On the Soapbox

I recently read this column by Sam Harris* at the LA Times. The crux of what he has to say is neatly encapsulated in the 5th-to-last paragraph:

The problem is that wherever one stands on this continuum, one inadvertently shelters those who are more fanatical than oneself from criticism. Ordinary fundamentalist Christians, by maintaining that the Bible is the perfect word of God, inadvertently support the Dominionists--men and women who, by the millions, are quietly working to turn our country into a totalitarian theocracy reminiscent of John Calvin's Geneva. Christian moderates, by their lingering attachment to the unique divinity of Jesus, protect the faith of fundamentalists from public scorn. Christian liberals--who aren't sure what they believe but just love the experience of going to church occasionally--deny the moderates a proper collision with scientific rationality. And in this way centuries have come and gone without an honest word being spoken about God in our society.

While I have never liked religious extremists and fundamentalists, religious moderates and liberals are those whose beliefs I do not agree with, but that I will happily respect and accept. Harris' argument that moderates serve as an enabler and shield for those who are more extreme is thus a troubling--though interesting--take on things. On one hand, I think it is intriguing. But for the most part, I have some doubts about how true it is in reality and to what extent those in the middle of the spectrum really do provide a favorable environment for those at the extreme, and this is certainly not helped by Harris being a poor articulator of ideas. I am curious what others think about this.

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* He is basically condensing what he wrote in his book, The End of Faith, into a much shorter form with this column, and quite frankly, I think it is much more lucid and well-articulated here (though still scatter-brained) than it ever was in his tediously long-winded book.

A person once said,

On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C" and "D." Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism."

No, this was not a bleeding-heart liberal; in fact, this is someone who most bleeding-heart liberals have learned to detest. This was a 1981 Senate speech given by Republican Senator Barry Goldwater. It is ironic that most people consider Ronald Reagan to be Goldwater's ideological successor. Various authors have pointed to the loss of the Goldwater campaign as the start of the modern Republican Party. John McCain remarked that Goldwater created the "breeding ground for the election of Ronald Reagan." A conservative columnist for the Washington Post described the 1980 Reagan election with the words, "it took 16 years to count the votes [of the 1964 election], and Goldwater won." But Reagan was not Goldwater's ideological successor. Goldwater was a libertarian. Reagan's right-conservatism was an unusual and hideous marriage of libertarian principles with religious zealotry. And 26 years after Reagan's election, moderate Republicans are beginning to see just how pernicious Reagan's alliance has been.

I have long known that the notion that the United States was "founded as a Christian nation" is nothing more than a fabrication of the historical revisionism of the religious right. What I didn't know was that this concept was actually expressed in a government document. As it turns out, the 1796 Treaty of Tripoli, as ratified by the United States Senate, contains the following phrase:

... the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion ...

While reading about this, I also came across these words from the famous infidel who penned the Declaration of Independence:

Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person's life, freedom of religion affects every individual. ... Moreover, state support of the church tends to make the clergy unresponsive to the people and leads to corruption within religion. Erecting the wall of separation between church and state, therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.

It is amusing, then, to observe the revisionists of the religious right painting this "wall" as a liberal fabrication unsupported by the views of the Founding Fathers. Ironically, members of the religious right should be grateful for this wall of separation, as Jefferson was right about the wall of separation helping stave off corruption. This wall of separation is arguably the most important reason why the United States today is, for better or for worse, more devout than Europe, Canada, or even Israel, where there currently is or has been state-supported religion.

How many times have you heard someone oppose abortion or stem cell research because they claim that embryos are the equivalent of people and that they are morally the same thing? Now, if someone says that they oppose abortion or stem cell research because they think that it is unethical and that any benefit that is gained for the two does not outweigh the moral cost, then that's fine, and I respect their conviction. It is when people say make the claim of moral equivalence that I start to wag my finger.

A popular thought experiment is this: imagine that you are in a burning building. There is a container full of embryos that you could save, and there is a little kid in the room that you could save. You could save only one, not both. Which would you save? If someone truly believe that they are morally equivalent, then they would save the container containing multiple embryos (and potentially many kids) instead of saving just one child. I would venture a guess that almost everyone would opt to save the kid. The tradition of women and children coming first before men when evacuating a ship is another example, and the murder of a mother and a child typically carries a stronger sentence and attracts much greater moral outrage than killing a pregnant woman.

