Do We Negotiate?

Well, here it is. The moment has arrived where we, as a nation, must confront terrorism without the fig leaf of religion. When Muslims resort to death threats to oppose speech they don't like, we may safely side with them because their religion must be respected above all else. When Salmon Rushdie publishes a book that inspires death threats, when Theo Van Gogh makes a film that actually gets him killed, when Ayyan Hirsi Ali tells her story and must have armed security for the rest of her life because of it, when Jyllands Posten publishes some cartoons and embassies are burned, when South Park attempts to show an image of Mohammed and gets death threats, and when a woman must change her name and go into hiding because she tried to inspire people to draw Mohammed, our society simply shrugs and says that they shouldn't have blasphemed against Islam. Free speech is important to the western world, but not so much as respecting religion, no matter the cost, is important. So we're not cowards for capitulating to Muslim terrorists routinely, we're just super respectful of their religion. What if the terrorism wasn't done by Muslims though? What if you had to take a stand to give into terrorist demands or not and you didn't have a way to hide your abject terror when you capitulated. We no longer need wonder. North Korea can tell us all what films to watch and which to not. 

The Interview didn't look like much I'd be interested in seeing when trailers for it were out. Just a goofy comedy with a gimmicky premise that could be easily avoided in favor of films like the final Hobbit installment. What never occurred to me was that North Korea could intimidate the United States into not showing a film. Art in this country is promised to be free from censorship on the part of the government, but it never occurred to me that a studio would censor itself based on threats from the most obviously insane nation state on the Earth. There can be no possible excuse for this. Fear that people would be hurt of killed of these film were released is all there is to the story. Respect for the bizarre religion of ancestor worship and deification of the dictatorial line is most certainly not in play here. Neither can the studio claim to somehow sympathize with their cause, as they are not crazy people. So let fall the notion that, "letting the terrorists win," is just a hackneyed political slogan, although it is certainly that, because that is precisely what has occurred. Do you think there are other organizations that might have occasion to perform similar terrorist threats when films portraying themselves in a negative light come out? You can count on it. By not drawing the line here, the studio has simply delayed the inevitable decision to draw it at some point, unless, of course, there is no line in the sand worth keeping so that those who would attempt to censor art through terrorism would, at some point, be told they may go no further. 

We are a society at the edge of a precipice. It must be decided, and soon, whether or not we capitulate to terrorism. What I was raised with is the idea that one should never give into terrorist demands and that the Unites States in particular does not negotiate with terrorists, let alone capitulate to them entirely. Oh, I know the sacrifices involved could be terrible. Imagine if they did blow up a cinema and we had terrible loss of life. Sometimes though, there has to be things for which you're willing to put your life on the line. Patrick Henry famously said, "Give me liberty or give me death." When you'd rather live than have liberty, you'll live, sure, but what kind of life is that you'll be living? If your liberty remains, that's a fluke and it can vanish in a million different ways the moment those to whom you are so ready to capitulate simply insist it be cast aside. North Korea is a land of a deified boy dictator whose people must endure his every insane whim. My country is supposed to be the land of not putting up with that kind of crap. When someone threatens terrorist action against the United States, I only have two questions: 1). Where are the terrorists? 2) Are the terrorists dead yet? Maybe the boy dictator will see this blog post (okay, probably not, but go with me here) talking about how awful his evil line of dictators is and how his country deserves so much better than they've gotten for generations. If that happened, and he threatened me with terrorist action, I'd write nothing but articles that boil down to, "Fuck him," for weeks. That's how the America I know acts. Liberty is sacred to my country and if you want to threaten that liberty, I sincerely hope a Seal team shows up and ventilates the meat bag containing your abhorrent brain.

-Frank