Free Frank Warner

The South Park message: Anti-Mormon bigots, grow up

If you engage in the lazy bigotry of making fun of Mormons, you might ask yourself if, in mixed company, you speak the same way about other religions.

And if there is a religion you don’t make fun of, you might ask yourself why. After all, every religion has at least one fundamental article of faith that defies reason and logic. Then again, if you make fun of all people of faith, if you feel good calling them narrow-minded and stupid, you might look in the mirror for the moron with the narrow mind.

That old South Park cartoon episode, “All About Mormons,” summed up my philosophy toward the people who imagine themselves morally and intellectually superior to Mormons.

High and mighty. In that show, which highlighted the Mormons’ many irrational beliefs, young Stan has fun hanging out with Gary, the new Mormon kid in South Park Elementary School, but Stan still decides to shun Gary because it just isn’t cool to associate with a Mormon.

Gary figures it out. He finally tells Stan:

Look, maybe us Mormons do believe in crazy stories that make absolutely no sense, and maybe Joseph Smith did make it all up, but I have a great life and a great family, and I have the Book of Mormon to thank for that. The truth is, I don’t care if Joseph Smith made it all up, because what the church teaches now is loving your family, being nice and helping people. And even though people in this town might think that’s stupid, I still choose to believe in it. All I ever did was try to be your friend, Stan, but you’re so high and mighty you couldn’t look past my religion and just be my friend back. You’ve got a lot of growing up to do, buddy. Suck my balls.

That says it.

Frank Warner

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Update: CNN's John King calls Romney "Governor Mormon."

61% of Americans believe Osama bin Laden is in Hell

So Osama bin Laden does have a direct link to Saddam Hussein!

Is bin Laden in Hell?

Yes: 61 percent.
No: 10 percent.
Don't believe in Hell. 5 percent.
Not sure: 24 percent.

Frank Warner

Salmon Rushdie to Jon Stewart: You want me dead?

Salmon Rushdie was at least a little surprised that Jon Stewart’s “Rally for Sanity” three days ago gave a prominent role to the former Cat Stevens (Now Yusuf Islam), who has said Rushdie should be killed because he wrote a book that offended Muslims.

Today Rushdie managed to speak with Stewart, and he reported to Nick Cohen on the conversation:

I spoke to Jon Stewart about Yusuf Islam's appearance. He said he was sorry it upset me, but really, it was plain that he was fine with it. Depressing.

I guess it’s “Sanity” to give a stage to the friends of oppression.

Frank Warner

The Sistine Chapel is yours

Click here to see the wonder that Michelangelo left us. I don't think I understood how beautifully he painted the Sistine Chapel until I saw this virtual tour.

Frank Warner

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Canadian-Iranian gets 20 years in prison for blogging his conscience

When a government claims it is guided by God, it tends to be tough on those who challenge its repression. Hossein Derakhshan blogged against Iran’s theocratic dictatorship. For exercising his human right to free expression, the dictators have sentenced the 35-year-old to 20 years in prison.

Derakhshan should be running for office in free elections, and the Iranian regime should be in prison. Punishing Derakhshan is a crime against humanity.

Frank Warner

Glenn Beck rally, not bad

Glenn Beck recognizes the power of and right to freedom, and everyone can admire him for that. He’s off track when he sees a conspiracy of “progressives” out to destroy all that is good, but at least his line of questioning makes people think. And it forces the powerful to explain what exactly it is they think they’re doing.

Beck’s rally two days ago in Washington, D.C., was impressive for its passion and its numbers. Whether it was 87,000 people, as CBS claimed (citing a company with no experience in crowd estimates), or more than 200,000, as others estimated, it was big. And it reflected a national uneasiness about a government that seems to treat our biggest problems by simply making those problems bigger.

Beck this year moved his politics deeply into the world of religion. Though the evangelists love him for this, I think he’s gone too far here. His new crusade is likely to turn off Tea Partiers, who are more libertarian than devout, and many other independents, who want a separation of politics and piety.

That said, if Glenn Beck can muster the faithful in the defense of freedom, amen.

Frank Warner

White House: NASA’s Bolden was not told to make Muslims ‘feel good’

On June 30, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told Al Jazeera TV that President Obama gave him three things to do:

“When I became the NASA administrator -- or before I became the NASA administrator -- he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering.”

