Wolves, Sheep and Sheepdogs revisited

I found most men aren’t will­ing, they bat an eye, or draw a breath before they shoot. I won’t.

John Wayne, The Shoo­tist 1975

You’ve got no rep­u­ta­tion for tough­ness. Once in your life you had to have hit somebody.

Fonzie Happy Days 1975

I saw the story on the Mus­lim march on Google this week­end and didn’t give it much mind, but when I saw Glenn’s post this morn­ing with this com­ment:

IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT, STOP BEING SO GOD­DAMN MOCK­ABLE, SCHMUCKS. Mus­lims protest ‘age of mock­ery’ as thou­sands descend on Google HQ.

After all, you just turned out en masse in response to a YouTube video. Joke’s on you. Again.

Yes we mock these folk march­ing over a video, but I sus­pect Google will not treat this as a joke to be ignored.

When­ever I cover Tea Party events that don’t take place in large cities I always speak to the local police on site. Invari­ably there is one offi­cer or two at the most, to han­dle a crowd of sev­eral hun­dred. This is true even in loca­tions like NH where peo­ple in the crowd may legally pack heat.

The rea­son for so few offi­cers? These police know, media meme not with­stand­ing, there will not be a prob­lem at a tea party event, par­tic­u­larly if there is nobody counter protest­ing from the left.

With our Islamic Friends the oppo­site is true.

Madonna has no prob­lems hit­ting Chris­t­ian and Catholic sym­bols but when it was pointed out that her life would be in dan­ger if she shot her newest video in her ‘Ter­ror Bride’ out­fit she sud­denly decided for the first time EVAH this was one enve­lope she didn’t want to push.

The media can talk about peace­ful Islam till it’s blue in the face but the real­ity is if you chal­lenge Islam you are putting your life at risk. If this was not true why does car­toon­ist Molly Nor­ris remain in hid­ing under an assumed name two years after she apol­o­gized for Every­body Draw Moham­mad Day?

And if you are on the left and won’t believe me, will you believe Bill Maher & Andrew Sullivan?

It is highly nec­es­sary for us to stand up and be counted to defend free speech, even offen­sive speech but lets remem­ber the real­ity here. The peo­ple who are going to stand up and be counted are com­par­a­tively few in num­ber. To quote one the great­est blog posts ever writ­ten.

If you have no capac­ity for vio­lence then you are a healthy pro­duc­tive cit­i­zen: a sheep. If you have a capac­ity for vio­lence and no empa­thy for your fel­low cit­i­zens, then you have defined an aggres­sive sociopath – a wolf. But what if you have a capac­ity for vio­lence, and a deep love for your fel­low cit­i­zens? Then you are a sheep­dog, a war­rior, some­one who is walk­ing the hero’s path. Some­one who can walk into the heart of dark­ness, into the uni­ver­sal human pho­bia, and walk out unscathed.

I expect Google, our media and this admin­is­tra­tion to cave and scat­ter because a few wolves are more pow­er­ful than 1000’s of sheep. I expect them to do this in the name of “tol­er­ance” but the real­ity is they are so afraid of the wolf they won’t even admit the wolf exists, but…

.…if there are a few of us, just a few sheep­dogs who can be seen ready to pro­tect the flock that can make all the difference.

You don’t have to be the equal of the sheep­dogs who carry arms in Afghanistan, You don’t have to the equal of the sheep­dogs who wear blue and patrol our streets. You don’t even have to be the equal of a Pam Geller or Robert Spencer who travel around the coun­try and world speak­ing out.

Even if all you have is a key­board and a name like a Mark Steyn if you are will­ing to say aloud: “I will not sub­mit, nor will I give up my 1^st Amend­ment rights and nei­ther should you.” It will be enough.