Free Speech, Afghanistan Style...

It is great to live in a country where we have so many freedoms that we pretty much take them for granted. Despite the paranoid delusions of certain groups, we pretty much have more rights and freedoms than people from most other countries in the world.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for people in most Muslim countries, where someone being sentenced to death for being critical of Muhammad is not unheard of.

The student, Sayed Parwiz Kambakhsh, 23, who also works for a local newspaper, was charged with insulting Muhammad by calling the prophet “a killer and adulterer,” the judge, Shamsurahman Muhmand, said in a telephone interview.

Ironically, Mr. Kambakhsh's death sentence pretty much proves his point (at least on the "killer" part). This is very sad. The severe problems currently afflicting the Muslim world have no chance of getting any better until the powers that be in that world allow their people to be critical of the culture and religion that they see around them.

Random Brain Things from my Head...

Over the years, I have had several friends who are from countries like Iraq, Pakistan, India, Turkey, Jordan, etc. Most of these friends were Muslim, though a few were not. Obviously, I think their religion is a false religion, and they thing the same of mine. This has led to some interesting and somewhat enlightening conversations at time. However, I am not going to write about that right now.

I take issue with much that has been said from both the left and the right on the topic of Islamic terrorists. Obviously, there is a large Islamo-Fascist problem in the world today, with extremists twisting the religion to justify their own goals. Despite the left's attempts to minimize this fact, it cannot be ignored. The threat exists, it is very real, and it needs to be fought. It is just another evil in this fallen world, and it needs to be dealt with as such, not in the mamby-pamby ways the left wants to address all problems, but head on, the way we are currently attempting to address it.

On the other hand, there are those on the right who would paint all Muslims with too broad of a brush. Given what is at stake, that would be the safer of the two errors. Still, it is an error.

So, what is my point? I am not sure I really have one. As explained in a earlier post, I am quite busy with church, family, and work right now. These were just random brain things that happened in my head (to paraphrase my favorite Madagascar character) after I read this article, which I pretty much agreed with completely, especially the quips about Noam Chomsky, who is nothing more than a pompous idiot...