Gilding the lily on the left.

One really shouldn't do it. It only does harm.

It's probably a bedrock characteristic I have: I just can't stand being lied to; I try really hard to understand people's half truths because I hate the feeling I get when I feel caught out.

That's the thing about the cartoon apoplexy: the lies. The Gateway Pundit reports that the Danes (some of them) want to try for treason the Imams who spread fake cartoons in the Middle East. That's how I'd feel about it if I were Danish. It's how to deal with traitors, who are usually cocky little idiots doing it 'because they can' and because they want a sense of significance their society has seen fit not to give them. I'd feel alot more comfortable, for instance, if society would call George Galloway on his egregious lying and put him in the dock and thence to jail where he belongs, instead of playing the silly little game of pretending he's an honest radical. He's not honest and it would dignify him far too much to call him radical.

And another thing: this cartoon thing is a lot less about religious intolerance than it is about lying and rabble-rousing politics.

Of course for the anti-religious, it's a gift, but what is stupid is that instead of learning the real lessons about checking people's assertions, investigating their backgrounds, analysing their words and actions, etc (you know, the human game?), they just say 'that's religion for you; knew it all the long!'

One suspects that right-on leftist anti-religionism was the reason why Harry's Place casually quoted and worked up this pseudo-historical account from Times' journalist Gary Duncan.

It's the story of Britain's last death penalty for blasphemy, but reading that story at numerous online sources, including primary accounts, I barely recognise it from the Times' account, rehashed by Harry's Place and popularised (I guess) by a link from Pajamas Media.

I like this source. Two things emerge quite clearly: one is that Garry Duncan's account is a pathetic rendering of the story, reducing it from an accusation of a habitual, yearlong blaspheming pattern, to one incident in front of a church one freezing night. The second is the role of lying, or at best bare-faced hypocrisy.

We learn about the actions of one Mungo Craig, 'friend' of Aikenhead (the young man accused) and his chief accuser, who lent him radical books and then accused him of believing and espousing what they said! Craig seems to have disingenuously pursed a vendetta, resulting in an execution.

Anyway, none of this is to invalidate the accusations against religion; the religous authorities were stupid, vain, and yes, intolerant- by all accounts- but if you ignore the human element you ignore everything that makes the case distinctive, everything which tells you why such a thing happened exactly then, and perhaps why such abuse of power came to an end. It's all so MSM to miss the story completely like that.


But a final thought: from googling Gary Duncan I haven't a clue who this phantom of uncertain historical tales is; I have no bank of articles of his to ascertain anything he believes, or anything about his background at all. He's so unaccountable!