"Mommmmmmm, South Park made me think again! Make them stop!"

What would you do?

I watched an episode of South Park last night that I hadn't seen before. As with quite a few episodes of South Park, it made me think about some pretty serious issues. No, I'm serious: not every episode makes me think, but a lot do - especially the newer ones.

The one I watched last night was the "Family Guy" episode. Only it's really about free speech and censorship. Have you seen this episode yet? You should send me a blank CD or come over with some portable media so I can give you a copy. Not because it's funny (although it is) and not because it has characters from both Family Guy and The Simpsons (which it does), but because it makes you think.

Family Guy makes an episode that shows the Muslim prophet Mohammed. Now, in case you didn't know, Muslims don't allow the face of Mohammed to be shown - they haven't since the 16th century. Showing Mohammed's face is really, really bad. Like, REALLY bad.

So when the commercials for theFG episode where they show Mohammed's face come out, terrorists release videos saying they will retaliate if the show is aired. When they DO air the episode, Fox edits the image of Mohammed. However all is not well: FG decides to do another show showing Mohammed the next week, and Fox can't edit the image because the writers will quit.

Cartman and Stan go to stop the airing, but when Cartman's true motives come out they get into a big fight (I won't spoil the story). The point is Stan is fighting not to censor the episode in the name of Freedom of Speech. The whole nation wants the show to BE censored because if not, there will be terrorsit attacks on US soil.

Here's what it boils down to: do you censor the show to protect against the possible loss of lives, or do you air the show to protect our Freedom of Speech?

A) You puss out, kick Freedom of Speech square in the balls and censor the show. You justify that people don't have to die for an animated sitcom. You basically send a message to the terrorists that says "Hey, if you threaten me enough, I'll totally puss out and you can do whatever you want. Please don't hurt me."

B) You DON'T censor the show and people DO die. Something like 911 happens again because the terrorists (NOT the Muslims, just the terrorists) use this instance as an excuse to blow up something and kill an assload of Americans. You uphold our Constitution, but people die.

Stan had a really great speech in this SP. He talks about how people talk about Freedom of Speech when the issue is something like airing some celebritie's dirty little secrets, but back away from our Freedom when you may actually incure injury for standing up for your beliefs and rights. He says that's what the solders durring our fight for independance did: risked their lives for an idea of Freedom. They knew they might die at the hands of the Brittish, but they knew they would die a slower death of they stood down and gave up their rights in the face of a threat of violence. He talked about how people preach night and day about their Rights as Americans, but back down and hide if they have to defend their beliefs.

Many people who say "If we pull out of Iraq now, the terrorists win!" are the same people who would censor the show that depicts an image of Mohammed if there was a threat of terror attacks in retaliation.

The ironic thing was that in the SP episode, FG DID air the show with Mohammed. No, that's not ironic: what's ironic is that in Real Life Comedy Centeral censored the image of Mohammed. Instead of a big black box over the place where Mohammed was standing (like FG did the first time) Comedy Central made the whole screen black with a paragraph saying CC pulled the scenes depicting Mohammed. I do't know if that was really Comedy Central doing the editing, or the South Park writers making a joke.

In any case, what would you do?

I'd like to say I'd stand up and fight: even though the "symptom" of the problem is just an animated sitcom that relies on poop, sex, and race jokes. But would I? When push came to shove...

would we?