This morning I recieved the following email from a friend who
recieved it from a friend who got it from a friend. I decided
to respond to the original poster because I was a little taken
back by the question at the end of the email asking,
"How's the left going to handle this one?"
So here's the email I got:
Hooray for Michigan State University
Well, what do we have here? Looks like a small case of some
people being able to dish it out, but not take it. Let's
start at the top. The story begins at Michigan State
University with a mechanical engineering professor named
Indrek Wichman.
Wichman sent an e-mail to the Muslim Student's Association.
The e-mail was in response to the students' protest of the
Danish cartoons that portrayed the Prophet Muhammad as a
terrorist. The group had complained the cartoons were
"hate speech." Enter Professor Wichman. In his
e-mail, he said the following:
Dear Muslim Association:
As a professor of Mechanical Engineering here at MSU I intend
to protest your protest. I am offended not by cartoons, but
by more mundane things like beheadings of civilians, cowardly
attacks on public buildings, suicide murders, murders of
Catholic priests (the latest in Turkey!), burnings of
Christian churches, the continued persecution of Coptic
Christians in Egypt, the imposition of Sharia law on
non-Muslims, the rapes of Scandinavian girls and women
(called "whores" in your culture), the murder of
film directors in Holland, and the rioting and looting in
Paris, France.
This is what offends me, a soft-spoken person and academic,
and many, many, many of my colleagues. I counsel you
dissatisfied, aggressive, brutal, and uncivilized
slave-trading Moslems to be very aware of this as you proceed
with your infantile "protests."
If you do not like the values of the West -- see the First
Amendment -- you are free to leave. I hope for God's sake
that most of you choose that option. Please return to your
ancestral homelands and build them up yourselves instead of
troubling Americans.
Cordially,
I. S. Wichman Professor of Mechanical Engineering
____________________________________
As you can imagine, the Muslim group at the university didn't
like this too well. They're demanding that Wichman be
reprimanded and mandatory diversity training for faculty and
a seminar on hate and discrimination for freshmen. Now the
Michigan chapter of CAIR has jumped into the fray. CAIR, the
Council on American-Islamic Relations, apparently doesn't
believe that the good professor had the right to express his
opinion.
For its part, the university is standing its ground. They say
the e-mail
was private, and they don't intend to publicly condemn his
remarks. That will probably change. Wichman says he never
intended the e-mail to be made public, and wouldn't have used
the same strong language if he'd known it was going to get
out.
How's the left going to handle this one? If you're in favor
of the freedom of speech, as in the case of Ward Churchill,
will the same protections be demanded for Indrek Wichman? I
doubt it.
Hey folks, send this to your friends, and ask them to do the
same. Tell them to keep passing it around until the whole
country gets it. We are in a war. This political correctness
crap is getting old!
And here's what I wrote back to the poster:
Hi _______:
I recently recieved this email from a friend who recieved it
from a friend, etc and I wanted to respond to the question
posed at the end of the message - "How's the left going
to handle this one?"
In my opinion, the email insinuates that "the left"
has a double standard when it comes to free speech. I am here
to tell you that as a proud member of "the left" I
didn't find the posting of this email offensive at all. I
still believe as do true members of "the left" that
we have the right to freedom of speech as laid out in the Bill
of Rights and the Constitution - which means that we respect
the right of all people to their opinions - even if we don't
agree with them. I have personally listened to Winston
Churchills's speeches and I have watched the furor over the
muslim cartoon. I have also listened to the Swift Boat
Veterans and the attempt to amend the Constitution to ban the
burning of the American flag. I will never begrudge a person
of their opinion or their right to their opinion. Most of us
on the left however, will draw the line at lying (Swift Boat
Veterans) and amending the Constitution to restrict freedom of
speech (flag burning amendment). In this particular email two
groups of people have their own opinions which they are
entitled to. I too have very strong opinions regarding the
cartoon incident - most of which, I think, would surprise
you. I think the calls to incite violence by some of the
muslim groups as a result of this cartoon are wrong and
irresponsible. I also think that when a Senator stands on the
floor of the Senate (Senatory John Cornyn, R. Tx) and states,
"I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection,
but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence
in this country. . . . And I wonder whether there may be some
connection between the perception in some quarters, on some
occasions, where judges are making political decisions yet are
unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up
and builds up to the point where some people engage in, engage
in violence. Certainly without any justification, but a
concern that I have."
are equally harmful irresponsible.
However the point of this message is that perhaps you might
refrain from brushing with broad strokes what your perception
of what "the left" really believes.
Regards,
K________
And here's what the poster sent back to me:
I don't really care what you think. If you don't like it,
delete it! I didn't send it to you and I don't appreciate
your writing to me, who you don't know.
But you are now blocked from sending me any more of your
left-wing crap.
So much for my attempt to breach the vast divide... and I
thought I was being nice.
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