Graham: "Free speech is a great idea, but we're in a war"

http://reason.com/blog/2011/04/03/it-doesnt-get-any-clearer-than

Here's what Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said today about Florida pastor Terry Jones' burning of a Koran, which has been used an excuse by Afghanis to murder 22 people, including seven United Nations workers:

I wish we could find some way to hold people accountable. Free speech is a great idea, but we're in a war. During World War II, you had limits on what you could do if it inspired the enemy.

Senator Lindsey Graham is wrong again.  Murderers in Afghanistan don't get to blame their actions on somebody else who burned their holy book.  They are responsible for their actions.  We should go after them unapologetically.  Just because we have some impolite people in America doesn't mean we should curtail our fundamental freedoms, and it certainly doesn't mean we should excuse murder.  

Mark Steyn has some comments:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/263767/re-lindsey-graham-and-first-amendment-mark-steyn

The reason we’re losing this thing is because of a lack of cultural confidence, of which the fetal cringe of this worthless husk out-parodies anything Coward could have concocted. When I’m speaking on this subject, I often get asked to reprise the words I quote in my book, from Gen. Sir Charles Napier in India explaining to the locals his position on suttee — the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Napier was impeccably multicultural:

You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows.You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.

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