Saturday, September 18, 2010

Molly Norris Shows Us How NOT To Hide

***UPDATED & BUMPED***

In response to the first post, below, in which Molly Norris’ adventures as a dhimmi were recounted, reader GB sent a link to Mark Steyn’s original intuition - back in April - regarding this woman's behavior.

Ms. Norris had sent Mark Steyn an email; she was angry about his attitude concerning her situation.

She says:

I agree with what you wrote. Mostly. But why do I have to carry all of the weight? Why won’t others do their part and step forward? There is nothing stopping others from doing something positive!

I don’t get it. It can be like a relay race, but it’s easier to condemn and sound “right”- right?

Molly Norris
Seattle, Washington

Steyn writes back, on his blog:

MARK SAYS: Well, you’re not “carrying all the weight”, are you? I mean, surely you can’t be that self-absorbed, can you? There’s a guy called Kurt Westergaard. He’s a cartoonist, like you. Four and a half years ago, he drew the best and most provocative of the Mohammed cartoons. Since then, he has lived with explicit death threats, and in a house extensively remodeled to accommodate a safe room, to which he was obliged to retreat recently when an Islamic nutcase broke in and tried to kill him and his granddaughter. On top of that, he’s just been involuntarily retired by his newspaper on “security grounds”. You think he hasn’t occasionally wished over the last half-decade that “others” would “do their part and step forward”? Other cartoonists maybe? Members of a profession (the media) that incessantly congratulates itself on its bravery, except on those rare occasions when it’s actually called to display some?

As for whether it’s “easier to condemn”, I assume that’s aimed at me. Well, when you’ve got as many death threats as I got just from one tiny lie by Khurrum Awan and the Canadian Islamic Congress - that I called Muslims “mosquitoes” - then we can discuss who’s got the easier life. Nobody asked you to cook up “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day”. You chose to do that - and, if you didn’t understand what you were getting into, then where have you been the last nine years? Kurt Westergaard, who’s 74, could have bailed after 48 hours and whined that it’s all getting way more attention than he ever expected and drawn a picture of himself in a peace-sign T-shirt. But he didn’t.

That’s why we’re all down on you. You took a bad situation and made it worse. You announced that at last there was a liberal progressive who was going to stand up to Islamic intimidation - and then you caved, in nothing flat. And even then I could have forgiven you, if it weren’t for the final self-humiliating coup de grace of your crappy peace-sign T-shirt. I’d love to have glimpsed the stage of the creative process at which you thought that would be just the ticket. Good luck betting your future on that crapped out obsolescent talisman. [my emphasis - D]

Steyn already said it. Back in April. Heck, I could’ve just quoted him and been done with it. On the other hand, my problem with her antics is the way in which she is choosing to “go ghost”. I swan…these drama queens and their abettors strike a fine po-mo ironic pose quite easily, but they sure are naïve. That “news” report is prima facie evidence that they don’t take the situation seriously. If they did, the blather wouldn’t be on the front page. In fact, they wouldn’t be writing about Molly Norris at all.

Does the left have any gravitas? This makes me think of Daniel Pearl’s father. Not even the brutal murder of his son could alter his belief system. In fact, he doesn't see that raising his son in that Leftist bubble helped create the mind-set of Daniel Pearl, a world view that let him believe he was safe because he was a reporter. This failure to grasp the seriousness of his situation led to his own beheading. Yes, of course Daniel Pearl is a victim of hatred. And no, he did not deserve what his captors did to him.

Many of the former allies of folks like Norris and Pearl did suddenly “got it” when the World Trade Center towers crumbled. But people like Norris and Dr. Pearl are sadly, irretrievably trapped in the amber of one dead dogma while remaining soft targets of an even deadlier political theology. They are the true innocents because they've been indoctrinated in a multi-culti "we're all brothers under the skin”. Cain and Abel were brothers, but that didn't save Abel, did it?

Laugh? Weep? Walk away? It’s your call.


The post you’re about to read is swimming against the mainstream of opinion, but I need to get it out of my system. For months, every time I’d see a story on Molly Norris, a still small voice would say, “What is this woman thinking? Can her ratiocinations even be called “thinking”?

Now the latest chapter is making the rounds and frankly it smells. In fact, its fragrance wafts back to the beginning episode, last April. That was when Norris, the ‘gifted’ cartoonist [you decide on the merit of that adjective] thought she’d be cool, hang in with some solidarity for the big guys and maybe get a bit of the limelight reflected her way by declaring a “Draw Mohammed Day”:

Reacting to Comedy Central’s decision to censor an episode of “South Park” that depicted Mohammed -- itself a reaction to the threats and murder committed by Muslims upset at other people for depicting the prophet, a big no-no in Islam -- Norris drew a cartoon in protest and declared the unofficial holiday.

Then all hell broke loose.

Facebook groups popped up in support of Norris’ invocation of the First Amendment. Other Facebook groups popped up in protest. Then… a Pakistani court order[ed] the social networking site blocked, presumably to help its people forget that a central tenet of one of its religions was being treated as a punchline by those in a country with which it has, um, a complicated relationship.

ONE of its religions? Cute. As cute and ignorant as Molly herself. Pakistan declared Sharia the law of the land in 1979. It doesn’t tolerate other religions very well. Just ask the few remaining Christians.

“It’s been horrible,” says Norris, who says she’s lost seven pounds because of stress, to [a reporter]. “I’m just trying to breathe and get through it.”

