Cartoons

I'll just give my 2 cents on this whole fiasco:

I'm a (reasonably) observant Catholic. I go to church every week. I'm also a conservative politically and have great reverence for all religions. These cartoons published in Denmark depict the prophet Mohammed, even though depicting him is a grave disrespect to Islam. Its beyond me why someone would do it. If my home the UK was still devout Christian and someone in Syria drew Jesus Christ dropping bombs from a US plane - even that would not come close to creating a comparison to describe the offense some people were caused by this. When your life is your religion, these things matter. The cartoons are offensive, and they're embarrasing to me.

But now, such as the world we live in, it is my duty to defend these cartoons. You do not have a right not to be offended. Here in the West, the protection of freedom is, as Lord Acton said, not the most important role of government - it is the role of government. Freedom is what we are. I can assure all the thugs and terrorists that burned embassies and threatened others with death over the weekend that we take this very seriously here.

You will not intimidate us. We are drawing the line right in the sand now. Protest if you must; but you must respect our values of liberal democracy wherever you are in the world, and if you plan to live in Europe, you must live by them. No compromise.

We've posted the cartoons on this blog (cheers FDR) and I urge a British newspaper to step forward and publish them. You do not have to condone the depiction of Mohammed. You do not even have to support the underlying political message in the cartoons.

You must publish them because you can.

posted by Chris Hughes @ 1:52 AM