Prophets and Complacency

The Enquirer editorial page on the cartoon Mohammed situation:

The lessons to be learned are those commonly taught in many religions: Do not seek to offend, and when offended, meet insult with forbearance and forgiveness.

A nice turn of phrase, and evocative of the heads-down conservatism that is the heart and soul of Cincinnati. This stalwart mindset, at it's best, entails traditionalism and mutually-assured respect. At it's worst it amounts to this: Mind your own business, or move quietly away from the problem.

But this is a clash that won't go away with Sunday-school nuggets of wisdom. The minority of agitators who have decided to exploit this issue are "offended" to the point of homicide by comic strips, dancing, and women in public without several layers of shapeless bed linen to conceal their lascivious forms.

More importantly we are in the middle of resolving incompatible conceptions of liberty, freedom, and human rights on a planet that has become very small. Government is built on principles that are assumed to be commonly-held - and to put it in geek-speak the software that runs our society and that which runs societies like Syria and Iran has some known incompatibilities.

We shouldn't be comfortable with the senseless defamation of religion, and we should cultivate forbearance. And it's true these Danish editors and cartoonists picked a fight - one which the haters and rabble-rousers exploited. But can this incompatibility go unresolved? Free speech is the core of liberty. It helps to safeguard pluralistic societies and nourish them with all of the expression, accord, and disagreement that come along with democracy.

Don't you believe in these things? Don't you think newspapers in America should be the first to speak strongly and unequivocally in their defense?