When CNN host Jake Tapper asked Pamela Geller on Thursday if her Muhammad cartoon contest and ongoing activism are "worth dying for," the controversial figure dove into a passionate defense of liberty, the First Amendment and the Founding Fathers' intent.
"What happened to the give me liberty or give me death America?" Geller rhetorically asked. "The Founding Fathers were pursuing this very dream, and through blood and toil and intellectual wrestling, and a revolution — we got to this enlightenment, this period of enlightenment."
She continued, "The first government in human history based on individual rights — really the first moral government based on individual rights — and millions of Americans will not refuse to throw it away with both hands."
Geller, who told TheBlaze this week that she has received death threats via email since two extremists attacked her cartoon contest in Garland, Texas, last month, and that police and the FBI have picked up "chatter ... indicating an imminent plot against" her, went on to admit to Tapper that there is certainly an "element of fear."
"I would be silly to say that there isn't — it's not fearful," she said. "[But] it's scarier to do nothing, beause complying with the Shariah leads to more demands for Shariah compliance."
Watch Geller discuss these issues below:
As TheBlaze previously reported, Tapper defended his decision to interview Geller after some questioned her CNN appearance, sarcastically responding to one frustrated Twitter user: "Maybe next time the alleged terrorists can select for a beheading someone more to your liking?"
Billy Hallowell