That was back in May, after her light-hearted solidarity with the Comedy Central brouhaha gave her gobs of publicity and a Facebook page with large numbers of followers. The Facebook page ended up in a big headache she couldn't make go away.

Now maybe Ms. Norris thought Islam was Rainbows and Lollipops and wouldn’t harm a cute little leftist like her. Or perhaps she slept through the global bloody terrorism of the last decade (she’s young, let’s give her some room for childhood). Oh, right…and she’s from Seattle so she well could have believed that all those ugly stories about the Danish, umm… cartoonists maybe… were issuing not from reality but from the vasty depths of right wing paranoia.

In the beginning, I was giving her points for courage of a sort, even though she appeared to have gone out of her way to poke a stick in the anthill to no serious purpose. But then, when a fatwah was issued against her, whatever courage there was went out the window.

As soon as the shariah hit the fan, Ms. Norris began apologizing. She begged to be forgiven, she squealed like a dhimmi feeling the wind from a swinging scimitar. She even tried to cancel the “Draw Mohammed Day” but like Dr. Frankenstein, she found her monster had taken control. Part of the world was busily engaged drawing him for the Big Day, and another portion was threatening her with execution for having suggested such a thing.

No matter what Ms. Norris did, the nightmare wouldn’t go away.

There was one step she could have taken and been instantly forgiven. The problem would’ve been resolved instantly. Scimitars sheathed. Fatwahs declared null and void. In fact, she’d have gotten even more publicity.

Molly Norris could have converted to Islam.

Lord knows she’s proved not to have even a passing acquaintance with the tenets of shariah or with any recent history regarding the fate of those who make pictures of Mohammed. Otherwise, she’d have been waiting for the inevitable fatwah, right? Instead, we were treated to watching a second full-blown case of the Victorian vapors when that fatwah descended.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Now she’s telling the world that the FBI has told her to disappear. If you read nothing but the headlines, you’d swear they put her in some kind of Witness Protection program. But no, they told her if she liked living to make herself scarce and she’d have to do it on her own dime.

So how does Ms. Norris proceed to make herself scarce? Why, with yet another drama, aided and abetted by the weekly newspaper which published her drawings:

You may have noticed that Molly Norris’ comic is not in the paper this week. That’s because there is no more Molly.

The gifted [sic] artist is alive and well, thankfully. But on the insistence of top security specialists [sic] at the FBI, she is, as they put it, “going ghost”: moving, changing her name, and essentially wiping away her identity. She will no longer be publishing cartoons in our paper or in City Arts magazine, where she has been a regular contributor. She is, in effect, being put into a witness-protection program-except, as she notes, without the government picking up the tab.

It’s all because of the appalling fatwa issued against her this summer, following her infamous “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” cartoon.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

This is a lot of taradiddle, folks. Having helped a number of women disappear, I can guarantee you not one of them would have let the press know about her planned disappearing act. Nor would any of their family or friends have been willing to discuss her, much less run a story in the newspaper about how they’re going to miss her.

When you’re serious about disappearing, you don’t announce it. You get rid of your charge cards, your social security card, your other IDs. You gather what money you can, take very few clothes, and you get out of Dodge. You don’t even tell your family where you’re going; they may not know that you’ve gotten on the bus until they read the note you’ve left behind.

That note will be some form of “Dear Mom and Dad” note. Here’s an more-or-less accurate example:

“This is so hard to write.

I have to tell you goodbye, as much as I don’t want to. I love you and wish I weren’t forced into doing this, into giving up all the people and places I love. But after talking to some people who know about the danger I face, I am leaving here to make a new start. I will miss you very much but you know better than anyone else that it is too dangerous for me to stay where I will be killed.

I am taking the children because they need me (and I need them, too). You know you would be in danger if I left them in your keeping.

I will find a way to contact you, but it will have to be absolutely secure. You can’t trust the phone or the mail. But I’ll find a way.

Love from your [daughter], [sister], etc.”

And then she’s gone -- on to a safe place where people know how to help her get new identities for herself and the children. She’ll live suspended in a half-life for a long time, fearful and always looking back. She’ll spend the time before falling asleep asking herself a hundred versions of “if only…”

Should she have the least inkling that her persecutor, the father of her children, may have found her, she’s gone again. She can leave more quickly this time because she’s been saving money against the possibility of his tracking her down. She always has a bag packed and ready for her and the children against this soul-sinking possibility.

It’s a heart-rending situation when a person is forced to leave their home and community. A non-Muslim woman forced to flee a murderously angry spouse spends many hours soul-searching, asking herself why it took so long to recognize the danger [for Muslim women, the situation is far worse, but that’s for another time]. At no time, however, does she talk to the media about the problem, though she may consult the police, lawyers, friends and family. Or maybe not.

When she leaves, the woman is often forced to work out the details of her flight in utter secrecy in order to avoid arousing the suspicions of her spouse, who has long been hypervigilant about her behavior anyway.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Ms. Norris didn’t mean any harm, but it is obvious she lived, worked and breathed in a bubble of great ignorance. Each step of the way, when she felt threatened, she ought to have become quieter. Instead, she seems to have upped the noise at those junctures, leaving herself open to a danger to which she seemed willfully blind and deaf.

So now, because she couldn’t or wouldn’t learn, she is supposedly in hiding. Or on her way. Given her behavior since April, one must question if this is really the final act for Ms. Norris as a public figure.

Somehow I doubt it. So far she hasn’t demonstrated that she’s learned anything at all about her part in these events. Of course it’s not fair that the pompous jerk issued a fatwah against her. At no point does she deserve what has transpired. However, people die all the time for just the slightest whimsical disrespect towards the Religion of Peace.