Of course, these are not choices that people would like to make, and these are choices that most people would not face. And if people want to say that the destruction of an embryo is so terrible that we should not do it, that's fine. Just don't say that it is so terrible to the point of it being the moral equivalent of killing a living person. One can argue that embryos carry enough moral value that they should not be destroyed without having to go as far as to establishing this false equivalence.

Unfortunately, this is a practice that is not going to go away anytime soon. This false equivalence is more effective as a rhetorical tool because it plucks people's emotional strings. Also, I suspect that people actually believe in this false equivalence because it allows them to deal with absolutes, even though reality is clearly relative (and you know how conservative moralists just hate relativism). That most people never have to make these sorts of choices makes it easy to avoid the reality that this equivalence is false and untenable. This equivalence keeps them off the slippery slope of trying to relatively quantify the moral value of something. But reality is reality, and people should not resort to the delusion of absolutism simply because they want to stay off an unpleasant slippery slope. Unless you have someone who would rather save a box containing multiple embryos instead of a single living, breathing child from a burning building, then the cold hard reality is that this is indeed relative and that there does need to be an open debate on the relative moral values to be assigned.

Edit: Perhaps a better illustration would be this: An apple and an orange are both classified as fruit. However, that they have the same classification does not necessitate that an apple and an orange are thus equivalent and the same thing. Similarly, if people want to claim that embryonic destruction is in the same "morally incorrect" category as killing a living human, they can do that, but such a classification does not necessitate that the two are also morally equivalent (and as the thought experiment above shows, they are quite far from it). In short, people should not mistake similarity for equivalence. While this point may seem like a mere quibble, it does have implications in the nature of the rhetoric because people should defend and explain the reasons for assigning a certain amount of moral value to embryonic life instead of just conveniently invoking a sleight of hand by calling them morally equivalent.

As reported by Reuters, a "leading cardinal" of the Catholic Church has urged that Christians take legal action against the Da Vinci Code. These were the words of Cardinal Arinze:

[...] legal means which can be taken in order to get the other person to respect the rights of others.

This is one of the fundamental human rights: that we should be respected, our religious beliefs respected, and our founder Jesus Christ respected.

What struck me first about this comment was the remarkable similarity that it had to those of the Muslims protesting the Muhammad cartoons. The Muslims demanded that their "rights" be respected and claimed that the mockery of their prophet Muhammad was a violation of their freedoms.

I have to admit that I have not read the Da Vinci Code, but based on the media coverage that it has received, I have a general idea of what it is about, and most importantly, I also know that it is a piece of fiction, published by Doubleday Fiction. That was the second thing that struck me: that the Catholic Church was up in arms about a piece of fiction; it can't even be classified as libel.

However, the issue that bore into me the most was the attempt by the Church to disguise a positive right as a negative right. A negative right is expressed in the form of restricting the actions of an entity with power (usually government). The First Amendment begins with, "Congress shall make no law..." These are "rights" in the traditional sense. A positive "right" is not really a "right" in the traditional sense, but rather, it is an entitlement. Instead of restricting the actions of an entity wielding power, it grants people certain things. For example, the "right" to jobs or to health care are positive rights often associated with liberals, and the "right" to be free of indecency in the media would be an example of a positive right often invoked by conservatives.

The primary danger of these pseudo-rights is that they are arbitrary. Someone can claim the "right" to just about anything, ranging from those that are reasonable, such as the "right" to provided basic food and shelter, to those that can be quite absurd, such as the "right" to be provided with a cell phone. As a result of this arbitrary nature, positive rights can often clash with one another and with negative rights. When those who claim the "right" to be free from offensive material turn to the government to enforce that "right", they come in direct conflict with the negative right of free speech. Additionally, as more and more people from both ends of the political spectrum couch their agenda in the distorting language of positive "rights" and "freedoms", it causes confusion and disorientation for people. How many people do you know are able to distinguish traditional negative rights from entitlement positive rights? This misuse of distorting language often hampers and obfuscates meaningful debate.

