The Cartoons

I suppose this is the big story right now. Truth be told, though, I don't know why it's a big story. Generally speaking, big news arises from the unexpected. It's not news that the sun rose this morning. It's not news that the sky is blue. But somehow it's news that Islamists are threatening beheadings, bombing embassies, and generally taking great offense over a handful of trifling cartoons that depict Mohammed as the patron of a modern death cult. Of course, none of the Danish cartoons depicts Mohammed in even a sliver of the negative light that Arab newspapers routinely depict the Jooooos. The Islamists ask "How could anyone be so gallingly disrespectful as to depict Mohammed with a bomb in his turban?" Well, d'uh.

From everything horrible some good must break through. Here, the good news is that most of simpering Europe is now seeing the Islamists for what they are -- a tribe of blood-soaked religious reactionaries who will stop at nothing to subjugate peoples of good will. In that sense, the cartoon controversy is the equivalent of the blitzkrieg into Poland. Although it may be too late to save the continent this time, here's hoping the Europeans give it a whirl now that the veil has been torn from the bloodthirsty faces within their midst.

To reward this behavior with apologies would be capitulation of the first order. As I said just about a year ago, the difference between the way contemporary society treats the sensibilities of Muslims and the way it treats those of all other religious groups can only be understood as a function of fear. Unless civilization withdraws the perverse incentive structure that constantly rewards barbaric Islamic violence, civilization will have only itself to blame when other groups begin to play according to that incentive structure. And then, civilization will fall.