The Cartoon Controversy
Despite that tongue-in-cheek suggestion, I have serious thoughts on the controversy.
There are two bad societal forces at work in this case. One is illiberal multiculturalism that supports the use of force to stop offensive speech. The other is hatred for Muslims and for anyone who looks like they might be Muslims.
It is possible to oppose both fully, and I do. Whether or not you should print the anti-Muslim cartoons in your newspaper depends on which of these bad societal forces you think is the greater threat to freedom where you live.
In the US, I wouldn’t print them. We have a long history of defending the right of racist assholes to say racist things. We have less free speech for decryption algorithms than we do for racism. Our Muslim population is politically outspoken but nonviolently so, and will not burn down any newspaper for what it prints about their prophet. Much more dangerous is the phenomenon that has brought us Little Green Footballs and Michelle Malkin - calls for terrible actions against our Muslim population.
In Europe, it’s a tougher call. Laws there against “hate speech” are getting tougher and tougher every year, both in individual countries and from the center of the EU. Plus newspapers are receiving genuine violent threats from Muslims. If I ran a newspaper there, I might want to run the cartoons as a genuine defiance of my government’s desire to stop me. But they’ve got their own problems with anti-Muslim rhetoric, and I wouldn’t want to fan those flames.
So the bottom line is this - if you’re protesting genuine threats of censorship, print the cartoons. If you’re just being a bigot, don’t.