A Curious Double Standard

Here is a link that contrasts the difference betweeen the treatment of protestors defending the right to hunt foxes and those defending the right to behead infidels.

"A demonstration against the fox hunting Bill, outside Parliament:

"Instantly, the police responded with a flail of truncheons. For a moment, they resembled beaters driving birds towards guns. ...

"In a flurry of violence, people were hurt by the impact of truncheons and by the crush of people pushing forward to join the pre-planned sitdown. Archie Norman, the Conservative MP, who had come out to watch the mayhem, was almost hit by a bottle that smashed beside him. Mr Jukes condemned the behaviour of the police officers. "I can't believe it happened - there was no reason for it at all," he said.

"There was a bit of a surge and they only needed to say, 'Steady on lads', but instead they started hitting everyone. "I even saw old men with their heads split open. "There were all these young policemen having fun with their truncheons, waving them over their heads before flashing them down on ours." One of the older protesters injured in the melee was Simon Harrap, the Master of the Hampshire, who said: "It was incredibly heavy-handed."

"We're decent, respectable people and we don't deserve the riot squad treatment," David Jukes, 45, the Master of the Zetland Hunt in North Yorkshire, said as he mopped a bloodied brow.

"Standing beneath the stern gaze of the statue of Oliver Cromwell, William Hudson, 27, from Hampshire, had blood from a head wound all over his green T-shirt.

"I saw them hitting the person behind me, they did not seem concerned whether people were trying to go forward or back, everyone was getting crushed, it was very frightening. There is no point hitting people on the head. Why could they not hit our bodies?"

(Snip)

"Now fast forward to 3 February 2006:

"Yesterday, more than 1,000 demonstrators staged a second protest outside the embassy. The only arrests made were of two men found carrying cartoons of Mohammed. Police said they had been detained "to prevent a breach of the peace". A man dressed as a suicide bomber, however, was left unhindered, while the police sought to prevent photographers taking pictures."

Apparently, it is now more PC to call for the killing of Jews than rabbits-- see below. What profiles in courage our newspapers are-- the NYT (yes, I love your science pages) publishing images of the Virgin Mary made out of elephant dung while refusing to print ones of Mohammed out of respect-- which I do have-- for Islam. Pathetic.

For the "controversial" images of Mohammed go go here.

For more respectful ones-- that prove that the current hysteria is a- historical nonsense-- go here.

Update: Reid sent this link to an essay by Thomas Lifson on self- censorship. Some snips:

"The new norm seems to be that although we have the Constitution and laws protecting free speech, in practice we need to be sensitive to the hurt we inflict on the deeply-held beliefs of others. Who are we to impose our parochial Euro-centric standards on other cultures and belief systems?

"With the sole exceptions of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Riverside Press-Enterprise, and New York Sun, no significant American newspaper has dared to publish the 12 cartoons at the root of the protests, embassy burnings and deaths roiling the Islamic world. Despite intense public interest in this major story, Americans who do not view their news on the internet have almost no chance to actually see these key images. Such remarkable restraint is a rather new phenomenon in American journalism.

"Imposing current day politically correct standards on historic figures is all the rage these days, when the names of slaveholders Thomas Jefferson and George Washington are deemed unfit to grace the names of schools in some circles.

"It is physical intimidation which is at the heart of the media’s new-found principle of tender sensitivity to the feelings of certain religious believers. The assassination of Theo Van Gogh sent a message loud and clear to everyone contemplating a critical look at Islam or Muhammad. For all their brave talk of speaking truth to power, most people in the media with established careers, families, and lives will sacrifice principle to save themselves from possible harm or death.

"They are thus establishing a very clear set of guidelines for those who seek to govern the media portrayal of topics and people of keen sensitivity. Threaten to shoot, stab, burn, and terrorize those who displease you, and then back up the threat with actual violence, and you, too, can control the images the broad public sees. You can even constrain the asking of awkward questions about your cherished beliefs.

"This is also known as handing power to the thugs among us. The Constitution may establish the rule of law and various rights to free expression. But in practice we will return to the state of nature, where brute force sets the actual terms under which we live our lives, discuss ideas, gather data and make decisions."