No one is exempt, including bloggers. But people like Ms. Norris, who thoughtlessly throw down the gauntlet so publicly, are in more immediate danger.

If only she had consulted Flemming Rose before she issued her call for cartoons. If only…she’d known who Flemming Rose was.

…Methinks she may be back.

39 comments:

sulber nick said...

It's bizarre isn't it? The establishment/state/political and social elites - call them what you will - have a strong tendency to give short shrift to anyone who may have trodden on Muslim toes and are suffering the consequences. It goes something like this, "Serves you right." It's hard to work out why.

Anonymous said...

I fall under the general fatwa, as I have both burned a Koran (video on YouTube!) and posted an obscene drawing of Mohammed on my blog, but I have done these things anonymously, so I can't count myself among the brave. I'm not really afraid of getting killed, and if I saw them coming I think they would get the worst of it. What I am afraid of is losing my job and being an unemployable pariah.

Provocation is not pointless, it's a critical part of the battle. Islam runs 100% on intimidation when it does not actually control the levers of state violence. One, they must be shown this does not work. Two, humiliation is a basic method of controlling peoples' behavior. When humiliated people become demoralized and lose the will to confront. It's not pretty and I would hate to do it to anyone undeserving, but Moslems are people richly deserving of humiliation.

mythusmage said...

Hopefully Ms. Norris is aware of the advice from Monty Python regarding not being seen. First rule of not being seen is, not to stand up.

ib said...

I agree, her behaviour hasn't made sense.

What has really bothered me is that every article I've seen about her going "Ghost" has had a picture of her in it. That does not help her situation.

These "journalists" don't appear to be the least bit concerned about her safety.

In Hoc Signo Vinces† said...

In hoc signo vinces

"Should she have the least inkling that her persecutor, the father of her children, ... "

Fathers branded as persecutors what were you thinking Dymphna.

Maybe this young lady is in need of a father figure.

Ex-Dissident said...

She is young and she can re-invent herself. I agree that her goal, at lest in part, was notoriety. She achieved that goal, but she didn't expect the price of this notoriety. I hope that she will learn from her ordeal and mature. Hey, it's a New Year and I am a strong believer in second chances.

Unknown said...

Her very naiivete, callowness, vapid innocence and leftyness makes her story a superb illustration of the insanity of the ummah-bandits. She has served a very useful purpose. Noone can easily stereotype HER as a cynical "right wing" "bigot! So, whilst most on the left are useful idiots for Islam, she, an idiot no doubt, has become useul for the cause of counter-jihad on account of her very idiocy.

Unknown said...

PS...I have tried to get myself a death threat without success. I am anyway a nihilst and at least one day per month get very angry at being made to live! To die for a good reason is an admirable prospect. But how? As an ANTI-jihadist any violent course of action is denied me. It would only serve the propaganda mills of our enemies.

Art seems a good option. But so-far mine has been totally ignored.To be totally ignored is indeed a living death.Did you not have an article on that very topic recently? The talentless Ms Norris does not know how lucky she has been to get such vast publicity for practically nowt! Really!

Anyone curious about my art can look at a new, as-yet unfinished web-site:
http://www.geeha.webs.com

Unknown said...

Wait a minute. She's a CARTOONIST. Ideally she should be smart and witty - but it's OK if she's silly too. Er, it was OK until the Muslim fifth column began its jackboots advance into the heartland of America.

For someone who supposedly helps women in crisis, this piece sure smacks of blaming the victim. The rude awakening Molly has experienced is 100% the fault of Muslim hatred. Even if she hasn't wiser up quite yet about exactly what shed gotten herself into, to blame yet another hapless victim of Muslim hatred for not "getting quieter" is disgusting beyond belief.

The Muslims are having making great strides when the majority of Americans seem willing to help them squelch and suffocate anyone who even attempts to break out of the box Islam is attempting to place us in. Shame on the author.

Unknown said...

Sorry for my typos - publishing on my iPod, and preview button didn't seem to work.

Zenster said...

Part of the world was busily engaged drawing him for the Big Day, and another portion was threatening her with execution for having suggested such a thing.

Given the alternatives, picking a side to be on should have been a no-brainer. Unfortunately, we seem to be dealing with a no-brainer in the form of Molly Norris.

Thrasymachus: Islam runs 100% on intimidation when it does not actually control the levers of state violence. One, they must be shown this does not work. Two, humiliation is a basic method of controlling peoples' behavior.

Close but no cigar. A deeper knowledge of high context cultures like those of Islam will tell you that they, Muslims especially, view humiliation as something worse than death.

This basic fact, coupled with your own preliminary observation regarding how, "Islam runs 100% on intimidation when it does not actually control the levers of state violence", means that the most common Muslim response to humiliation will be lethal violence and not the personal demoralization that you propose.

You are projecting Western norms onto a mindset that doesn't just routinely defy them but embraces a level of cognitive dissonance which would cause many enlightened intellects to spontaneously combust.

It is far more likely that Muslims in general will foment even more violence as a response to any campaign of humiliation. What is required to alter Islam's appeal to these minds is demonstrating its fallibility.

Given the highly fatalistic nature of Islam in addition to the profound level of indoctrination that it is typically embedded with, any convincing demonstration of its fallibility will probably involve a devastating demonstration of force by Western powers. Violence-prone Muslim minds will likely respond to nothing less and this is just one more example of how Islam sows the seeds of its own destruction.

