Freedom of the press is now a moot point in Europe. Freedom of the press is related to the right to keep and bear arms: Amendments 1 and 2 of the U.S. Constitution.
If you don't have the right to keep and bear arms, you don't have freedom of the press. The state cannot protect you. It can only try to find your assassins.
Liberal democracy is committed to freedom of the press. Islam is not. Here is an editorial that was run in USA Today by a man identified as a teacher of Sharia law in Great Britain. This man has clearly set forth the principles of Islam as they apply to freedom of the press. He was given freedom of the press by USA Today. We read: People know the consequences: Opposing view. He took this opportunity to send us a message about consequences.
Contrary to popular misconception, Islam does not mean peace but rather means submission to the commands of Allah alone. Therefore, Muslims do not believe in the concept of freedom of expression, as their speech and actions are determined by divine revelation and not based on people's desires.Although Muslims may not agree about the idea of freedom of expression, even non-Muslims who espouse it say it comes with responsibilities. In an increasingly unstable and insecure world, the potential consequences of insulting the Messenger Muhammad are known to Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
Muslims consider the honor of the Prophet Muhammad to be dearer to them than that of their parents or even themselves. To defend it is considered to be an obligation upon them. The strict punishment if found guilty of this crime under sharia (Islamic law) is capital punishment implementable by an Islamic State. This is because the Messenger Muhammad said, "Whoever insults a Prophet kill him."
However, because the honor of the Prophet is something which all Muslims want to defend, many will take the law into their own hands, as we often see.
Within liberal democracies, freedom of expression has curtailments, such as laws against incitement and hatred.
The truth is that Western governments are content to sacrifice liberties and freedoms when being complicit to torture and rendition -- or when restricting the freedom of movement of Muslims, under the guise of protecting national security.
So why in this case did the French government allow the magazine Charlie Hebdo to continue to provoke Muslims, thereby placing the sanctity of its citizens at risk?
It is time that the sanctity of a Prophet revered by up to one-quarter of the world's population was protected.
Here is the title of the editorial: Why did France allow the tabloid to provoke Muslims?
Got it? He blamed the French authorities for not passing laws against cartoons ridiculing Mohammed.
Such laws do not exist in Western democracies. But Sharia law exists. Editors had better get the message.
If you are an editor, and you run cartoons like this, carry a gun. Hire guards who carry guns. Arm your staff.
Europe will not allow this. There is gun control in Europe. Here is an article about AK-47's in France. The article shows how easy it is to buy them in France. Then the article ends with this obligatory comment, which has nothing to do with France.
U.S. LawsThe issue has poignancy in the U.S., where Adam Lanza used an American-made semi-automatic rifle known as an AR-15 to kill 20 children and six adult educators in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012. The gun had been legally acquired.
Gun control is liberal, you see.
Sharia law is not liberal.
AN UNARMED POPULATION
It does not matter whether the French police catch the murderers or not. It doesn't matter whether French politicians label them terrorists or not. It doesn't matter how many vigils are held by voters. Four masked men with AK-47s have settled the issue. There will not be many more cartoons ridiculing Mohammed. If three more magazines do it, and three more AK-47 attacks follow, there will be no more cartoons. I don't think it will take three more attacks.
The murderers killed 12 people. Ten were employees of the magazine. Two were police. They did not single out the editor. They just went in and sprayed the room full of machine gun fire. But the editor was killed.
Let's say that you are an editor. Will you run cartoons ridiculing the prophet Mohammed? Probably not.
Let's say that you're a low-level employee with a newspaper or magazine. Are you to put pressure on the editor if the editor announces his intention of running cartoons ridiculing Muhammad? If you want to survive, you will. Or you will quit.
Editors can proclaim their commitment to the freedom of the press, but only if they are alive. It is now clear that they will not be alive if they practice what they preach.
The level of confrontation has gone up. The stakes have gone up.
The terrorists are going to get away with this. Those radical Muslims who are willing to take up machine guns against unarmed employees of publishing houses will see what has happened, and they will cheer in private. When you're dealing with people who are willing to die in a war, and who see this as a war, there is nothing you can do to stop them if you are unarmed. They can kill you at any time if they want to. All they have to be willing to do is pay the price. The murderers who killed 12 innocent people have made this clear. This is not patty-cake. The stakes are life and death. If you are an employee of a magazine that publishes cartoons ridiculing Mohammed, you had better have a substantial life insurance policy. Anyway, your heirs should. Your risks of an early death just went up on a statistically meaningful scale.
Gov. George Wallace had a phrase when he ran for President in 1968: "Send them a message." The murderers just sent a message to editors. We are now going to see if the editors got the message. I think we're going to see that they did.
The authorities may catch the murderers. There will be a trial. The trial will attract millions of Muslim viewers. Within those millions of Muslim viewers, there will be men who are perfectly willing to imitate the murderers. For them, the murderers will become martyrs. Because of the trials, there will be a larger number of potential volunteers to pick up AK-47s, and march into editorial offices for a showdown -- a very one-sided showdown.
On this issue, the Muslims have won. "So, you think you have freedom of the press. I've got an AK-47 that says you don't."
There is an answer to this: an armed population. Liberals don't like this answer. They want laws to make this answer illegal to implement personally. In Europe, they will throw you in prison if you implement this answer. In some states in the United States, they will do the same.
Liberals will assure you that you have freedom of press. You also have the right to die for this principle, unarmed.
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