Andrew McCarthy posted an article in National Review yesterday about the shootings in Texas at the Draw Mohammed event.
The conclusion of the article is the most important point:
You may not like the provocateurs’ methods. Personally, I am not a fan of gratuitous insult, which can antagonize pro-Western Muslims we want on our side. But let’s not make too much of that. Muslims who really are pro-Western already know, as Americans overwhelmingly know, that being offended is a small price to pay to live in a free society. We can bristle at an offense and still grasp that we do not want the offense criminalized.
It would be easy, in our preening gentility, to look down our noses at a Mohammed cartoon contest. But we’d better understand the scope of the threat the contest was meant to raise our attention to — a threat triggered by ideology, not cartoons. There is in our midst an Islamist movement that wants to suppress not only insults to Islam but all critical examination of Islam. That movement is delighted to leverage the atmosphere of intimidation created by violent jihadists, and it counts the current United States government among its allies.
The First Amendment does not give you the right not to be offended. It is almost guaranteed that if the First Amendment is followed you will be offended at some point. That is not the point. The point is that in a free society, everyone has the same right of free speech. If the Muslims who live in America cannot accept free speech, they need to return to a place where it is not honored. If we cave into the threat of violence, then we are in danger of losing our First Amendment rights.