Actually, you can’t just say and publish what you want in a democracy. Shouting “fire!” in a crowded theatre, or handing out pornographic magazines next to a school are two activities that spring to mind as being somewhat suspect. Add to that the publishing of material which incites racial or sectarian hatred. And I would suggest that if you want to support moderate Muslims, there are many other ways of achieving that than by publishing cartoons poking fun at a central figure of the Islamic faith. Just sayin’.

The very nature of extremists is that they cannot be engaged in reasonable dialogue. What this event did was show the world just how many Muslims place more importance on their faith than on maintaining peace and order. Drawings caused this, not even very good drawings. Ink on paper. Dozens of deaths, buildings destroyed, death threats issued…for what?

It is very important for people to stop thinking like you do because the solution to the problem needs a rational grounding; these moderate Muslims, who abhor such violence and bloodshed, those who would never hurt others because of such trivialities, need our support. Atrocities like those committed during the riots after the cartoons were published undermine anyone who claims that Islam provides a moral highground; those who threw the rocks and firebombs can’t be appeased, they can only be squeezed out of existence by diplomatic and social pressure, with violence as a last resort, but if the moderates are applying *religious* pressure, it will help avoid violence all the more. Needless to say, this is an excellent tradeoff because as the Koran says “where there is one, there are many”…killing extremists just makes more extremists. Much better to see them opposed and outnumbered by their own people, Muslims like them.

This is just the beginning of the Islamic extremist problem, but make no mistake; this is a war we can’t lose. Negotiating with people who will never change their ways or their methods is futile. I’m not saying that stirring them up intentionally is a good idea, but one of the fundamentals of democracy is the freedom to say and publish what you want; to put it another way, the only Muslims who will integrate well into democratic nations present and future are the ones who didn’t want to murder people and/or blow up buildings when these cartoons were published.

We’ve still got a long way to go.

If Muslims don’t worship him, how come they get their knickers in such a twist when someone does a cartoon of him?

IANA publisher, but I’m pretty sure this signifies the print run & binding have already been completed.

Has YUP hired some poor min-wage slave to open each copy and remove several pages with an exacto knife? The remaining little stubs will be a permanent silent rebuke to the Press, and to each person who buys a copy of this castration.

Jytte “she hopes Yale will include them in later editions” Klausen will forever deserve both pity and shame for allowing this to go forward, instead of seeking a publisher with scholarly integrity.

But, even douche-like expression should not get you killed.

Yale is giving away all it pretends is important by censoring this book’s contents. The authors of the cartoons are probably douche bags. Those that called for a fatwa (and in at least one case actually killed someone) are super-douches.

There are no good guys here.

And no, the emperor story has a vey different lesson than suggested by gwyd

Bullshit. Freedom of speech does not come with great responsibility. So-called “irresponsible” speech must be as protected, if not more protected, than so-called “responsible” speech. Because, otherwise, there is no freedom of speech at all, but merely license to speak that which is approved by the entity which gets to decide what is or is not “responsible”. [No thanks, I’ll take my chances with irresponsible speech.]

However, if we were to credit your belief that responsibility comes with freedom, then it must also be true that with the freedom of religious belief also comes with responsibility. And if one is driven into a murderous rage by the scribblings of a cartoonist, then one is not exercising that religious belief responsibly, correct?

So if it is a question of the society enforcing (through legal means or otherwise) the “responsible” exercise of rights, I would rather than the society work to restrict the freedom of religious belief than the freedom of speech.

Sailor, term “Mohammedan” it is archaic and inaccurate. It also has specifically important inaccurate theological implications because Muslims don’t worship him.

Larian, you can find all the cartoons on the relevant Wikipedia article among other places.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hS45TkdFHk0