Even Bill O’Reilly was victim-blaming the organizers of the cartoon contest in Texas yesterday. His argument was that the contest wasn’t going to achieve anything anyway. I’m not even remotely understanding this logic. Since when is it OK to open fire at underachievers?
I don’t care what their politics are – these Garland people are heroes. While everybody just yes-butted the victims of the Charlie Hebdo massacre and moved on, they are making efforts to prevent these deaths from being in vain. And that is beautiful.
Clarissa's Blog 
With all due respect ma’am, the organisers of the event are the same sorts who were putting anti Muslim ads on New York city buses and their leader supported Brievik. At least they gunned down the shooters, but I don’t like this group or tho leader Pamela Gellar. She’s the sort who thinks all Muslims are evil, the enemy of my enemy isn’t necessarily a friend.
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What a pity people with strong progressive credentials aren’t organizing anything like this. They are probably having too much fun pitying the poor murderers of the cartoonists. Or maybe they are just scared.
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Why is it that the first thing I’d want to enter in such a competition is a rendering of Muhammad whipping out his “priapic erasing wand” so he can erase a heretical cartoon featuring Jesus in a compromising position?
[go ahead, laugh, you know you want to] 🙂
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People who don’t laugh at the priapic wand are probably dead.
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My honest first reaction when I heard of the shooting was an eye roll, “Again? Of course. Why didn’t they have better armed security? This is Texas.”
I didn’t feel this way about Charlie Hebdo, or Salman Rushdie for example. I wondered why this was so.
Then I realized that this is the perfect opportunity for fundamentalist monotheists to feel aggrieved and victimized. It justifies their persecution complex. The people inside get to feel martyred without actually being martyred. The attackers get to feel like heroes in some small potatoes jihad. ISIS couldn’t resist taking credit.
It’s notable that the local Muslim community elected to ignore the exhibit entirely, because it’s pure trolling.
Those people at the Garland exhibit are trolls, not heroes. I say this because they demonstrably would not stand for my First Amendment rights of speech, religion or assembly. I do not believe an event sponsored by a woman who throws hysterics over the existence of a peaceful mosque and runs a group designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center gives a damn about the First Amendment in any form.
There are no First Amendment heroes here, save for the two security guards and the traffic officer. They are the only people I would applaud.
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I don’t want this to drown in personalities. The woman might be anything and nothing. But the event itself is absolutely crucial.
What a shame that liberal journalists haven’t managed to get off their asses to do something like this.
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You’re absolutely right, Clarissa. This isn’t about Pam Geller at all — just like it wouldn’t be about the people in the so-called Westboro Baptist Church if some offended person tried to murder them.
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“My honest first reaction when I heard of the shooting was an eye roll, “Again? Of course. Why didn’t they have better armed security? This is Texas.”
The attackers never made it inside the building where the event was taking place thanks to someone’s steady trigger finger. Sounds like Texas to me!
Had some idiot declared the area a gun-free zone they would have gotten inside and killed more people than themselves.
“the local Muslim community elected to ignore the exhibit entirely”
An entirely laudable position! Kudos to them!
Some form of non-violent demonstration (or an information booth outside) would also have been perfectly fine reactions.
And yes the issue is important. A crucial part of religious freedom is freedom from other people’s religious hang-ups that have no possible basis in any version of civil law.
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I am not a Christian, so I don’t think we ought to be nice to people who suck. Gellar, Debbie Schlussel and Ann Coulter deserve a good smack and I’d just laugh if someone did just that, same thing for anyone who is a real criminal. You can tell I was spanked as a kid, I don’t believe in turning the other cheek, I believe in kicking ass.
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I’m trying to avoid making this about any specific people. I’m just not very interested in personalities. Principles and ideas are more of my thing.
Please accept my deepest compassion for the abuse you suffered as a child!
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Thank you, ma’am. That’s why I don’t want kids, I’ll mess them up too.
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A couple of people did try to smack GellEr (note the correct spelling), and they got exactly what they deserved under the specific circumstances — shot dead. Are you laughing about that?
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I meant figuratively, people like that just want to annoy folks and don’t do anything constructive. It’s one thing to point out the worst aspects of Islam, it’s another to just be a troll.
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“they got exactly what they deserved under the specific circumstances — shot dead. Are you laughing about that?”
Not addressed to me, but what the hell…. I’m glad they were killed before they could fulfill their murderous desires.
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People who pick up weapons and start shooting have nothing else to expect.
The terrorists could not have possibly expected to survive.
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“… Ann Coulter [deserves] a good smack …”
Careful, you’ll feed some neo-conservative’s fantasies that way. 🙂
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