David Horowitz's NewsReal Blog ^ | April 26, 2011 | Walter Hudson
Posted on Tuesday, April 26, 2011 8:03:55 PM by Walter Scott Hudson
The freedom of speech is perhaps the most popular among those cited in the Bill of Rights. The ability to express yourself without fear of fine or incarceration is essential to the maintenance of a free society.
Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer, a prolific author on the topic of Islam, has an important article at Human Events suggesting that free speech may be endangered.
On Good Friday in Dearborn, Mich., the notorious Koran-burning pastor Terry Jones was jailed and fined for the crime of refusing to pay a so-called “peace bond” to cover the costs of extra police protection for Jones’ planned demonstration outside the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn. Judge Mark Somers also ordered Jones to stay away from the massive Dearborn mosque for three years.Spencer points out that Jones was not the threat to public order that Dearborn authorities treated him as. Rather, the threat to public order was the prospect of violent reaction from Muslims.
... if Jones and his fellow protesters were not being violent themselves, wouldn't the responsibility for any disturbance be upon those who decided to react to whatever Jones was doing by causing the disturbance?(...)
... To restrict Jones’ right to protest in front of a mosque is to send the signal that violent intimidation works, and that those who killed people in Afghanistan because of Jones’ Koran-burning have achieved their ultimate goal: to make Islam immune from criticism because every potential critic will be afraid to speak out.Spencer is right. Jones is not responsible for the reactions of others. It is the violence, and not the speech, which ought to be subject to police action. Instead, the Detroit Free Press reports that authorities have those priorities reversed...
(Excerpt) Read more at newsrealblog.com ...
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