Why must one assume that? Are we to believe that Obama has a hand in reviewing the statements of America’s hundreds of embassies? That’s a bizarre thing to claim. It’s true that Romney’s shameless opportunism is not the main issue here but as he’s defending it he’s exacerbating the disproportionate coverage and as he’s defending it badly he doesn’t even have the excuse of being right.

If Muslims are destined to riot in Islamic countries every time someone posts something they don’t like on the Internet then they are simply going to have to resign themselves to repeatedly rioting on a very regular basis because the Internet is going precisely nowhere – the hardware and technology is far too ubiquitous to ever be “dis-invented”. It is time that the Mullahs and Imams got real and finally understand that the modern world and the very nature of communication technology has simply left their Dark Age backwardness very far behind.

As seen from the documentary “Islam: The Untold Story” – the primitives are no longer able to “magically” shield their baseless, evidence-free, truth-denying beliefs and superstitious fairy tales from the full scrutiny of the 21st century by making death threats and resorting to violence. Whether is is impartial scholarship, satire, merciless ridicule or unimaginative insult, the Muslims are going to find out, the hard way, that we can and we will do exactly all this and more and that there is absolutely nothing that they can do to prevent any of it.

If rioting Muslims wish to systematically shoot-themselves-in-the-foot by destroying their own communities and trashing their own cities because of their pathetic, immature inability to control their own emotions then that is their own business – it has absolutely nothing to do with what free individuals personally choose to think, say or say what they think in free democracies that recognises their constitutional right to do exactly that.

The right to free speech and free expression (as it is practiced by Americans in the US) is simply a non-negotiable absolute that is far more sacred and necessary than any religious person’s belief in their precious Prophet.

This piece isn’t one-sided; the intellectuals’ group-think that is urging legal action against the video and over-identifying with the “hurt feelings” notion are the one-sided approach who have gotten almost no debate — except from Romney. And he is absolutely right that they are apologizing, and that when they pander that way, they wind up aligning themselves with contrived victims who then go on to perpetrate murder and mayhem against others. That’s morally and legally wrong.

The aim isn’t to calm ruffled feelings but to strongly, unremittantly, tirelessly, keep fighting back against this outrageous totalitarian notion that speech gets to be curbed by violence — or else. There is nothing that justifies this.

Your idea that there is some “special path” for some countries or religions that we must all tip-toe around has no basis in the international human rights system. Human rights are universal. You’d be the first to say they should be vigorously applied to the US or Israel, but then you can’t explain whey they shouldn’t be applied states that either condone or participate directly in violence under the “insult” rubric. Why would any differences in development justify murder? They wouldn’t.

In fact, the debate finally takes a turn away from the hopeless and fruitless accomodationism that didn’t work, and marks out a way in which both the bluff must be called and the principled positions articulated.

AdamP, “partisan” seems to mean merely anybody who disagrees with the “progressive” hegemonic line on these things on Twitter and everywhere else. And good for James Kirchick that he has broken with that line. The liberal chattering classes indeed have had an awfully hard time in saying in full voice that nothing justifies violence, and have fallen over themselves to try to find somebody else to blame besides the Islamists — in this case Romney. The statements *are* apologia.

Why are we calling for American responses to become more nuanced and not these murderous jihadists who think they can use a silly crude film as justification for murder? They and their supporters are the ones who need to be come more nuanced.

The statement of the Embassy in Cairo *was* an apology, because it started from a pre-emptive position of over-empathizing with “hurt feelings” without any limit, even capable of murder. It should have started with an affirmation of both freedom of religion and freedom of speech, and condemned hate speech and disassociated from it while frankly condemning any violent response in advance. At this point, with years of these incidents from the “Satanic Verses” to the Danish Cartoons to the Koran burnings, it’s time to get our act straight on this and generically condemn violence in advance so it is unmistakeably the responsibility of those who commit it.

The pandering in the Cairo statement was inexcusable, especially when the US and Egypt co-sponsored a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council on religious intolerance that explicitly made the distinction between “incitement of imminent violence”and insult, and which kept away from the notion of “defamation of religions” that those using the term “denigration” in fact replicate. It amounts to blasphemy laws. This video does not constitute “incitement to imminent violence” because thats means calling on others to target Muslims with violence, not Muslims committing violence because they are insulted.

http://3dblogger.typepad.com/wired_state/2012/09/incitement-of-imminent-violence.html

Banging on Romney was merely opportunistic group-think. He didn’t do anything wrong; on the contrary, it’s highly disturbing that it took his frank statement to shake up Obama and Clinton into doing the right thing and saying “Nothing justifies violence.” They should have opened with that point in Cairo in the first place.

If the OIC persists in invoking “defamation of religion” as a notion to curb free speech which angry Muslims get to enforce through violence and even murder, the West should fight back with a resolution on “insult violence” that follows the same logic as efforts around “honour killings” or hate crimes against LGBT.

http://3dblogger.typepad.com/wired_state/2012/09/we-need-a-un-resolution-on-insult-violence.html

Feeling somewhat perturbed I checked the writers twitter page which was mentioned under the article and after reading one tweet in particular, from the 13 Sept, which I don’t want to repeat, and the conversation it was placed in feel even more perturbed that what I am reading is a heavily slanted piece as I said which does nothing really to aid understanding. Not only that he does not even consider that perhaps the main aim was to try to calm the situation and prevent further bloodshed/injury on whichever side.

What is needed here is understanding – and I don’t think it fair to compare one religion which really has remained in the past for all sorts of reasons to others, which in the past had similar problems too, but which now have a more enlightened view simply because they have been allowed to develop freely within more progressive democracies – so again more understanding is needed here of the differences in the ways each of them have progressed or not and for why. And I don’t feel the writer nor the article makes any attempt to acknowledge why there are difference and how these differences have brought us where we are today.

A wasted opportunity, and again sadly does nothing to move the debate forward in a positive manner.

However, James Kirchark’s ridiculous attempts to claim that condemnation of a clumsy and ignorant attack on Muslims by the Embassy (in a volatile region where they need to be more sensitive to nuances and longer term public opinion in order to advance US interests in the area) amounts to an apology taints what could otherwise be a point worth making. It’s clear Kirchark is trying to make a partisan argument here rather than advancing the debate, and his attitude comes across quite clearly with the use of phrases like ‘liberal chattering classes’.

There is an argument to be made about standing up for the values that our society holds dear, and clearly that is important. But in the context of a world where there are other countries who do not hold those values as dear as others that we may find repugnant, we need to accept that our responses need to be more nuanced, working with the world as it is (though obviously we should always be wary of slipping into cynicism or complacency). To do otherwise is to be as naive and idiotic as Kirchark’s ilk frequently criticise those on the left for being.