The casting of the cartoon and Da Vinci Code controversies in the language of positive rights is misleading and harmful to the public. If the Catholic Church is so opposed to the book and movie, they are perfectly free to arrange boycotts and protests, which they have already done. But when they start asking for legal action, they are crossing the bridge and turning a legitimate protest into an oppressive use of legal power; they are seeking to trump a "true" negative right (free expression) with their "false" positive right. But of course, the obfuscating nature of the language used neatly hides it.

Finally, I must take issue with their claim that the "right" to respect is a "fundamental" human right. In dealing with government, this is true in the sense that all people must be equal under the law.* But when dealing with private entities, respect is neither entitled nor decreed--it is earned. If anything, the holding and expression of various opinions--disrespectful or not--is a much more "fundamental" right. Perhaps in time, the Vatican will finally learn that obtaining respect requires the shedding of their thin skin and the cessation of a history of attempts at oppression.

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* On that note, legalizing gay marriages would grant gays the negative right of equality under the law while depriving Christians the positive right being free from the "menace" of gay marriages.

A friend directed my attention towards a column in Newsweek by a rabbi asking "Why do nonbelievers seem to be threatened by the idea of God?"

I think that the author, Rabbi Gellman, answers his question with this passage:

Perhaps their atheism was the result of [...] an angry degrading sermon, or [...] an unfeeling castigation of lifestyle choices or perhaps something even worse. I would ask for forgiveness from the angry atheists who write to me if I thought it would help.

I think that what he has failed to grasp is the pervasiveness with which the wrongs described above applies to our society. His perspective seems to suggest that this is something that applies to only a handful of atheists, but I do not think he understands just how broad a brush those words represent, especially when we consider the legislative effects of religion. But he anticipates this argument and follows with this:

Religion must remain an audacious, daring and, yes, uncomfortable assault on our desires to do what we want when we want to do it. All religions must teach a way to discipline our animal urges, to overcome racism and materialism, selfishness and arrogance and the sinful oppression of the most vulnerable and the most innocent among us.

Herein lies the root of our problems. Most religious people that I have met hold the conceit that religion (either in general or their own particular brand, depending on how liberal they are) holds a monopoly on morality and is what keeps us from acting like barbarians. It is interesting, though, that the author also writes "I don't think they need to be religious to be good, kind and charitable people," which stands in stark contradiction to his passage above. Whatever the case, the fact that we are a social animal and that we are more or less forced to interact with people dictates morality. This is why, despite vast disparities in cultural and religious history, societies all around the world have generally had similar distastes for things like stealing and homicide. The rule of "do unto others as you would have them do to you" is universal and natural and not exclusive to religion. A rejection of religion does not mean that we will dovetail straight into racism or succumb to our animal urges,* and it is because of this universality that atheists do not dispute rules against theft or battery--not because we believe in the value of religion, but because we are human. The problems with the belief that religion holds the "right" keys to morality manifest themselves when we move away from these simple areas and delve into controversy: how we eat, how we conduct ourselves privately, how we mate, how we discover the world, etc. Yet, the author avoids all controversial topics when expounding on the merits of religion. How very convenient.

The anger of atheists is really the anger of libertarianism. "Victimless crimes" is a label that libertarians are fond of using. Why should people care about what two consenting adults do with one another? Some states still carry anti-sodomy laws. Why should people care about how two or more consenting adults wish to legally contractually incorporate and label themselves (i.e., non-hetero marriage and poly-marriage). Why should people care what others proclaim to be the truth (e.g., Galileo). Why should people care what people eat or how people dress? Why are businesses forbidden to do certain things on Sundays? The list goes on, and if you look closely at the libertarian hit-list of laws that deal with victimless situations, you will see that the vast majority of them are rooted in religion in some way. The problem with these sorts of laws and societal rules is that they serve solely as a way to exert control over people. They do not protect people from homicide or theft; they oppress. Religious people take great offense at the notion that their beliefs are oppressive, but there is really no better way to put it, and as we all know, oppression is a very rich source of anger. Yet, when religious rhetoric decries the dangers and evils of "godlessness", they divert the discourse by evoking the imagery of victims and ignore the fact that we differ only on victimless issues.