Zenster said...

ib: These "journalists" don't appear to be the least bit concerned about her safety.

What makes you think that Norris' "safety" is of any concern to them?

Given the traditional journalistic axiom that, "if it bleeds, it leads", an entirely different motivation could just as easily be assigned to those who are, quite literally, "reporting" on Ms. Norris.

eyeinbristol: So, whilst most on the left are useful idiots for Islam, she, an idiot no doubt, has become useful for the cause of counter-jihad on account of her very idiocy.

It is more than likely that this important lesson is all but lost upon those most in need of it. Much as with Communism, dhimmi "true believers" will find themselves among the first to be slaughtered by Islam. They will quickly become disillusioned with the full implications of shari'a law and voice some of the loudest complaints. None of which, of course, will Islam tolerate for a nanosecond.

Far be it from Ms. Norris to have taken away the most fundamental lesson of all that I noted in the very beginning of this comment.

Namely, that given the alternatives, picking a side to be on should have been a no-brainer.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of Islam's dhimmified useful idiots appear to be quite uncontaminated by any gray matter. Given that apparent fact, what might otherwise be a rather automatic decision will more likely prove to be a veritable IQ test for this lot.

dood: For someone who supposedly helps women in crisis, this piece sure smacks of blaming the victim.

A mode of behavior shared to an alarming degree by Islam and the West's Mainstream Media.

Even if she hasn't wised up quite yet about exactly what she'd gotten herself into, to blame yet another hapless victim of Muslim hatred for not "getting quieter" is disgusting beyond belief.

I hope you have plenty of Pepto Bismol on hand. Before it gets any better this is all going to get a lot more worse.

Dymphna said...

@dood--

You said:

For someone who supposedly helps women in crisis, this piece sure smacks of blaming the victim.

How so? I said of Ms. Norris:

Of course it’s not fair that the pompous jerk issued a fatwah against her. At no point does she deserve what has transpired...

IOW, how is that "blaming the victim"?

What exactly sanitizes her unwise decisions in these dramas she created?

My beef with Ms. Norris is that she refused to pay attention to reality. At each juncture when silence would have been the best course, she chose publicity. Like many "victims" she didn't act with gravitas. It was as though she couldn't get past her own "innocence" as a protection against harsh reality.

Look, dood, I worked with more than 3000 'battered' women during my years in that line of work. And quite a few 'abusers'. And lots and lots of children. And even the parents of the abusers and their targets.

Sometimes the women died becaue they refused to take his mortal anger seriously.

I used to talk to one dad who was so worried hid daughter would die. He wanted her to go somewhere safe and start a new life. She wouldn't do it, her reasoning being, "I haven't done anything. It's not fair. Why should it be ME who has to leave?" Why indeed?

So her husband shot her. He did it in her father's home with her father and the police present (you can see why police loathe domestic calls).

I'd like a penny for every woman who ever walked into my office and demanded, "Make him stop". I would inquire if this person loved her and she'd inevitably say, "Of course he loves me. What a stupid question". To which I'd respond, "if he loves you and yet he won't stop when you ask him to, why on earth would he stop because a stranger asked him to?"

If you think I'm blaming the victim simply because I find her behavior questionable, then perhaps re-reading the post would help clarify my point of view.

Given the posts out thee about her bravery, the view I propose here is in the minority. We all long for a black and white world, with no shades of ambiguity. But at least Mark Steyn appears to have understood it perfectly. I'm going to update the post with links to his early recoginition of the situation. Her email to him proves my point.

Zenster said...

Dymphna: … "if he loves you and yet he won't stop when you ask him to, why on earth would he stop because a stranger asked him to?"

This simple question can logically be extended into an instructive thought problem regarding Islam.

If jihadists love Islam and yet they won't stop when asked to do so by regular Muslims, why on earth would they stop because a Western stranger (infidel) asked them to?

First off, one is obliged to question whether "regular Muslims" are truly asking the jihadists to put a halt to their terrorist activities.

The answer to that is as informative as it is foreboding.

Secondly, it demonstrates the futility of Western hopes that:

A) Muslims will self-police their jihadists.

B) Diplomatic negotiation can have any useful outcome in halting jihad.

Once both of these results are taken into account, there emerges the simple conclusion that only massive military action will generate any productive results.

When this fundamental observation is taken in combination with how pacifying just two Muslim countries (Afghanistan and Iraq) has cost over a TRILLION DOLLARS and that some FOUR DOZEN Muslim-majority nations remain in need of similar treatment, the simple economics of spending another 24 TRILLION DOLLARS to accomplish this begins to take on rather ominous connotations.

Economical military retaliation against that many people in so many different locations and countries points directly towards the use of nuclear weapons. No other tool delivers such cost-effective results. Period.

Muslims, by virtue of their widespread numbers and clear refusal to abandon jihad make it a near certainty that a nuclear holocaust awaits them at some future point.

Arius said...

Zenster, Islam will nuke us before we get get serious about ending its threat against civilized society. Even after they nuke us you know there will be the usual blockheads and internal enemies that say it was our fault.

Zenster said...

Arius: … Islam will nuke us before we get get serious about ending its threat against civilized society. Even after they nuke us you know there will be the usual blockheads and internal enemies that say it was our fault.

None of that changes how it will take Islam many decades to accumulate anywhere near the number of nuclear weapons required to successfully stand off Western military powers.

Long before that time, some idiot Muslim terrorists will have committed nuclear terrorism enough times to get the entire MME (Muslim Middle East) glassed and Windexed™.

