Uma perspectiva objectivista sobre a Cartoon Jihad

The Cartoon Jihad: Free Speech in the Balance, por Christian Beenfeldt e Onkar Ghate.

The right to free speech means the right to express one's ideas without danger of coercion, of physical suppression or interference, by anyone. This freedom includes the right to make movies, write books, draw pictures, voice political opinions--and satirize religion. This right flows from the right to think: the right to observe, to follow the evidence, to reach the conclusions you judge the facts warrant--and then to convey your thoughts to others.

To demand special status for any idea or ideology--to declare Judaism or Christianity or Marxism or Islam off-limits, above public criticism--is to negate these rights. No rational mind can function under the order: Follow the evidence wherever you think it leads, but don't you dare come to a negative conclusion about the philosophy of Marxism or the religion of Islam.

(...)

In a free society, anyone angered by someone else's ideas has a simple and powerful recourse: don't buy his books, watch his movies, read his newspapers. If one judges his ideas dangerous, argue against them. The purveyor of evil ideas is no threat to those who remain free to counter them with rational ones.

(Note that many European nations have laws limiting free speech, all of which should be repealed; to protest these, however, one does not demand "equal censorship.")

The moment someone decides to answer those he finds offensive with a gun, not an argument--as many Muslims have by demanding that European governments censor the newspapers or by issuing calls for beheadings and other violence against Europeans--he removes himself from civilized society and any rational consideration.

(via Blasfémias)