Yesterday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said those are not the goals the president gave to Bolden.

On the outreach to make Muslim-dominated nations feel good, Gibbs said:

“That was not his task, and that’s not the task of NASA.”

Gibbs said the president has not talked directly to Bolden about the Al Jazeera interview, but others at the White House may have.

Frank Warner

NASA chief Charles Bolden’s clumsy outreach to Muslims

Charles Bolden, administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, could have said it better. He might simply have said he wants all peace-loving nations to know they can take part in the U.S. space program.

That alone would have generated the interest of scientifically minded Arabs and other Muslims who might have felt until now they had no chance to participate.

But Bolden boldy went where no man ought to go. On June 30, he told Al Jazeera TV that President Obama has given him three specific goals:

“When I became the NASA administrator -- or before I became the NASA administrator -- he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering.”

No space here. None of the three goals mentioned space exploration. It was a statement so bizarre The New York Times has yet to figure out a way to report it. And that’s a daily newspaper.

Bolden pandered to one religion in a way no official of a democracy ought to. And running counter to the Obama administration’s policy of trying to turn foreign foes into friends, he pandered in such a way that, if I were a Muslim, I would have felt insulted.

Offering more nations the chance to join the NASA space program might have generated eager excitement among Al Jazeera’s viewers. That’s a lot different from telling Muslims we’ve targeted you because we know you don’t feel good about yourselves.

Try, try again.

Frank Warner

Burhan Hanif, friend of tyranny, advises Australia to ‘shun democracy’

Burhan Hanif, who apparently is British, today told a conference in Australia that democracy gets in the way of Allah’s will.

“We must adhere to Islam and Islam alone,” Mr Hanif told about 500 participants attending the convention in Lidcombe [western Sydney].

“We should not be conned or succumb to the disingenuous and flawed narrative that the only way to engage politically is through the secular democratic process. It is prohibited and haram.”

He said democracy was incompatible with Islam because the Koran insisted Allah was the sole lawmaker, and Muslim political involvement could not be based on “secular and erroneous concepts such as democracy and freedom.”

Self-appointed despots. And just who would interpret the will of Allah to decide what is acceptable and what is haram? According to Hanif, the decision-making would be by a small, but all-powerful group of unelected men who claim to know everything better than all other people.

That kind of hellish dictatorial thinking got 262 million people killed in the 20th century, and that doesn’t count the wars, most of which were started because totalitarians wanted to snuff out individual freedom.

If Hanif enjoys oppression, perhaps he should hire someone to lock him up. No one would miss his bad ideas.

Frank Warner

Muhammad accused of hating geckos

Raymond Ibrahim points out that the Christian Coptic evangelical Arab "Life TV" regularly mocks Muhammad for things the Koran and other authoritative Muslim sources say he did, and yet Life TV is tolerated better by Muslims than cartoons that mock the prophet.

[B]y holding fast to onetime Western principles of free speech and open dialogue, Life TV has conditioned its Muslim viewers to accept that exposure and criticism of their prophet is here to stay. As Fr. Zakaria often points out, every religious figure is open to criticism: so why should Muhammad be sacrosanct? (Indeed, Comedy Central, which was quick to acquiesce to Muslim demands to censor South Park, is “brave” enough to run an entire cartoon series mocking Jesus.)

Of course, one need not agree with Life TV’s tactics or evangelical mission to appreciate the lesson it imparts: Muslim outrage — as with all human outrage — is predicated on how well it is tolerated. Continuously appeased, it becomes engorged and insistent on more concessions; ignored, it deflates and, ashamed of itself, withers away. Put differently, if you voluntarily act like a dhimmi — a subjugated non-Muslim who must live in debased humility — you will be treated like a dhimmi (including by being killed for the slightest offense); conversely, if you assert yourself like a freeman, you will be perceived as a freeman — even as you are hated.

Liberty and tolerance. If you want to keep your freedom, behave as a free man behaves. And if you are a free man with a religion, be prepared to handle peacefully the harmless ridicule of people who believe differently.

If your prophet didn’t like geckos, don’t expect others to understand without some friendly convincing. That’s what faith and freedom are all about.

Frank Warner