Blasphemy (with a signature): Non-Anonomous Confrontation

[David Morris]

Ross Douthat is usually a complete ass, but here he gets it exactly right:

http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/07/the-blasphemy-we-need/?_r=1

In this sense, many of the Western voices criticizing the editors of Hebdo
have had things exactly backward: Whether it’s the Obama White House
<http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/09/19/press-briefing-press-secretary-jay-carney-91912>
 or Time Magazine
<http://world.time.com/2011/11/02/firebombed-french-paper-a-victim-of-islamistsor-its-own-obnoxious-islamophobia/>
in
the past or the Financial Times
<http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/9f90f482-9672-11e4-a40b-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=intl#axzz3O9Xo9vKk>and
(God help us) the Catholic League
<http://www.catholicleague.org/muslims-right-angry/> today, they’ve
criticized the paper for provoking violence by being needlessly offensive
and “inflammatory” (Jay Carney’s phrase), when the reality is that it’s
precisely the violence that *justifies* the inflammatory content. In a
different context, a context where the cartoons and other provocations only
inspired angry press releases and furious blog comments, I might sympathize
with the FT’s Tony Barber when he writes that publications like Hebdo
“purport to strike a blow for freedom when they provoke Muslims, but are
actually just being stupid.” (If all you have to fear is a religious
group’s fax machine, what you’re doing might not be as truth-to-power-ish
as you think.) But if publishing something might get you slaughtered and
you publish it anyway, by definition you *are* striking a blow for freedom,
and that’s precisely the context when you need your fellow citizens to set
aside their squeamishness and rise to your defense.
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