Re: Cartoons cause attacks, threats against EU, Denmark, Norway


In the previous article, maxmike!! <nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Free speech is always defensible. However, the ability to speak
> freely doesn't automatically grant you immunity from other people's
> REACTIONS to it.

So far, so good.

> If you walk up to a man and insult his wife, you shouldn't be all
> that surprised when he punches you in the nose.

But of course you will still be within your rights to press criminal
assault charges and to sue for, and get, damages.

> The cartoons in question were (IMHO) on the juvenile level of name
> calling and guaranteed to offend a lot of people. Those offended
> people are just as entitled to exercise their free speech of
> boycotts, protests, flag burnings or screaming about doing bodily
> harm (as long as they don't physically act on that screaming) as the
> cartoonists were to draw the cartoons.

I see three prongs to the reaction:

- protests and calls for boycotts; I've mentioned that this
kind of thing is thoroughly unobjectionable, though it seems
a bit silly to boycott a whole country just because of one
little weirdo publication's behavior.

- armed invasions of offices, threats of violence against Danish
and Norwegian nationals who had nothing to do with the cartoons,
nor anything to do with anyone who had anything to do with them;
this is a little less excusable, though there will never be any
shortage of people trying to excuse it.

- elevation of the controversy to a major diplomatic event; *this*
is the really astonishing part of this story. It seems obvious
that the Muslim countries involved want the Danish and Norwegian
governments to "do something" about this kind of expression, the
implications of which ought to be obvious. Basically, the House
of Saud wants a say in what is and isn't permissible "free
speech" in Copenhagen and Stavanger. And, given the European
propensity for capitulation, they'll probably get it.
--
_+_ From the catapult of |If anyone disagrees with any statement I make, I
_|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\ / baldwin@xxxxxxxxx|to deny under oath that I ever made it. -T. Lehrer
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