Thursday, May 28, 2015

Muhammad Cartoons on Buses

Pamela Geller is the head of an anti-Islamic group called the American Freedom Defense Initiative. I was familiar with Geller from Right Wing Watch but she got a lot of free publicity when two Islamic sympathizers tried to crash her contest in Texas about drawing cartoons of the prophet Muhammad and got themselves killed.

Geller is loony tunes and utterly delusional with respect to Islam. She has no idea what Sharia Law actually is but is convinced it's somehow taking over here in the states. She's a nut that trivializes real issues and deserves to be ignored.

Unfortunately the incident in Texas has gotten her attention that she doesn't deserve.

Her latest idea is to publish the winning cartoon on buses in Washington DC claiming it's free speech.

Now, I published a few of the Danish cartoons that caused all that trouble and proudly proclaimed Je Suis Charlie as well so I'm not one that's been terribly careful about upsetting Muslim sensibilities.

But Geller isn't in the publishing or satire business and this idea strikes me as having the sole purpose of insulting Muslims and attempting to incite a reaction.

Fighting Words, speech or print intended to invoke hatred or violence are NOT covered by the 1st Amendment guarantee of free speech and this idea strikes me as being perilously close to Fighting Words if it's not over the line.

No comments: