Cartoon Violence

Think the world is safer since we deposed Sadaam Hussein? Think again. Just look at the reaction across the Muslim world to a simple cartoon. I don't condone religious intolerance, but I do suppport free speech. While speech has its consequences, like boycott and embargo, it should never be met with violence. In the strangest twists of fate, we in America mourn the passing of the First Lady of the Civil Rights Movement - the most successful non-violent movement in history (right behind Ghandi), while thugs and hoodlums throughout the Muslim world throw molitav cocktails at government buildings and call for executions. And just like in this country when right-wing fanatics bomb abortion clinics and execute doctors, supposedly "moderate" Muslim clerics sit on their hands while whispering for peace and offering excuses for intolerable behavior. Worst of all, they frame the whole argument around a clash of custom. Clash of custom - you're damn right. The West, for all its faults, does not condone violence as the answer to an otherwise nonviolent disagreement. Of course, The West is not a homogenous society, and there are certainly elements that do - The KKK, Pat Robertson, Operation Life. However, for the largest part, these groups are seen to be on the fringe. In today's Muslim world, it seems that the fanatics are in the main stream and the so-called moderates are often indistinguishable from the zealots.

So I ask you - is it really in America's best interests to install psuedo-democracies in a wasteland of fanaticism? Democracy means more than just a popular vote. At least, it should. If it doesn't, then the Enlightenment is dead. Without a basic respect for the rights of man there can be no democracy. So why replace oppresive dictators with freely elected oppresive governments? And, for God's sake, why spend American blood to do it? I don't know what the solution is in the fight against fanaticism. But I'm fairly sure that its not handing the fanatics the keys to castle...