Cimorene

did you read the essay? the author addresses christianity and judaism and points out that neither of them practises the death penalty for blasphemy any longer, which i think is really the salient point. is boycotting against the cartoons fundamentalist? no. is actively trying to kill people as a result of the cartoons fundamentalist? i would argue that it is.

as for good taste vs. free speech, i suppose it's just a question where people disagree: a matter of taste, you might say, such as whether ends can justify means and so on. i think the essayist addresses the issue of free speech sufficiently to encapsulate my viewpoint on it at least. i think protecting it as a fundamental right is far more important than protecting people from being offended. just because jews' feelings are protected by law in certain european countries doesn't mean that they should be, and the why is fairly clear there: we all know the western world is still embarrassed about the holocaust. if there were 300 million jews in the world and israel were a hell of a lot bigger and no less aggressive than it is, the attitudes to them would probably, i think, be different, and the attitude to anti-semitism more relaxed.

and i find the assertion that the written word is the most powerful weapon "we possess" to be... astonishing in this particular situation. people may kill people, but guns certainly do as well--and much more efficiently than bare hands, most of the time.