Katie Pavlich: Jihad comes to Texas

Freedom of speech is under attack, but if you get your news from the mainstream media, you’d hardly know it.

Sunday night in Garland, Texas, at the Curtis Culwell Center, activist Pamela Geller hosted a Muhammad Art Exhibit and asked attendees to submit cartoons for a “draw Muhammad” contest. More than 350 submissions were sent in from around the world, and 250 people attended the sold-out event. The winner of the contest is a former Muslim who has been issued a death sentence for leaving the religion. More than $10,000 was spent on security in anticipation of possible violence.

{mosads}“Everyone there, in the back of their minds, knew something could potentially happen, which is why there was so much security … but you know what, we are at a day in our time where Americans are going to have to stand up and not live their lives in fear. We have the right to free speech in this country, and those of use at that event are going to fight to keep it,” Tea Party leader and former congressional candidate Katrina Pierson, who attended the event, said during an interview afterward. 

As the event concluded, two men pulled up to the outside of the building and opened fire. Thankfully, unlike in France in the Charlie Hebdo shooting, Texas police officers are heavily armed and the attack was stopped within 15 seconds. The suspects were immediately shot dead. 

At least one of the suspects, Elton Simpson, was well-known by the FBI and had previously attempted to travel to Africa to serve al Qaeda. Instead, he chose to save himself the trip and wage jihad here. 

“We had an event in defense of freedom of free speech in the age of jihad,” Geller told Fox News. “This is a war, and the war is here. This isn’t Paris, this isn’t Copenhagen, this is Texas.”

The first reaction of the media wasn’t to ask why Islamists would kill over being offended by a cartoon — instead it was to question why anyone would hold such an event in the first place.

“Free speech aside, why would anyone do something as provocative as hosting a ‘Muhammad drawing contest’?” New York Times foreign correspondent Rukmini Callimachi tweeted after the attack. 

Free speech aside? Do we really have to justify free speech in America? 

According to organizers, the answer is for two reasons: first, to remember the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists who were slaughtered in Paris for doing the same thing, and second, to directly protest an anti-free-speech event held in the same location in January. 

But, alarmingly, it isn’t just the Islamists with ties to al Qaeda or the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria who are waging a war on free speech. Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who has been marked for death on the
al Qaeda hit list for speaking out against Islam, was the keynote speaker for the event. Before his arrival in the U.S., Democratic Reps. Keith Ellison (Minn.), Joseph Crowley (N.Y.) and André Carson (Ind.) went to great lengths to keep him and his “hateful speech” out, with attempts to deny him a visa into the country.

What’s more hateful: Warning about violence in Islam and drawing a cartoon, or attempting to murder those who warn about violence in Islam and draw cartoons? It’s a sad day in America when there isn’t a consensus on the answer. 

There is some good news. While progressive politicians, pundits and journalists blame the victims in this case, Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee Michael McCaul (R-Texas) is taking the opposite approach. 

“Freedom of expression has again been attacked by fanatics. From the capitals of Europe to the streets of Garland, Texas, we have been confronted by attackers who cannot tolerate our open society,” McCaul said in a statement. “But we send a clear message to these extremists: we will not be intimidated by violence, and we will not bow down to terror.”

Groups like the American Islamic Forum for Democracy immediately condemned the violence, while so-called moderate Islamic groups like the Council on American-
Islamic Relations have failed to unequivocally condemn the actions. Their progressive friends in the media have done the same, adding a “but” to the end of statements about violence being used as a response to being offended. 

It’s a sad day in America when we cancel baseball games to appease rioters and turn on free speech to appease Islamists. The First Amendment must be protected at all costs. Those who wish to limit free speech in order to avoid displeasing evil will live to regret it — if, of course, they aren’t killed by those who are offended first.  

Pavlich is the news editor for Townhall.com and a Fox News contributor.