Muhammad is not a Swastika

Demonize and marginalize? No. Criticize? Yes. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It is critical of Islamic law, not Muslims on a personal level. That’s a big difference from screaming “fag” at people, or drawing a symbol that conjures images of mass murder. Drawing Muhammad in defiance of the wishes of Muslims and Islamic law simply says “your ideas are just as open to scrutiny as any others.”

It seems to me that the Muslim student associations have exactly the same right to express their outrage at the drawings as the “secular” students have to make the drawings.

So, how does it end? When is the point proven?

@fea24,

“It seems to me that the Muslim student associations have exactly the same right to express their outrage at the drawings as the “secular” students have to make the drawings.

So, how does it end? When is the point proven?”

It ends when they agree to abide by the rules that the rest of the civilized world lives by.
It ends when their “moderate Muslim” voices are heard just as loudly and indignantly as their non-Muslim neighbors every time an ugly threat is issued by a Muslim.
The ball is in their court. They have chosen to let it sit there on the ground. They need to take positive action and engage the civilized world in a MEANINGFUL way. Defensive posturing, threats, excuses and whining about non-existent oppression is not meaningful dialogue.
They need to accept responsibility. Then it can end.

It’s interesting to remember that the swastika was an ancient Hindu symbol of good fortune and that its use in art predates Nazi Germany by many many centuries. I’ve never heard of Jews becoming incensed over the use of swastika in ancient Hindu art (or, over the fact that a Jewish character in Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby runs a business called IIRC the “Happy Swastika Company”), because they aren’t against the symbol, but against a message it conveys. One key difference here is that those against drawing Mohammed really are objecting to a symbol rather than a message. As long as that remains the case, I’ll have absolutely no respect for their position and absolutely no interest in accommodating it.

@Miko

Throwing “Godwin” into the discussion does nothing to refute my argument. I found the comparison convenient, but I could just as easily have substituted Stalinists or some other authoritarian/totalitarian group.
Yes, many of the German people were victims. Many of the German people were also Nazis and victimizers. I distinguish between the two and I celebrate every time one of them is found out and punished, even 50 years after the end of the war.

@SteveC,
You make a valid point. It is Islam, after all, that is making outrageous claims for itself.

The drawings, he said, disrespect the person Muslims consider the holiest and detract from his message

This is just doublespeak here. They are doing what they are trying not to do by making Muhammad some taboo figure, thus making him out to be a god that they don’t want him to be. You can’t have both! If it were just:

It is against our religious beliefs to draw the holiest prophet, Muhammad, but we won’t try to censor you, threaten you, kill you, or have a price put out on your head.

and leave it at that, then there wouldn’t be an issue! Hardly nobody would even try to draw Muhammad because it won’t sting as much. If only those who are offended would realize that there are other religious viewpoints and grow a spine, then the world would be a slightly happier place.

I agree that it’s about the message, not the symbol. Two of the main characters on Mad Men (which takes place in the early 1960s) put on black face for a weird performance at a party, which is definitely seen from an audience perspective as racist and bizarre. The point of the actors wearing it wasn’t to promote bigotry or stereotypes – they were wearing it to show how obtuse and insensitive the upperclass was during that time period. The scene was powerful, successful, and cringeworthy – which is, I’m guessing, what the producers and writers intended.

Again, as others have pointed out, swastikas as older Hindu symbols don’t elicit the same response as swastikas in a white supremacy context.

The chalkings of Muhammad are absolutely not, by anyone’s standard, intended to denigrate the character or express hatred. If anyone meant to do that, they could include obscenities or disgusting imagery or whatever. The point is to show that what’s holy to some isn’t to – and shouldn’t be demanded from – others. I love what South Park did, because they poked fun (in a pretty caustic way) at a bunch of religious figures (and Aqua Man…er… Sea Man) and treated the character of Muhammad with *more* respect, not less. They just wanted to depict him, which anyone should have the right to do.

Rights stop being rights when they aren’t exercised, due to fear.

My view on this issue is that it depends upon the context.

If there were Muslims in the area of this chalking that provoked this demonstration of free speech (perhaps if there was a rally against a cartoonist or something), that would be one thing. But from what I’ve seen, the people behind this decided to demonstrate their right of free speech in this context not in any response to something that Muslims in this area did, but merely because there are Muslims there and the chalkers surmised that these drawings would anger those people (who the chalkers presumably believe need to be taught a lesson). That reeks of nothing but anti-Muslim bigtry.