Although there are a few atheists who would love to see the elimination of religion, most atheists do not hold such outlandish views. If those who are religious will concede that they do not hold a monopoly on morality and if those who are religious stop trying to impose the rules of their religion on others (want to impose all sorts of rules on yourself? by all means, go right on ahead!--just stop when we get to the rules of society), then the vast majority of angry atheists would suddenly become much more amiable. Indeed, my anger as an atheist is limited only to those who support the imposing of their values on others.

During the Cold War, ordinary Soviet citizens were genuinely convinced that Americans were bent on their destruction and vice-versa. Likewise, many religious people seem to believe that atheists with their well of anger wish to destroy their way of life. The religious right likes to paint our self-defense as a sort of attack, but there is a huge difference between forbidding Timmy from praying in school (the religious right's version of ACLU goals) and forbidding Timmy from joining half the class in openly praying in such a way that pressures others into doing so (true ACLU goals; this protects private prayer and also extracurricular prayer groups). We simply wish to preserve our way of life, and our desire to break into a church and dictate what people can believe in is about as strong as our desire for Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson to tell us what we can do with our own lives. On that note, perhaps the religious right would do well to re-think the value of imposing certain societal rules in the context of "do unto others as you would have them do to you."

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* It should be noted, however, that there are a number of animal species that exhibit elaborate social structures, norms, and regulations.

Slashdot reported on a government-endorsed exhibit in the UK titled 1001 Inventions, which spotlights the contributions of "Muslim Heritage" to the world.

History serves two purposes: cultural heritage and lessons. While giving a nod to cultural heritage is important to personal identity, it does not solve problems and it does not help society advance. On the other hand, learning what we did right and what we did wrong does help society advance. I have no doubt that this exhibit was created for the purpose of soothing tensions with Muslim culture, but if such is the goal, then harping on the importance of cultural heritage will not accomplish that goal. Mending the gap and the tensions ultimately requires a fundamental social reform of Muslim society, which is by no means an easy task and which will require confronting the deeply-embedded fundamentalist threads of Islam. This is not the sort of problem that can be solved by putting lipstick on a pig. Fawning over one's past glory is no substitute for forward-looking reform and progress, and what Muslim cultures should be extracting from their past is the lesson that the relatively liberal and enlightened rule that they enjoyed a millennium ago was the source of their past greatness. The recent rise of China came from market and political reforms*, not from obsessing over its past glory or cultural inclusiveness.

In addition, there are a few other peripheral problems with this:

• If you read some of the "inventions", you will find that a number of them originated in other parts of the world, but they were popularized by Muslims or introduced to the West by them.
• If anything, this exhibit shows the stagnation of the Muslim world. What good are contributions from antiquity if they have sat still for the past several centuries?

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* Although much more political reform can and should be done, China is nevertheless much more politically open than it was two decades ago.

Despite being a moderate libertarian, I do read right-wing blogs every now and then. For one, it is interesting (and even amusing sometimes) to see what the right is talking about. More importantly, by seeing the sorts of arguments that they present, it helps me keep things in perspective.

Anyway, while doing so this evening, I came across this particular controversy in Portsmouth, UK. The subject is a child named Charlotte who was born premature in 2003 and has subsequently suffered damage to various organs, including the brain and lungs. She is currently dying, and is suffering from an "aggressive chest infection". The doctors, believing that it is now futile to try to keep her alive, has petitioned a judge to rescind an order mandating that she should always be resuscitated. The only problem is, the parents are against this, and as one might expect, this has caused quite a stir with the religious right, who have sensationalized this with labels such as "death sentence".

This smacks of Terry Schiavo, where apparently, the parents* and the right-wing commentators know more than the doctors. If the doctors qualified their belief that attempts to keep her alive are futile with "medical evidence speaks with one voice", I think it would be prudent to defer to their assessment. Admittedly, it does seem odd that they would overrule parental judgment, but should they be obligated to perform a procedure that they do not believe would be effective solely at the insistence of the parents? Nevertheless, it seems that the doctors could have saved a lot of trouble if they just conceded and let the unfolding of events speak for themselves.

