Danish Cartoons Doom Us All!?!

I was just browsing around my usual haunts and reading a few articles here and there and I came across one that made my hackles stand up. It's a little commentary called "Danish Cartoons Doom Us All" by Farhana Ali. She is a western educated Muslim woman who is an international policy analyst for the Rand Corporation.

Freedom: The condition of being free from restraints.

Ms Ali, the title of your commentary exemplifies how deeply violent Islam really is. Doom us all!?! What kind of a people allow mere words and pictures to doom an entire planet? Do you not see the insanity of that?

Your complete lack of understanding of what freedom really is comes to light with your argument that the same Danish newspapers would not print cartoons of Jesus Christ and thus they apply their policies in an inconsistent manner. No where in the law does it say that freedom of the press means that the policies of the publisher must be consistent.

I hate the fracking newspapers, and I routinely write to publishers and editors and tell them how much I disapprove. I told Molly Ivins once, may she rest in peace, that I would not wipe my bottom with her columns( I was a little more colorful.) However, it never crossed my mind to kill her. She died of breast cancer. And damn it, I would have fought for her right to publish her junk and to piss me off when she did it. That is freedom. It was her right to do so.

I still do not buy the Fort Worth Star Telegram because they published her garbage. That is an acceptable recourse against offensive publishers; murder and destruction is not. Civilized peoples who understand the true meaning of freedom know that.