The American Standard Bearer

• Muslim protesters in London burned a Danish flag in front of the Danish Embassy today.
• Muslim women in Doha, Qatar, gather in front of a mosque and chant anti-Denmark and anti-Israel slogans. (They never miss an opportunity to slam Israel).
• Iraqis in Baghdad burn the flag of Denmark, after Friday prayers of course.
• Iraqis in Fallujah burn clothes made in Denmark. (That’s a novel approach).
• Muslims in Nablus in the West Bank burn a Norwegian flag in protest.
• And saving the best for last, Muslims protesting in Lebanon lead two donkeys covered with Danish flags through the streets while holding up a cheesy cardboard sign that reads, “Excuse us donkey we will liken you to the Norwegian press.”

All this huffing and puffing, flag burning and don’t forget the various death threats, over the depiction of the Prophet Mohammed. I’m not entirely convinced that these wild-eyed fanatics are even offended by the satire since they seem to be an entirely humorless bunch. It’s just the fact that a blonde-haired blue-eyed infidel had the temerity to draw a picture of Mohammed that has them in a froth.

While it’s low and nasty to mock another’s religion, all kinds of nasty, offensive behaviors are tolerated in civilized societies because what makes us civilized is that we don’t kill the people who offend us. And to anybody who hasn’t been out in the sun too long, a cartoon depiction of Mohammed isn’t any more offensive than showing a video of an American having his head sawn off with a dull knife by a guy in a ski mask on a million TV sets in Arab living rooms.

71 year-old Louis Garza of Dallas, Texas, has at least some of his neighbors fuming. The reason for their scorn is that Garza has a flagpole in his yard where he is flying the Mexican flag above the American flag. To the veterans in the neighborhood, it’s personal. “We didn’t go to war to fly a Mexican flag over our flag,” said one neighbor who is also a Korean War vet.

Garza defends the display as his way of protesting the war in Iraq, which he clearly has the right to do. What’s not clear to me is what flying the Mexican flag above the American flag has to do with the war in Iraq and how any casual observer is supposed to get that message.

In a state where a whole lot of people are, to say the least, concerned about illegal immigration and where the number of guns per capita is higher than practically anywhere else on earth, with the exception of just about every middle-eastern country, it might be wise for Garza to rethink his flag arrangement.

“The Republican Party would have the American flag and the Swastika flying side by side.”

Julian Bond, suffering from an advanced case of the same disease that robbed Louis Farrakahn of his sanity, uttered these words in a delirious tirade at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina last night.

He also accused Supreme Court Justices Roberts and Alito of being members of the Taliban. Fortunately for Roberts and Alito, the Senate Democrats were unaware of this fact during the confirmation hearings, sparing both men from having to answer a lot of embarrassing questions about their activities while living and torturing in Afghanistan.

It’s been a banner day for flag burners the world over today.

An overwrought mob of Muslim activists decended on a mosque on the island of Jolo in the Philippines today and immediately set fire to an American flag to protest the presence of U.S. troops. The Americans, who were there at the request of the Philippine government, are on a humanitarian mission to provide a wide array of needed services like dentistry and road repair.

The Muslim group, led by one Cocoy Tulawie, believe that the true mission is counterinsurgency and they would prefer that the Americans would not get in the way of their terrorist activities. The area near the mosque was the scene of horrific violence last week when several gunmen opened fire on a crowd and killed ten people. Tulawie and his band shouted “God is great!” in Arabic as they torched the U.S. flag.

The real flag-burning news however is taking place in the Gaza Strip where angry Palestinians have been burning primarily Danish flags with a smattering of French and German flags added for good measure. And that’s not all – a contingent of Palestinian gunmen representing the ever popular Islamic Jihad organization and the Yaser Arafat Brigade fired automatic weapons as they surrounded the European Union offices in Gaza City but were dissapointed to find that the Europeans had wisely decided not to come to work today.

All this activity follows a week of Muslim unrest sparked by a series of political cartoons appearing in a Danish newspaper depicting the Prophet Mohammed in various ways. Seven other European newspapers in Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany and France picked up some of the cartoons as a show of solidarity with the beleaguered Danes following threats of violence, etc. from Muslims who consider it blasphemy to depict Mohammed.

While Americans and Europeans use peaceful means to protest perceived social injustice, the Muslim world seems to be quick to call for vilolence at every turn. The danger is that if westerners fail to stand up to each threat of violence as it is made and instead, capitulate with apologies and reprisals the way French newspaper France Soir did this week when it fired managing editor Jacques Lefranc, we will be building a powderkeg of resentment among non-Muslims that will eventually explode.

I was with the family last night, dining on bar-b-qued bratwurst (the bar-b-que is nearly buried in snow, but that doesn’t stop us) and watching the State of the Union. I informed the family that none other than Cindy Sheehan would be in the audience, having ditched her cohorts to rub elbows with the Washington elite.

Upon viewing the gallery from afar on TV, my daughter asked how we might possibly recognize her in the sea of faces. I replied, tongue-in-cheek, that she would be the one waving the Palestinian flag, or maybe even the flag of Hamas, and shouting, “Death to America!” My daughter, being 11, thought I was serious and asked what those flags look like. I told her if it doesn’t look like the American flag, it’s probably Sheehan.

Well, it really shouldn’t have been a surprise then that Sheehan couldn’t bring herself to behave respectably, and would instead, try to pull a sophmoric stunt, not with a flag, but with a t-shirt. She was wearing a t-shirt that read “2245 Dead. How many more?” but had a jacket on, concealing the t-shirt, when she entered. Of course, once seated, she took the jacket off which led to her arrest.

Today, she writes on Michael Moore’s website about how badly she’s been treated and how her free speech rights have been violated. Her narrative of events doesn’t ring true as she describes the exagerated behavior of the arresting officer. More believable are eyewitness accounts that attest to her belligerent behavior and refusal to cooperate.

Sheehan behaves like an adolescent who refuses to accept the intricacies and complexities of life. Her notion that she should be allowed to wear a shirt (or carry a sign or wave a flag for that matter) with a blatantly political message in violation of the law is childish, and it is plainly against the law to do any of that within the Capitol building itself. Free speech doesn’t mean you can say whatever you want, wherever you want, whenever you want. For example, the law precludes shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater.

It should be noted that the wife of Florida Representative C. W. Bill Young was also ejected last night for wearing a shirt that said “Support the Troops Defending Our Freedom.” The difference is that Mrs. Young left when she was asked to leave. Sheehan would have served herself and her movement better if she had behaved with respect.