Last July 4th I wrote a piece defending our Founding Fathers against the accusation of being equivalent to Terrorists. In it, I pointed out that to call American Patriots terrorists was to sabotage the meaning of the word “terrorism.” It might be semantically possible, but it is spin doctoring at its worse.
Now, I would like to point out a similar dilution of language around what have been called “protests” by Muslim fanatics who are burning Italian embassies for Mohammed cartoons about that were published in Denmark. To call these acts “protests” is both to dignify them beyond their due, and to cast a pall on the
great tradition of social protest. These acts of vandalism and destruction are not organized attempts to raise the consciousness of a culture, but pointless and chaotic expressions of hate, fear, and frustration.
I can hear the liberal revisionists screaming at me even now – who am I to determine what is or is not a legitimate protest? Didn’t our Founding Fathers destroy property and kill to communicate their sense of injustice? Aren’t these protests the equivalent of our own revolutionary beginnings?
Perhaps I am old fashioned, but I suggest that rebelling against your government for political freedom is fundamentally different than mindless vandalism against innocents out of a desire to control the world. American Patriots were not rebelling against the British to force the British to believe their beliefs but fighting so that each person could have their own. They were not offering million dollar rewards to quell the speech of (murder) the cartoonists that dared to disagree with them, but fighting for the freedom of speech for all.
To highlight the difference between considered social protest to further the rights of all and mindless rioting against innocents to silence the rights of others, I suggest we spin the language to its limits and elevate these “protests” to the status of rebellion – The Cartoon Rebellions. It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Only these aren’t rebels without a cause, only rebels without a clue.
The Cartoon Rebellions – a world-wide swath of destruction so absurd that we would think it was a bad comic strip. Cartoons causing people to act like cartoons, while cartoon apologists strive to find politically correct ways to appease the rioters. An elaborate joke that would be hilarious if it were not so tragic, unbelievable if it were not so real.
February 18th, 2006 | International Politics, Jihad Watch, Liberty, Politics