The analogy with the use of the swastika, blackface, etc., are imprecise, but not out of bounds. Would you excuse someong chalking swastikas outside synagogues and performing in blackface outside the NAACP on the strength of their assertion that they were merely trying to assert the right to exercise their right to argue that the concepts of racial equality and non-discrimination “are just as open to scrutiny as any others” or if the message being sent is “We reclaim the right to say whatever we want, and we will not bow to threats!”?

It seems to me that even if making a point about the exercise of free speech was the motivation for the behavior, that would not excuse the behavior.

In this matter, if the Muslims who would be expected to see these chalk messages have not made threats and done nothing but be Muslims, then it would seem to me that the chalkers are drawing these figures in this place precisely in order to anger people who’ve done nothing to provoke it.

Nor is it a valid excuse to say that other Muslims in other places have reacted poorly to these drawings. That is true. But the fact that was done by other people who happen to share religious beliefs with the people who the chalkers could reasonably suspect of seeing the chalk drawings and being angered by them is rather bigotted. Would it be appropriate to angrily picket a Jewish Community Center in Florida to protest the actions of the Israeli government simply because they share the same religion as the Israelis? No. And the same here.

(General disclaimer to hopefully eliminate nonsensical responses: For the record, I abhor the response of the Muslim community to the cartoons; support everyone’s right to speech in this issue; am and athiest and not a Muslim; etc., etc., etc.)

What the Muslims need to understand is that if they didn’t flip out, make death threats and actually kill people, nobody would feel the need to do this.

I had a discussion with a friend last night about this, and her response that as human beings we shouldn’t aim to just piss people off. I agree for the most part. I don’t go out into the world with the goal to offend people. But at the same time, I retain the right to do so. I don’t enjoy offending Muslims for the sake of offending them. I really just wish they’d take a pill so we could move past this foolishness. But until they stop making threats, I am going to continue offending them. This is the point where I depart with the Canadian Liberal Party – I do not believe in government censorship aside from censoring incitement of violence (like the Muslims in this case…)

Here’s the difference between the Swastika and Muhammad. People DIED under the image of the Swastika. 6 MILLION people DIED under the image of the Swastika. Think about that. Can you conjure up an image of 6 million people? Unlikely.

That image is loaded with their deaths. THAT is why drawing the Swastika on a synagogue is offensive and wrong. BUT the only crime in that case is vandalism, and perhaps hate speech. I’m sorry, I am not willing to equate the deaths of 6 million men, women and children in the most horrific ways to the drawing of a prophet, no matter how much respect his followers. And claiming that they are somehow equal is akin to spitting on the graves of those 6 million people who died under the Swastika.

[For the record, I’m not Jewish but took a course in undergrad, the Holoucast in History, and that course haunts me.]

Islam is idiotic. Period. Same for the other religions. (if you disagree, explain how it isn’t idiotic. I think you’ll have a tough time not looking like an idiot if you attempt this.)

I disagree.

I think that the phrase “Islam is idiotic” implies that only an idiot would hold such a belief, which is plainly untrue.

In my opinion, it is this kind of simple-minded tribalism which is the root cause of most of humanities woes, not religion itself. And whilst you can congratulate yourself on not being so stupid as to fall for that religious nonsense, you are the same as those “idiots” in many more ways than you may care to realise.

I do not see how Mohammed to be any more holy or more taboo than the eucharist. Or has that incident been forgotten outside the atheist community?

And what is wrong with the swastika?
It is a sign of peace.
Unless you are a white anglo-saxon protestant asshole euro-centric bigot who can’t see beyond his own prejudice.
Or are you a bigoted asshole xtian who only sees satanism in the pentagram??
Let’s get over our selves!!!
Various symbols not only have various meanings they really have no meaning except WHAT THE VIEWER PUTS INTO THEM!
If you see someone with dyed blond hair, military uniform, and a swastika arm band walking down the street, do you start shooting because he is a supporter of a dead nut-job or do you ask him where the Sound of Music is being played????
If you see black-face? Is that an insult to blacks or someone playing Al Jolson in a play???
Before any judgment is made throw off your own bigotry and get the facts 1st!!!

