Matt, Trey, and Comedy Central President Doug Herzog next discussed the ramifications of showing or not showing Mohammed. Trey said that if they had shown Mohammed and anyone had gotten hurt or killed, "We would have felt super s**tty, but we would have absolutely believed in what we did, for that exact reason. And that's what we said to them, was, 'This is South Park, and we rip on absolutely everyone in really horrible, terrible ways. And if you're saying that this is the one thing we can't do, besides Tom Cruise, because they're threatening violence, well, then, I guess that's what everyone should do. Then if the Catholics don't want us ripping on Jesus anymore, they should just threaten you with violence, and they'll get their way.' That's why it is such a slippery slope and such a dangerous path to go down."
Matt added, "I think, too, it was a disappointment because, like Trey said, when that thing flared up in January -- we'd actually talked about doing the Mohammed cartoon episode before because those [cartoons] were about a year ago that came out in Denmark. So we'd actually talked about it before it hit the fan in January. When it did, we had this idea where we wanted to show Mohammed's image, but completely not offensive, just a guy standing there. And that was going to be the point. Basically, just an image, and it's harmless. . . .
Trey pointed out, "What's interesting, by the way, is that as we speak, the episode from four years ago which featured Mohammed, who was a superhero that could turn himself into a beaver is actually airing on Comedy Central and in syndication."
Matt added, "It was on [Los Angeles station] KCAL 9, like, a month ago. And no one even notices. All deference to Doug, because he was put in a tight situation -- it was like we all witnessed and we all sat by and we watched a new taboo be created out of literally almost nothing . . .
Matt and Trey learned the ridiculous reality that they can show Jesus defecating on George Bush, but they can't show Mohammed. Matt said, "That's the point. It's open season on Jesus." Trey added, "Yeah. You can do anything you want to Jesus."
Read the whole thing.
This appeasement stuff applies to issues far beyond what is and is not acceptable to put on television. Free societies should never, ever be in the habit of rewarding violence or terrorism. Yet when some call to pull out of Iraq before our mission is completed because we've lost too many troops we reward the terrorists for their violent terror methods. When people call to condemn Israel for attacking a terror group that attacked them first we appease the terrorists.
Doing things like that just shows those evil cretins that a) their terror tactics work and b) we aren't willing to stand up to them.
That isn't a message we should be sending out if we want our free societies to survive the war on terror.