Sick and tired:

Is anybody else sick and tired of this?

I personally find this to be disgusting, and at the end of the day, I see no reason for any Western newspaper or government to apologize for editorial cartoons.

I will admit that knowingly working on a sensitive nerve is neither smart nor polite, but it does not excuse death and violence as a reaction. Any who say otherwise are ignorant, misguided, or just plain stupid. There is no excuse for the reactions we have seen to these cartoons in the Arab Muslim world. None.

What is at issue here is an ideological confrontation between totalitarianism and individual liberty. On one side, the protests represent a totalitarianism where the accepted world view is untouchable - intellectual challenge is impossible and criminal. The other side accepts that ideas must compete in the intellectual marketplace, and that there is nothing that cannot be said (within the bounds of socially accepted decency). These protests and the resultant violence are unacceptable, and challenge the fundamental freedoms upon which the West's liberal democracies have been built. Excusing the violence in the Arab/Muslim world is tantamount to accepting the supremacy of totalitarianism over western liberalism.

I am sick and tired of the protests. I am furious with apologists. It is time the Middle East and its despotic regimes (including the peoples living under them) understands this: we are here to stay, and our liberties will not be subjected to your ruthless sensitivities. If you don't like it, tough luck.

~JDS