But in respect to religion, there is something that I don't quite understand. What if it was God's will for her to die? Would resorting to such medical solutions constitute meddling? If they counter by holding that God is omnipotent and that it is not possible for these medical procedures to meddle with the issue of life and death, then why bother using them, for if that is so, then she will live as long as such is the will. Furthermore, shouldn't they be happy that she will be going to heaven? It seems to me that even on religious grounds, there seems to be a degree of irrationality here. Then again, it is by no means fair to expect parents to be rational during such emotional situations, and their response is certainly justified. But what about all the right-wing commentators who are raising a fuss over this? My problem with this is mostly against the religious right rallying around this banner; why on Earth is Stop the ACLU concerned about a case like this in the UK anyway?

From the perspective of the secular humanist, I think that the doctors are right. Imagine the kind of life this person would have with such a damaged brain and body! Of course, there is also the burden to society that such a person would pose. I know that last bit sounds extremely distasteful, but it is a sort of consideration that is taken into account more often than one would think. Imagine how many lives would be saved each year by way of quicker response if there was a fire station and a hospital located on every single city block. Yet, we do not have this because the costs of such a proposal, and by doing that, every one of us has just placed a price on life without explicitly acknowledging it.

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* Although it is politically incorrect to point this out, the mother is 24 and is apparently quite religious, and as such, I think that it would be prudent to side with the doctors when it comes to medical opinion.

(This is a follow-up to an earlier post.)

I want to start off by commenting about the choice of words used by the news media. Cruise through Google News or the BBC, and you will notice something striking: the widespread use of the word "row" to describe this situation. Ambassadors are withdrawn, embassies are torched, a few people have been killed, radicals are calling for a holocaust to be brought upon Europe, and they call this a row? To call this "a noisy dispute or quarrel; commotion" is a gross understatement (though, admittedly, an amusing one).

This is a row?! (Image © Associated Press.)

Drifting towards neo-conservativism

In my over-simplified view of the GOP, it is a marriage of three ideologies: there are the libertarian-ish conservatives who favor free markets, there are the religious fundamentalists conservatives, and there are the foreign policy hawks, also known as the "neo-conservatives."

My liberal stance towards foreign policy has been rooted in the idea that American woes in the Middle East are really our own doing. Historically, our foreign policy there has been an unflattering one of exploitation (or at least bearing the impression thereof), and the people of the Middle East are more or less justified in being angry at us. Although that does not justify acting violently on that anger, it does suggest that in order to resolve the problem (and not just the symptoms of the problem), we must eliminate that anger, thus rendering a hawkish foreign policy incompatible and counter-productive. I still believe in this liberal foreign policy stance, but I am starting to have my doubts.

If the incident involved the burning of American flags and embassies, the world would not care, and most Americans probably would not care because this sort of thing has become commonplace and because our foreign policy tends to spark such things. But for once, the outrage of the Middle East is not centered around the United States, but around Denmark. This is a country that has made large humanitarian contributions to the Middle East. This is a country that is fairly neutral and that does not arrogantly prance around the world. This country is almost a bit like Switzerland (incidentally, even a Swiss flag was burned in this "row", probably by some jihadists who did not know the difference between the Swiss and Danish flags). In a way, this serves as a sort of looking glass into a what-if scenario. What if the United States was not hawkish and arrogant? What if the United States took a liberal foreign policy and spent significantly more money on foreign aid than on military hardware? Denmark did just that, and look at where it is now. Perhaps the neo-cons might just have a point.

There are two key problems with the neo-conservatives that prevents me from adopting their politics, however. Economists stress the importance of valuing something not in absolute terms, but in terms relative to all possible alternatives. All that this incident has shown is the liberal foreign policy stance is not as good as one might have hoped for it to be, but it does not show that a hawkish foreign policy stance is any better; it may very well be that a hawkish stance is even more flawed than the liberal stance; it is hard to say for sure. Second, the alliance between the neo-conservatives and the religious right in the United States is unsettling. While religious fundamentalists in the United States, unlike their counterparts in the Middle East, are not known to go on jihads, a small minority of them have on occasion resorted to violent acts (e.g., bombing abortion clinics and killing homosexuals) to deal with those who share different perspectives.

Additional thoughts...

