Amazingly, the American media and much of the American left spent vastly more time attacking Pamela Geller than the jihadists who tried to kill her.

To the American media, burning a cross in a black family's yard is free speech; protesting a military funeral is free speech; but saying homosexuality is a sin in the Bible should force re-education, and drawing Mohammed should get you thrown in jail.

I agree with his first point (not so much the second one, which is Drama Queen 101), but Erick Erickson IS "the American media" -- far more than any of us.

it chafes me when a CNN correspondent or a Fox News or MSNBC head bitches about "the media." It's like listening to politicians complain about the "Washington elite," and both should be interrupted at every turn and reminded they ARE the media.

It's just a rationalization for being an invertebrate. They know Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses or whatever aren't going to do anything about being insulted.
Muslims will kill you, or at least threaten to.
Rather than admit that they're intimidated, these media lackeys try to frame the discussion in their favorite term: tolerance.
Call me intolerant, I'd rather let the comedians have their way.

The irony is, in my opinion anyway, none of what Pam Geller says is hateful. She is simply warning folks about the nastiness of jihad.

I'm with Canvasback on this; the media is simply showing what cowards they are.

Slightly off topic; but the elephant dung Mary and the "piss Christ" were offensive to me - not because of the art; but because tax dollars were used to support them.

If a private museum wanted to put them on display I would have had no problem; but it was a publically-financed museum that put them on display. And that was a large part of the controversy.

Pam Geller does not use any public money for what she does. And still there are some trying to shut her down. She (or at least her organization) paid for the anti-jihad ads (I refuse to call them anti-Muslim ads as the media does because they aren't anti-Muslim, they are anti-jihad) and they were constantly defaced. The local media portrayed the defacing as a sign that they posters were "offensive" and very little did the media talk about the crime of damaging property (i.e., defacing someone else's ad)

Pam Geller speech is exactly the speech so many in the West need to hear and wake up to what she is warning us about.

Charles, you're right about what Geller says. I've listened to her. She is very careful to say that the ideology behind Islam is the problem. That's because she is informed about Islam -- as am I. I understand that the Quran, unlike the Bible, is said to be the word of Allah, unchangeable and unquestionable. Mohammed was a looting, raping, megalomaniac psychopath, but his actions (in the Hadiths, for example) are to be emulated.

Meanwhile, in Canada...(via Popehat).

Pam Gellar is appropriately being attacked because she's an attention whore.

Oh, Charles...
...because tax dollars were used to support them.
Miniscule fractions of a percent of the budget.
A little more offensive, tax dollars support:
- Federal elected officials salaries
- The defense industry
etc. etc.

A shame the American people can't directly choose what their tax dollars support...there was a sci-fi short about this some years ago.

"I understand that the Quran, unlike the Bible, is said to be the word of Allah, unchangeable and unquestionable."

Where did you get the idea, that Christians don't take the bible (particularly the new Teatament) literally?

I would venture to guess, the percentage of fundamentalist Christians who do take the bible literally, is at least as great as the percentage of fundamentalist Muslims, who take the Koran literally.

The difference lies primarily in the cultural enforcement mechanisms to deal with disagreement.

Most Arabs and Persians believe that any deviation from cultural and religious norms is worthy of the death penalty, while Christian and Buddhist cultures favor marginalization, and shaming to enforce their cultural values.

the American people can't directly choose what their tax dollars support...there was a sci-fi short about this some years ago.

Posted by: DrCos at May 10, 2015 8:36 AM

I suspect if you got your wish, you wouldn't like the result.

Most voters will line their own pockets, short term, at the expense of their long term fiscal health, but far more actual voters in this country would fund the military, than would fund social programs.

Pam Gellar is appropriately being attacked because she's an attention whore.

And? come on, you had a thought there, but you didn't complete it. Proof by assertion and ad hominen aren't.

You know, this would have never made the news except for two Jihadi's Johns showing up and dying for their cause...so, remind me again who is the attention whore?

Pam Gellar is appropriately being attacked because she's an attention whore. ~ Posted by: Patrick at May 10, 2015 8:29 AM

And she deserves opprobrium for being a jerk, but not death threats (and the apparent will to carry them out). Whatever her speech, it is protected under the First Amendment.

"I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" was a favorite trope of the left-leaning punditry when speaking about anti-Christian artists and writers, but when the "defend to the death" part became all too real, that same punditry backed down and sided with the attackers.