About muhammad? They said..The drawings disrespect the person Muslims consider the holiest and detract from his message. What message is that…fuck 9yr-olds, hate women, and everyone else in the world as well??? Some message. And it aintmuch different then the xtian one either.

If muhammad, g0d, allah, jepus, and anyone else in the afterlife doesn’t like what is being done … then THEY can come down here and make me stop, they don’t need YOU to do it for them!!!! Or are they so terribly inferior that they can’t do anything? Most imaginary creations are not all that powerful.

So glad the self-appointed “politeness police” have stepped in to clean things up in this thread.

Guy G,

However, I still think that if you tell someone that their beliefs and the way they live their life is idiotic, it’s pretty much tantamount to calling them an idiot (and it’s certainly not a compliment to their intellect).

This is quite an egregious failure at comprehending the language used. It would be understandable if you weren’t a native speaker. It’s simple really, depending on context the word idiot isn’t even refering to intelligence, and even when it is, it doesn’t necessarily refer to the intelligence of the person it is being applied to, but that they are behaving as if they were an idiot. It’s quite absurd that someone would take the phrase “you’re being an idiot” literally.

I’ve seen too many message-board atheists proclaim intellectual superiority over religious people, and from my experience, that’s doesn’t reflect the reality.

It could be that you’re misinterpeting many people in the same way. In my experience, when talking on the subject of religion, atheists are intellectually superior. Apologetics tend to be idiotic, that doesn’t mean that those who create or repeat arguments for gods are all idiots. When people respond that an apologetic is idiotic, they don’t mean that the person using it is an idiot.

Woody Tanaka said:

From what I’ve seen, the people behind this decided to demonstrate their right of free speech in this context not in any response to something that Muslims in this area did, but merely because there are Muslims there and the chalkers surmised that these drawings would anger those people (who the chalkers presumably believe need to be taught a lesson). That reeks of nothing but anti-Muslim bigotry.

I think you have a very strange definition of bigotry if it involves not feeling intimidated into following the dictates of a faith you don’t accept as your own.

There’s also the fact that the chalkers asked for the input of the Muslim students before doing it, and stressed their intentions were to express their free speech. But if you want to paint that as bigoted, go ahead; it’s just not any formulation of the word I’ve ever seen used before.

JulietEcho wrote:

Two of the main characters on Mad Men (which takes place in the early 1960s) put on black face for a weird performance at a party, which is definitely seen from an audience perspective as racist and bizarre. The point of the actors wearing it wasn’t to promote bigotry or stereotypes – they were wearing it to show how obtuse and insensitive the upperclass was during that time period. The scene was powerful, successful, and cringeworthy – which is, I’m guessing, what the producers and writers intended.

Indeed. A similar example is Robert Downey Jr. in “Tropic Thunder”. And yet, I read some online comments from African Americans who basically said ‘it doesn’t matter what the context is, the appearance of blackface is ALWAYS offensive’

Which is how Oprah feels about the ‘n’ word.

Will the free speech cloak protect you from social outrage if you went to a party dressed in blackface? If you chalked a swastika on the sidewalk leading to the campus Hillel? If you stood on the college quad and chanted “fag” at every male with blow dried hair who walks by? If you applauded as champions of free speech the handful of Palestinian kids horrifically dancing in the streets after 9/11?
The key issue here isn’t free speech – it’s actions that intentionally and effectively marginalize a community.

The answer to Eboo Patel’s question is yes.
In the examples given, I believe that the actors, not their targets would be the marginalized. And that’s OK, because they’re assholes. The students who chalked Muhammad on the sidewalk were trying to marginalize the assholes, like Eboo Patel, who cannot or will not realize that it’s a big world with lots of people who have lots of different ideas, and that that’s great.

I think you’re quite a long way from showing us that “the motivation for taking the action in the area and manner that it was taken was on account of the presence of the first group and the desire to cause that distress.”

Also, are you implying that this would not be bigotry if the Muslim students weren’t there? Would it be bigotry if the students were Muslim extremists?

Great post, I think this is exactly the correct response to Patel’s argument. He rightfully makes the point that intentions and effects matter, but in order to demonize drawing stick figures of Muhammad in the way he wants to, he has to equate the intentions and effects of drawing stick figures of Muhammad with displaying swastikas and “God hates fags” signs. This comparison is unconvincing, to say the least, especially considering that the Muhammad-drawers have been quite clear that their intentions are not to make a statement about Muslims, but to stand up to death threats and ensure that extremists don’t ever gain the power to quell free speech through fear.

