On Drawing Mohammed

So yesterday was Draw Mohammed Day. As always, the notion is patently offensive to Muslims everywhere, who threaten death to anyone who violates their religious precepts. It's also offensive to bleeding heart liberals, who don't want to offend anyone, whether they're murderous barbarians, bean-eating vegans, or regular cubicle-monkeys.

A while back I got to thinking about the issue of offense when I posted this comic over on google plus. A friend of mine was offended because it explicitly links terrorism and religion, while linking atheism with cool nerdery. While I believe that that's true (religious extremists are motivated by their religion. Is there even such a thing as an atheist extremist?), I don't particularly want to offend my friend. I don't know if it's really possible to make the point that religion motivates great evils and doesn't motivate great goods because of how it warps human behavior without being offensive. Religion is so closely held that every criticism is taken as a personal offense, in my experience.

Still, I strive to avoid giving offense in most cases because 1) it's counter-productive to swaying people to my point of view and, 2) I try not to be a dick. In this specific case, I don't want to offend my friend because I kinda like him. He's an okay dude.

However, I fully support Draw Mohammed Day, because many Muslims are so hyper-sensitive that a political cartoon causes the Muslim world to riot and burn buildings and murder people. Fuck that noise. Just because I don't particularly don't want to offend people doesn't mean I can't. Anyone absolutely has the right to be offended. No one has the right to never be offended. In this case, they're demanding, with threat of violence, that everyone obey THEIR rules. Or else.

That sort of non sense gets my dander up. That attitude can crawl up its own ass and die. To that end, here, a day late, is my contribution to DMD.

The "P" stands for "pedophile". Because you might as well go all in.