Nyah, nyah, nyah!

Here's the latest from fundamentalist land, proving they just don't get it:

Iran's best-selling newspaper has launched a competition to find the best cartoon about the Holocaust in retaliation for the publication in many European countries of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad. The Brussels-based Conference of European Rabbis (CER) denounced the idea and urged the Muslim world to do likewise. The daily paper Hamshahri said the contest was designed to test the boundaries of free speech -- the reason given by many European newspapers for publishing the cartoons of the Prophet.

It's a disgusting idea but, hey, their cartoonists and agitators have been doing it for years, so why not line them up for a contest? But what they really don't get is that this is indeed about free speech. You'll notice the rabbis' protest: "The Brussels-based Conference of European Rabbis (CER) denounced the idea and urged the Muslim world to do likewise." Not "The Brussels-based Conference of European Rabbis (CER) announced that they were hosting riots in all countries, and they would provide the flags, the guns and the knives." But because the fundamentalists don't get it, they don't of course realize that the rabbis' response is the essence of free speech. Instead, they see it as weakness that the rabbis can't muster a mob in the streets. In this regard, I'm reminded of how Stalin reacted when he heard about how many Catholics there were worldwide. "The Pope! How many divisions has he got?" That is, there was a total inability on the part of a dictator to recognize leadership of the spirit, as opposed to leadership at the end of a gun. Of course, one can't ignore that Stalin's empire managed, in 70 years, to results in the deaths of hundreds of millions of people world wide -- it was hugely effective but, ultimately, it couldn't sustain itself.