Free Speech Closeout Sale – Everything must go!
February 5, 2006

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK (PT)
Who knew the Danes had embassies? Denmark continues to weather Middle Eastern violence for a political cartoon bearing the likeness of the Profit Mohammed. First printed in 2005, the cartoon depicts Mohammed with a turban fashioned into a bomb.

The violence continues to escalate as a new controversy erupted here in the States. Seems a Washington Post cartoon used the image of a quadruple amputee to satirize the Bush administration’s seeming indifference to the plight of Americans in the war.

Also this week, Google announced it would censor many of its search results in China that the Chinese government find objectionable.

We at PurpleThink believe this conflict is good. This confrontation shows us that the world is getting smaller. Information technology is making it harder and harder for prejudice and intolerance to hide behind national borders. There are two ways the world can react to this conflict.

1) We can censor more and more free speech in favor of cultural and political sensitivity.
2) We can break down cultural and political walls by emphatically supporting the right of anyone to say anything – drawing a line between state-sponsored speech and the free press.

PurpleThink advocates the later. As a U.S.-based website, we offer an olive-branch of sorts to our Muslim friends, home and abroad. We believe depicting Mohammed with a bomb-shaped turban is insensitive speech, but should be protected.

Thus, as a compromise, we decided to portray Mohammed in his younger years. Who among us can't identify with the pains of growing-up?

 

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