More thoughts

My responses are in blue.

Vince, all you are proposing is exculpating the truly guilty party.

I'm not, though. We are in agreement that those committing acts of violence are guilty, but I would also add that it is possible for multiple parties to share guilt.

Violence, especially indiscriminate violence, is not an appropriate response to nonthreatening stimuli. It is a gross overreaction, not the response of logical or rational person.

Agreed.

And if it is not logical or rational, you cannot and should not censor yourself to avoid a reaction that you can't reasonably predict.

I maintain that we can predict the reaction, well within reason, each and every time: violent, mob-like protesting in response to even the slightest hint of sacrilegious rhetoric. As I said, that's just the nature of the beast, so the only way to avoid it is by a precise, calculated measurement of our words.

There are instances the right to free speech should not be excersized, but this is not shouting "Fire" in a crowded theater. This is not revealing the identity of undercover operatives.

Agreed.

This is exposing a hypocritical system that thinks it is beyond reproach.

You give too much credit. These cartoons make absolutely no political statement. They express what the entire world knows to be true: that terrorists are operating under the guise of religion. That's not really exposing groundbreaking news; it's preaching to the choir.

When you have imams exhorting their followers to burn flags and engage in jihad, you cannot sit silently because you are afraid to tread on toes. Islamic extremists fight their war against the West not primarily with terrorist tactics, but with propaganda and rhetoric designed to sway public opinion. If it were a small minority, silence may be an appropriate answer. However, when an enemy is fighting a war of moral attrition and propaganda, silence only gives tacit credibility and fodder.

I'm not advocating silence, but I am demanding prudence. You are right in that the primary weapons of the enemy are propaganda and rhetoric. But recognizing this, what does publishing stupid little profane cartoons accomplish other than sharpening their blades and feeding their frenzy? It certainly does us no good. We have much better things to say, and much better ways of saying them than this.

Regarding your belief that it is unacceptable to profane that which is holy; that is the same relativistic nonsense you were decrying earlier.

I didn't say it was unacceptable, although I will go ahead and say that it is inappropriate. I really only hinted at what I was really wondering: does freedom of expression grant the press or anyone else the freedom to ridicule the religious symbols of a particular faith? If you play with and degrade the religious symbols of any person long enough, you WILL get a response. Having said that, it is not difficult to engage in mutually respectful, inoffensive ecumenical dialog. People have been doing it for millenia.

Holy to whom? I have to respect the sanctity of Wicca and other backwards forms animism to avoid antagonizing a few deluded fools? Must I respect white-supremacist trash? They have the right to say and believe whatever they want, but I have the right to ridicule them for it.

Two rather extreme examples. I think that anyone serious about the study of religion agrees that the ideologies of racism are not religious in nature, so scrap that one. In response to whether or not you have to respect the sancitity of [any religion]... sancitity in itself? Of course not. Just because someone else believes something is holy doesn't mean that you have to believe so, as well. That would be retarded.

What we DO have to respect is the fact that any religion, rightly defined as an individual's submission to God, is at the very least an admirable endeavor. Therefore, to ridicule someone else for practicing a different religion, or to openly ridicule what they hold as sacred - even if it is backwards as hell - is to hinder that man in his submission to God - hardly a meritorious undertaking.

ALL fundamentalists (not just muslims) hold that their moral righteousness is unimpeachable because they believe their cause is "holy."

New topic altogether, maybe one to take up next week.

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Noooooooooooooooow, all that said....

There is absolutely no justification for these militant bastards to react the way they are, or to demand that we somehow give up free society, and play by their rules about what can and cannot be published, or what can and cannot be said. While I hold that publishing the cartoons in question showed a certain lack of discretion, I would defend the very right to do so with my life.

Speaking of, did anyone else notice that Google sold out to censorship?