Becoming the latest entity to bend over backwards to avoid offending Islam, Sony has halted the issue of its new video game – because music in it might accidentally offend Muslims. From Fox News:
One of the fall’s most anticipated video games for the PlayStation 3, Sony’s “LittleBigPlanet,” had to be yanked from shelves at the last minute Monday because it might accidentally offend Muslims.
“One of the background music tracks that was licensed from a record label for use in the game contains two expressions that can be found in the Quran,” Sony said in a statement Monday. “We have taken immediate action to rectify this and we sincerely apologize for any offense this may have caused.”
Guaranteed that if it contained music offensive to Christians, there’s no way that sucker would be yanked. And in that case, the ACLU would probably be championing the singer, and Sony, in their right to offend. Look at Bill Maher’s recent film. Offensive to some? No doubt. But should it be immediately ripped out of theaters because of that? No. And at least Maher ripped religion in general – not just one religion. Can’t stand the guy, and don’t find him funny at all, but he does deserve credit for that. Look at games like Grand Theft Auto, which drew heavy fire for its violent and antisocial themes, offensive to a number of people. Was it pulled? Of course not. But offend Muslims – or the Left – and the picture changes.
While I personally find things like Family Guy’s little McCain-Palin-Nazi bit offensive, along with a million other things I’ve seen in my life, I don’t advocate banning, removing, or censuring something just because someone’s offended. Nazi / Skinhead groups drive me up a tree. Should they be banned from assembly? No. Rarely can I pass an anti-war protester without comment. Should those protestors be banned? Much as I’d love to pass the local green on the weekends without their moronic presence, they are guaranteed the right to their opinion, and the freedom to express it.
Start with one word, or thought, and you threaten all thought. With all the freedoms this country grants, nowhere in the U.S. Constitution were we given a right to never be offended. At the very least, that which we find offensive serves to reset our moral compasses. If you don’t know what you despise, how can you appreciate what you value? If you don’t experience that which you disagree with, how can you be commited to what you support?
What’s scary is that the political Left, supposed champion of free thought and free speech, fails entirely to support free speech that it disagrees with. And the Fairness Doctrine, rearing its ugly head as the election looms ever closer, just may be the start of a headlong plunge down that slippery slope. Every time a cartoonist, a filmmaker, an editorialist, or a video game maker caves to political correctness, freedom of speech is threatened.
By all logic, Obama should be so far behind in the polls as to be non-existent. Redistribution of wealth, relativism in the face of evil, altruism to the point of self-sacrifice, and restriction or outright removal of one’s right to self-defense should be ideas that the cradle of freedom should reject outright. And yet, inexplicably, he is a political rockstar. So filled is this country with a bizarre combination of hubris, self-loathing, and a desire to achieve what one does not earn, that we may willingly give away what no nation could have taken by force – our very identity.
Each story that hits the press about voter fraud, publicly funded socialist agendas, nationalization in the guise of “bailouts,” or political correctness should make American blood run cold. After November, we may be looking at an entirely different country. And precious few years from now, we may, as Ronald Reagan once warned, “spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
