Friday, September 14, 2012

Taranto puts it better than anyone

Once again, James Taranto puts the arguments more coherently than anyone else. The idea that the President of the United States, the Secretary of State and many other official bodies as well as newspapers (if one may still use that term) like the New York Times should repeatedly criticize that wretched film instead of looking a little more closely at what is going on in the Middle East is nothing short of moral and political insanity.

As he points out, the rioting, even assuming it was caused directly by a little known film that has been available for a couple of months, the point is not that the mobs consider it to be "insensitive, inflammatory, intolerant and insulting" but that they consider it to be blasphemous and want any material of that kind banned across the world. Or else.

This, Mr Taranto points out, sets up an irreconcilable conflict between those advocating Islamic, that is Sharia law to be applied to all countries on certain issues, and the US Constitution, which affirms freedom of speech and which cannot tolerate anti-blasphemy laws. The President of the United States, at his inauguration, swears to uphold the Constitution.

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