in practice, there's very little difference between living under Exquisitely Refined Multicultural Sensitivity and Sharia.

Brilliance in one line. Thanks for posting this!!

[MarMema]

Bump, this is a great read!!

[wildehunt]

I scream, you scream, we allah scream for ice cream.

[tertiary01]

Some posters have expressed the sentiments that the results of the Palestinian elections have some correlation to the riots occurring at this late date.

[Billthedrill]

That's the question the Danish newspaper was testing: the weakness of free societies in the face of intimidation by militant Islam.

But the far more significant test is going the other way and it's producing some interesting results. A number of others have pointed out the curious fact that it took five months for the "outrage" to show up. This is largely the result of local imams (local to Denmark, that is) taking an international tour to rally the troops.

What is significant this is that the imams to whom they spoke have succeeded in fomenting sudden violence in such a number of places across Europe and the Middle East. The limitations and duration of that violence and the practical effects of intimidation will be exceedingly useful in the plans for next time, when the topic will not be cartoons but anything at all offensive to Islam anywhere in Europe. At that point informal Shar'ia is only one step away. The codified form can wait.

Indeed, the Islamists already have a victory in hand in the form of the fall of the Spanish government, in which an internal opposition gleefully took advantage of a tactical blunder on the part of the sitting government in response to a terrorist attack. It is precisely that sort of internal division that a militant and violent Islam can use to exert power beyond its actual numbers.

Europe as a whole will cave. The hold on government, academia, and the press by a class for whom multiculturalism is scripture is simply too all-pervasive for this incident to break, France being the extant example. That will leave individual countries such as Denmark and the Netherlands fighting the thing alone unless we can help them.

[wildehunt]

I have yet to see the BinLaden/Zawahiri tape release being connected to this "spontaneous eruption." It's been the speculation that these missives have been used as signals in the past.

[LK44-40]

bump for brilliance!

[caveat emptor]

Supposedly Churchill said of the Germans, "The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet".

You'd likely get into trouble in England and Germany as well these days with such language.

[nomorelurker]

"unless we can help them" please not again.

[abner]

Denmark! Even if you were overcome with a sudden urge to burn the Danish flag, where do you get one in a hurry in Gaza? Well, OK, that's easy: the nearest European Union Humanitarian Aid and Intifada-Funding Branch Office. But where do you get one in an obscure town on the Punjabi plain on a Thursday afternoon? If I had a sudden yen to burn the Yemeni or Sudanese flag on my village green, I haven't a clue how I'd get hold of one in this part of New Hampshire.

Mark Steyn may read FR...

[IronJack]

I'm tellin' ya ... this franchise is an idea whose time has come ...

Make a package deal: three of the most widely burned flags (choose from England, America, Israel, Germany, and France) and two others from our wide selection, plus a half-pint of lighter fluid and a Bic for $49.95. Act now and receive a free tube of Bactine in case you burn yourself!