Islam doesn't stand a snowball's chance in Hell of surviving the fatal combination of its own congenital overreach and obsession with violence.

goethechosemercy said...

Quote:
They are the true innocents because they've been indoctrinated in a multi-culti "we're all brothers under the skin”. Cain and Abel were brothers, but that didn't save Abel, did it?
end quote.

And this is the perfect answer to those who worship at the shrine of multiculturalism.
No.
All religions and cultures are not alike. They are all qualitatively different.
One, in particular, known as Muslim culture, is inherently violent and intolerant. Wherever it shows itself, it must be confronted with its history & brutality.

Zenster said...

goethechosemercy: … "we're all brothers under the skin”.

"And I, for one, would be willing to skin all of humanity to prove it.”

− Elsworth Toohey −
(Ayn Rand − "The Fountainhead")

Apuleius Platonicus said...

Ms. Norris has certainly not gone about this in the right way. Essentially she was a dumb kid who had no idea what she was getting herself into. In particular she was not acting out of any deeply felt, or well-thought out, principled position.

But this makes her all the more exemplary of the problem. Islam isn't only a threat to those who understand it! Islam, and it's apologists, aren't only out to silence those who know what they are talking about and know how to stick to their guns.

People who are naive and shallow have just as much right to poke fun at Islam as anyone else.

It is very short-sighted to focus on anything other than the fact that Molly Norris is the first American citizen forced into hiding like this.

People who are thrust into the spotlight like this are very often not up to the task. But those who do understand what Norris is up against should know better than to take snarky pot shots at her because she doesn't pass your narrow minded ideological litmus tests.

Look at Geert Wilders. Should American conservatives who view Islam as a threat to their freedom make common cause with a man who supports socialized medicine on a scale that makes "Obamacare" look like the half-assed half-hearted measure that it is?

Profitsbeard said...

Norris walked into the adult world pretending that she was still a child.

She was a big girl.

And should have stood by her mockery of Islamic intolerance.

That she betrayed her own best impulse is the worst thing about her.

To quote Nietszche:

"Do not commit cowardice upon one's own actions. Don't leave your ideas in the lurch."

Stand by your strength, don't cringe.

It's the cringing that encourages the enemy.

Better to die fighting on your feet than be slaughtered like a sheep on your knees.

Norris thinks that going Baaa-aa-aa! will get her off the Mohammedan hook.

Dream on, ghost cartoonist.

1389 said...

There's another take-home lesson for this. I like to push the envelope as far as I possibly can on my blog. I have been pushing the envelope long before it was cool to do that, as was GOV.

I figured out a loooong time ago that Facebook is not the place to do that. Facebook is not very secure. I prefer to pay a little money to get my own domain.

The reason I maintain my anonymity online is that I want to get my message out in front of as many people before somebody comes after me to shut me down, perhaps with extreme prejudice.

I do not maintain anonymity when I talk politics in person or attend protests. I say the same things I say on the blog, but I do not identify myself as blogger 1389AD. This could be dangerous, but I'm willing to take that chance. OTOH, I do not discuss politics at work or in any work-related context, because it is against the rules that I agreed to follow in order to work there.

Another moral of the story is this: political work is a dangerous game, and if it's all about YOU, then leave it alone, because you'll only become corrupted. Politics attracts narcissists and attention whores, and they do nobody any good, including themselves.

Dymphna said...

@1389 --

You said:

Another moral of the story is this: political work is a dangerous game, and if it's all about YOU, then leave it alone, because you'll only become corrupted. Politics attracts narcissists and attention whores, and they do nobody any good, including themselves...

In fact, such people do great harm to others and to good ideas. You're right: Norris didn't get that lesson at all. Her self-absorption wasn't malign but it surely was ignorant.

Malign narcissism is qualitatively more dangerous to the unwary who are taken in by the surface glitz. Bill Clinton's victims are ruinously aware now, after it is too late.

Also you have described perfectly why it is a good idea to remain anonymous. There are crazy folks in the world, ones who don't believe you have the right to your own thoughts.

Sometimes I do wish we'd been able to retain that cloak, but circumstances called for the change. And, come to think of it, we took away one weapon from the adversarial types who use ridicule and ad hominem attacks as a form of dialogue.

Zenster said...

Apuleius Platonicus: People who are thrust into the spotlight like this are very often not up to the task. But those who do understand what Norris is up against should know better than to take snarky pot shots at her because she doesn't pass your narrow minded ideological litmus tests.

(WARNING: Graphic images - safe for work.)

WHAT PART OF THIS RELATIVELY SIMPLE LITMUS TEST DID SHE NOT UNDERSTAND?

The 9-11 atrocity provided all sane adult people with a very simple and basic "litmus test".

Evidently, Ms. Molly Norris did not manage to take this important moral decision with the seriousness it required.

Muslims are now forcing her to understand the repercussions of thinking that Islam can be used as part of, what was apparently, a cheap publicity stunt. These aren't any sort of "snarky pot shots", they are fundamental decisions that all survival-oriented people must make about this new century's greatest existential threat.

Those who are unable to discern which side of this moral avenue they should be standing on are walking road kill and not a lot more than that.

It is to Gates of Vienna's eternal credit that this site plays such an instrumental role in helping so many people recognize the threat that confronts them. Dymphna and the Baron are saving human lives each and every day they keep this web site operating.

