{"id":7815,"date":"2012-09-14T01:05:12","date_gmt":"2012-09-14T01:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=7815"},"modified":"2012-09-14T01:59:21","modified_gmt":"2012-09-14T01:59:21","slug":"re-free-speech-is-free-speech-is-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/re-free-speech-is-free-speech-is-free-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"Re: \u2018Free Speech is Free Speech is Free Speech\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted on the Corner<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Reason\u2019s Jesse Walker adds a quick footnote<\/a> to Matt Welch\u2019s earlier comments<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A quick footnote to Matt\u2019s excellent post about the Cairo embassy\u2019s comments on \u201creligious incitement\u201d: In addition to being wrongheaded, these little announcements are self-defeating. When you issue such statements, you encourage the view that the government is somehow responsible for the speech you\u2019re condemning. Even if you succeed in calming the crowds \u2014 and to judge from what happened yesterday, you shouldn\u2019t expect to achieve even that much \u2014 any fringe film that you haven\u2019t anathematized can become the next cause c\u00e9l\u00e8bre. And if you think you can keep pumping out statements attacking every one of them, ponder what will happen if a mob decides to riot over the comments of a congressman, or someone else that a diplomat wouldn\u2019t want to officially denounce. Better to embrace free speech from the beginning than to lend support to the idea that your job requires you to sort acceptable expression from bad.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Quite.<\/p>\n

As Mark notes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The mob of \u201cIslamic rage boys\u201d gets mad about all kinds of stuff \u2014 cartoons, dogs, teddy bears. You can never make a long enough list to satisfy them. So you might as well tell them you\u2019re not going to start.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On the other hand, here\u2019s Karzai<\/a>:<\/p>\n

KABUL, Afghanistan \u2014 President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday condemned an American-made film that mocks Islam, galvanizing fears among Westerners that the Afghan leader\u2019s denunciation could be read as a go-ahead to stage violent protests. The presidential palace said in a statement that Karzai \u201cstrongly and resolutely denounces this desecrating act\u201d and expressed \u201cabhorrence in the face of such an insult.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026 A condemnation from Karzai was thought to have inflamed passions in the spring of 2010, after Jones and his followers staged a Koran-burning. Nearly two weeks elapsed without any reaction in Afghanistan, until Karzai issued a call for Jones\u2019 arrest and prosecution. The next day, April 1, a furious mob descended on the U.N. mission in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, killing seven foreign U.N. workers.<\/p>\n

Karzai\u2019s public stance toward the NATO force and his U.S. patrons has been somewhat hostile of late. He issued a strident statement accusing the United States of disregarding Afghan sovereignty after American authorities retained some Taliban and other insurgent suspects when handing the country\u2019s main military detention facility over to Afghan control. And the Afghan leader commemorated Tuesday\u2019s anniversary of the 9\/11 attacks by criticizing the West\u2019s conduct of the war in Afghanistan.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And in so doing Karzai insults those who serve and have served in (and, in no small way, for) his country, and desecrates the memory of those who have been killed while doing so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted on the Corner: Reason\u2019s Jesse Walker adds a quick footnote to Matt Welch\u2019s earlier comments: A quick footnote to Matt\u2019s excellent post about the Cairo embassy\u2019s comments on \u201creligious incitement\u201d: In addition to being wrongheaded, these little announcements are … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[711],"tags":[808,968,704,50,804,729],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7815"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7815"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7819,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7815\/revisions\/7819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}