2.08.2006 | Yum, Danish Ham

Here's at least one product whose sales won't slip because of a Muslim boycott. Those folks don't eat ham. Right; just like they don't drink alcohol...at least in public. But that's neither here nor there, and hardly the real issue.

I think that anyone with his wits about him, and who knows the difference between noise and information, will know that the riots, threatened beheadings, etc. etc. etc., all from adherents of the "religion of peace," are really just part of the continuing war against freedom. In our time, the West, including Denmark, is free, in ways that no predominantly Muslim nation is, or has ever been.

It is this freedom that is what really scares Muslims. If they had to live in a comparably free society, why, there's a good chance that there'd be far fewer Muslims. Put this a little differently, and imagine that Muslim nations were, suddenly, liberated. And that part of that liberty would be, oh, let's call it a souk of ideas.

In this souk, each person, man and woman, would be able to learn and study all religions, with each faith providing its version of the truth. Now, it's certainly possible that most would remain as they'd been born; that's the nature of intellectual oppression suddenly removed. But it's also likely that within a generation or two, a majority of people would choose a faith that most appealed to their sense of God and what He requires of us. I suggest that those with peace in their hearts would not choose Islam of their own volition.

Getting back to present reality, those offensive cartoons were just that: offensive cartoons, and were I a believer, I'd be insulted. I might even write a nasty letter to the editor of any media outlet that published them. However, if I cared a shred about liberty, about freedom of the press, I'd understand that I can't control what others think and believe. And that our right to express even an offensive thought is much more important than a Muslim's right not to be offended.