Had Ms. Norris been a regular participant here, I sincerely doubt she would have had such a casual regard for the implications of her own “Draw Mohammed Day”. She is now paying the price that, one way or the other, every infidel will have to pony up in the coming years.

Islam has made damn sure that nobody gets a free pass in making this fundamental moral choice. Too bad that a vast majority of Muslims haven't bothered to purchase a clue as to where that leaves them when the nuclear dust settles.

Anonymous said...

We provoke the islamics just by breathing!

Everything we do, and the way we dress, our very culture provokes them to violence.

I think this woman did a great service to us, just be being the vanguard of a change. In an out and out war...it is war after all, she's drawn their fire. Yes, she knew what she was doing, but she done a service to Humanity.

Every hero does battle differently.


The islamics aren;t divided, they cover each other's acts and stand by them. That's how they've been prevailing.

I think we should stand by her, and protect her, instead of being divided about this.

It's time the islamics are provoked and burn out their frenzy.And see at the end, that NOTHING they do, will make us back down.

Anonymous said...

I think the situation of a cartoonist and of a battered wife is not similar.

The violent husband knows all about his wife : where she lives, who her friends are, etc. That's the reason (I suspect) why she has to stay silent if she wants to escape. Furthermore, her plight is of little interest to strangers.

It's different with the cartoonist. The dangerous islamist knows almost nothing about her. The general public is supposed to be interested about her agenda and her safety.

In what way would not saying anything decrease her risk ?

Public figures who have gone into hiding following death threats by Muslims did not do so silently. Robert Redeker or Ayaan Hirsi Ali made it known that they had to go from one safe house to another.

What can be criticised is that she did not stand her ground, she tried to apologise, and she behaved as if nobody else had been through a similar predicament before.

She did not understand how serious it was.

Also, those who run similar risks but stay exposed can feel betrayed, in a way, even if her apology does not increase their own risk in any objective way.

I wonder whether Robert Spencer has any security, and who pays for it. Back in the time when I was very moderately Muslim-aware, I was accused by a Muslim on a French blog to parrot Robert Spencer's ideas.

I didn't even know who Robert Spencer was at that time. But that anonymous French Muslim did. Spencer's photograph is all over the place. He goes to public events, he gives speeches, he is much more visible than that poor cartoonist.

I'm sure a lot of Muslims would love to see him disappear.

Zenster said...

allat: We provoke the islamics just by breathing!

You've certainly got that part right. More's the pity that so many people do not at all grasp this simple fact.

I think this woman did a great service to us, just be being the vanguard of a change. In an out and out war...it is war after all, she's drawn their fire. Yes, she knew what she was doing, but she done a service to Humanity.

Ms. Norris' recent actions seem to indicate the exact opposite. It's pretty apparent that she clearly did not know what she was doing. Otherwise this whole situation would have been handled quite differently. Few things reveal that ignorance better than her febrile attempts to reconcile this situation after the fact. As if Islam gives a damn about anything she does now save making sure that she is dead, stat!

Of utmost importance is the swift apprehension, trial and capital punishment of fatwa issuer Anwar al-Awlaki. No better message could be sent to Islam than having America pursue, capture and execute one of its own citizens for assisting al Qaeda. Muslims in the United States need to be given an immediate and stark object lesson regarding how domestic terrorists will be treated.

Unknown said...

I agree that she didn't know what she was doing, and may possibly be foolish. I also appreciate that Dymphna acknowledges her actions weren't malign.

I very much admire GoV, and appreciate the hard work they have done and are doing to advance the anti-Jihad. But I agree with allat that, rather than attacking those among us who make an effort at anti-Jihad, and then don't or can't follow through, we should focus our anger and our ire against the filth that have placed us all in this predicament: Muslims. Muslims. Muslims.

A second category which follows behind the Muslims are the moronic Western apologists for Islam and our hideous incompetent elites in the Government, Academia, and Media who continue to shill for the Muslims, who encourage the Muslims, and who invited Muslim invaders into our world.

Finally -- some here criticize Norris for not taking the proper message from 9/11. Fine -- but honestly -- from her looks she can't be far into her 20s. That means she was a mere child when the 9/11 atrocity happened. Again -- why would she be so naive about the consequences of her "Everyone Draw Mohammed Day"? It isn't her fault so much as the fault of the second group I lambast.

I don't know her age, I don't know her background -- and I don't know if she's a Seattle native, but assuming some reasonable things, just think of the morons who taught her in school as a child after 9/11. Just think of all the "Muslim outreach" re-education she was exposed to, and the Leftist hand-wringing over the "anti-Islam backlash" which she was no doubt indoctrinated with at her hideous public school.

Actually it's amazing a young woman under such circumstances came out with the eminently funny and intelligent "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" in the first place. Can't we forgive her for having a giant dose of shock when the true magnitude of Muslim Terror came down upon her lone head in the aftermath?

How many of you who post under aliases would have continued to wade into the bloody battle at that point?

Dex Quire said...

A large part of the Molly Norris story has to do with Seattle. You have to almost live here to understand the kind of serious brain-dead leftoidalism that reigns in this town. Seattle's big enemies are Christians and country club republican men in white leather shoes and their wives in beehive hairdoos. Do any such exist? Doesn't matter, they are eeevil republicans and therefore the supreme enemy of every decent Seattleite.

This is pretty much the level of culture and ideas in Seattle. And those are the folks who entertain culture and ideas. Most don't even think, they just wear black get a tattoo and a lip ring and they're off to the races.

We are so isolated, so far out on the rim of Western Civilization that any real idea just crumbles to nothing by the time it gets here. We are stuck at about the year 1978.