These drawings do have the unintended affect of upsetting Muslims, but they do not have the effect of demonizing them or provoking hatred or distrust toward them, and they do have the much-needed effect of spreading the potential targets of death threats, as Hirsi Ali pointed out.

@MikeTheInfidel:
“I think you’re quite a long way from showing us that ‘the motivation for taking the action in the area and manner that it was taken was on account of the presence of the first group and the desire to cause that distress.'”

I think that at a minimum, the fact that in one case the chalkers specifically emailed with the Muslim group ahead of time is sufficient evidence of the desire to cause the distress. (Perhaps if “desire to cause that distress” is problematic for you, then “gross disregard for whether the action causes distress to that first group” would suffice.)

Anyway, without there being someone there to get distressed the whole passive-aggressive act, there is no point to it. The chalkers may think that the Muslims shouldn’t feel distress over this, but they do and the chalkers know they do and are counting on it, because without the act causing the offense, they wouldn’t get to do their first-amendment-chalk-warrior self-aggrandizement schtick.

They didn’t do this in the privacy in their dorm rooms or on web pages that people don’t just stumble across. They do it in publicly accessible areas where they knew that Muslim — the people who the chalkers just have to teach a lesson about the proper way of thinking — would come across the pictures.

All these things scream intent to me.

“Also, are you implying that this would not be bigotry if the Muslim students weren’t there?”

No, I’m not implying that. Obviously, it could still be motivated by bigotry, but the dynamic would be different.

“Would it be bigotry if the students were Muslim extremists?”

It wouldn’t be bigotry if there were people at that school who were threatening cartoonists and stuff like that. It that situation, you are making a legitimate protest at a legitimate place, even if someone is offended. But doing this protest where you know that you are causing distress to people who’ve done nothing wrong, simply because they are close by and are the same religion as some person in Peshawar or wherever who is doing something wrong, is bigotry in my opinion.

Y’know Mr Patel uses all the classic arguments against free-speech, but being offended isn’t a good reason to censor anyone. Most of the time protecting freespeech and freedom of expression really means defending racist/bigotted assholes. As much as some racial slurs offend me, people have every right to use them. Its an all or nothing deal.

Woody Tanaka,

I think that at a minimum, the fact that in one case the chalkers specifically emailed with the Muslim group ahead of time is sufficient evidence of the desire to cause the distress.

To warn Muslims that this protest was “not intended to mock, intimidate, or harass anyone” and to explain what it was for i.e. freedom of speech. That you have decided to interpret the meaning of the email as the exact opposite of the content doesn’t surprise me.

Anyway, without there being someone there to get distressed the whole passive-aggressive act, there is no point to it.

The whole point is to break rules others wish to impose on us. If the rule makers get distressed that’s their problem, and not the point. You have missed the point, this is unsurprising.

They didn’t do this in the privacy in their dorm rooms or on web pages that people don’t just stumble across.

I don’t think you have quite grasped the concept of protesting.

They do it in publicly accessible areas where they knew that Muslim — the people who the chalkers just have to teach a lesson about the proper way of thinking — would come across the pictures.

That’s a wild accusation backed up by zero evidence and no rational argument. I’m sure it would offend and distress some people, not that you give a shit. Bigot.

This is Muhammad: O>-<

<blockquote cite=
I would disagree. If the Muslims on these campuses have done nothing wrong (and I’ve seen nothing to indicate that they’ve done anything wrong) then lumping them together with people who are making death threats, calling them idiotic or whatever,…

They’ve done nothing wrong, and nobody is claiming they have. Nobody is lumping them together with anyone, and nobody is calling them idiotic (or whatever). In fact, the organization that made the drawings bent over backwards to make it clear that they weren’t doing any of those things.

<blockquote cite=
…for no other reason than they predictably take offense when deliberately provoked and are the same religion as those who have committed outrageous acts

*This is not the reason the drawings were made.* How many times do people have to say this? They were made to show the extremists that their fear tactics won’t work as a means to control the thoughts and actions of others. The only way to effectively make this point is to do it in a very public way, so it’s unavoidable that some local Muslims would happen to stumble upon the drawings. It’s too bad that they were offended, just like it’s too bad a if republican is offended by Obama bumper stickers. In both cases, the one expressing his views isn’t obliged, ethically or legally, to stifle himself just because someone else happens to be offended by it. If he’s doing it to anger people, then he’s an ass, but in neither case is that the intent.

