[MD] Barbarian attack

[Michael Hamilton]

Platt,

Your dedication to the value of free speech is admirable. I
wholeheartedly agree that free speech must include the freedom to
offend. Censorship of those cartoons would be thoroughly undesirable.
However, anyone who chooses to publish those cartoons is nonetheless
bringing a large weight of responsibility upon themselves. Allow me to
make an analogy:

Your legal entitlement to free speech means that you are free to go
into a bar, pick out the largest, burliest man, and call his mother a
fat dirty whore. No government should prevent you from doing that.
However, you shouldn't act surprised if the man leaves you with a
broken nose and two very black eyes.

I trust that you can see the point I am making about the cartoons.
Free speech comes with great responsibility regarding how it is used.

Also, your attack on the value of tolerance is inconsistent with your
admirable dedication to free speech. Tolerance of conflicting opinions
is the conerstone of free speech. In fact, the inability of some
Muslims to tolerate the cartoons is a large part of the problem.
However, I think you understand that there are always limits to
tolerance. Anyone who disagrees should see how they react to their
mother being called a fat dirty whore, or how they react to their
deity being called a terrorist.

Regards,
Mike

On 2/15/06, Platt Holden <pholden at davtv.com> wrote:
> To All:
>
> A blatant attack by barbarians on the intellectual value of free speech
> is now underway in many parts of the world. Yet who among are
> intellectual elite are speaking out against the mobs who attack Western
> businesses and embassies over a cartoon? Not many. Instead we hear
> words of appeasement, such as the U.S State Department's press officer,
> Janelle Hironimus who said, "Inciting religious or ethnic hatred in
> this manner is not acceptable." So much for free speech which is not
> free if it does not include the freedom to offend.
>
> What we are witnessing is the whirlwind from years of political
> correctness as codified in university speech codes, supported by
> decades of preaching with arrogant moral certainty the overriding
> virtue of tolerance. After all, no one is to blame for anything; each
> is nothing but a product her culture. And as we all know, no culture
> can be thought to be superior to any other.
>
> In Pirsig's hierarchy of morals, among the highest is the intellectual
> value of free speech. That more intellectuals are blind to this value,
> trumpet moral relativism and fail to take to the ramparts to defend
> free speech against assaults by barbarians is the shame of our time.
> When histories write the postmortem on the West, this will be among the
> causes of death.
>
> Platt
>
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