[CarrotAndStick]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1581023/posts

Tolerating Islamist intolerance

EXCERPTS:

Crucially, it is precisely this tolerance of intolerance that has allowed vocal and violent radicalised Islamist minorities to silence Muslim majorities and to transform the global image of Islam into the grotesque parody of the faith that the Danish cartoons sought - perhaps indelicately - to reflect.

Europe would be, not only foolish, but suicidal, if it succumbs to this terrorism and coercion to invent new curbs on the media and on the freedom of speech.

[PogySailor]

Here's another take on the issue.

Earlier today I wrote that the West cannot reconcile Muslim intolerance with its own tolerance. There is, though, a second asymmetry in this crisis: Muslim activists -- whether they are "extremists" or mainstream remains to be established -- clearly believe in asymmetrical retaliation. Just as they believe that they must be tolerated but they do not have to show tolerance themselves, they also believe that the retaliation for any perceived offense against Muslims should be far out of proportion to the offense itself.