For John, BLUF: If you let me set the standard here, what is to stop me from moving it to there? Nothing to see here; just move along.
A while back Michael J Totten interviewed Christopher Hitchens about radical Islam and free speech. The interview, in Michael Totten's view, is as applicable today as then. Early in the short discussion Michael says:
What good is legal freedom of speech if violent enforcers of a different, older, and foreign set of laws take it upon themselves to punish you extrajudicially?Exactly right. We are dealing with people willing to kill to enforce their views on the evils of blasphemy. And there are people in the West who are willing to support the idea that we should not blaspheme against other religions, from Yale University to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Presidential Spokesman Jay Carney to the French Foreign Minister from a few years back. They all urge that we show restraint. That we not cross some invisible line.♠
The problem is that what is acceptable is not fixed in concrete. As Michael Totten said in his post:
But the line will never stop shifting.Regards — Cliff
♠ Of course they don't mind if my Lord and Savior is blasphemed. No big deal.
1 comment:
I'm reminded daily of the world's wrestling match with "anarchists" 100 years ago, and I fear that not quite enough has changed. We can't, as they didn't at the time as well, imagine a world thrown into armed conflict over the acts of such individuals, yet our history shows how much can be made of such a little. At the time, each country was left to police their own, and lesser-organized sovereignties were indulged their autonomy to spawn chaos. We're making baby steps in the right direction, but until the entire world shows up to batter ISIS into oblivion, and chase their supporters, ideological or otherwise, to the ends of the earth, we will be right here, like in that movie Groundhog Day, reliving the same experience over and over again.
Step one, I would suggest, is declining to prosecute wars over "interests" anymore, so that we can, instead, put our lot in with the rest of civilization where it counts.
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