CNS:
Seven Pakistani television stations broadcast U.S. government public service messages Thursday featuring President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denouncing a film clip insulting Mohammed.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland confirmed the ads were produced and paid for by the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, at a cost of $70,000.
They aired on the same day as the army had to be called in to prevent violent protestors from breaching a diplomatic enclave where the embassy in located.
As Muslim Friday prayers approach – a potentially volatile time – Pakistan is bracing for the biggest anti-U.S. protests yet since the furor over the film clip available on YouTube erupted last week.
The government has declared a holiday Friday – a “Day of Love for the Prophet.” All U.S. diplomatic missions in Pakistan will be closed, the embassy said on its Twitter feed, “due to the national holiday.”
[…]
In the television ad Obama is seen speaking at the White House on Sept. 12, the day after the violence erupted: “Since our founding, the United States has been a nation that respects all faiths. We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.”
Then a clip of Clinton, speaking alongside her Moroccan counterpart in Washington on Sept. 13, appears. She says: “Let me state very clearly, and I hope it is obvious, that the United States government has absolutely nothing to do with this video. We absolutely reject its content and message. America’s commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation.”
Although the remarks by Obama and Clinton were widely reported when made, Nuland said “the sense was that this particular aspect of the president and the secretary’s message needed to be heard by more Pakistanis than had heard it, and that this was an effective way to get that message out.”
[…]
Hardline clerics in Pakistan have been whipping up fury for days, and religious opposition parties at a meeting Thursday demanded action including expulsion of the American ambassador until the U.S. issues an “apology to the Muslim world.”
Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, who has urged citizens to “protest peacefully,” intends to address the nation Friday on measures the government is taking in response to the denigration of Mohammed.
Those steps look likely to include new demands at the United Nations for global legal restrictions on “blasphemy.”
“The argument that the blasphemous film is part of freedom of expression or speech is not viable,” Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira told reporters after a cabinet meeting on Thursday.
“We expect the international community to take all steps and make laws that avoid such incidents in future.”
Yeah? Fuck a goat, you barbaric, intolerant cunts.
There’s my apology.
And make no mistake: just because our present political class doesn’t have the nuts of a baby squirrel doesn’t mean the rest of us here in the US won’t be willing to sack up when the time comes.
I reject your demands. I reject your “blasphemy” laws. If you want me to respect your religion, you might begin by not using it as an excuse to bugger an American diplomatic, murder him, and drag his carcass through the streets. You might begin by showing tolerance for other religions, all of which your reject.
I’m repulsed that my government would work in any way — or spend any bit of our tax dollars — either arming you or appeasing your braying medieval bloodlust. Again.
I mean, seriously. This is the United States of America. And we’re going to genuflect and cow to this?
In other news — and in a similar vein — Chick-fil-A sets a new precedent that, in order to open a private franchise business, you are required to cave to the PC demands of the progressive / LGBT community and not donate any money to groups that that find offensive.
It’s kind of like the progressive version of blasphemy laws, you see. Only without the robes, the dumbass beards, or the beheadings. But with fabulous costumes!
This is no longer the country I grew up in. The were no “civil rights victories” here. There was the demand that a company curtail its free speech in order do business in a major city. That is, each and every “nuanced” explanation to the contrary, nothing more than a frontal assault on the First Amendment by a government charged with securing that right for each and every one of us.
Were we living in a functioning constitutional republic, this Alderman would have been tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a rail.
Here’s my pledge, for as long as my heart can hold up: I will fight to return the US to a constitutional republic with a stable and equitable rule of law. As a father and an actual patriot, it’s the least I can do, both for my children and every person wishing to be free.
Those who seek to oppose me don’t represent me. There are no “compromises” to be made with tyrants such that the tyranny is two-ply and more gentle on my ass. These “progressives” are enemies of liberty. They are saboteurs of our Constitution. They are the creeping forces of incremental tyranny disguised as the face of “tolerance” — when in fact, they only tolerate what it is they believe in. All else is “hate”. And, as with Islamism, you either submit or you die (though in our case, the death is metaphorical, and usually brought about through regulation, bullying, shame, and coercion).
This is the semantic game and it comes down to the control of language. I’ve tried desperately and persistently to sound the warnings and to illustrate the points, but my arguments aren’t terribly sexy when one can get outraged over Jessica Alba’s empty-headed bimbosity.
Whatever. The rest of the “influential conservative” sites can poke through polls or nitpick over some now completely pedestrian bit of media spin or offer their anti-“purist,” realistic strategies and tactics for elevating the next Party-chosen “pragmatic” placeholder for “our side” into office.
It probably pays the bills and gets them the networked links that drive traffic, and for that I can’t blame them. Still, let’s be frank: it doesn’t do dick to address the root of the problems molesting the ideas and ideology upon which this country was founded. At least, not if you view this country as a classical liberal republic worthy of reclamation, or individual autonomy as a birthright. And make no mistake: the idea of natural rights is the next to go.
I’m fed up.
This is just the straw that broke the camel’s back. Pity the poor desert anti-Semite / anti-Christian / anti-Woman / anti-Gay / anti-Buddhist / anti-Coptic Chrisitan / anti-Hindu who had his sandy brown dick stuck in the poor beasts ass at the time of its collapse.
Obama and Hillary can send him a get well card and blame the stress placed on the camel by intolerant bigoted Americans for its paralysis. Then they can just sit back and hope no mob burns our shit.
Pussies.
I cannot think of a thing to add to this. We are long past a position of negotiating with progressives, since negotiation to them is basically how much we will capitulate to their demands. They are a drag on what this country used to be, and what it can be again with a lot of work (and hopefully no bloodshed, but I’m getting less sure of that possibility as the days go by).
