Thanks to Michelle Malkin, we have word of this report about a group of Muslim scholars who want to make an international law against Islamic blasphemy.

Whoops, that's a bit too on the nose. It would be "an international law that criminalizes religious insults and enforces mutual respect of religions." The fact that the only religion that's making international incidents out of religious "insults" is Islam is just a wild coincidence.

My first thought is "sure!" -- just long enough for some Jews to go after the Muslim broadcasters and imams and the like who proclaim that Jews are "the children of pigs and dogs." That would almost be entertaining enough to try.

But then reason take control, and I realize that this is nothing than a frontal assault on our right to free speech, cloaked in language designed to appeal to the left and its buzzwords of "respect" and 'tolerance."

Such a frontal attack deserves nothing less than a most forceful response.

I actually posted a comment on that article, but it is awaiting approval by the moderators. I don't expect it to ever see the light of day, despite the fact that it was very calm and reasoned and polite. Here it is, in its entirety:

I am not a Muslim.

I do not live in a Muslim country.

So why should I be bound by Muslim law?

Why should my non-Muslim government enforce Muslim laws on non-Muslims?

I find many things insulting to me on any given day.

I tend to ignore them, because I am a mature adult and have better things to do than go hunting for things to outrage me.

Why can't you folks do the same?

I simply don't care what others say about me or what I believe in. I know in my heart what is true, and the words of those who disagree and seek to discourage me are as nothing.

Is your faith so weak that even the tiniest slight from thousands of miles away demands you avenge it?

J.

First up, this is a classic example of why "Muslim scholar" is an oxymoron. They are schooled in only one thing: Islam. More specifically, how to make Islam the dominant force in the world. They tried for centuries to do it by the sword, and that ran out of steam a while ago. Now they've made the realization that they can't do it by force (although I don't think that they've quite cottoned to the relevance that ALL their weapons are made by non-Muslim powers), so they're trying new tactics by looking for the weaknesses in our culture that they can exploit. They're trying it in Canada, as Ezra Levant can tell you.

In "The Godfather" (one of the most amazingly quotable movies of all time), Don Corleone advises his son that "a lawyer with a briefcase can steal more money than a hundred men with guns." In that vein, a jihadist lawyer with his briefcase can, in the long run, kill more than a hundred terrorists with bombs. (Confession time: this is not the first time I've adapted that quote to this situation.)

For the rest of my response, I'm going to continue below the fold.

Hey, Mohammed:

FUCK YOU.

If this is true Islam, if this is a fair representation of The Religion Of Peace (tm), then fuck Islam and fuck everyone and anyone who pushes it. And if the United Nations even thinks about trying to pass this, then we need not only to bulldoze the whole building right into the East River, we need to think very strongly about invoking the Coulter Doctrine: "we should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."

Do NOT make the mistake of dismissing this movement just because I've chosen to hang this piece on an article from a Yemeni newspaper. That's just the most recent face of the beast. The worldwide movement to make Islamic blasphemy a crime against anyone and everyone is a very real and very dangerous thing.

As noted, in Canada, they're getting the Human Rights Council (how disgustingly Orwellian a name that is) to do their dirty work.

In the United States, they have CAIR (unindicted co-conspirator for helping terrorists) and legions of others.

And around the world, they're using the threat of mob violence to get their way.

All in the name of "tolerance."

Here in the United States, we don't have laws governing blasphemy. That violates some of our most profound tenets, as spelled out in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution: freedom of speech and freedom of religion -- more specifically, the right to not only practice one's own religion, but to be free of others' religion (or religion entirely) if one so chooses.

I've asked this question before, and never gotten a satisfactory answer from any Muslim apologist:

Do I, as a non-Muslim, have the right to not be bound by Islamic laws?

That's not really fair. I've gotten my answer dozens of times, just never in words:

No.

In most civilized religions, "blasphemy" is a serious matter -- among the faithful. It's grounds for excommmunication in most of them. (I'm no theologian, but it seems like a reasonable assumption.)

But in Islam, "blasphemy" covers everyone -- not just those who have pronounced their faith in Allah and recognize Mohammed as his prophet. They couch it in terms of "insulting Islam" and "fomenting religous hatred" and "defaming the Prophet,) but that's what it boils down to -- we non-Muslims have the effrontery of say that we are NOT Muslims, have NO desire to ever become Muslims, and wish to exercise our rights to celebrate and embrace and rejoice in our non-Muslim status whenever we wish.

Yes, I think we should all be respectful to each other. Yes, I think that deliberately choosing to insult others or their faith is rude. Yes, I think that so make blanket statements and judgments about whole groups of people is wrong.

But guess what? We have a right to be wrong. We have a right to do mean, spiteful, impolite things. It's called "freedom of choice." It's called "freedom of speech." It's called "freedom of expression." It's called "freedom of opinion." It's called "freedom of religion." It's called "freedom of association."

In brief, it's called "freedom."

And that one word is the one word that most infuriates and most terrifies these Muslims.

In the words of an almost-as-quotable movie as "The Godfather:"

Lick it up, baby. Lick. It. Up.