People who think it would be cool to mock other people's religion, because they can mock their own, or they can mock anything, and who believe it is important to do so, that it is one of the most important things to do, are people who have their priorities all screwed up. A Seattle cartoonist satirically joked that, today Thursday, should be dubbed "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" on Facebook, suggesting that it might be a fun thing to do. The cartoonist has changed the joke, and now wants everybody to make today the "Everybody Draw Al Gore Day." She must think that would be harmless.
71,000 members as of 11 p.m. PDT, last night, Wednesday, were ready to draw and post their pictures, and more than 37,000 members of Facebook, including the cartoonist, who started the joke, have joined the Facebook group Against "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day - May 20."
The cartoonist on her web site is distancing herself from the joke, is " apologizing to Muslims and saying she meant her cartoon as a one-off statement on free speech and censorship and had no idea how far her attempt at satire would go. "The vitriol this 'day' has brought out, of people who only want to draw obscene images, is offensive to Muslims who did nothing to endanger our right to expression in the first place," she writes.
Well there is no telling what thoughts pass through the minds of "artists," and no telling where those thoughts might lead.
I am for self-censorship, not government censorship. Governments will do what government do. Pakistan has blocked Facebook, for a month, as fallout from a cartoonist's joke. The government has ordered Internet service providers in that country to bar access completely to the site.