Politics & Rights

It is true that Islamic terrorists won’t eliminate America anytime soon. But to imply that they pose no threat to America because they won’t eliminate America is absurd. A threat to the lives and rights of Americans is a threat to the very values that America exists to protect. The phrase “threat to America” means “threat to Americans.”

Machete-wielding jihadists in Bangladesh hacked to death American secularist author and blogger Dr. Avijit Roy for "insulting Islam." The jihadists also hacked Roy’s wife, severely injuring her and cutting off one of her fingers. She remains hospitalized. Our hearts and thoughts go out to the couple’s friends and family.

“Circumcision in America” traces the history of and rationales for nontherapeutic circumcision, sheds medical and ethical light on the widespread practice, and argues that Americans should take a principled stand against it.

“Piketty’s Rickety Assault on Capital” dismantles and dispatches Thomas Piketty’s arguments against free markets and the principle of rights, including the “fuzzy math in Piketty’s alleged laws of capitalism.

Barack Obama recently announced a plan to use taxpayer money to pay the full tuitions of community college students. This proposed program is immoral and destructive on several counts. To begin with, the program would violate the rights of taxpaying Americans who would be forced to fund the program.

Although TOS does not approve of the bizarre message in this cartoon (a tearful Muhammad under the header “All is forgiven” holding a sign saying “I am Charlie”), we profoundly approve of Charlie Hebdo’s persistence and refusal to be silenced by jihadists. Here’s to the courageous men and women involved in this magazine.

Muslims who wish to violently suppress freedom of speech can find plenty of support for their cause within their religious texts. But there is a more fundamental reason why so many Muslims oppose freedom of speech, beyond the contents of their religious texts: the very existence of freedom of speech is at odds with their faith-based worldview.

City government ought not turn the police into rights violators or extortionists with its ill-conceived policies; instead, it should direct police officers to protect people’s rights and to do only that. That would foster greater community support for the men and women in uniform who regularly risk their lives to protect our rights.

We at The Objective Standard extend our deepest condolences to the victims of the jihadist attack in Paris yesterday. We post the "offending" cartoons here in the spirit of Charlie Hebdo and its editor, Stephane Charbonnier, who famously said, “I'd rather die standing than live on my knees.” We couldn’t agree more.

Let us not whitewash events surrounding Sony’s now-cancelled film The Interview: The North Korean government apparently perpetrated multiple acts of war against the United States, its people, and their liberties, waging cyber warfare against Sony (of which Sony Pictures is headquartered in California) and threatening to blow up American theaters full of people.