What she did was no worse then Piss Christ or the various Virgin Mary paintings made from bodily products. The same institutions and people that leapt to the defense of the artists are now falling all over themselves in an effort to avoid the crosshairs of the attackers.

Far too much of leftist secularity is subliminated anti-Christianity, an act of rebellion against the religion of Mom and Dad.

In defending Pamela Gellar, I feel like I'm siding with Adolf Eichmann, but even though she's outrightly antagonistic, she has the right to hold a Draw Mohammed contest in this country without being threatened with violent murder.

And, like Christians and atheists and Scientologists and Mormons before them, Muslims in America are ripe for ridicule, satire, and open attack and should be held to the same standard of civility we expect of everyone here: respond with words, not guns (or, given the political climate in this country today, sue someone).

The irony, of course, is that these two idiot jihadis made Gellar's point for her, they proved her right.

[Isab:] Where did you get the idea, that Christians don't take the bible (particularly the new Teatament) literally?

I suspect you don't at all get the difference between literal and inerrant. And that you haven't bothered yourself to find out how those Christians see things.

Hint: Per Islam, the Quran is literal and inerrant.

Oh, and lest I forget, complete.

[Isab:] Where did you get the idea, that Christians don't take the bible (particularly the new Teatament) literally?
I suspect you don't at all get the difference between literal and inerrant. And that you haven't bothered yourself to find out how those Christians see things.

Hint: Per Islam, the Quran is literal and inerrant.

Oh, and lest I forget, complete.

Posted by: Jeff Guinn at May 10, 2015 10:42 AM

How many Christian sects, and denominations are you familiar with Jeff?

And how many Islamic ones?

I would guess, not many, from your gross generalizations.

I R A Darth Aggie: And? come on, you had a thought there, but you didn't complete it. Proof by assertion and ad hominen aren't.

By the way, are you an Aggie? One of my Facebook friends is a lawyer and an Aggie, and very proud of that fact.

I'm rather disgusted with her for making the claim that blaming her for the terrorist attack is like blaming a woman for her own rape.

I'm not saying she can't do what she did. I'm not even saying that she shouldn't have done what she said. Maybe she should have. Maybe we should do more demonstrations like these.

But to the best of my knowledge, rape victims don't deliberately place themselves in risky situations, essentially carrying signs that say "Rape Me! Rape Me!" then go on national television to cry about how they're just innocent victims.

Pam Gellar knows, like everyone else, that there are some insane Muslim jihadists that will kill in defense of their beliefs. She also knows, thanks to the Danish cartoon controversy, that these people also regard drawing Muhammad is a sin punishable by death. (That's a pretty fucked up belief system, if you ask me, but that's beside the points.)

A matador does not wave the red flag in the bull's face (actually, it doesn't have to be red, since bulls are color blind), then cry he's a victim when he gets gored. He knows the risks involved and accepts responsibility for the risks.

Have I completed the thought yet?

@ Patrick @ 3:26 p.m.
You seem to be conflating the rules in some jihadi sect with the American Constitutional system. Here, murder is murder, no matter who you pray to. We have some limited mitigations such as self-defense or unintentional homicide. Hurtful cartoons isn't on the list.

How many Christian sects, and denominations are you familiar with Jeff?

And how many Islamic ones?

There are over 3500 recognized sects of Christianity. This does not include the unrecognized sects, non denominations and "I'm not religious but spiritual"

But only two main branches non/trinitarian

And only three major schools of thought off both branches

grace - god decides who gets int the VIP regardless of the kind of person you are

works - you have to work at being a good person

fore ordination - god decided who gets into heaven before creation began and nothing you do, good or bad, really matters (and free will might not even exist)

In Islam there are only two main branches Sunni and Shia

Shia believing the Mos kids had magical powers cause they sprang from his dick

Some claim there are four main branches but the other two Kharijiyyah, and Ahmadiyya are kind like the Coptics and Jehovahs witnesses, respectively, but fall under the Sunni label as they dont hold to the "magically blessed dependents" crap.

Some consider Sufi to be a third branch as it includes Kabala like mystical crap and zen Buddhism crap but it falls under both.

And as the official cannon of both main branches of Islam and ALL of its sects is to kill apostates and unbelievers who fail to convert and spread Islam by any means necessary does it really matter how familiar we are with the idiosyncrasies of the less than 30 recognized sects of islam?

Or how their views differ from sect to sect when all agree that killing the infidel is acceptable?

Or how their views differ from sect to sect when all agree that killing the infidel is acceptable?

