Jesus and Mo cartoons should be banned.

I want to first establish what seems to be the common ground between Con's argument and my own.In Con's refutation of my first condition, he states:"Your first point [provides] good reason why the Jesus and Mo cartoon should NOT be banned, rather than why it should!"This would be absolutely true if my argument was one based on moral absolutism. If I believed that one should always act on what was morally correct, even in the face of ruin, I would surely side with Con. We are in full agreement in all respects when Con discusses the importance of liberties and satire, and the light-hearted, nuanced critique provided by Jesus and Mo. We agree that it is morally indefensible to attack free speech and the civil rights of any person, but I argue that the overall protection of those inalienable rights is more important than a squabble over a single comic strip. In the following I will demonstrate that that comic is in fact a necessary casualty should we wish to win the larger war for our rights."You seem to be suggesting that banning the cartoon would make people realise the government is becoming too religious in its nature, and such censorship would trigger the public at large to rebel against encroaching totalitarianism. I fear the exact opposite, in that such censorship would encourage religious groups to lobby for the reinstatement of blasphemy laws." I feel almost certainly that such an action as banning Jesus and Mo would embolden religious groups, so Con and I can rest in conformity there. Where we differ is that Con believes that under increasing pressure, public opposition to injustice will only lessen, and eventually disappear. This is a crux of his refutation. He believes that people faced with a precipice with surge on and hurl themselves over it. I believe that there is a tipping point, past which injustice will no longer be tolerated. Con's notion that opposition dies under increasing pressure opposes the idea of a tipping point. Examples to disprove this notion exist all throughout history - forming such a great number of precedents that it is absurd to ignore them. In the American south, racism continued to be epidemic for long after the Civil War. It was only due to the passing and enforcement of the Jim Crow laws that Americans were able to see that the latent racism of the south had grown into a grotesque perversion of the law. The numerous legal challenges to racism focused not on civilian, public issues, but on the institutional racism that had been adopted by the government. [1] Without city ordinance itself reflecting the racism of the public, the issue could never have grown as large as it did, and could never have changed the face of America so strongly in support of equal opportunity and civil and humanitarian rights. [2][3][4]During WWII the United States faced another threat to civil liberties in the form of the relocation of Japanese Americans. It was while presiding over this case that Justice Frank Murphy first introduced the word racism into the American legal lexicon. [5] Many, many other examples exist, but I don't want to waste more text on them. Think of any significant policy change throughout history, and you may be assured that it came on the heels of institutional injustice. This same proof stands in contradiction with Con's next refutation: "I would suggest that taking a strong stand for free speech by defending the Jesus and Mo cartoons, would provide a better vehicle for change. Censoring the cartoons is more likely to be the thin end of the wedge, and would encourage yet more censorship of critical thought."Here he suggests that throwing ourselves to the defense of the Jesus and Mo web comic will do more to affect change than waiting for censorship to be enacted. I again invoke the idea of a tipping point to refute that. The more institutional damage is done to our civil liberties in the name of religion, the more vehement will our opposition be. I can't say how much farther our liberties must be pushed before action is taken to protect them, but I can say with certainty that we have not been pushed far enough yet, or else this censorship would not even be in question. Regarding the existing Jesus and Mo debacle, Con states that"for all the uproar in secular circles, the story hasn’t made a dent in the national press. So far at least, your proposed uprising looks decidedly unlikely."However, significant change does not always create a public stir until it is well under way. The press have no reason to care until public interest will be peaked - which will not happen until our rights are threatened broadly and institutionally. Allowing the precedent of censoring Jesus and Mo could very well be the Davis v County School Board before the Brown v Board of Education. Even if it is only one of a number of precedents, it will push us that much closer to closing the door on a dim chapter in the history of free speech. As a bit of an aside (just to be thorough) - Con claims that the internet is already mobilized in political action, invoking the Arab Spring:"I would argue the Internet is rapidly taking on an important new role in facilitating social change. We have witnessed this in the Arab Spring, and indeed we are actively part of the online debate here in this forum. The Internet has the potential to be a powerful democratic tool, but it is vitally important censorship is kept to a minimum."-but the Arab Spring is taking place in a region that has already reached its tipping point. It does not constitute the mobilization of the internet. It is the mobilization of peoples via the internet. Their pressure to act came from external sources, and affects external power structures. These are not the peoples that will come to the aid of our civil liberties, because they are fighting for their own in a region alienated by most of the western world. Perhaps I left my statement to broad. When I mentioned the concerned citizens of the internet in C3, I meant mainly those who live physically in the United States and Britain, as those seem to be the most important places in establishing policy that concerns the issue at hand. In conclusion, it is essential that we sit by while Jesus and Mo is censored. By allowing this precedent we can bring ourselves one step closer to forcing new protective legislation that will usher in the next chapter in personal liberty. If we work to stop the censors we will only put off the inevitable, and sink more slowly into moral quagmire - and experience shows us that a gradual change is easier to stand than a sudden one. Thank you for a challenging debate![1]Nelson, Arthur C.; Dawkins, Casey J.; Sanchez, Thomas W. (2004). "Urban Containment and Residential Segregation: A Preliminary Investigation".[2]Buchanan v. Warley - Bernstein, David E. Rehabilitating Lochner: Defending Individual Rights against Progressive Reform. Chapter 5. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.[3]Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia - http://encyclopediavirginia.org...[4]Additionally, Briggs v Elliot, Gebhart v Belton, Davis v County School Board of Prince Edard County etc etc.[5]Korematsu v United States. He stated that by upholding the forced relocation of Japaese Americans the Court was sinking into "the ugly abyss of racism." Lopez, Ian F. Haney (2007). "‘A nation of minorities’: race, ethnicity, and reactionary colorblindness" (PDF). Stanford Law Review 59 (4): 985–1064., http://supreme.justia.com...