Texas mayor speaks out against Pamela Gellar for provoking attack, Gellar of course claims it was not her fault.

Garland Mayor Douglas Athas

Courtesy of the Dallas News:  

Garland Mayor Douglas Athas, like many in his city, said he wished AFDI president Pamela Geller hadn’t picked Garland as the site for Sunday’s event. 

“Certainly in hindsight, we as a community would be better off if she hadn’t,” Athas said Tuesday. “Her actions put my police officers, my citizens and others at risk. Her program invited an incendiary reaction. She picked my community, which does not support in any shape, passion or form, her ideology. 

“But at the end of the day, we did our jobs,” he said. “We protected her freedoms and her life.”

One can only imagine this poor guy's frustration. 

One day he's worried about keeping the trash picked up off the streets, and dealing with petty crime crime, and the next his officers are warding off an attack from assailants aligned with a dangerous terrorist group.

But hey, it's not Pamela Gellar's fault. As she explains here courtesy of Time Magazine:  

So, why are some people blaming me? They’re saying: “Well, she provoked them! She got what she deserved!” They don’t remember, or care to remember, that as the jihadis were killing the Muhammad cartoonists in Paris, their friend and accomplice was murdering Jews in a nearby kosher supermarket. Were the Jews asking for it? Did they “bait” the jihadis? Were they “provoking” them? 

Are the Jews responsible for the Nazis? Are the Christians in the Middle East responsible for being persecuted by Muslims? 

Drawing Muhammad offends Islamic jihadists? So does being Jewish. How much accommodation of any kind should we give to murderous savagery? To kowtow to violent intimidation will only encourage more of it. 

This is a war.

Actually it's not war. It's random, often unrelated, acts of terrorism that will surely increase if people go out of their way to provoke a certain element in the Muslim community.

Now I support free speech as much as anybody, actually more than some. But what Gellar did was not in the name of free speech, what she did was to attempt to agitate a certain segment of the community so that she could prove to people that she was correct in writing terrible things about them.

Were they wrong to attack the AFDI? Yes, of course.

Was Gellar and her group wrong to place the lives of police officers at risk in order to play the victim, and garner support? Yes, of course.

You know it's kind of like the riots in Baltimore.

We all condemn the burning of police cars, and property damage, but we also have to realize that there were factors which inspired that response.

Are we at war with black people in Baltimore as well?

There is no defense for the atrocities perpetrated by terrorists happening around the world, however we can do much to demonstrate that America is a place where people of all ethnic and religious backgrounds can live in harmony.

A huge part of that might be to stop attacking Muslim countries and killing their people, and to stop our police from shooting black people in the back or severing their spinal cords.

Just a thought.

P.S. Just a note in case I did not make myself clear. Killing people because they draw a picture of your prophet is never a reasonable response. My point was that if we were not also raining down death on innocent Muslims from the skies in Pakistan and other places, perhaps there would be fewer folks willing to kill over a cartoon.

Anti-Muslim blogger Pamela Geller holds a "Draw Mohammad" contest and surprise, surprise, there's a shooting. Update!

Courtesy of The Guardian: 

Two gunmen have been killed and a security guard injured during what appears to be an attack on a contest for cartoon depictions of the prophet Muhammad in a Dallas suburb. 

The gunmen drove up to the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland shortly before 7pm on Sunday where the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) were hosting the exhibition and contest. 

According to city authorities an unarmed guard at the event was shot at before the men were engaged and killed by police. 

Authorities immediately locked down the center, evacuating the 200 participants at the event and sealing off large areas including a nearby shopping mall. 

A bomb squad was called in after reports of a possible incendiary device at the scene of the incident. Police said a “bomb container trailer” had also been deployed in which to place any suspect device. 

A police spokesman said two males had been killed and their bodies were still lying outside their car hours later.

There is still an ongoing investigation and I am sure more information will be available later. 

However what we do know is that this incident could not have worked out better for event organizer Pamela Geller.

This from Raw Story: 

“The idea we are going to bridge our freedom, our most basic inalienable right, in order to not offend savages is egregious,” Geller said. “It is outrageous. This is a war and the war is here.” 

“There’s an enemy among us,” she said. “They need to crush our freedoms, our emotions — basic freedoms. They handled this situation brilliantly.” 

Geller said about 300 attendees sang the “Star-Spangled Banner” and “God Bless America” as they were evacuated to a safe room after a suspicious backpack was found. 

