I believe a connected issue to they point you raised is a shame-based culture vs. a guilt based culture.

http://drsanity.blogspot.com/2005/08/shame-arab-psyche-and-islam.html

Instead of the rightness or wrongness of an act being the pivotal issue and judging whether a a certain response is warranted (ie, its is wrong to go ape$#!t and kill people over the injustice of a drawing on a piece of paper?), shame is the supreme motivator. And any act to attempt to remove shame becomes justifiable. And since demeaning something publicly is essentially shaming it (or very close) we get the response we get from the Islamic world.

And you will NOT intimidate us into enforcing your laws, your tenets, your traditions against ourselves. We've fought for far less -- and far more effectively than you can even dream of doing.

Yes, but that was back before it became shameful to be a prosperous, free country. Back when people who earned their way out of poverty were respected, instead of seen as ungrateful classist bastards who shed their carefully cultivated victimhood status. Back when the media was more concerned with facts and making sure the idea of civilization's survival had a higher priority than pushing the prevailing narrative and making sure the right attitudes of shame for the sheer existance of the West were spread widely.

Now? I'd say they've got a better than even chance, unfortunately. We've lost, with few exceptions, the courage of our convictions. That might change - but it'll take something pretty nasty to swing things around.

JT, the Muslims are once again going to their agressive phase. They did so in the middle ages as well. ww

To show the true state of Islam the head was on the wrong end of the dog. Someone correct it please.

Gotta love the Religion of Peace threatening violence whenever they don't get their way or feel "offended".

What utter bullshit and it's ridiculous for countries & institutions to cave to such extortion.

Sorry, muslims, but you don't have a right to be not offended. Go ahead and riot, rape, & pillage because someone drew a picture of your lying murdering pedophile that you worship. We don't care. Try that here, and you will end up in jail or dead or both.

I knew I shoulda grew a pair years ago, but they were being fondled by Monica.

> Major religions, it seems, go through stages. Often, early on, they are very aggressive. Judaism started out with the conquest -- by force -- of the Holy Land, then settled down. Christianity also had its phase, but that largely faded with the Protestant Reformation and its consequences.

Islam is still in its aggressive phase -- a fair analogy might be adolescence.

I used to think that way but decided that it's a poor analogy to compare the maturation of a person with a religion.

> ...the push to make acceptable a certain level of violence from Muslims as natural and normal, something to be accepted and endured.

It's long overdue for a Muslim "reformation."

Steyn talks about this in American Alone. He suggests that the Muslims have HAD their reformation and what we're now seeing is the result.

Jay Tea,

While I agree with you for the most part, I have trouble finding where the linked article implied "it's clear that the BBC thinks that the Swedes shoulda known better."

And maybe the Swedish paper should have at least thought about what it was getting into. You may have all the rights a freedoms in the world, but you should still be smart enough not to poke a stick in the hornet's nest. You may be total correct in your assertion of your rights, but the welts still hurt, and the hornets don't limit their ire to the person holding the stick.

It's really a testing of the Enlightenment, probably overdue after the red herring of errant Hegelianism. I've little doubt that good information will drive out bad, but not so sure that good politics will drive out bad.
=======================

"Islam is still in its aggressive phase -- a fair analogy might be adolescence."

Bullshit

For a 'religion' that's been around this long to call them adolescent is incorrect, fatally so.

Their actions throughout the world belie that. I seriously doubt its an adolecsent stage and per their teachings they are *always* aggressive to the point of killing those who will not submit.

Remember, either you are Islamic or you're going to be according to the Koran.

Submit, pay tax and live as a lower class person, or die.

Take your pick.

I call bullshit as well, Jay. The Protestant Reformation did not require Christian scripture to be rewritten. It was a wholesale rejection of Roman Catholic church law and other such things that had contaminated the gospel. To do the same thing with Islam, you would have to rewrite the Koran.

I'll also bite on the victimization part and say that there are victims who are so stupid they do in a way deserve what happened to them. Anyone who ignores obvious signs of danger, like a rich man wearing $50,000 of gold bling in a ghetto at night, or a hot woman in a seedy bar, alone and drunk early in the morning, is a whole other category of victim than your average person. I put them in the same category of pity as a yuppy who jumps over all of the security fences at a zoo to take a close up picture at the Lion exhibit.

I'm assuming that when you say you can't blame the victim, you're talking about people who don't essentially walk into an obvious trap, and who do generally take some responsibility for their own safety.

"To do the same thing with Islam, you would have to rewrite the Koran."

I think the Koran could stay, but you'd have to rewrite the Hadiths and such that explain Momo's writings in the Koran (to follow your analogy).

Still, an interesting concept: is Islam half-baked, with room for improvement? Or, is this it? Is this version of Islam the "modern" version?

If the latter is true ... yikes.

Still, I tend to look at Islam as a hodge-podge ideology that snagged bits and pieces of Christianity and Judaism, mixed 'em together with a few added original concepts and was then used as a tool of conquest and revenge.

Rance, I'm just curious, do you see the irony in what you wrote? You nearly exactly reiterated what Jay was saying is so wrong. And worse, you equated Muslims (presumably thinking, reasoning people) with stimulus/response insects.

Jay, I mostly agree on your points, and while the 30 Years War can be contained in the statement, " the Protestant Reformation and its consequences., I would suggest that the 30 Years War was most responsible for the fact that Christians generally don't go to war over their religions anymore. That was over the top, shocking brutality in a generally brutal world.
Muslims don't need to reform their religion except insofar as they feel that theirs is the top religion and all others have to bow to that.
You can see that all over. Muslims will criticize the US for their problems at airports (that don't appear to be any more of a hassle than I get at airports) while simultaneously standing up for Saudi Arabia's right to make all other religions against the law.
I have no problem with people claiming their religion is superior, I do have a problem with people trying to force that view on others.

how about we put that cartoon on billboards across the globe so that we humans may point and laff....

To show the true state of Islam the head was on the wrong end of the dog. Someone correct it please.

Bwhahahahahahahahaha.....excellent.

As usial liberal idiots would rather blame everyone and everything but the crinimals thats why liberal are so stupid

And maybe the Swedish paper should have at least thought about what it was getting into. You may have all the rights a freedoms in the world, but you should still be smart enough not to poke a stick in the hornet's nest.

Scariest sentiment I have seen here in a long time. Was that satire?

It's just this type of thinking that will destroy Western culture, if we let it.