Posted by: lujlp at May 10, 2015 6:55 PM

A lot of fundamentalist Christians believe in the death penalty for all sorts of major crimes. Amazingly very few of them wish to take the law into their own hands and become judge jury, and executioner.

If you studied Muslims, and other violent cultures, you would find them much the same.

There are a few assertions here about what believers believe. Look here.

Pam Gellar is appropriately being attacked because she's an attention whore.

If she deserves death threats, what of the Kardashians?

A matador does not wave the red flag in the bull's face (actually, it doesn't have to be red, since bulls are color blind), then cry he's a victim when he gets gored. He knows the risks involved and accepts responsibility for the risks.

Have I completed the thought yet?

Posted by: Patrick at May 10, 2015 3:26 PM

So, because jihadis are violent extremists and she upset them, Gellar deserves to be violently murdered?

Would you say the same about Dr. David Gunn? Or Robert Sanderson? Or Dr. Barnett Slepian? After all, they waved the red flag in front of the bull.

How about James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner? They knew the risks, but went ahead anyway.

Pam Gellar is an obnoxious person, but her right, and that of like-minded others, to ridicule a religion is absolute, just like Andres Serrano's is. And that goes for anyone else as well, all the way from Matt Stone and Trey Parker on down to anyone who puts a Darwin fish on their car.

And freedom of speech, not Pam Gellar, is what is being defended - and what is worth defending despite her.

Conan: So, because jihadis are violent extremists and she upset them, Gellar deserves to be violently murdered?

I think you miss the point. I'm not saying anyone deserves to be murdered, violently or otherwise.

I object to her comparing herself to a rape victim.

I assume rape victims don't deliberately do everything possible to provoke being attacked, then protest they're innocent victims.

Pamela Gellar, by contrast, seems to be doing everything she knows how to provoke violent Muslim extremists. (And again, I'm not saying that she has no right to do that -- she absolutely does -- or even that she shouldn't do it -- it is arguable that demonstrations like this are what's needed.)

Nor am I saying that violent Muslim extremists should target her or have the right to target her. They should not and do not.

What I am saying is that likening herself to a rape victim is simply disgusting. It's a completely inaccurate analogy and rather insulting to rape victims.

This is why I used the matador analogy. A matador deliberately provokes the bull and (one would assume) is aware of the risks involved). If he gets gored, he doesn't blame the bull or cry that he's an innocent victim.

I had not heard that she compared herself to a rape victim, so I Googled it and came across this on TPM:

“How ridiculous," Geller told BBC Radio. "I mean, that’s like saying that the pretty girl was responsible for her own rape. The mayor is going after the defenders of free speech and clearly giving a free pass to the savages who came with guns to kill innocent people because of a cartoon.”

While, the analogy is extreme, she does have a point; one that has been lost in all the rhetoric and vitriol.

The pretty girl should be able to walk down the street unmolested and Geller should be able to hold an Islam-ridiculing (or any-religion-ridiculing) event without threat of violence.

If one argues that she brought it on herself by provoking the aggressor, one loses sight of the fact that she should be free to do it without being visited with violence. (Notice how that statement applies to both scenarios - and that's the point Geller was making, albeit poorly.)

I wonder if the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo would agree with Geller. Let's ask them. Oh, wait. We can't.

==============================

Pamela Gellar, by contrast, seems to be doing everything she knows how to provoke violent Muslim extremists.

~ Posted by: Patrick at May 11, 2015 10:20 AM

Hiding in the closet would be a better response to those who would circumscribe our freedoms with threats of violence?

Be careful where you cast blame, Patrick. It could be perceived as appeasement. A less-nuanced person than I might call you a coward.

And yes, Geller is less a champion of free speech than an attention whore stirring up a hornet's nest to cover herself in false glory.

And, yes, Geller is blithely expecting the police and military of this country to put their lives on the line defending hers.

Unfortunately, at this point, defending free speech does means defending her life.

However, to defend ourselves against those who would steal our rights, property, and happiness, we must sometimes side with the obnoxious, the vainglorious, and the rabble rousers. Not all of our Founding Fathers were gentlemen.

One more:

Steve Chambers at American Thinker proposes that cartoon contest on thumbs Muslims in the eye and that a calm, rational discussion about the origins of Islam and emerging scholarship that points to a non-Arab origin would be a better way to calm radical Islam.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/05/dont_draw_mohammed_debate_the_origins_of_islam.html#ixzz3Zr5CoBRk

Publicizing cartoons of Mohammed is a thumb in the eye of Muslims, particularly pious ones holding to the Wahhabi and Salafist view that portraying or mocking Mohammed is blasphemy. Cartoons are therefore a double outrage. However, cartoons do nothing substantial to undermine the ideology of radical Islam that plagues the earth, they just expose a raw nerve among some Muslims and hence elicit sympathy from non-Muslims, even including prominent Fox News pundits such as Bill O’Reilly and Martha MacCallum and conservative Catholic leaders such as Bill Donohue.

