Eric Dondero at Libertarian Republican and Reason Magazine's Nick Gillespie got to talking about the recent controversy over South Park's depiction of the prophet Muhammad, and Eric ran the story today, noting to begin with that:South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are longtime self-proclaimed "libertarians." Indeed, Parker is actually a registered Libertarian Party member. They are friends of Reason Magazine. And they have used explicit libertarian themes in numerous episodes.
In the early 2000s, a movement was born out of their series, called "South Park Republicans." They are described as center-right Republicans, mostly suburban fans of the show, with moderate libertarian-leanings. There was even a book released by author Brian C. Anderson called "South Park Conservatives."
Death threats for depicting Muhammad
So what's the problem? South Park's creators- always looking for ways to push the limits of free speech and public dialogue (and probably just love to annoy PC sycophants for the fun of it), decided to slaughter the political correctness crowd's most very sacred cow (so to speak)- by depicting the Muslim Prophet Muhammad.
After receiving veiled death threats from an Islamic website, the South Park creators chose to censor their depiction of Muhammad when their second episode (of a two part series on Muhammad) aired on Comedy Central. You can watch the full episodes online (legally) here and here (at least you used to be able to before the controversy- right now the episodes have been frozen).
An Islamic Reformation?
Nick Gillespie, Editor of Reason Magazine was reached for comment yesterday by Libertarian Republican blogger Eric Dondero, and Gillespie said the recent death threat against South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker "demonstrates the need for an Islamic reformation is self-evident."
Gillespie also drew parallels to the recent wave of sex scandals in the Roman Catholic Church, saying that the death threats "should shame all serious Muslims the same way the pope's behavior in sexual-abuse scandals shames true Catholics."
For Gillespie's full statement on the matter, I'll let you take a look at Eric's post.
What do "left-leaning" libertarians say?
I just know Eric is dying to hear what we "lefty" libertarians think about this (a term he uses to distinguish libertarians who don't think Islam is the biggest threat to our lives, liberties, or property- which I certainly don't; I think the U.S. federal government is).
All I have to say is this: remember how just one or two Tea Partiers had racist signs and the media then painted us all as racists and showed those signs everywhere, anytime they covered news related to the Tea Party? Remember how annoying and unfair that was?
Not all Muslims, not even a majority of Muslims want to kill Matt Stone and Trey Parker. Your average Muslim, walking around Turkey right now is thinking about his family, his job, and other seemingly mundane things, not: "Oh boy, oh boy, I hope someone kills that vile Trey Parker!"
