The cartoon wars

By Glenn Reynolds
GlennReynolds.com


Avant-garde artists submerge crucifixes in urine and art critics cheer. Some cartoons depicting Mohammed in a negative light run in a Danish newspaper and the Muslim world goes wild. In Britain, Muslims protested with signs reading, "Behead Those Who Insult Islam," but aren't arrested under Britain's hate-speech laws, leading to charges of a double standard. As British newspaper The Telegraph editorializes:

When these Islamist protesters dress up as suicide bombers and revel in the "magnificent" attacks of 9/11, they are not engaging in a harmless daydream: they are encouraging murder. And, to be fair, the police did eventually arrest two people for breaching the peace — not Islamist protesters, you understand, but two counter-demonstrators who were apparently provoking trouble by carrying images of Mohammed.