• There is an interesting piece titled Live Free or Die by The Brussels Journal. I am not sure I agree with parts of this editorial (especially the latter half), but it does bring up a few good points in the first half.
• Muslims have every right to be offended, but why must they be violent? The practice of writing angry letters to the editor exists for a reason...
• Iranian paper to run Holocaust cartoons (The Guardian)... it is not exactly the most mature response, but perhaps when they see the lack of Western protests to their cartoons, they will learn something (or not).
• I still find it ironic that the rule prohibiting depictions stems from the prohibition of idolatry. Ignoring the fact that one does not worship satirical images, doesn't this extremely strong defense of one of their prophets strike people as bordering on worship... idolatry?
• Why do Muslims care so much about what gets printed in Denmark for a Danish audience? The last time I checked, the Jyllands-Posten is not distributed in Muslim countries. Why on Earth should the cultural norms of Muslim countries trump the cultural norms of free speech of Denmark for something printed in Denmark? I suppose the unsolicited meddling of the affairs of other countries is not an activity limited to the United States.
• Furthermore, most Muslims have never even seen these cartoons, as their publication is prohibited in the Muslim world (in fact, two newspaper editors were arrested for it). Never mind the fact that a cartoon does not deliver physical, financial or material harm, but can a cartoon even deal emotional harm if someone has never even seen it?
• Why does the Danish government have to apologize for the acts of an independent media company that it does not even have a single iota of control over? Furthermore, why does the action of one news outlet in Denmark condemn every person in that country?
• Regarding Muslim immigration in Europe: There are a number of things that Europe has done wrong in this department. Failing to do something about the dismal unemployment rates is a start (historically, discontent breeds radicalism). More importantly, there is insufficient pressure for people to assimilate. Total Westernization of immigrants is by no means necessary, but at the very least, people who join a society must explicitly agree to accept that society's social contract and be indoctrinated with that society's most basic values (i.e., democracy and mind-your-own-business).
• I find it a bit disappointing that most media outlets in the United States are refusing to reprint the cartoons as a show of support for the principles of free speech. For a country that has generally been not as concerned about these sensitivities (from support of Israel to military involvements) to do this is a bit ironic (granted, the United States is not monolithic and the decision to print these things is made by individual private companies).
• It is very distressing to see how many people do not really understand what free speech is. Many Muslims are saying that they support free speech, but that they think that speech must also show respect. That is even the stance of the State Department. Granting someone the "freedom" to do good while prohibiting them from making mistakes is not "freedom", but only an illusion thereof. True freedom is the ability to both do good and make mistakes (and hopefully voluntarily electing to do the former). Free speech constrained by respect (i.e., political correctness) is not free speech. If everything in the world is censored so as to not offend anyone (Muslims, Hindus, vegetarians, feminists, Southern WASPs, Marxists, free market advocates, conservatives, liberals, etc., etc.), there would be nothing left to say. Political correctness and free speech are incompatible, and too many people mistake the former for the latter.
• Finally, the paper has apologized, and Europe governments are scrambling to offer amends, yet the violence continues. What more do they want?

Updates: First, in fairness (I do feel guilty about having so far presented only one side of the issue), here is a well-written piece by a Westerner condemning the cartoons. Very good and valid points are brought up. For those who believe that speech has limits (beyond those of "shouting fire in a crowded theater" where speech directly translates into physical harm), this is a convincing piece. There are few who believe in the absolute unlimited nature of free speech (once again, exempting the "shouting fire" case), and in recent years, even the ACLU has started to back down from this sort of stance in favor of political correctness. As one of those people who still cling onto the absoluteness of the freedom of speech, I remained unchanged in my stance after reading this, but I nevertheless think that it was worth a read. For me on a personal level, this is also what makes this whole thing so fascinating: it is in many ways a test of the limits of free speech and how far it should go. Would neo-Nazis peacefully marching through a Jewish neighborhood constitute legitimate free speech? A Jewish law professor at Harvard, Alan Dershowitz, thinks that it would be legitimate, and so do I, but, quite understandably, many do not, and this is the sort of debate that is at the core here.

Second, I forgot to mention earlier that these cartoons were first published many months ago, and that they are only now stirring trouble because a Muslim group in Denmark circulated these cartoons. According to some sources, additional images that were much more offensive and that were not produced by the cartoonists were fabricated and included, presumably with the intent of rousing anger. By no means does this justify the sort of reaction that the world is seeing, but it does make me wonder if things would have been different had these images not been included.

