From The Boston Globe
By Robert Kuttner

Reading about the escalating war of the cartoons and the deeper clash of faith versus reason, I recalled the wisdom of the British philosopher Edmund Burke. In March 1775, as King George grew more determined to punish uppity colonists in America, Burke gave an impassioned speech in the House of Commons, urging restraint.

”The question with me,” said Burke, ”is not whether you have a right to render your people miserable, but whether it is not your interest to make them happy. It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do, but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.”

Did Europe’s newspapers have the right to print cartoons ridiculing the Prophet Mohammed? Certainly. That’s free speech. Was it a wise thing to do? Probably not.

Of course, in an open society, these decisions are not made by a government cultural czar. They reflect norms of what is sensible and decent. And anyone is free to break those norms. But they are worth upholding. In the United States, though we cherish free speech, mainstream media no longer play into religious and racial stereotypes, and that is a huge gain for tolerance and civility.

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