- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
The cartoons are stupid, offensive and racist. Moreover, the decision by newspapers in some European countries to continue printing them is a way of giving the finger to Muslims who live in those countries, under a self-righteous garb of freedom of speech. These are certainly not "equal opportunity" offenders: it is quite unlikely, for instance, that a German newspaper would dare to print funny cartoons about the Holocaust, or that a right-leaning French editor would spoof French nationhood. History and nationalism are among the most powerful religions of our age.
Nevertheless, it must be conceded that life in a free society includes the right to be stupid, offensive and racist. When we are offended by the bigots in our midst, we have a right - indeed, an obligation - to rebut, criticize, mock, ignore, boycott, or condemn. We do not, however, have the right to silence the offender, because ultimately the right to offend is inseparable from the ability to dissent, without which freedom is meaningless. Living with freedom occasionally requires a thick skin.
