Dear Ishmael...

Susan the Libertarian tells a talkback caller this morning about Free Speech :

So your caller Ishmael took you to task for not treating his prophet Mohammed with respect. Ishmael misses the material point with regard to freedom. Free speech is just that: free speech. It means we must allow others the right to say things we might dislike, or with which we disagree.

George Orwell said it well: 'If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear'.

Also Adlai Stevenson: 'My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular'.

The irony is that here in the west, Ishmael is allowed to state his viewpoint. I very much doubt that the courtesy would be reciprocated, should I try to do the same in the Islamist world.

LINK: More on Mohammed - Sus's Sound Bites