That Pesky Free Speech Thing

Well, that's thirteen minutes and fifty one seconds of my life I'm not getting back. This movie that the Arab world is erupting about? It's terrible. It's just beyond terrible. I don't even have words for just how terrible this movie is- if it hadn't provoked horrible, contemptible violence across the Middle East, it'd be laughable. From a film-making point of view: the acting is awful, the editing is incomprehensible and the sound editing criminally bad.

The content is just as incomprehensible. This movie, if you want to call it that accuses Muhammad of being a child molester, a drunk, a lecher, a thug, a murderer and he's apparently gay as well. There's a bizarre scene where he buries his head between a woman's thighs and make a devil go away. (What the devil is, what it looks like and why it's there aren't exactly made clear to the viewer.) Can I see why this would offend Muslims? Absolutely. But to the point where they feel the need to riot? That not so much. If you really wanted to make a hit piece of Islam you could do a lot better than this and be a lot more offensive- all of which seems to confirm the notion that whatever these riots are about, they're not about this shitty little movie.

As pathetic and offensive as this movie is, that's part of the trouble with Free Speech. Sometimes people get offended and quite frankly, I think if we're giving your country a ridiculous amount of foreign aid, you should just deal with it really- by all means, protest all you want. But riot? Mob violence? Storming our embassy? Eh... not so much. And the administration's attempt to get YouTube to take it down? Disgusting and contemptible. There should no surrender, no quarter, no compromise on free speech. And if the Middle East wants to rise up, storm our embassies and kill our diplomats in response, well then good luck to all the shiny new governments over there trying to govern their countries without American foreign aid.

You could argue that this movie is the equivalent of shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater that puts American lives at risk and I think there are relevant points to be made there but religious fundamentalism is the enemy of freedom- and I don't care if it's the Christian, Hindu, Buddhist or Muslim variety. And to face down the fanatics, you can't give an inch on your basic principles. Trying to lean on YouTube to take it down? Worst. Appeasement. Ever. And I hope YouTube tells the White House where exactly it can put it's request too.

UPDATED: YouTube came through!