If multiculturalism is incompatible with a free and lively society, as some implicitly now concede, then the sensible response is not to gradually chip away at Western freedom but to ensure that immigration from non-Western cultures proceeds at a rate that is assimilable culturally as well as economically. In other words Muslims coming to Europe or America would automatically adjust to the freedoms of a free society because they would lack the numbers to insist on everyone else changing to suit them — which is currently the Islamist demand.

That demand is, finally, the reason for applauding those French, German, Spanish and other European newspapers that have reproduced the cartoons as a gesture of sympathy with Jyllands-Posten and those politicians, such as France’s Nicholas Sarkozy, who have supported them. Even if the arguments for laws against blasphemy were valid — and they are not trivial — that would count as a secondary consideration alongside the need to resist plain blackmail, intimidation and murder. Those who take refuge in the false equivalence of the “two sides” argument are, in the end, guilty of cowardice. They should seek some “Dutch courage” by ordering a glass of acquavit with a Carlsberg chaser. ~John O’Sullivan

Amen to that, Mr. O’Sullivan.