The Islamophobic "American Freedom Defense Initiative", listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group, sponsored a contest this weekend in Garland, TX to see who could draw
the most offensive a caricature of Muhammad. Lo and behold, they achieved the desired response:
two gunmen opened fire outside the facility, wounding a security officer before police killed them. The president of the hate group,
Pamela "Crazy Pam" Geller is notorious for
her extreme positions on Islam, so much so that Norwegian mass-murderer Anders Breivik cited her in his deranged writings. Also present at the "art exhibit" was another extremist, Dutch national
Geert Wilders,
who has incited hatred against Muslims in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe.
While Crazy Pam is shielded behind the First Amendment right to free speech, the event was not truly about that. It was a calculated attempt to 1) draw attention to her narcissistic self, and 2) to provoke a violent reaction. Two violent men took her bait and paid with their lives. They should have ignored her, as we all should from now on.
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