“They understand the fight,” she said. “We need to stand up for freedom of speech. The idea that a cartoon, a funny cartoon – by the way, we had held the contest – the Muhammad contest. It was won by a former Muslim, that that cartoon would compel devout followers to slaughter is outrageous. It is unspeakable. It is monstrous.” 

Geller disagreed that she or her organization are controversial. “A free speech conference is not controversial,” she said. 

“Shooting people is controversial. There is a moral inversion. There’s a problem here. The American people need to stand up for the basic founding principle. The principle — it’s offensive speech, it’s the First Amendment. It’s not the Eighth or Tenth, it’s the First Amendment. Who will decide who is good or what is forbidden? The Islamic State? Muslim groups?”

Actually Geller and her group are incredibly controversial, and it could be argued that they purposefully antagonize the Muslim community in the hopes of having incidents like this occur.

Courtesy of the New York Daily News: 

She calls herself an advocate for those who have been victimized by religious extremists, but critics say that Pamela Geller and her controversial anti-Islamic groups are as hateful and extreme as those she seeks to condemn. 

And this courtesy of SPLC:

Pamela Geller is the anti-Muslim movement's most visible and flamboyant figurehead. She's relentlessly shrill and coarse in her broad-brush denunciations of Islam and makes preposterous claims, such as that President Obama is the "love child" of Malcolm X. She makes no pretense of being learned in Islamic studies, leaving the argumentative heavy lifting to her Stop Islamization of America partner Robert Spencer. Geller has mingled comfortably with European racists and fascists, spoken favorably of South African racists, defended Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic and denied the existence of Serbian concentration camps. She has taken a strong pro-Israel stance to the point of being sharply critical of Jewish liberals.

Though many have now forgotten Geller and her shadowy groups were also behind the creation of the poorly made film "Innocence of Muslims" that was either the cause, or the excuse, for the killings at Benghazi which the conservatives have been trying to blame on President Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Yeah Geller is certainly a nasty piece of work.

However that is no excuse for what happened here.

Killing people for disrespecting your religion, or for daring to draw a caricature of your prophet, does nothing but demonstrate an underlying insecurity ingrained within your belief system and a defensiveness that only serves to make your entire religion seem crazy.

And yes, I know all too well that hundreds of years ago Christianity was even more aggressive toward its detractors and that the rivers ran red with the blood of atheists, intellectuals, and those embracing other religions.

Update: You knew it was coming, Rush Limbaugh blames the  shooting on President Obama.

This week's cover for Charlie Hebdo. Clearly not cowering in fear.

Courtesy of HuffPo:

Charlie Hebdo revealed their cover image for this week's issue, printed just days after two gunmen opened fire on the newspaper's Paris office, killing 12 people. Four of the Charlie's cartoonists were killed in the attack. 

The cover shows the Prophet Muhammad holding a "Je Suis Charlie" sign with the caption, "All is forgiven."

There will be over a million copies printed whereas usually the paper only prints 60,000.

You know because terrorism works so well.

More than 40 leaders attend mass demonstration against terrorism in Paris, France.

Courtesy of Salon:

 Leaders from across the world, including some countries with less-than-stellar freedom of expression records, linked arms and headed up a massive unity rally through the streets of Paris on Sunday to pay tribute to the 17 people killed in France by Islamist terrorist this past week. More than 1 million are expected to take part in what could very well be the largest march through the streets of Paris in modern times, notes Reuters.

 Maybe we have finally had enough of being bullied and are ready to treat Islam like every other stupid and unnecessary religious faith despite their immature tantrum throwing and threats to murder or maim those who dare to do so.

By the way here is the cartoon that is credited with inspiring the attack on Charlie Hebdo.

Here it is translated.

In other words it is suggesting that if Mohammad were to return today he would not understand the actions of his followers, and they would be unable, and unwilling, to accept him as he is rather than how they imagine him to be.

Isn't that provocative?

I think this image should be shared far and wide simply as an act of defiance in the face of terrorism, and out of respect for those who would not be silenced.

Last night's New Rules referenced not only the Alaska reporter who quit to fight for the legalization of pot, but also our very own quitter-in-chief.

I was happy to see that Maher covered Charlo Greene's dramatic exit, and therefore Alaska's efforts to legalize marijuana, but somewhat less than happy to see him use Palin to suggest that we are all just a bunch of quitters.

The hell we are! We are a dogged and determined bunch as will be more than obvious in the weeks to come.

By the way I could not find the entire New Rules segement on one YouTube video, so here is part two. It doesn't take a shot at Palin, but it is still pretty good.