All Norris' reactions to her cartoons can be explained by the aforesaid. Her disaapperance might fall in line wit her self-dramatizing past but it is still disturbing that Seattle and the FBI seem to be going along with it all.

I've written about that elsewhere.

Dex Quire

Zenster said...

dood: Finally -- some here criticize Norris for not taking the proper message from 9/11. Fine -- but honestly -- from her looks she can't be far into her 20s. That means she was a mere child when the 9/11 atrocity happened.

As someone who has leveled that criticism, I can only say this:

You would need to be living in a total vacuum to have avoided seeing the media's repeated broadcast of images from the 9-11 atrocity.

Anyone in the United States who is of adult age at this point in time knows what happened on that fateful day. And it takes something bordering on mental illness to deny or misattribute who is responsible for the 9-11 atrocity.

Furthermore, as a cartoonist, there is very little chance that Ms. Norris was somehow unaware of the global furor over Jyllands-Posten publishing the Mohammad cartoons.

Finally, as a woman, it is equally impossible for Ms. Norris to not be aware of how Islam treats women worse than animals.

All this combines to form an onus of obligation for her to have at least some sort of marginal awareness regarding regarding the potential upshot of her "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day".

She does not have the luxury of pleading ignorance.

Moreover, as Profitsbeard and Robert Marchenoir both noted, Ms. Norris did not have the ovaries to stand her ground once the shari'a hit the fan.

That is, perhaps, her greatest failing. Especially so as a woman and an artist whose very existence would be harshly delimited by Islam.

As regards anonymity, she is the one who chose to publicly announce her very own idea of poking fun at perpetually aggrieved and utterly humorless Muslims. A substantial track record already existed whereby she could gauge what sort of outcome to expect from such actions.

She has no cause to complain and everyone involved would have been better served by her using whatever resulting noteriety for the purpose of further exposing Islam's total incompatibility with Western culture.

It was certainly her privilege to go into hiding but, again, either way her life was going to be, and probably is, just plain miserable. Hiding only served to further encourage and embolden Muslims in their quest to destroy human liberty. That did no one any favors, herself included.

Anonymous said...

To be clear, I don't think it's fair (or politically astute, for that matter), to bash Molly Norris because she recoiled from her counter-jihad initiative and went into hiding.

Counter-jihad activists taking it into the open are very rare and deserve utmost praise.

This does not mean that all the others are despicable cowards who should be vilified. All the others are the people we pretend to fight for.

If Molly Norris had never raised her head above the parapet, we would not be saying unpleasant things about her. That's both unfair and not very encouraging for others, who might harbour similar vocations.

Did she pass Robert Spencer's home address to Oussama Ben Laden or something ? No, she didn't. So, what's the aggravation ?

Zenster said...

Robert Marchenoir: So, what's the aggravation ?

As I have already pointed out, Ms. Norris is totally within her rights to vanish like a platter of unwrapped twinkies at a NORML convention.

The fact remains that due to sheer stupidity, an incredible degree of naïveté or just an egregious lack of ordinary planning, Ms. Norris has handed Islam another victory without a shot being fired.

Her actions will embolden even more Muslims to persist in their unreasonable demands and expect results instead of getting the one-finger salute that they so richly deserve.

Taken to its logical extreme, Ms. Norris has even done Muslims a disfavor by encouraging yet more of the usual terrorist festivities that will likely see the MME (Muslim Middle East) incinerated just that much sooner.

As I previously noted, there is no way on earth that Ms. Norris was unaware of the Danish cartoonifada and the distinct probability that her “Draw Mohammed Day” caper would elicit an identical reaction.

Ian B said...

I think all this is a bit unfair on Norris. She was naive, she didn't think things through, and then the idea took off and she rapidly became terrified. We may criticise her for not having balls, but it's her being named again and again in the press as the originator of the idea, not us.

She lives in a society that cannot protect her and with a government that overtly considers the criticisers of islam to be the problem, not Islam itself. There has never been a more clear case of an overt state policy of "she was asking for it". This problem could be rendered entirely neutered if western States took a strong stand on the issue and were prepared to use force to back the freedom and independence of their own citizens. But they don't.

I drew Mohammed on The Day. The blog where i posted it got a death threat (IP addy was in Sweden, as it goes; I'm in the UK). And, yeah, it felt a little scary, just for a moment, even though logic told me it was just some lone nutter at a keyboard somewhere. Anyone can type a death threat. They carry force because sometimes, very occasionally, they are followed up with an actual murder. If my cartoon had become an internet meme and my name were plastered all over the media, then yeah, I think I'd be very scared indeed.

The leaders of western society, in the grip of post-marxist race theory, are in FAIL mode. It is they who expose citizens to this level of risk, by encouraging the enemy. We cannot blame citizens- left alone and out on a limb- for being scared to stick their head out of the trench. She has my sympathy, for what that's worth.

Zenster said...

Ian B: She has my sympathy, for what that's worth.

Perhaps the only question remaining then is whether you ever had hers.

Anonymous said...

Ian B:

"We cannot blame citizens- left alone and out on a limb- for being scared to stick their head out of the trench."

That's very important. One of the arguments most often used by Muslims and their Western Leftist friends is : you're afraid.

People tell me that all the time. Yesterday I was accused of that on a well-known French information site by a self-described communist author, who also accused me of fomenting civil war (another common smear).

Blaming people because they are afraid is a thug's logic. It's Muslim logic : we'll do our best so you are scared shitless, then we will blame you just for being afraid.

