Sharp Pencils Only, please

[Alex]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

I kind of have mixed feelings about this one, I'm definitely a free speech advocate but wonder if this is really about free speech, or an opportunity to insult Muslims. I would put it in the same category as "Burn an American Flag Day" or "Deny the Holocaust Day." Sure it's expressions of free speech, but that seems potentially a cover for something more sinister.

But is it an insult to Muslims or just certain ones who are kind of asking for it? This taking images of Mohammed as fatal insult is a relatively recent invention and has somehow morphed from drawing a figure without a face being enough to avoid insult to it being possible to offend by simply taking any image and saying it's Mohammed.

I have no desire to burn the flag but whenever there's a big push to prohibit burning the flag I want to do it to just make the point.

I have no particular desire to insult Islam, but if there are groups out there claiming that Islam has special protection against such insult afforded no other and are willing to enforce that through violence and intimidation then similarly I am strongly inclined to do so just show they don't have the power they claim.

So I see two factors of failure:

1. No group really has a right against being insulted. So they certainly don't get to kill people who insult them.
2. While you can't stop somebody from feeling insulted by whatever they find insulting, when whatever that is, is beyond reasonable accommodation the claim need not be respected any more than anybody would respect a claim that women wearing denim is a grave insult.