Standing In The Shadows Of Motoons

The Photoshop-savvy experts in the Farkosphere weigh in on the Great Cartoon Crisis of 2006.

(Title inspired by Tim Blair.)

Update: More equally offensive cartoons here; meanwhile, Eugene Volokh puts it all into perspective:

So I guess it’s not just that we aren’t supposed to draw pictures of Mohammed as terrorist, or of Mohammed at all; we aren’t even supposed to draw pictures that are obviously not of Mohammed, and that are meant to mock the inability to draw pictures of Mohammed.

Well, I have to admit: The folks who are offended by this have a First Amendment right to be offended. They should feel entirely free to be offended.

The rest of us should feel entirely free, as a matter of civility as well as of law, to say: Your decision to be offended by this particular cartoon gives you no rights (again, as a matter of civility as well as of law) to tell us to stop printing it.

More on the underlying conceptual issue