Your argument seems to hinge on the fact that the intent was to harass local Muslims, despite the fact that everyone supporting the drawing has explicitly stated that this isn’t so, and has given good reasons for the drawings that have nothing to do with harassing local Muslims. If you completely ignore what people actually say and do, you can absolutely convince yourself that they’re malicious and out to oppress the local minority, but you’re unlikely to have a decent grasp of the facts at hand.

It’s simple really, depending on context the word idiot isn’t even refering to intelligence, and even when it is, it doesn’t necessarily refer to the intelligence of the person it is being applied to, but that they are behaving as if they were an idiot.

Right, I agree. It depends on the context. In my view, the tone and context of the post implied this. In “Islam is idiotic. Period.”, the “Period” implied a large amount of arrogance. An “I’m right, and there’s no more discussion on the matter” attitude. Maybe that wasn’t how it was intended, which is why I said:

Maybe that wasn’t the original poster’s intent, but it came across that way to me.

Plus, as someone who enjoys arguments, this:

(if you disagree, explain how it isn’t idiotic. I think you’ll have a tough time not looking like an idiot if you attempt this.)

was like a red rag to a bull to me, particularly since it was the black & white nature of the statement which I disagreed with. Arguing for more subtlety on the internet is quite a challenge.
And finally:

So glad the self-appointed “politeness police” have stepped in to clean things up in this thread.

Fuck you, I’m not the politeness police 😉 I don’t care one way or the other about politeness (on the internet, anyway). I actually think that it’s incorrect, (or at least a gross simplification) to call Islam idiotic. I’m more than happy to say that *fundamentalists* of any religion are idiotic. In fact: fundamentalists of any religion are idiotic. However, it’s my view that “Islam” (replace with any religion you feel like) is a concept which applies to more than the fundamentalist concerns. It’s something malleable, which can be interpreted differently for different people, many of whom are highly intelligent (and many of whom are not). Are some of the core tenets illogical (given the sum of human knowledge/state of society today)? Undoubtedly. Does that make the whole thing idiotic? Of course not.

Fundamentalism is a problem (IMO) because it is a particularly nasty manifestation of tribalism. “Us vs them” is a key concept of fundamentalist religion. I think that with the rise of the internet, there has been an increase in the amount of atheistic tribalism. I think this is a bad thing. Just because you disagree with a belief in gods does not mean that the other point of view is idiotic. One of the reasons I particularly like this site is that it tends to try and be inclusive, rather than divisive.

“*This is not the reason the drawings were made.* How many times do people have to say this? They were made to show the extremists that their fear tactics won’t work as a means to control the thoughts and actions of others.”

And if I told someone that by calling his mother is a pig-fucking whore, I’m really not out to cause him distress, but am merely making a point about the importance of the First Amendment, my opposition to the fighting words doctrine, and how the threat of violence should not cause us to self-censor, that person would rightly think I’m full of shit, even if this is exactly and precisely my subjective intent. Same here, because the outrage-causing actions are inflicted on these extremists you speak of, but on their fellow students who happen to be the same religion as these extremists.

“Your argument seems to hinge on the fact that the intent was to harass local Muslims”

As I’ve think I’ve made clear, I am willing to say that these chalkers demonstrated gross disregard for whether the action caused unwarranted distress to the local Muslims. And, further, that gross disregard was done because absent the offense and outrage, these campus crusaders couldn’t strut about pretending that they are chalk-dust clad defenders, protecting the matriculated against the onslaught of “theistic mind virus precepts” that they fear, notwithstanding the fact that none of the people that they are causing distress (either intentionally or with gross disregard for common decency) actually did anything wrong or are seeking to impose these “theistic mind virus precepts” on anybody.

When one says, “I am entitled to disregard whether you, my fellow human, are distressed by my actions because you belong to the same [racial, religious, ethnic, gender, whatever] demographic as someone who has acted in a way that would justify my actions” – which is precisely what the chalkers are doing here – that is bigotry and frank bullshit.

The Brits can no longer fly their flag from their home flag pole except on holidays. Know why? Because Muslims, and Indians felt it was an insult and harkened back to colonialism.

