The issues here are all wrong.

He's right about "Innocence of Muslims" looking like it was made by "Rank amateurs in a basement studio, no doubt it was. It's so bad that no one would ever have seen or heard of it, if it wasn't for the hoopla it caused. I never would have. Once I did, I sought it out and watched it. Well sort of.

First of all, the quality is garbage, something less than what we would expect from a YouTube video. Past that, The editing, the writing and the acting is terrible. It's confusing and hard to follow. In all honestly, I ended up skimming large parts of it because I didn't get the point. It's that bad.

What I don't understand is why the Muslim community felt this piece of crap video was worth killing people over? What they did was promote the film, and in doing so, brought fame to it. They are just as much to blame in the distribution of said offensive material.

So, some no name, never heard of before Egyptian born person (Nakoula Basseley Nakoula) creates a 14 minute anti-muslim video. Naakoula is a graduate of the Faculty of Arts at Cairo University. Born and educated over seas, he comes to the US and creates a video called "Innocence of Bin Laden" After the film is finished, in post production, he over-dubs all the audio and changes the title to Innocence of Muslims and changes the meaning of the film altogether.

Nakoula has been arrested for the "intent to manufacture methamphetamine" for which he did prison time. Then he pleaded no contest to federal charges of bank fraud as he opened fake bank accounts in order to defraud the banks out of as much as $800,000. He was a criminal with no scruples or morals.

He went out of his way to create this movie just to piss people off. He even claimed it was funded by $5 million collected from 100 Jewish donors, and that he was an Israeli-Jew.

So, what is my point? This piece of scum set out to create an incident and he succeeded.
The Muslim world over reacted and went "Bat-shit insane" (my words). In a fit of rage, they misplaced the blame on everyone associated with the West. They held protests in almost every major country in the world. They killed people and turned this into an international state of panic. "Oh poor us, don't criticize our Mohammad." (insert screams of "oh how could you" here) and ("The western world hates us - kill them now")

Now as a result, we, the people that didn't do anything, are being told we need to be more tolerant of the bat-shit crazy people and start educating ourselves more on their religion and watch more of their movies.

Now I have no issue educating myself on other cultures, in fact I find it interesting. But what I don't like being told is that us Westerners are part of the problem and that if we'd only have educated ourselves, this insensitivity wouldn't have happened. This is so absolutely false and absurd.

I know not all Muslims are "bat-shit crazy," but I didn't see any of them standing up and pointing their finger in the right direction (at some scumbag from Egypt).

As far as I am concerned this is what I see:
1). A scumbag needs to be deported for succeeding in inciting riots causing death.
2). People should be able to have their own opinions and be able to speak them in all areas concerning religion or their lack of faith in them.
3). the Muslim people who took part in the riots and killings should all be punished to the full extent of the law and be shamed by the rest of the people.
4). Muslim people need to get over themselves, learn to accept that their way isn't the only way and learn to "turn the other cheek". (And I use the term "their way" loosely because I don't think even they can even decide and agree on what the rules of their religion are.)

Those riots and killings, Sagemind, seem to me to be much more a function of politics than any specific religion. Also, the "Muslim people" you are invoking is an obvious abstraction of a complex, massive, and plural group of people/voices around the world. Isn't that much obvious?

I know where you are coming from, and a big part of me agrees with you, but I also feel that the way both of us want to react to the violence is based on propaganda we've been fed about Islam and its "violent" nature. Nick Kristof has a pretty good piece on this here (should you be interested): http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/opinion/sunday/kristof-exploiting-the-prophet.html

I absolutely know that not all Muslim people are violent. ABSOLUTELY. I know people that are Muslims and have great respect for them as well. My rant is not against those people. I invoke the term Muslim people to mean the Muslim people involved in the negative display of retaliated hatred.

My rant is aimed at all that participated in this event, around the world.

My rant is more aimed at the furor and violence that is aimed at the (entire) West over something that was instigated by one person. One person that isn't respected or promoted by the West. One person that is effect a criminal. One person that tried to do and accomplished what he set out to do.

In turn, the masses of Muslims that retaliated against the West. They didn't look to see who perpetrated the crimes against them. They didn't care. It was an excuse to riot and kill in the name of their God. How messed up is that? They want us to respect them by force and fear rather than earn the respect by peace and understanding.

Any person, whether by religion or by personal belief or disbelief that can't live and let live, honor and respect those around them and live a life that holds personal choice and above all life as sacred will have a hard time gaining my respect. Sacred to their own ideals. Respect for their fellow man, regardless of race, religion, or opinion. Every individual deserves the right to choose what best suits them as long as it doesn't reflect on others in a negative way.

I cannot respect Nakoula Basseley Nakoula for going out of his way to instigate this obviously hate inspired movie and I cannot respect any of the people involved in killing or violence because of it.