‘Fight Speech with Speech, and Guns with Guns’

“(W)e must show no patience for victim-blaming. There will be some who will claim that Pamela Geller and the other event organizers provoked the attack — that we’d be safer if only we were more ‘respectful.’ Yet there is nothing worthy of respect in ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Hamas, or any of the other jihadist groups. Should we treat the beheaders of innocents better than our elite culture has treated our own peaceful Christian citizens? While I certainly will never equate ISIS with all of Islam, my message to peaceful, law-abiding Muslims offended by Geller’s speech is simple: Welcome to America. Here you have the freedom to practice your faith free from the massacres and violence that mark sectarian disputes in the Middle East, and here people have the right to mock your faith — as Christians have long understood. If one disagrees with Geller’s speech, the answer is more speech — not censorship and certainly not violence.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/417853/print

Link at http://www.floppingaces.net/most-wanted/fight-speech-with-speech-and-guns-with-guns/

(ISIS is not Islam? A small town police detective once set me straight on gangs, not intentionally, but by expressing an experienced position. Local police had picked up several bad guys on drug charges. The arrested wore gang colors, the detective said in an interview. LA gangs, Crips or Bloods. “So, they are gang wanna-bes?” I asked, since why would small town NE Texas bad guys be affiliated with a Los Angeles gang? The detective said, “If somebody tells me, and wants me to believe, he is a gang member, I’m taking his word.”)