So, bad things are happening. In Syria and other places. And even I, in my news-depraved existence, have managed to form some opinions on the proceedings.

The Mohammed cartoons printed by Jyllands-Posten and Magazinet have offended Muslims everywhere, it seems. Scanning the headlines, I almost get the impression that every Muslim in the world is currently on a great embassy burning tour. This isn’t the case, of course, but people who apologize and act rationally are boring, so the rioters get the big headlines.

There’s no question that burning embassies and attacking innocents is wrong, as is punishing a whole country for the actions of a few extreme citizens. Likewise, it is wrong to blame Muslims in general for the extreme reactions. That’s all pretty obvious, and not what has been bothering me.

I keep thinking about the cartoons and the reason being printing them in the first place. After all the controversy started it has become a freedom of speech issue, a great battle between freedom and censorship. I don’t know, maybe it is. I certainly don’t condone the demands that the governments of Denmark and Norway step in against the papers. But the more I see and hear about this, the more I think that it is less about freedom of speech, and more about freedom of stupidity, which is kind of a subset I think.

I’m not even sure the cartoons were legal, Norway at least has laws against blasphemy, and from what I understand any image of the prophet Mohammed is considered blasphemy in Islam, offensive cartoon or not. I seem to recall reading somewhere that the editor of Magazinet actually supported said law wholeheartedly. Bit of a double standard there, then.

Speaking of double standards, I also read that Jyllands-Posten refused to print cartoons depicting Jesus, because they might offend Christians.

I’m just having a hard time understanding why they would want to print the cartoons in the first place. The only reason I can think of is that they wanted to offend Muslims. Jyllands-posten is one thing, they might not have anticipated how offended people would be (though, looking at some of those drawings, it’s hard to imagine), but for Magazinet and other papers to print them later, that just seems mean.

Sure, we have freedom of speech, and we’re quite happy for it, thank you very much. Even so, just because you can do something, it doesn’t mean you should do it. Would it kill the printers to apologize for offending people? Is it really necessary to continue pissing them off by refusing to admit they made a mistake?

As for those who keep printing the things, well that’s just taunting.

When it comes to opinions and stuff like that, I easily get sidetracked and I have problems getting my point across, so I’ll try to just summarize it here, to avoid confusion:

Printing those cartoons, whether legally allowed or not, was a damn stupid thing to do. The publishers should be ashamed of themselves and apologize to the people they offended. They should not, and let me stress this, not, apologize because the extreme and unfair reactions scare them (or their governments), or because they feel threatened. They should apologize because printing those cartoons was a damn stupid thing to do.

What are these moronic cartoons trying to say, anyway? Printing something, anything, whose only purpose is to offend, is about freedom of stupidity. Sure, we have that freedom, but it really does little good to use it.