I cannot see any reason why our side should give in to such warped logic and morals. The bad guy is the one who threatens, not the one who is afraid as a consequence.

This is so simple as to seem utterly obvious to me.

Dymphna said...

I had no idea this conversation had continued.

Since it has, I want to amend my narrative:

1. The Seattle paper which has been promoting Ms. Norris' disappearance has written Mark Styen again. And he has responded with some choice Steynian wrath:

...Muslifying Mollies

Now Molly Norris, an American citizen, is forced into hiding because she exercised her right to free speech. Will President Obama say a word on her behalf? Does he believe in the First Amendment for anyone other than Muslims?

*********

While I was in Denmark, one of the usual Islamobozos lit up prematurely in a Copenhagen hotel. Not mine, I'm happy to say. He wound up burning only himself, but his targets were my comrades at the newspaper Jyllands-Posten. I wouldn't want to upset Justice Breyer by yelling "Fire!" over a smoldering jihadist, but one day even these idiots will get lucky. I didn't like the Danish Security Police presence at the Copenhagen conference, and I preferred being footloose and fancy-free when I was prowling the more menacing parts of Rosengard across the water in Malmö the following evening. No one should lose their name, their home, their life, their liberty because ideological thugs are too insecure to take a joke. But Molly Norris is merely the latest squishy liberal to learn that, when the chips are down, your fellow lefties won't be there for you
...

Dex Quire's description of Seattle is certainly spot on. Except for leaving out the righteous coffee and the moldering rain, that is ...1978, he says? Heh. That sums it up well.

2. This has intrigued the Baron. He did some research last night and will have some pieces to share with those of us, e.g., Apuleius Platonicus and me, who thought she was young and naive.

As it turns out, not quite.

Dymphna said...

@ Robert Marchenoir...

I'm not criticizing Ms. Norris for going into hiding. My problem with her is that she does it so loudly...and the Seattle paper is getting lots of hits for being her megaphone.

The woman hadn't a clue. She thought to grab some of Comedy Central's publicity/energy by using a Mohammed image. Since it had gotten attention for CC, why not?

If you look at any of her other artistic efforts, her themes will illustrate Norris didn't know Islam from barbequed pork.

Also, it isn't true that no one cares about a particular battered woman except her husband. There are lots of community resources devoted to helping women in that situation. I used to give talks to churches and civic groups to explain the situation battered women faced. Inevitably, someone in the audience would call me later about themselves, or a family member.

BTW, Norris would qualify for refuge (and for resettlement) if she applied to a domestic violence shelter. However, she'd be warned to silence.

It's the courts who don't take it seriously enough. Family violence is looked on as trivial.

One guy, who'd broken his wife's nose and done some other damage to her face got three months' suspended sentence. He was shocked. He turned to the judge and said, "I tore up that b----'s face and that's all I get? Nice to know..." and he left the courtroom smiling.

Far more women die of non-Muslim domestic violence (so do men) than there are honor-killings. Once we have enough Muslims, that ratio may change.

Anonymous said...

"One guy, who'd broken his wife's nose and done some other damage to her face got three months' suspended sentence. He was shocked. He turned to the judge and said, "I tore up that b----'s face and that's all I get? Nice to know..." and he left the courtroom smiling."

That reminds me of some immigrant thugs who were recently convicted by a French court for trying to kill a policeman by hitting him with a hammer on the head, after forcibly removing his helmet.

They were sentenced to only a few months in prison, most of them suspended.

However, they walked out of the courtroom free. A prison sentence in France does not really mean prison, unless the court decides to issue a special warrant to that effect.

If not, you are free to go, and theoretically you may be asked to please give yourself in at some point in the future, but many prison sentences are never enforced at all.

The thugs were heard saying sarcastically : "Thank you, France", while leaving the courtroom.

Anonymous said...

Robert, so I see the French justice system isn't any better than Romania's. :P

Here we had a case of a guy being convicted for illegal weapon possession, homicide and some gang stuff and he got out on parole pretty fast and started dating a police officer's daughter who dumped him when she found out what a nice record he has.
That's what she got for dumping him. She was hospitalized with facial bruises, lesions on her limbs, a fractured parietal bone and an accute cranio-cerebral traumatism. Since she was too scared to press charges(and with how impotent the cops are here, I'm not surprised) he walked, no charges for kidnapping(since he pulled her off the street and into his place) or assault. A couple of months later, he almost killed a cop that was working on a case with him as the culprit. The cop is in the hospital in coma. If he dies, I think that this guy will get life. I wonder why the heck he didn't get life without parole for the first felony he did.

As a side note, by the way, we are demolishing the illegal camps of Gypsies too, so you will get them back fairly quickly. I wonder who is delluded that Sarkozy is willing to solve things. One of the Gypsies was brilliant though, he said that the French are stupid because they just steal cell phones and beg, while the Africans rape and murder, yet they're the ones getting deported.

Ian B, I got a couple of death threats and a threat that I will get raped. The police in my country is an unmitigated joke. I never walked outside with fear, but I didn't make the mistake of revealing my full identity. She could have done the drawing day without doing it. While I don't mind that she pulled back, I will always mind when people do the utterly disgusting please fogive me thing.

Anonymous said...

What I find utterly contemptible is the FBI attitude of you doing it on your own dime. The duty of the US government of any person who took an oath for their public service is committing treason in doing so. The people who should be charged with paying for her bills are Muslims since they are the ones willing to infringe her rights.