The Cartoon War and the Right to Offend

I’m having a hard time making sense of the furor in the Muslim world over a Danish newspaper printing a cartoon that depicts the Prophet Mohammad. That’s because this whole thing is, at heart, really stoopid.

So here’s my raw take:

* Yes, depicting the prophet is a blasphemy prohibited under Muslim law (Sharia) and the cartoon itself was unflattering because Muhammad's turban was drawn in the shape of a bomb. But that doesn’t mean that Sharia should be followed outside the Muslim world any more than Palestinians should be required to eat fish on Fridays because devout Roman Catholics in Denmark do. So, Muslims have a right to be offended, but Danes have a right to an unfettered press.

* Few things make me angrier than when Muslims or other rabid sectarians try to impose their religious values on me. That is exactly what the Christian Republican right wing is trying to do in the U.S.

* It is encouraging that some European newspapers are reprinting the cartoon. Freedom of speech trumps Sharia, and when all is said and done, there are few blasphemies more vile in an open society than censorship.

* It is discouraging that Denmark, Norway and some other governments are now falling all over themselves to apologize for a cartoon that was published in September.

* The Western media does a pretty good job of stereotyping the Muslim world, but it is Muslims themselves who are the ace stereotypers, both in how they wish to be viewed and how they view the West.

* Am I to assume that the cartoon protesters have nothing better to take to the streets over? Is the godawful leadership of the so-called pillars of the Muslim world like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak not a concern? The enormous obstacle that radical Islamic terrorism has become to a Muslim world stuck in the 15th century and in dire need of getting with the 21^stcentury?

* Mubarak's response -- warning that the failure of European governments to deal with the cartoon issue would give terrorists further pretext to maim and kill -- is notably vile.

* How the hell can these people afford to protest all the time? Do they call in sick? Do their benefits packages include time off for demonizing?

* Why can’t conservative Muslims learn to accept Western standards, including that most radical of concepts – pluralism – that has sped the assimilation of their brothers and sisters into countless Western societies and acceptance in a wider world? (You know, the folks who send all that money back home so their families can buy the latest Western appliances.)

* Finally, the protesters might ask themselves this simple question: Denmark is a free country. Is theirs?