Does irony translate?

This whole cartoon thing is rediculous. Michael Standaert has the right idea:

Why does the Danish Prime Minister even need to be involved in this situation or apologize for this? What I don’t understand is the fact that GOVERNMENTS have been drawn into this mess. They are not responsible for the actions of writers and artists working at independent newspapers within their countries. Since when did a few independent newspapers become equated with the governments in those countries? One has to wonder what kind of cultural or psychological barrier there is between these worlds. How do the limits imposed upon free expression in the Middle East and the fact that a lot of the press in that part of the world have been under government and/or religious control play into the reactions we are seeing?

The greatest irony of all this, the depiction of the Prophet Mohammed with a bomb in his turban, is that the satire, crude as it may be, has been lost on the very people it could influence the most. Who can deny that a large faction of Islam has been debased by a militancy tied inherently, and falsely, to that religion of over a billion people? A Danish cartoonist didn’t create that, he just held up a mirror. Muslims who use Islam for political means to rally others of their faith to do violence have debased the image of the Prophet Mohammed more than any cartoonist ever will. I’d say the exact same thing about fundamentalist Christians who try to depict Jesus as a militant hero, coming to slay the unbelievers, and I have.

What the world needs is more free expression, not less.

A group of people is mad about being shown as violent, this group of people then expresses their outrage by being violent towards innocent people. That’s just retarded. Come on people, even this – Iran presents: Holocaust cartoon contest – is a much more reasonable response than firebombing an embassy.