The Islamic Thought Police

In November 2004, a 26 year-old Dutch-Moroccan man named Mohammed Bouyeri ambushed filmmaker Theo Van Gogh as he rode his bike to work. Bouyeri shot the filmmaker eight times with a handgun and attempted to decapitate him with a large knife. Death was the sentence Van Gogh earned for directing a movie that criticized Islam’s treatment of women.

In both 2005 and 2007, European journalists that published cartoons featuring likenesses of Mohammed were met with death threats. In April 2010, Comedy Central censored images of Mohammed, bleeped out his name and — ironically — cut a final speech about standing up to intimidation and fear from an episode of South Park, in part because of death threats against the show’s writers.

A few weeks ago, a poorly made YouTube trailer for a movie called “The Innocence of Muslims” that distastefully portrays the prophet as a bloodthirsty pedophile hit the Internet. Again, the mobs have spoken. Again, there are bodies in the street as the civilizing principles of decency and diplomatic immunity are gleefully discarded. In Libya, the United States ambassador was killed along with three American soldiers. In Egypt, Yemen and Tunisia, crowds attacked American embassies. In Sudan, a giant mob — apparently lacking either an American target or a map — stormed the German embassy. Nineteen people died in riots in Pakistan when rioters stoned a KFC restaurant and torched a church. Two American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan. Even here in Australia, a mob in downtown Sydney attacked police officers with thrown rocks and clenched fists, chanting “Obama, Obama, we love Osama,” in a chorus of support for the tragic murder of 3,000 innocent American men, women and children just over 11 years ago. In the same protest, a five year-old girl held a poster that called for the beheading of those who would offend the prophet. All over a YouTube clip.

Freedom includes the freedom to offend. The trailer was absurd, inaccurate and embarrassing — the disgusting product of an immature mind. But we cannot bow to a world where bad satire leads to the death of diplomats. When we censor a picture — or a word — the radicals exert control over our way of life.

There are those who claim that radical Islam has been so successful because of oppressive governments and poor economic opportunities. This merely shifts the blame, suggesting democracy as a cure-all for the world’s problems. But look at what happened with the Palestinian Territories. Look at Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. The oppressive regimes are gone, but radical Islam remains stronger than ever. Political oppression is no more the culprit today than it was during the Crusades, the Inquisition or the Salem Witch Trials.

Radical Islam is a threat to liberty because it can tolerate no such thing. It is a strain of religion that says that women are inferior — and ensures that they remain so by rendering them invisible and indistinguishable. It says that drawing or criticizing its prophet is a sin and kills those who would dare attempt such a thing. It considers itself infallible and punishes by death those who would leave the faith for any reason. It threatens, bullies, intimidates and explodes. There is little else comparable in the modern world. Radicals of any religion are a dangerous breed, but if a Saudi citizen mocked Jesus on the Internet, Christians wouldn’t storm the walls of Saudi Arabia’s Washington embassy and murder their diplomats. When the creators of South Park brought their mockery of the Mormon faith to Broadway, nobody lost his head.

Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti responded to the riots by calling for their end even as he condemned the video and called upon the United States government to criminalize such content. That’s not how freedom works. It’s not how our nation works — and it’s not how the world should work. As American citizens, our tax dollars pay for a military unparalleled in its reach and its might. That military exists not to conquer nations, but to defend those freedoms that we hold most dear. It’s easy to blame the filmmaker, to ask why he would choose to put out such a thing if he was aware of the consequences. Yet even when the content is incorrect and atrocious, that choice — to mock, to criticize and to produce terrible videos — is one that we must protect with every tool in the arsenal of American power. If we fail to do so, we will sink into the sorry company of nations too afraid to stand up to the chorus of those who bully our men, enslave our women and erase our liberty.