The cartoon protesters

I'm growing increasingly torn in my reaction to the protests over the Danish Mohammed cartoons. On the one hand, I get that lots of Muslims feel offended. I've found some cartoons offensive in the past as well - anti-gay, for starters. But the growing number of violent protests is starting to make me feel like a lot of these folks are fucking nuts.

Having said that, we have our version of fucking nuts in America. Take the minority of WTO protesters who went nuts in Seattle. Take the minority of enviro protesters who burn down houses. And take the religious right, who are pretty much in lock step with the Muslim world's religious right - same extremist hateful totalitarian goals based on a warped view of religion, just that our religious right hasn't become as violent as theirs (though ours bombs abortion clinics and shoots doctors). And I suspect ours isn't as violent, yet, because that level of violence wouldn't be tolerated in America - and not because they don't desire to commit the same violence taking place in the Muslim world today. So America's religious right keeps its violence limited to words and legislation that do as much if not more damage to millions of citizens than stoning a McDonald's.

So while a growing part of me wants to think of the protesters are fucking nuts. A growing part of me realizes that our nuts are just as fucking as theirs.