Another Update: Here's an excerpt from an interesting post on an Iraqi blog:

You know that those cartoons were published for the 1st time months ago and we here in the Middle East have tonnes of jokes about Allah, the prophets and the angels that are way more offensive, funny and obscene than those poorly-made cartoons, yet no one ever got shot for telling one of those jokes or at least we had never seen rallies and protests against those infidel joke-tellers.

I was going to let this whole issue slip by, but a headline caught my attention as I was about to go to bed: Embassies in Syria Are Burned in Furor Over Prophet Cartoon. While this was not very surprising, considering the attack in Gaza days ago, it was nevertheless outrageous. All this over some political cartoons?

Muslims claim that depictions of Muhammad are blasphemous (edit: it should be noted that the reason for this is to discourage idolatry; in which case, one has to wonder how a satirical image can be conducive to idolatry, and one also has to wonder if this strong fervor that Muslims are raising over Muhammad is itself a form of idolatry), but it is curious to note that for hundreds of years, there have been numerous depictions of this final prophet by Muslims and by Westerners, all without inciting this kind of a ruckus. It is also interesting to note that Muslims have never raised a fuss about the countless depictions (both satirical and non-satirical) of Jesus, who has a place in Islam alongside Muhammad as one of the Prophets of Islam. Even Christians are not known to burn down embassies or initiate large-scale boycotts over the large number of unflattering depictions of Jesus in media (remember the dancing Jesus in The Simpsons?), so why do we see this with Muslims? And as for the satire itself, Muslims are no foreigners to the use of unsavory cartoons to express a political perspective. The problem, I think, stems from the strong currents of fundamentalism that courses through the region in addition to the lack of a notion of religious freedom; in fairness, I would imagine that a few hundred years ago, Christians would have been equally unhappy at someone who draws a satirical image of their deity.

Of course, the great irony is that by reacting the way they did, through excessive violence, death threats, and boycotts, the Muslim world has validated the cartoon and did more harm to their image than any satirical cartoon could alone. If the Islamic world is truly concerned about "Islamophobia," this reaction certainly does not help (besides, since when does a cartoon suddenly represent the views of everyone in an entire country at large?). A web poll (i.e., this is not scientific) on aljazeera.net showed that 53% of respondents felt that boycotts were inappropriate. Assuming that those who oppose the boycotts would be sensible enough to also oppose the violence, it is certainly a relief to see that a majority of the people believe that there has been a gross overreaction, but that the margin of the majority is so small is somewhat worrisome.

Finally, the other impetus that drove me to write this entry (and thus putting off finishing the other entry that I was hoping to post tonight; I'll get around to that some time tomorrow :P) was this headline that I saw in Google News: Don't reprint cartoons, begs sheikh. As a staunch supporter of free speech, I feel that these cartoons need to be shown, as a vindication for the principles of free speech and as a show that this kind of extreme overreaction is unproductive. Ultimately, this is a matter of respect--not respect for a religion or any other belief or point of view, but respect for something far greater: the right to express those beliefs and points of view, regardless of what the content of that expression may be.

And so, here is the worst of the twelve cartoons printed in the Jyllands-Posten:

Edit: I should note that when I speak of freedom of speech, I am referring to true freedom of speech. A liberal who invokes freedom of speech when publishing sexually-oriented literature that is offensive to religious groups but who then tries to get racist remarks censored is not a true supporter of freedom of speech. It is easy for one to support speech that is beneficial to their aims, but it is only when someone is willing to support speech that is directly contradictory to their aims that they are a true supporter of freedom of speech. Political correctness is just a sugar-coated form of censorship. So on that note, I think that this political cartoon appearing in Arab newspapers is inaccurate because the people who would outlaw the racist and anti-Semitic images are the same politically correct people who would refuse to show the Muhammad cartoon (e.g., CNN, the US State Department, etc.), and the true supporters of freedom of speech would not try to outlaw any of the three scenarios depicted.

The freedom to swing your fist ends where the other person's nose begins, but freedom of speech has no limits. There are so many people in the world who are offended by so many different things. If you censor things so that nobody would be offended, this would be very, very dull world.

Update: Instead of constantly editing this entry, I have posted more of my personal thoughts in this entry and this entry.