I’m genuinely interested in what makes you say this, because it’s pretty much at odds with my experience (of being a Brit).

Any negative association of flying the flag is generally seen as being the fault of racists such as the BNP who confuse “nationalism” with “getting rid of brown people”.

Having said that, I’ve never heard of anyone actually getting in any trouble for flying a Union Jack/St Georges Cross.

Guy: My friend Greg on Isle of Wight told me that hanging a flag out his window, or displaying the Union Jack on other than national holidays was made illegal… and for the reasons I stated. This was over five years ago. If no such statute exists, then he was mistaken, and was quite irate about it for no reason.

Interesting. Either:
* It’s true, but I’ve never heard of it (entirely possible)
* Your friend was mistaken (possible, since the right-wing press here often provokes outrage at such measures which often turn out not to be true anyway)

This:
http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=60265
would suggest that there’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s just a messageboard, so nothing too concrete either way.

Although it is from last year, I think you may find this book review useful. The author comes from a Muslim perspective and reviews her works. The link is here … it is good to hear other opinions and ideas.

http://loga-abdullah.blogspot.com/2008/11/defending-our-diin-ayaan-hirsi-ali.html

Hope you find it interesting.

“…your failure to accept the logic that a protest against a threat from a world wide entity that has threatened death all over the planet for not accepting their religious & cultural demands is not only appropriate, it’s the duty of freedom loving people.”

If you think that these childish pranks are capable of doing even slightest thing to actually affect the people who are making these threats then you are a fool. My issue isn’t that these kids are protesting, but how they’re protesting.

“Your fixation with one small college Muslim group and their having no direct involvement with promoting that threat thus renders the protest action on their campus … a protest against the greater evil not THEM per se … invalid or ‘bigoted’ is , well… short sighted at best, fucking moronic at worst.”

No, if I’m “fixated” on anything, it is on people who are being unfairly maligned by a group of passive-aggressive children, who are being purposefully hurtful in order to live out fantasies that they’re fighting some global boogie-man. Too much evil in the world stems from the facile notion that it is okay for someone to disregard another’s humanity because they’re pretending to fight “the greater evil.” That’s all that’s happening here.

These people not fighting the people who are making threats; they’re scribbling on the sidewalk. Which wouldn’t be a problem if they could do it without jettisoning the basic human decency that we all owe to our fellow humans. But the fact that they can’t — as they just don’t give a damn that they’re causing causing great distress to others for absolutely no purpose — is what makes them bigoted assholes.

“But I suspect you are too invested in and too embarrassed to reconsider your position.”

LOL. There’s the glow of your own awesomeness blinding you to reality again.

Woody Tanaka,

…maligned… …purposefully hurtful… …disregard another’s humanity… …bigoted assholes…

Last time I checked human decency included not lying about others. You’re the bigoted asshole around here. I’m not sure whether you’re delusional or just hateful, but you’re scum. I don’t know why you’re stubbornly and irrationally prejudiced against these people, and I don’t care. If you keep repeating these wild accusations without backing them up with any argument or evidence then we can assume you indeed are a troll.

Opinions aren’t lies.

When you accuse people of something, without evidence or reason, that’s you making shit up. That it’s your opinion doesn’t stop it from being a lie.

Apparently you do care, very much; if you didn’t you wouldn’t take the time to pen such an oh-so-impassioned little screed.

I care that you’re lying about people, but if you actually read the sentence then perhaps you’d be able to understand it. Although it seems like you don’t give a shit about the truth, you just make shit up and put words in peoples mouths, intentions in peoples minds. I’m not sure if this is an intelligence problem on your part, or you’re so delusional you ignored every word in that sentence apart from the last three. Although this fits the pattern of you acting like you have telepathic powers.

I’ve been quite clear about what my opinion is and why.

Bullshit. You didn’t even attempt to justify your accusations. It’s actually pretty hard to prove intention without getting a confession, that’s probably why you didn’t attempt to, you started with an accusation of intention, and plenty of circular reasoning later, you have convinced yourself into this delusion or you’re not sincere, just a troll.

To Hitch:
Kudos.

How about if the chalk drawings were of Mohammed using a menorah to set fire to a Bible?

I wanted to say that I do applaud the conversation, the fact that the situation has gone far enough to warrent this conversation is what I find offensive.