As for the barbarians, screw them. If the video bothers them so much, they shouldn’t watch it. That’s how I handle information that offends me. Also, they might ask themselves why they are so sensitive to criticism and ridicule. I’m a Christian, and while I take offense at some of the ridicule directed my way, it doesn’t shake my faith. Perhaps the barbarians are not all that secure in their faith, so they believe they have to prove it to themselves by being barbaric.
the idea of natural rights is the next to go.
Oh, I think it’s been gone for awhile, else the assault on the enumerated rights wouldn’t have commenced.
Perhaps the barbarians are not all that secure in their faith, so they believe they have to prove it to themselves by being barbaric.
Very true, cranky. I get offended by a lot of things but I have yet to go out and kill anyone over it.
We need to develop our domestic energy industry and get out of the barbarians’ homeland, and sell even more of our good stuff that goes boom to Israel. We can also keep a few carrier groups in the region to blow shit up as required to assist Israel, until all the bad guys have been thoroughly stomped.
Any politician who isn’t moving toward that goal is a drag on foreign policy and needs to be retired.
Also, they might ask themselves why they are so sensitive to criticism and ridicule.
Because they have been systematically humiliated by sexual abuse as children, plus the oppression of their evil governments, plus the brutality of their ancient cultures, plus the fact that the Warriors of Allah are living in a pig sty while the infidel and the Jew live in luxury.
Obviously, it’s because the infidel and the Jew have wronged the Muslims, and they must get their honor back by humiliating and destroying the infidel and the Jew.
It’s all misplaced, pathological rage, ginned up by their sociopathic rulers and would-be rulers. There’s no self-examination or self-criticism in those cultures, just sickness.
God help any kid born in such a society.
I can sign on to that, boss.
One question: would you accept a constitutional republic that does not include the entire US as it exists today? I’ve been half-joking for awhile that I’ll move to the first state that secedes. I’m coming to grips with the idea that this current republic may just be too darn big. Is it time for folks to dissolve current alliances and forge new ones?
Lemme see if I’m up to date on the score.
Our Embassy in Egypt pre-emptively apologizes for a youtbe trailer for a movie nobody’s seen and which may or may not exist. Muslims riot.
Mitt Romney says something to the effect of “why are we apologizing for being Americans? We should never apologize for the liberties we enjoy.”*
Muslims riot.
Administration and it’s media lackeys go nuts about Romney shooting from the hip and aiming later.
Muslims riot.
Administration disassociates itself from the apology, thus following Romney’s lead.
Muslims riot.
Now we’ve paid $70k to air an apology on Pakistan TV, and what’s happening today?
Muslims riot.
Flip-Flop-Flip and Muslims riot. Do I have that about right?
*Yeah. If only it was that succinct.
Looks like victory may have been prematurely declared.
Ernst, if the sun comes up in the East, the muslims riot.
Why aren’t we seeing anything about the 33,000 troops coming home from Afghanistan? I guess we came, we saw, we came home.
Absolutely. Recall that it was my 2005 piece in which I predicted an eventual soft civil war based around logistical changes that got me drummed out of the proper and good academic circle protected by “progressive” Brian Kiteley, the novelist who thought Darleen’s Obama Raping Liberty cartoon needed to be removed at once!
This is a guy who would speak eloquently about asinine attempts to ban Ulysses or Lolita, and yet not be able to see the disconnect between his two positions. Or else, he sees them, but like Stanley Fish, he figures why this need for consistency? If you have no foundations to appeal to, it’s all temporal rhetoric used for a specific occasion. Hypocrisy? A tool of the Enlighten to keep goodly sophists down.
No more. THings are what we say they are, because we say they are!
A very liberating “philosophy,” that.
Thanks, Jeff. That’s what I thought.
I’m trying to decide between living in Jesusland or Racistburg. Although West Haterton probably wouldn’t be too bad.
Pamela Geller’s NY MTA system ad reads:
Which, nicely put . . . or stabbed, your pick.
Until somebody shuts you up permanently
OMG!!!!! implied violence!!!1111!!!!!11 Sorry, but that’s where we wind up.
Because the Abyss is a vacuum. And we know how nature feels about vacuums.
Business? You didn’t build that. Government built that!
Movie trailer? Government didn’t build that! Had nothing to do with it. Some obscure guy did it all on his own.
I think we should all be thankful that DOS could pull something off for only seventy grand.
If only such protests always had a happy ending.
I think we’ve finally found grounds for banning flag burning, Slart. It violates the clean air and water act.
Can’t have people breathing in those noxious vapors now, can we?
Court Of Appeal To Weigh Ban On Constitution Distribution This Week
Jeff,
You may have jumped the gun on Chic-fil-a:
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/21/chick-fil-a-no-we-didnt-promise-the-chicago-alderman-wed-stop-giving-to-anti-ssm-groups/
I had a feeling that that story smelled of Lake Michigan.
[…] A pledge by Jeff Goldstein: Here’s my pledge, for as long as my heart can hold up: I will fight to return the US to a constitutional republic with a stable and equitable rule of law. As a father and an actual patriot, it’s the least I can do, both for my children and every person wishing to be free. Those who seek to oppose me don’t represent me. There are no “compromises” to be made with tyrants such that the tyranny is two-ply and more gentle on my ass. These “progressives” are enemies of liberty. They are saboteurs of our Constitution. They are the creeping forces of incremental tyranny disguised as the face of “tolerance” — when in fact, they only tolerate what it is they believe in. All else is “hate”. And, as with Islamism, you either submit or you die (though in our case, the death is metaphorical, and usually brought about through regulation, bullying, shame, and coercion). […]