Updated, 12:28 PM EDT, March 31, 2008: LiveLeak restores Fitna link despite new threats (see video in original post below). HotAir.com has the details.
Updated, 5:09 PM EDT, March 28, 2008: LiveLeak has removed Fitna due to threats. Michelle Malkin has the details (plus a working copy of the film) and you can click on the screen below to read Live Leak’s statement.
Original post, March 28, 2008:
WARNING: Fitna contains strong content.
My conflict with posting Fitna was twofold. I am no expert on Islam yet it has been widely said that the depiction of God and the prophets is offensive to Muslims. That is contrary to my beliefs but I am not a Muslim; I believe that religion is a personal relationship with God. Why offend, just for the sake of doing so? I am no holier than thou are. Secondly, I cannot possibly know what is in Wilders’ heart. Perhaps he is a profiteer, solely out for political gain or seeks only to incite. If so, then posting Fitna supports the indefensible.
A good friend of mine feels that Islam is a third world religion, one where there can be no secular government, anywhere in the world, and no laws of humankind on earth the equal or placed above Islam. That perception seems borne out by what we see today, radicalization versus modernity, with the latter appearing to lose ground these last four decades.
Even at the risk of offending those who live and let live or appearing to agree with something that I do not agree with, that all of Islam is an evil belief, I could not remain silent.
Risking all in defense of unalienable, God given rights, even those of someone with whom you disagree, is really a selfish venture. Someone far wiser than me once said, “I cannot be free unless you are.” The reverse is also true and that is why I posted Fitna here on this web site for to defend the rights of others is a defense of my own.
When the American Constitution was being signed at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin remarked that he had often wondered whether the rays of the sun painted in the chair of the president of the convention signified a sunrise or sunset for the new country.
There are no sides of right or wrong to be had in this great effort on which we as American’s have had thrust upon us. Perhaps some would say, in our misunderstanding of other cultures, we asked for it. Others intone, we should have been ready. The crisis is clear, it is not the words, meaning or lack there of at which you battle with. Death. Death has come, for that is the crisis. The pen it is said may be mightier than the sword and yet those who do not live by the sword can still die by it. No, not a threat just a sad irony of the age we have awaken. Continue your protests, your marches and by all means express your constitutional rights. Death will wait for both the hawk and the dove. I have just nearly spent all my tears on the fallen. So many are gone and such a loss of our innocence. I gape at the void left behind. My attention averted only by the disillusionment of a civilization grasping for a solution.
May Our God Bless America – Amen
I saw your site at Michelle Malkins, my hope is that posting stuff like this will never be stopped, but I fear that we are getting close to the day when all we say and do will be monitored. Until then, keep posting.
TEEEEEEJ