I’ve been having a hard time elucidating why I thought that Jyllands-Posten hadn’t done anything ‘blameworthy’ in publishing the cartoons even though they may have made an unwise decision. This is the sort of thing I was afraid would happen, a ‘voluntary’ code of conduct prohibiting religious offense. I didn’t expect it to come out in a nice governmentally approved form but this just makes it more coercive and more dangerous.

It doesn’t matter what these rules say, there simply isn’t any objective set of rules which can prevent religious offense without banning justifiable criticism and likely giving unfair benefit to the religious over the non-religious. It is certainly possible that Islam is encouraging suicide bombing and a responsible suggestion of this idea, e.g., this argument, should surely not be effectively censored by this ‘voluntary’ code of conduct, and a religious groups determination to be horribly offended at any criticism should not change this determination. Yet the difference between this sort of speech and the islamic cartoons was a matter of responsibility, foresight, and good sense. If is entirely possible that the propositional content of the mohammed cartoon with the bomb on its head was just this. Any guideline is either going to be unable to make such a distinction or be so vague that it allows all parties to read in their own interpretation.

Moreover the entire idea of this sort of voluntary code is just stupid. If it is truly voluntary the public will hold the media responsible only to the extent they personally find some speech problematic or bothersome. In other words the same thing they do now but perhaps making it harder to do something most people find offensive. Yet it is exactly the offensive speech that the majority of the population finds attractive and won’t hold media accountable for that is the most dangerous. So long as the offended group has much public support only their egos are going to get bruised.