I certainly won’t say that Molly Norris should have censored herself (especially considering the dweeby innocuousness of her own cartoon), and that she needed to placate the world’s fundamentalist freaks. That just lends ammo those who think honoring other religions’ points of etiquette is the same as mailing plutonium to bin Laden.
No, this is more a case where someone should have intelligently picked her battles and waged a propaganda war more wisely. In America, yes, we have a right to draw pictures of Mohammed… but MUST we? If drawing a picture of the prophet could retroactively prevent the twin towers from falling or lay waste to al Queda from top to bottom, I’d be at the kitchen table, day and night, with my notepad and Sharpies. As it stands, drawing, and putting out a call to draw Islam’s founder, is about as intelligent and effective in the battle against terror as giving the finger to Muslims worldwide.
Here’s the main problem with First Amendment shouters who demand the “right” to draw Mohammed. Say there’s a fellow on your block who’s a real bad seed—nasty, violent, and dangerous as all get out. You want to stop this guy’s reign of obnoxiousness, so what do you do? Right. You find a picture of his beloved grandmother, transfer it to a t-shirt above the words, “FILTHY GODDAMNED WHORE,” put it on, and march over to his house and cockily parade out front. Ha ha! Satire!
After making a few circuits, it becomes apparent that the surrounding homes are occupied by the rest of his family. Real salt of the earth types who’ve disavowed their ne’erdowell relation, but nevertheless love their grammy dearly. Consequently, as they sulkily stand on their porches and watch you march, you suspect they’re not happy with you at all. In your freedom blow-striking you’ve managed to alienate much of the neighborhood.
Oops.
But hey, you sure got under that guy’s skin. So much so, he’s coming over to your house tonight with a shotgun. He’s absolutely wrong to do so, but as the shotgun’s buckshot and gases expand your skull to twice its normal size, at least you can take heart in knowing you did the right thing. Which was to… Uh… Wait, it will come to me.
And that’s the dividing line between striking a blow for freedom, and simply being a impolite and delusional doofus.
