By J. DeVoy
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2IHnWY-i6Y&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
Stop one on our tour of the forthcoming dark age: Fundamentalist muslims attack Lars Vilks during a presentation on free speech at a Swedish university. Vilks was behind the 2007 cartoon depictions of Muhammad, and the film he intended to show continued this theme. What wasn’t shown in the video is the attempted arson of Vilks’s home on May 15, 2010.
Some would argue that Vilks should have been more sensitive, or chose his forum more intelligently. Surely he anticipated the reaction his art would provoke. In a society that values free speech, though, the mere fact that Vilks wanted to make and show such a film should be sufficient reason for him to do so — he shouldn’t have to balance the fact that some people might be (gasp) offended. Those offended by Vilks work have every right to be, but they’re not doing themselves any favors by resorting to violence and trying to censor his expression.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvhvHBrhlOM&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
Next stop: Scantly clad seven-year-olds dancing suggestively to Beyonce’s “Single Ladies”. It’s legal, but jaw-dropping to say the least. This kind of stuff contributes to why organizations like ASACP exist and are so important. There is a market for such performances – when the dancers aren’t minors – but allowing encouraging and rewarding children born less than ten years ago to do this is in poor taste, to say the least. As seen in the case of child pornography, not all speech is protected by the First Amendment.
Finally there are the people themselves, whatever your political affiliation:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUPMjC9mq5Y&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ojd13kZlCA&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
And, if these videos don’t shake your faith in the future enough, there are always the comments left by other viewers.
