 I'm going to keep this very brief. Interest in this topic is waning, except for a few very specific people who seem to want to keep the debate alive. I've somehow gotten tangled up in this, and I want to make my position clear. Thunderfoot keeps coming under fire by people critical of how he chose to protest what I'm going to call Islam-inspired censorship. Acts of violence around the world that have served to suppress the expression of any message that is offensive to Islam or critical of Islam. Cartoons in the US were prevented from being aired for fear of generating more such violence. Hick preacher in Florida burned a Quran and violence and rioting resulted in the deaths of innocents. This is a real threat to free speech. Not that we'll be invaded, or that Islamic guerrillas will storm the New York Times, but that we'll start to censor ourselves, to avoid topics controversial to Muslims, because it might result in a loss of innocent life. The moment we put limits on our expression because of the fear of violence, or even some sort of pragmatic concern of geopolitics, we've given up some of our freedom. Fear. Fear of violence, fear of offense, fear of being called racist, fear of being associated with white supremacists, fear of harming someone else's agenda. It's all based on an apprehension of some harm, something we ought not to do. I don't think free speech can suffer much abridgment of this sort. If it must be carefully prescribed, strategically withheld, it's simply not free anymore. I am not a racist. Not that it matters since Islam is not a race. I am not anti-Muslim. What someone thinks or believes or chooses to observe is their business. I am not an anti-theist. I am not opposed to private religious beliefs. I am a member of a secular society. I believe that I have a right to live without others imposing their religious beliefs on me. If someone tells me that my free speech does not extend to include any message they find religiously offensive, I will politely disagree. If they threaten me to prevent my free exercise, I would hope I would have the courage to defy them openly. Some people are saying that drawing Muhammad is the wrong thing to do, because it advances a narrative used by instigators of Islam-inspired violence. They propose instead a sort of general exercise of free speech. This misses the point. One opposes censorship by defying what is prohibited. If someone tells you that you may not do a thing, the only protest with meaning is doing that thing. We don't have to fall for reverse psychology. We needn't allow ourselves to be manipulated, but I don't doubt the sincerity of the threats being made here. It is simply not okay for elements within Islam to prevent the world from drawing a picture and calling it Muhammad. They may not prevent me from saying or doing things which they find offensive. The moment their influence extends to the free world, it is no longer free. I risk little or nothing by my participation in free speech protests on the internet. I can't compare what I do to the much braver souls who came before me. People who passively resisted attempts to deny civil rights to a group of people. They put their lives, their bodies, and their freedom on the line. I don't have that kind of bravery. These protests were not as I would have designed them, but the very least I can do is to participate, to add my voice to the thousands of other voices that attempt to speak out when injustice is being done, when artists live in fear, or are censored by well-meaning publishers of media. If I'm supporting a narrative that will be seized upon by instigators of violence, I regret that. But I can't let that concern have a higher priority than my exercise of civil rights. Strategic silence is still silence. Strategic compliance is still compliance. Responding to threats with acquiescence only invites further threats. It is impossible for a diverse and free society to avoid giving offense to certain elements in Islam. It's true that what we are doing is inflammatory, provocative, and intentionally so, but what differentiates it from the words of a braggart or a bully is that it is in response to a specific threat or prohibition. It is an act of defense of something under attack, our right to draw religious icons in a secular society. You cannot defend that right without drawing the prohibited items. Softer protests like a general display of free speech do not accomplish the same goal, as they aren't an exercise of the right under attack. A lot of critics want to focus on the real reason for Islamic anger in the Middle East, frequent wars with the West, Western intervention in local affairs, economic and political unrest, social pollution. Take your pick. I'm afraid that no matter how justified someone's strongly held views are, or their level of dissatisfaction that doesn't change my commitment to free speech, I have a right not to live under Islamic law, even if my country is the cause of a lot of your suffering. I want to draw a simple parallel, flag burning. I am very uncomfortable with the burning of the US flag, simply because it's loaded with some very powerful imagery for me. It seems offensive to the women and men who died defending the flag, and it's associated with anti-American sentiment. It makes me a little queasy to see someone setting a US flag on fire anywhere in the world. But I have to stop and remind myself that the right to burn a flag is key to what rights make the US worth defending. It could be that burning the flag will turn people against you, harm your cause, and get people angry enough to yell or throw things. You might be associated with anti-American elements. Does that mean we should just draw pictures of burning flags instead? Should we let these things separate us from our free expression? Another simple example, gay pride parades are sometimes criticized within the gay community as supporting a narrative harmful to the gay rights movement. Perhaps they should tone it down, critics say, so that gay people can be seen as more mainstream, more accepted. Certain parades are very offensive to community standards, or it's just too aggressive or in your face. I disagree. I think pride parades are important to the soul of that movement, both in visibility to the community and to the principles of what they are trying to accomplish. Refusing to tone down who and what they are, they are raising their visibility instead of diminishing it. They are confronting their opponents instead of remaining strategically in the background. I think we need a similar strategy in secular circles. We should be out and open about our opposition to censorship. We should celebrate what about secularity makes it worth defending. I certainly don't think this is a simple issue. I think free speech is worth defending. Islam is a particular threat to the culture I live in, because its influence is very active and in the news. China and North Korea are other big censors, but I can burn a Chinese flag or draw a Chairman Mao without fear of consequence. Trey Parker and Matt Stone can make a movie, mercilessly mocking Kim Jong-il. I can burn a hard drive with Bibles on it or the Bhagavad Gita or the writings of Confucius. No one would bat an eye. It's not that Islam is somehow evil. It's that when I flip through the list of censored works, murdered artists, and taboo subjects, it keeps coming up. Now if the Buddhists want to start some crap, I'll be all over everybody draw Buddha Day. Thanks for watching.