Before going on to the mini-profile of congressman-elect Hank Johnson of Georgia — this, people, is too funny. Remember U.S. Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA) whose over-the-top bigotry regarding a Muslim in Congress is discussed here? Well, flaming idiot Daniel Pipes says that Rep. Goode is the “target of an Islamic advocacy group’s ‘victimization game.‘”
In other words, an apologist for Goode is claiming to Goode was targeted by an Islamic group after Goode targeted Muslims. This is a bit like the Ku Klux Klan claiming to be the innocent victims of a smear campaign by the NAACP.
I mean nobody can whine about being picked on better than righties, but this is outrageous even by rightie standards.
Pipes said CAIR was “perpetually on the prowl for any incidence of anti-Muslim sentiment, real or imaginary, spontaneous or provoked, major or minor.”
What Goode said was not an “imaginary” sentiment. It was real, and it was ugly.
The organization’s goal, he said, was “to make the United States like so many other countries – a place where Muslims, Islam and Islamism cannot be freely discussed.”
“It is imperative for Americans to retain their freedom of speech about Islam — as it exists in relation to other religions — and resist these many demands for remorse.”
This goes back to the rightie notion that “freedom of speech” includes the right not to be disagreed with. Rep. Goode said what he said. He was free to say what he said. As far as I know, the Speech Police haven’t shown up at his house to haul him to the gulag.
However, if you say some damn stupid, bigoted thing, the people you offend will use their freedom of speech to express their opinion of what you said. That’s how it works, dears.
And if you’re a public official or celebrity, and public consensus is that what you said was bigoted and offensive, prepare to receive truckloads of bad press. This is a lesson Michael Richards learned recently. Do the crime, do the time.
In recent weeks I’ve been struck how much right-wing rhetoric about Muslims sounds like the stuff white supremacists used to say proudly and in public about African Americans many years ago. Just as Strom Thurmond growled ca. 1948 — “All the bayonets in the Army cannot force the ‘Negarah’ into our home, our schools, our churches and our places of recreation” — today’s bigots are posturing and chest thumping to show Muslims who’s in charge.
And like the weenies they are, they whine with self-pity when their victims posture back.