Those People

All day today, I had the pleasure of listening to caller after caller on talk radio programs belching the same inane point,‘How irresponsible of the Dutch to run those cartoons when they knew how the Muslims would react?’
First, I have to wonder where these same mental giants were when The New York Times was chasing records with its coverage of the Abu Ghraib debacle. Or its stories on the flushing of the Koran in Guantanamo.
But my main point is one I hit on in my last post. And it is the ‘those people’ mentality.
‘That’s just what ‘those people’ do.’ ‘Why would you upset ‘those people’?’ ‘Those people’ get very angry when you insult their prophet.’ ‘America’s policies in the Middle East are the cause of ‘those people’s’ simmering anger.’
Why is it, I wonder, we hold the worldwide Muslim community to such low standards? And by ‘we’, of course, I refer to bleeding hearts and liberals. Are our Islamic brethren seen as less civilized to those on the Left? As a lower life form? As children unable to control their most base of emotions? It sure seems that way.
There is an old saying that seems lost to the modern mind on so many issues and it is this: If one reinforces bad behavior, one gets more of it.
By making excuses for and cow toeing to the sorrowful actions of the militant Islamo-fascists we do ourselves no favors. Each time we appease the anger and violence perpetrated by these thugs we are assuring ourselves more of that behavior in the future.
When the world press is intimidated into purposefully ignoring conflicting ideas and stories in fear of Muslim reaction, there is truly no more free press. Is that where we are headed? To a world where Muslims can act as they please through threat of retaliation? Through fear of resulting violence?
Whether one feels it was socially irresponsible for the Danish press to run those pictures or not is no longer the issue. Simply, if one believes in the freedom of press, it was well within their right to do so. Odd still, how the American press whose self love is ever evident has been so hesitant to do so. It surely shows a great lack of testicular fortitude and reminds one of deals made with Saddam Hussein in pre-war Baghdad. Their silence is deafening.
It is painfully obvious at this point in time that our great American press has already ceded control of their hallowed pages to the likes of Hamas and Al Qaeda. To the anger, the brutality, the threats of radical Islam. To the intimidation of rioting mad men. And yes, to the whims of ‘those people’.