The Newsweek Debacle - More Thoughts

I’m confident that someone else has noticed this by now, but it also occurred to me that the contrast is telling between (1) the MSM’s treatment in the late 1980s of Christians who protested (without rioting and murder) the federal government’s subsidy of an “artist” placing a crucifix in a vat of urine (Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ"); and (2) the MSM’s treatment of Muslims who rioted and murdered in protest of a soldier allegedly placing the Q’uran in a toilet at Guantanamo. In the first instance, Christians were wrong to be offended and were labeled “extremists,” even though their protests were non-violent. In the second instance, Muslims were (at least this is Newsweek’s implication) right to be offended, and their rioting was understandable, and it was the Americans who did the desecration who were wrong. The contrast shows a whole list of double standards, one of which is that American Christians have no right to be offended by slurs to their religion, while everyone else has an absolute right not to be offended; a second, unspoken and somewhat contradictory assumption is that American Christians are reliably reasonable, and can thus be insulted with impunity because they won’t riot and murder, while Third World Muslims are basically unreasoning creatures who will react wildly and violently to any perceived affront. The contrast also shows how very anti-American the MSM really is. Finally, it is worth noting that American Christians are not just supposed to tolerate slurs on their religion, they're obligated to subsidize them through their federal tax dollars.

And, of course, one slur really happened, while the other was fictitious.