Charlie Hebdo Repost From: SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

Why Freedom of Speech in the USA will be determined by the status of a French Cartoon.

First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Their decision to publish the Islamic Prophet Mohammed was a profile in courage, an act of bravery and integrity. 

So, why is it so important that it was published and should be allowed to be published in the USA and the world? In the US, we have freedom of speech, even if that speech offends or is even considered hate speech. While we cannot yell "fire!" in a movie theater, anything short of this is legal and free. If an intolerant group are allowed to determine what we say by simply becoming violent then we have no free speech. The intolerent group can then effectively legislate what we are allowed to say, for instance: If I said, "I think that the practice of forced female circumcism is a violation of human rights" and a particular group stormed a US embassy in say, an Islamic country, because they believed that this showed hatred towards their religion and expressing that belief then became illegal, groups everywhere would learn that all they had to do to suppress free speech would be to become violent. 

One of the founders of our great nation, George Washington once said: "If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter." And here is my quote: "When you allow others to determine the definition of evil; hear no evil, speak no evil, have no freedom of speech". 

Elements of the Islamic world are calling for the banning of this cartoon and the unfinished poorly done video "The innocence of Muslims", however we may or may not dislike them, we must protect them as if our lives depended upon it. 

I call on free newspapers throughout the world to print images of the so called "Prophet" every day until we have 1 day without Muslim violence.