Mohammed Cartoons: Freedom of Speech Is Great But What About Religious Tolerance, Common Courtesy and Common Sense?
Now there are rallying cries to attend protests, boycott bookstores, and even fund legal defenses on behalf of those publishing the Mohammed cartoons.
While all people have the right to freedom of speech in civilized Western democracies, I'm not going to be joining the protests, the boycotts, or the legal defense funds because I think the cartoons are at least mildly religiously offensive. Not only do they depict Mohammed in violation of a long-standing widespread (if not universal) religious taboo, but some of them do so in a disparaging way.
And just as I disapprove of cartoons ridiculing my religion, I'm not going to go out of my way to support cartoons ridiculing someone else's religion. While I am certain in my own mind that Christianity has much better things to offer the world than Islam, I don't believe that it serves any purpose to beat people over the head with insults against their prophet. If they are to be won over to any other religion or political worldview, it will be with a positive example, not with ridicule.
Religious tolerance is at least as important as freedom of speech. The two usually are not incompatible unless people go out of their way to put them in opposition to one another.
I'm also not going to be protesting, boycotting, or funding legal defenses on behalf of Andres Serrano (of "Piss Christ" infamy), Howard Stern, or Snoop Dogg. Even though their freedom of speech is just as precious as mine and that of Mohammed cartoon publishers, I have better things to do with my time and energy than to promote speech that is at least midly offensive.
I don't think this is about freedom of speech so much as the fun of finding a "hot button" that drives elements of the radical Muslim world nuts, and pushing that button over and over again.
Meanwhile, some of those who question the promotion of the Mohammed cartoons are either attacked as "cowards" or accused of "dhimmitude," which can be loosely translated as accepting second-class citizenship to Muslims.
The "cowardice" meme doesn't deserve a whole lot of time. If publishing the cartoons is a good idea, it's courageous. If it shows questionable judgment and is counterproductive, then it may still be courageous but it's not the kind of courage we should be applauding.
To choose an example to make a point, if a man literally spat in the face of every Muslim he met, he might be "courageous" but I wouldn't be rallying folks to fund his legal defense.
The "dhimmitude" meme seems to presuppose that our battle with radical Islamic terror is a no-holds-barred basketball game in which we must throw as many elbows as possible against all Muslims to score any points.
I don't buy it. We can advance our goals in the war on terror without ridiculing a religion shared by many of our terrorist enemies and our allies alike. In fact, I think that it is important that we choose our battles carefully and focus our hostile fire with laser-like precision on Islamic terrorism, not all of Islam.
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