"Blasphemy" Is Just Another Word For "I Don't LIke What You Said!"

Most victims of blasphemy-related violence are not famous or wealthy. So when you dismiss or equivocate violence against people who insult or offend religious beliefs, this is who you're talking about: pic.twitter.com/mgFGY3gCBO

— Sarah McLaughlin (@sarahemclaugh) August 17, 2022

Neither are most FBI agents. Or most state election officials.

To equivocate violence against anyone for what they say or do is indefensible.  The line is not drawn when religious beliefs are involved.  Political opinions, social opinions, the sense of self; are equally at fault and actually involve as many, if not more, people, than concerns over blasphemy.

I mean, I would call this blasphemy:

I have to be honest, there is nothing quite like Trump as Jesus pulling the Statue of Liberty from the water--presumably as a result of climate change he helped accelerate, but details!--to know that we are in hell already. pic.twitter.com/JBUxmTq8a1

— Thomas Lecaque (@tlecaque) August 16, 2022

But it's also, IMHO, a grotesque political argument.  I don't, however, want to punish the blasphemer.

The very concept of free speech, at least in America, is that people are responsible for what they way, but that nothing they say justifies violence as a response.  Trump may say his home in Florida was "raided."  That doesn't justify violence against FBI agents and employees.  IMHO (again), the FBI did far more heinous things than serve a search warrant on a former POTUS for government documents he shouldn't have in his possession back in the '60's (COINTELPRO ring a bell? If not, ask yer Grandpa!  Punk kids!)  Hoover spied on Dr. King and tried to scare him out of his very public leadership of the SCLC.  The FBI does not come to this with clean hands but then, neither does Trump.

Neither does Salman Rushdie; but if you don't like his books, killing him won't make them disappear, or dissuade someone else from following in his footsteps.  I heard an Iranian professor of English literature on BBC World Service savage Rushdie for his writings.  I don't think Hemingway was such a great guy, either; but I admire his books.  Well, some of them.  His attitudes toward women weren't all that great, and I knew that before I had a daughter (and started thinking anew of what my wife put up with in the world).  But the professor seemed to think Rushdie deserved to die for his output; and I just don't see that as a rational, or even a religious, argument.

The professor's argument was essentially "victim blaming," not unlike the argument of "Hend F Q."  It's a nice way of absolving yourself of responsibility for the violence you (implicitly or explicitly) call for against the one who offends you.  What's that old saw about "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" leaves the whole world blind and toothless?  Am I free to assault her because her opinion offends my ideas about religion?

I'm sure she doesn't think so.  I don't, either.