Blamblog - Brett Lamb's Blog

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Freedom of Screech

And all I said to Slater was, 'that piece of halibut was good enough for Zack'.

... And lo' and behold, the right-wing blog-mongers discovered freedom of speech.

Briefly, that is; just as long as it suited them. Just long enough to thumb their noses at all Muslims and not just the extremists whose reactions to the Danish editorial cartoons were predictably extreme (and, it turns out, fueled further by at least three cartoons not published in the papers but circulated when the original cartoons failed to make an impression). Obviously, those three were not included in the batch of cartoons reposted by right-leaning bloggers in a declaration of solidarity with the cartoonists.

But as we know, 'freedom of speech' is hardly a core value of the hard right and last week Tom Toles wasn't granted the same support as the Danish cartoonists. Criticism of his Donald Rumsfeld cartoon included implicit accusations of treason, typically in this manner:

... the Toles cartoon was so vicious, so tasteless, so intolerable, that a calm, objective and patriotic American could only be repulsed. Imagine: Toles depicted the likeness of a member of the United States Armed Services who had lost his arms and legs defending the Toles of the world from terrorists as the basis for a political assault ...

Imagine! Toles had the audacity to "depict the likeness" of a soldier who'd been wounded. Likeness of Mohammed, likeness of a soldier ... apparently, likenesses are a problem. Toles' cartoon was clearly drawn to show Rumsfeld's callousness but the right only accepted the narrow interpretation of it as an attack on injured soldiers. Was reaction to this particular cartoon, while not as loud, as irrational as reactions to the Danish cartoons? Or more?

Obviously, any row over religion is going to be soaked with hypocrisy and 'mutual ignorance'.

But locally, it was particularly amusing seeing Kathy Shaidle taking up the cause of free speech when she often bends over backwards to find offense every time a nun ( that is, likeness of a nun) wears a crop top. And while she doesn't burn any embassies in response, applying the most literal interpretations to define issues differs only in degree from those who have been rabidly criticised this week.

It was dragged down to the middle-school-level when David Warren emailed Shaidle, encouraging the faithful not to pre-complain about the show Will & Grace for scheduling Britney Spears to appear as a Christian fundamentalist cooking-show host in an upcoming episode:

My advice is: don't take action. Ignore the whole thing. Do not work to improve NBC's ratings, which will only encourage them to try it again.

And that's one to grow on!

Hey, it's the perfect non-reaction reaction. Normally they'd complain about such a thing; they shouldn't this time because then they'll just look like the Muslims! At least Muslim rioters managed to react only after they saw the offending cartoons. Until the Will & Grace episode airs, who even knows what to be offended by?

Some right-wing bloggers have been wondering why the "left" hasn't responded to the cartoon issue the way they have. Despite the declared intent, reposting the offensive cartoons on blogs took the form of a knee-jerk, online mob. Supporting freedom of expression through a consistent position accomplishes more than deepening an insult.

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