It would be far more effective to have a calm, protracted discussion and debate about the origins of Islam and the real life of Mohammed. Such an event should be more akin to a panel discussion mediated by Jim Lehrer than a media circus presided over by Bill O’Reilly or Jon Stewart, and it should bring in views from across the political and religious spectrum.

Conan: Hiding in the closet would be a better response to those who would circumscribe our freedoms with threats of violence?

No, I did not say "hiding in the closet would be a better response." I said that she's doing everything in her power to provoke violent extremists, as distinct from the rape victim she compares herself to.

One assumes that a rape victim doesn't deliberately try to provoke her own attack.

Conan: I had not heard that she compared herself to a rape victim, so I Googled it and came across this on TPM...

Or, you could have used the link I provided earlier in this thread when I made that accusation.

Or, you could have used the link I provided earlier in this thread when I made that accusation. ~ Posted by: Patrick at May 11, 2015 11:37 AM

Didn't see that.

While strained, there is a certain amount of legitimate argument in her analogy.

No, the rape victim didn't try and provoke her attacker. She merely did what she should be free to do and the attacker took something about her as provocation.

Geller and Co. are also doing something they should be free to do. The difference is they knew beforehand that their potential attacker would be provoked by it.

If a woman knows that walking down Main Street with exposed knees past a certain building will provoke an assault by fundamentalist goons who live there, should we advise her to wear long skirts? Or walk a different route? Or should we the people make sure the goons know the power of the law stands behind her freedom to walk down Main Street with exposed knees, even if it's provocative to them? And which option would you get behind?

You're trying to have it both ways, hiding your appeasement of violent Islamic fundamentalism behind an attack on Geller's "victim" analogy; trying to seem like a defender of free speech while arguing that the provocateurs should quiet down and go home.

==============================

Geller and company are offended by a society that claims freedom of speech when Christianity is insulted, but pleads for limits and amelioration when Islam is insulted.

So, they set out to deliberately provoke Islam and make society examine how dearly it really holds its supposedly dearly-held views.

==============================

David Frum in The Atlantic:

"When vigilantes try to enforce the tenets of a faith by violence, then it becomes a civic obligation to stand up to them. And if the people doing the standing up are not in every way nice people — if they express other views that are ugly and prejudiced by any standard — then the more shame on all the rest of us for leaving the job to them."

Conan: You're trying to have it both ways, hiding your appeasement of violent Islamic fundamentalism behind an attack on Geller's "victim" analogy; trying to seem like a defender of free speech while arguing that the provocateurs should quiet down and go home.

No, I'm saying that her comparing herself to rape victims is patently false and insulting to rape victims.

I have said repeatedly that she has the right to do what she's doing, and that the Islamic extremists had no right to attack her for it.

I have not tried to appease anyone.

Why is it that you're allowed to say, "... Geller is less a champion of free speech than an attention whore stirring up a hornet's nest to cover herself in false glory" without being accused of appeasement, but it appears necessary for you to believe I'm trying to appease anyone?

Am I not allowed to say that her analogy to rape victims was gross, inappropriate and insulting (which is the only point I am trying to make) without being accused of appeasement?

"A lot of fundamentalist Christians believe in the death penalty for all sorts of major crimes."

Secular crimes yes.

As an atheist I'd like to see the death penalty expanded to include some other crimes.

You'd be hard pressed to find a multi city sect, let alone a mulit culture, mutli racial, multi continent sect that believes in the death penalty for ecclesiastical crimes.

Even crimes laid out in the bible as deserving of death.

1 Accidental Death
l Assualt of Parents
l Being a missonary for wrong church
l Being raped
l Claiming to be psycic
l Defending a member of a different religion
l Disobeying parents
l Touching Mount Siani
l Going to church on wrong day
l Homosexuality
l Improper slaughter of sacrifical animal
l Mocking church officials
l Rape - but only of a married woman
l Selling flawed animals for sacrifice
l Selling someone elses slave
l Taking lords name in vain
2 Swearing @ parents
3 Adultery
3 Beastiality
3 Wanting to be a priest, from wrong family
4 Idolitry
4 Not going to church
4 Working on sabbath

According to the bible, these crimes are the ones deserving of death, and the number of times they are mentioned.

