Freedom works in both directions, people can say and believe what they want and you are free to disagree, as I said before the place where most of us fail to understand is the civility part. Muslims believe if they disagree that killing others is OK, Not so much, that disagreement is breaking the law not the original comment that caused it. The population of the world seems to be degrading to a form of high school politics. Yes I said that. We act as if every slight is the end of the world, here is a bit of news, it is not.
I give you ABC who today condemned the Pope for speaking against homosexuality, a stance that has been hundreds of years in the making, he is the leader of the Catholic church after all, so in essence ABC you are blaming him for being catholic, what idiocy is that. The pope did not kill anyone, He did not harm anyone in anyway, he simply spoke his opinion and the stance of the church he leads, simply disagree if you do and be done with it. I am not a catholic advocate but I agree he has as much right as anyone to speak what he believes to be true and ABC you have the right to disagree but do so civilly please.
Recently a group of cartoonists were killed because they drew cartoons, what is interesting about this is there are many blaming the cartoonists for their own deaths. Are they insane? Islam could not simply call them out for bad comedy? The cartoonists may have had bad taste but they did not break the law the Muslims did and they did so with the religion in mind so to ignore they are radical Muslims is also insane. They are what they are and did these terrible things of their own volition, some might say that the cartoonists fit that criteria also but there is one thing the cartoonists did not do, break the law.
So here I am speaking about what is wrong with radical Islam, it is not that they have a different opinion, to that I would say shout it on the roof tops, it is because they choose to break the law in voicing it and more importantly they choose to silence others from holding any opinion at all. It is not the fact they disagree but the fact they act in a violent manner when they do and the organization that practices their religion agrees and supports those actions.
He is another way to look at this in the USA, a elementary school student reading the bible in school has done nothing wrong but the teacher that stops him has, that teacher has curtailed the freedom of the student, who by the way did not break any law. Yet the media and many politicians have turned this around and somehow have this nation confused at what the rules are, well think about the word freedom for a moment. If someone does something that prevents you from being free they should be called out for curtailing you civil liberties, unfortunately we allow this to happen entirely too often. We are supposed to be a free people but are we? We regulate until businesses cannot make a profit anymore.
The next time you think you are free, think about that and ask yourself if you really are, if you are afraid to voice an opinion, you are not. The first thing that is lost when men of terror act is our freedom and then they have won. It is OK to have an opinion and it is your right to voice it but do so with civility which is the definition of freedom.