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I have to be honest, Professor Sorensen, after coming home today I found out that I did not have the CIE readings book with me. I did not want to take another trip to school in this weather. Anyhow, I am basing all of my opinions off of the other blog posts. I get the impression that the author was discussing how we, the United States should make efforts to understand and mingle our culture with the Islamic culture. I also understand that there was an offensive cartoon up for some debate. I do not agree that we should have such restrictions on free speech as mentioned by some of my other classmates. I do not like the idea that we only have free speech if it builds up another group of people. This is a bunch of bs. If this was true, no political cartoons would be in existence, and there would be a very uniform way of thought conveyed in the media (it still is, but it should not be so). The only restriction on free speech should be not to place someone in danger. You do not want to scream “fire” in a hallway full of people. You do not want to make bomb threats that are not really there. Other than this one restriction on free speech, we have the right to say anything. Well, the objection I am going to get is that it offends other people, a large group of people. Well, do we not have a right to offend people? If the US did not speak out against Great Britain during the times of the Revolutionary War, then we would still be living under its rule. I also understand that these offensive remarks are based off of ignorance, and have no merit. Touché, but I cannot tell you how many times I have heard jokes discriminating against Catholics, Jews, Gays, Blondes, etc! I believe that it would be better to have the Muslims just ignore the offensive remarks than tell everyone to stop saying them. I would not want to tell anyone that they should do this or that. Personally, I want to learn more about the Islamic culture for my own benefit. I do not enjoy hurting others, but I do not think I should tell everyone to behave the same way. I have the right to tell everyone to treat everyone with equality (the right to free speech), but then again, they have the right to disobey that mandate.