No christian sect's OFFICIAL dogma endorses its followers killing

The same can not be said for islam

Liberalism is supposed to stand for the rights of the individual. Unfortunately, those who bandy the term now are anything but.

Am I not allowed to say that her analogy to rape victims was gross, inappropriate and insulting (which is the only point I am trying to make) without being accused of appeasement? ~ Posted by: Patrick at May 11, 2015 12:48 PM

From what you've said, Patrick, it seems you're more interested in condemning Geller than in condemning the jihadis for trying to kill her for blasphemy.

Your very first comment on the subject was "Pam Gellar is appropriately being attacked because she's an attention whore."

Your link to Geller's rape analogy and comments specific to it came 5 hours later.

According to the bible, these crimes are the ones deserving of death, and the number of times they are mentioned. ~ Posted by: lujlp at May 11, 2015 3:56 PM

The Old Testament (which includes the Torah) was as much a legal and social system as it was a religious one. As in Islam, society and religion were inextricably linked in ancient Judaism.

With the diaspora, Judaism was forced to become a culture and a religion, subjugating itself to the existing legal systems in the lands in which the Jews settled.

With that, modern Judaism became compatible with secular and multicultural societies.

New Testament Christianity started as a minority religion and was, thus, subjugated to existing social and legal systems at birth.

==============================

Interesting and slightly OT: some scholars believe that the Arab origins of Islam were made up hundreds of years later, that Islam did not arise in the Hejaz, and that Islam actually began as a rebellious offshoot of Syrian Christianity.

http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Origins-Islam-Research-History/dp/1591026342?tag=firstthings-20-20

Don't know how true that is, but Dante put Mahomet in a circle reserved for those who tear the body of Christ rather than in one for false religions - implying Islam is a schismatic form of Christianity rather than a rival religion.

Conan,

Some Islamic scholars quietly debate whether Jesus was a prophet or the son of god. Even some Imams view themselves as an offshoot of Christianity.

Conan: Your very first comment on the subject was "Pam Gellar is appropriately being attacked because she's an attention whore."

Which is a sentiment you agreed with.

Conan: Your link to Geller's rape analogy and comments specific to it came 5 hours later.

What I find utterly fascinating is that I R A Darth Aggie read the exact same comment, and asked, "And? come on, you had a thought there, but you didn't complete it. Proof by assertion and ad hominen aren't."

So, I did. I find it utterly fascinating that one person can read my comment and simply ask me to elaborate. You, by contrast, felt a pressing need to infer things I never said.

I protested, "I'm not saying anyone deserves to be murdered, violently or otherwise" and "I'm not saying she can't do what she did. I'm not even saying that she shouldn't have done what she [did]. Maybe she should have. Maybe we should do more demonstrations like these."

But so urgent was your need to infer something, that, in spite of my clarification, you still maintained, "You're trying to have it both ways, hiding your appeasement of violent Islamic fundamentalism behind an attack on Geller's 'victim' analogy; trying to seem like a defender of free speech while arguing that the provocateurs should quiet down and go home."

Your determination to assign motives to me is worthy of a case study.

I simply lost all sympathy for Pamela Gellar when she made the disgusting and insensitive comparison of herself to a rape victim. That's all.

Which is a sentiment you agreed with. ~ Posted by: Patrick at May 13, 2015 6:08 AM

But that wasn't the sum total of my first comment. In my first comment I chided her as a jerk and defended her right to free, albeit ugly, speech.

Your first comment was solely an attack on her; that she deserved it.

I simply lost all sympathy for Pamela Gellar when she made the disgusting and insensitive comparison of herself to a rape victim. That's all.

But you didn't simply say that. You said the threats on her life were appropriate ("Pam Gellar is appropriately being attacked because she's an attention whore."). 5 hours later you brought up Geller's rape comparison.

And, as I pointed out, there is some legitimacy in Geller's analogy, distasteful as it is: She did something that she should have been free to do (wear a miniskirt or mock Mohammed) and was threatened with physical attack by small-minded fundamentalists who took offense. And then her critics came out and said she provoked it; most of whom without any criticism of the people threatening her.

I simply lost all sympathy for Pamela Gellar when she made the disgusting and insensitive comparison of herself to a rape victim. That's all. ~ Posted by: Patrick at May 13, 2015 6:08 AM

Actually, she didn't compare herself to a rape victim.

