Living in a country that values individual freedoms as much as the United States does, it baffles me that finding the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons online is as difficult as it is. Finding the cartoons isn't impossible by any stretch of the imagination, but it's far more difficult than it should be. (For anyone who didn't catch that subtle link above, that is indeed a link to the cartoons.)
Every person in the world has a right to see the cartoons. If you don't like the cartoons, here's a novel idea for you...Don't look at them.
Stephen Colbert does a great job of using comedic license to make light of the situation in a couple different videos from the Colbert Report. The videos deal with tolerance and the idea of kidding (Side note...the linked page changes from day to day as new videos are added, so over time a few clicks on "next" may be required to find the videos "Kidding" and "ThreatDown: Tolerance").
The University of Illinois' newspaper, the Daily Illini, took a much more serious approach to this situation. The newspaper actually printed the cartoons, and has since had a surprising response...an open debate about the issue. The online opinion section of the newspaper includes a letter from the university's chancellor and a letter from the university's student body vice president, who is an active member of the Muslim community. If nothing else, people in Champaign-Urbana get to learn exactly what upset the Muslim community and the reasons why. If only the rest of the country could be so fortunate.
People need to stop being so uptight or the world may begin to actually function the way Colbert satirically jokes. As he puts it, "Tolerance is just a ten dollar word for weakness."
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