Freedom of expression

Lately, there has been much discussion of freedom of speech, and how "you cannot" say certain things that offend certain parties.

Such as "Mohammad was a pedophile nutcase", or printing pictures like this:

Well, at least here in America, we have this thing called the "First Amendment" which ensures we will always be free to say ANYTHING about ANYONE or ANYTHING, ANYTIME.

We are free to say Islam is a political system of rape and murder.

We are free to scream "FIRE" in a crowded theater.

We are free to call President Jugears  "Mr. Obama" and print embarrassing pictures of the First Lady..

Given that, we are also bound to accept responsibility for our speech. If we offend someone, we have to accept the consequences. Speech that meets the legal definition of "fighting words" can somewhat excuse the punch in the nose that the Pope would deliver to someone insulting his mother, for instance.

The offended party has absolutely no right to prohibit our speech or publishing anything that is not demonstrably libelous.

Here's where we start to separate Islam and Muslims who murder and destroy in defense of their "prophet" from people defending their mother's honor.

Civilized people limit their responses to offensive speech to peaceful demonstrations, writing letters to the editor, boycotts of offending companies, and the like. If the speech in question is an outright lie, there are laws to handle slander and libel in the courts. If you insult someone's mother, you can expect that punch in the nose - and the puncher can expect to answer for his assault, however much his actions are excused for your insult.

Barbarians don't stop at a letter to the editor or even a punch in the nose. They strap on explosives and blow up innocent people, destroy religious symbols and historic monuments, and declare "jihad".

Barbarians must be fought and destroyed, or civilization will fall. It's that simple.

The first step is for governments to acknowledge that there are barbarians, and name them. Exactly how we fight them is open to discussion, but fight them we must, or we will die or become slaves to them.

We don't fight them by ignoring their existence. We certainly don't fight them by bending over backwards to avoid offending them.