She compared her critics to those who blame the victim: "I mean, that’s like saying that the pretty girl was responsible for her own rape. The mayor is going after the defenders of free speech and clearly giving a free pass to the savages who came with guns to kill innocent people because of a cartoon."

Conan: Your first comment was solely an attack on her; that she deserved it.

It was an attack on her. But I never said she deserved the terrorist attack. You're inferring it.

"Pam Gellar is appropriately being attacked because she's an attention whore."

Unless Islam has a fatwa against being an attention whore (and if they did, then a lot of their own imams would end up being stoned to death), then obviously, the terrorist attacks weren't the attacks I was referring to.

I was referring to the attacks on her from prominent persons in the media and the criticism that her actions have invoked. As you yourself said, she's less a champion of free speech than she is a media whore.

Conan: Actually, she didn't compare herself to a rape victim.

Bullshit.

Bullshit. ~ Posted by: Patrick at May 13, 2015 9:58 AM

I see your debate skills are improving.

Read what she said. She referenced her critics, not herself.

I agree with you that it was a poor analogy, but we disagree on why. My issue is with the "pretty girl" part of her comment. It belies a lack of understanding on Geller's part of the nature of the crime she uses in her own defense.

The "girl" in this case was not attacked because she was "pretty." She was attacked because she ran naked through a fraternity party screaming, "Do me." She has a defensible right to do that without enduring a violent attack. However, she has no right to expect the other folks at the party to agree afterward that she was innocent in the whole affair and that she was attacked solely because she was pretty.

Said girl does, however, have a right to expect that a society that proclaims itself a defender of her freedom to take the action she took would readily defend her doing so - even while looking askance at her and harrumphing their disapproval. And not spend more time criticizing her than her attackers and nitpicking her poorly-constructed analogies in defending herself.

Conan: I see your debate skills are improving.

My debate skills are at least on a par with, say, your observations skills (since you need Google to find an article that I had already linked).

I'll raise a good debate when you raise a good argument. She said, that saying that she was responsible for the shooting is "like saying that the pretty girl was responsible for her own rape."

She's the pretty girl; the shooting is the rape. It doesn't get any clearer than that, your hopeless attempts at hair-splitting notwithstanding.

Conan: "She was attacked because she ran naked through a fraternity party screaming, 'Do me.'"

I see. And how many rape victims do you know that do this? Do you think all, most, or even some rape victims do this?

I don't. Maybe if they did, Pamela Geller might have a valid argument, but since they don't, she doesn't.

Thanks, Conan. You defeated yourself handily and won my argument for me.

Don't be deliberately obtuse, Patrick.

I didn't say rape victims go running through fraternity parties screaming.

Geller is the the girl who did that scenario. I agreed her analogy was a clumsy one, but differed with you on why.

I took exception to the "pretty girl" part of Geller's analogy and used the made-up fraternity scenario to illustrate that in Geller's case the "pretty girl" was not simply attacked out of the blue and those that are "blaming the victim" are still wrong, but that the victim acted in a way that brought on the attention of the attackers.

Cousin Dave covered the same ground in another thread with his miniskirt and dark alley post.

Conan: I didn't say rape victims go running through fraternity parties screaming.

No, you said they ran naked through fraternity parties, screaming "Do me!"

Kidding aside, I would agree that if rape victims did do something like that, then her comparison of herself to a rape victim might be valid. But since they don't, then it isn't.

Conan: Geller is the the girl who did that scenario. I agreed her analogy was a clumsy one, but differed with you on why.

I wouldn't stop with calling her analogy "clumsy." I would call it "offensive" "crude," and "insensitive."

I would agree that if rape victims did do something like that, then her comparison of herself to a rape victim might be valid. But since they don't, then it isn't.

You keep missing the point. I thought it might be deliberate, but now I know it's not.

No, Conan. It's you that doesn't get it. And I'm convinced you never will. There are only two points I have made in this discussion, and only two. You've been inferring things I've never said like a madman, for want of a better term. And I'm beginning to think it's a pathology with you.

1) Pamela Geller compared herself to a rape victim, which is not only inaccurate, it is offensive, ugly and disgusting for which she deserves condemnation. (And I agree with you on the "pretty girl" part. The last thing on earth I'd compare Pamela Geller to is a pretty girl.)

2) Pamela Geller serves no cause greater than Pamela Geller. She is no champion of free speech. She's an attention whore.

That's it. I have nothing more to say on the subject. Anything else you glean from my comments- that she deserves it, that it's her fault, etc. - comes from you, not me.