Jyllands-Posten - this is the spirit of the free world

What is freedom of speech about really? When we talk about the right to 'freedom of speech', what do we mean? Because at office where i sit i dont speak many sentences but I'm okay with everyone making more than their share of verbal cacaph. I only have an objection to waves that cross reasonable decibel threshholds. And when verbal crap has been directed right at me - unreasonable demeaning demands and plain nonsense parading as sense. But religion is a whole other nutgame. And the new inductee has helped show some things. Cos religion is a big topic in her hot-cold sphere. So one day the Muslims are the honorable underdogs and the next theyre gruff goats; Christians are better one day and the next day theyre uptight bigots; Hindus wanton and freespirited by turns. Jews though, remain irrevocably damned. And even if I tried getting itched, nothing happens. Cos my religion is the music I hate this minute which might be what I'll love the same time tommorow. Religion is about personal realisations contradicting and harmonizing uniquely to each, uniquely in time. So when a pope or a swami or mullah issues edicts and people follow, then this is the crime. That institutions have colonized personal realisations, and that people have let them. So if everyones journey is unique, you're going to be seeing the billion emblems of their beliefs all over, and youll inevitably walk over some emblems because theyre lying all over the place, and it shouldnt matter to anyone but the one person whos emblem you stamped on. In reality just 4 major faiths claim the 'religion' of most of living humanity today. (Thats a lot like the oligopoly in free markets) That's unnatural, but the case.

Now what does it mean that thousands of 'Muslims' in Muslim-dominated nations (and others) are rising in protest at the cartoons, burning the Dutch flag and boycotting Dutch ware? This can be confirmed to be atleast historically regressive. Yes, I did say something about arriving at your own realizations, but holding the mirror of history, we give insights from personal reflections a depth that shows up everything behind us really ahead of us. We can repeat the past or change the future. That would depend on what you thought of past events in the first place. Were 'infamous' instances of state progroms / exclusive propogada / enforced regimens - right or wrong? The idenitifcation of 'rights' comprehensively covered in the UN* Charter of Human Rights, took as many centuries of human existence on this planet as it did; all an accumulation of the relaization of centuries before, orally transmitted and really recorded. Truths for progressive human existence.

I don't really know what to say to the French theologian Sohaib Bencheikh's comment to the incident,"One must find the borders between freedom of expression and freedom to protect the sacred,...unfortunately, the West has lost its sense of the sacred." This first sentence by logical parameters pleads nothing because the 2 freedoms he seeks to have barriers between are not only already 2 distinct freedoms - one natural, the other protectionist/resistant - but are by their very quality, opposed. So what exactly is he pleading? And then of course - what if the West has lost its sense of the sacred? The other thing that shows up how deliberate all religious affrontery-taking is, is that this cartoon was first published in September. More recently, "newspapers across Europe have reprinted caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad to show support for a Danish paper whose cartoons have sparked Muslim outrage...France Soir, Germany's Die Welt, La Stampa in Italy and El Periodico in Spain all carried some of the drawings." I think its important to note that British papers aren't part of this press solidarity. The world press freedom watchdog Reporters without Borders, based in Paris, defended the newspapers - "Freedom of the press also exists for viewpoints that shock the majority of the population," RsF head Robert Menard told France Soir.
I believe in watchdogs for freedom.
I belive watchdogs for offence need to read history in the interests of originality.