Is it just me?

Hat tip to Uriasposten (Danish blog)

The liberal talk show hosy Neal Boortz asks: Is it just me? (18.5.2005).

“… or are some of the rest of you getting just a little bit tired of all of the butt kissing we’re delivering to disgruntled Muslims out there. This whole flap over the faulty Newsweek story is starting to get under several different patches of my skin.

Reuters is reporting from Islamabad that the Pakistani government remains unhappy with Newsweek. Well, don’t feel pregnant, Pakistan. But Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad pushes things just a bit with his statement that we need to work harder at understanding the sensitivities of the Islamic people. He says “The apology and retraction are not enough. “They (Newsweek) should understand the sentiments of Muslims and think 101 times before publishing news which hurt feelings of Muslims.”

Sorry, pal. I’m not buying it. I getting just a bit beyond the point where I’m all bent out of shape trying to understand Islamic sensitivities. If there is something about your religion that should make me feel badly about poor Muslims getting their feelings hurt, you had better get it out there on the table now. All I see is a religion that seems to take great pleasure in passing condemnations and “death sentences” on various people around the world for all sorts of meaningless infractions of some great system of Islamic law.

I’m just not going to get all worked up worrying about the sensitivities of devotees of a religion that will stone a woman to death for adultery, while letting the man go unpunished.

Sensitivity would not be the word to describe how I feel about a religion that is in some way involved in more than 95% of the actual shooting conflicts and wars around the world.

Muslims shoot school children in the back! Remember Chechnya? They brag about bombs in schools in Israel! Tell me again about how I need to be sensitive?

The daughter of a devout Muslim gets violently raped. The devout Muslim takes a knife and, in front of the entire family, cuts his daughter’s throat because she has dishonored her family …. by being a rape victim. Yeah, sport. Let me just pour out my sensitivities to this practitioner of the religion of peace.

There’s a school on fire outside Riyadh. It’s a girls school. The girls are trying to escape! But wait! Their faces aren’t covered! It’s the Islamic defenders of the faith to the rescue! They block the doors to keep the young Muslim girls from escaping … from a burning building. The dignity of the great and wonderful religion of peace must be protected, even if young women burn to death! Yeah … my respect for your sensitivities is on the way.

Those insurgents who are killing innocent civilians in Iraq? The suicide bombers in their cars and trucks? Haven’t you heard? Most of them are from Saudi Arabia. They’re crossing borders to kill innocent women and children because they don’t like the idea of people being able to chose those who will rule them. I’m feeling so sensitive to that.

Tell you what: When you stop killing your own daughters; when you stop trying to lock young girls into burning buildings; when you eschew shooting school children in the back; and when I can look in a newspaper and read that Muslims are NOT involved in one way or another in revolts, insurrections and hot wars around the world — and when you’re not working so hard to kill American civilians — and when you start to show some tolerance and respect for the world’s other religions.. then maybe I’ll feel a bit more worm and fuzzy toward your incredible religion of peace.“