While I completely agree this is ridiculous, there are some subtle issues involved.
Many people in totalitarian countries assume unthinkingly that anything that is published reflects the official position of the government. So there is a valid motivation for the U.S. to distance itself from anything inflammatory. The solution, however, is not kowtowing, but rather articulating a principled government position. As in, we respect your religious freedom, but we expect you accept our freedom of expression. And reject any Islam that endorses violence, subjugation, etc. as a response. A la Ground Zero Declaration. Sadly, nobody in either party seems willing to take a stand like that... Sent from my iPhone > On Jan 9, 2015, at 08:20, BILROJ via Centroids: The Center of the Radical > Centrist Community <[email protected]> wrote: > > Surely you remember that the “Innocence of Muslim” fiasco didn’t end in > Egypt. (Mollie talks about this more here.) U.S. taxpayers paid for > television ads in Pakistan featuring footage of Barack Obama and Secretary of > State Hillary Clinton during press a press conference – subtitled in Urdu – > condemning the film. “We absolutely reject its content and message,” Clinton > explained. Bro-ster Tommy Vietor, then spokesman for the National Security > Council, told the Washington Post that the White House has “reached out to > YouTube to call the video to their attention and ask them to review whether > it violates their terms of use.” And due to this pressure – what amounts to > no less than de facto censorship – YouTube pulled the video. The man ended up > in prison and the extremists won. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
