I’ve always admired people who stick up for their principles even under threat of violence or death. Thomas More, the “Man for All Seasons,” is a hero of mine.

After this week, I’ve got a couple of other heroes on my list. There’s Pamela Geller, who now has a fatwah, a death threat, on her head because she stood up for free speech against the world’s Islamo-fascists. And there’s Bosch Fawstin, the cartoonist who won both the judges prize and the People’s Choice prize at last weekend’s contest in Garland, Texas.

Fawstin is also under threat of death by the backward forces of Islam, simply for drawing an image of Mohammed. It’s interesting that in all the talk about the failed terrorist attack in Garland, few if any news outlets have actually runFawstin’s winning illustration. It’s pretty nifty line art, and I especially like theHitlerian mustache.The image shows Mohammed threatening the artist, saying, “You can’t draw me!” and the artist responding, “That’s why I draw you.”

It’s clever, and I don’t think there’s anything offensive about it, unless you’re a Muslim who’s embarrassed to have his Prophet’s and fellow Muslims’ attitudes summed up in a sentence.

Many of the entries were offensive on various levels, from the naughty-but-funny to the truly cringe-inducing, but I don’t think any of them were necessarily inaccurate. Speaking as a fellow entrant, I think Fawstin’s piece was the right choice. (Mine was more a study for a painting, rather than a cartoon, but I thought it was important to represent for the First Amendment. I would post a link to all the contest entries, but the page seems to have been removed from Photobucket.)

In an exclusive interview with Breitbart, Fawstin explained that he was raised as a Muslim in the Bronx but left the religion. When 9/11 occurred, he researched his former faith extensively and decided that he had to use his artistic talents to stand up against jihad. From the Breitbart interview:

“I did receive some flack for leaving Islam, but I didn’t feel like I left anything important behind. I wanted to get the hell out. Islam had no hold on me whatsoever. It wasn’t a heartbreak, I just left.

“Right after I left Islam, 9/11 happened. I revisited everything. I reread the Koran. I read countless books on jihad, Islam, and Muhammad. I knew as a cartoonist, as an artist, I had a tool to respond to the atrocities. I made sure I knew Islam very well before making any move. 

“I became a follower of Ayn Rand’s philosophy and remain so to this day. Ironically, I went from the most misogynistic philosophy on earth, to that created by a woman. Without her work, I don’t know where the hell I’d be today.”

Fawstin’s discussion about growing up in a Muslim household underscores some of the things we’ve discussed about Islam here at Godfather Politics, including the sympathy for Nazism and the Left’s myth of the “moderate Muslim.”

“Almost all of the women in my generation were beaten by their husbands. There was strong admiration for Hitler in the household, because he killed more Jews than anyone. That’s why I refer to Hitler as Islam’s favorite infidel. They forgive him because he killed more Jews than anyone. we were ‘moderate Muslims,’ but there was still hardcore misogyny and Jew-hatred in my community.”

As might be expected from that champion of liberals-only speech, Facebook, Fawstin’s Facebook page has been removed, and Fawstin has been requesting that people share his winning cartoon with friends and associates.

The Left is abominable when it comes to protecting the free speech rights of anyone who is not in their PC club. Not only that, but Homeland Security has not even bothered contacting Geller about the Islamic death threat made against her on social media. (For that matter, I don’t think the threat has been taken down as of yet.)

But the Left — and I’m including here the RINO crowd and “moderate” Right — doesn’t get it. If we conservatives lose free speech to Islamic terror, it undercuts all our rights.

While the Left may be fine with that, the rest of us who know the cost must stand up with Geller and Fawstin for free speech against the forces of jihad and totalitarianism.