Slahy is so wrong

Submitted by Prashant (United States), Oct 4, 2012 at 00:21

Dear Dr Pipes:

Your reader Slahy says that in the West "ignorant give wrong freedom to the people" (some paraphrasing by me). While I admire Slahy for expressing his opinion coherently (without resorting to you-are-wrong-because-my-book-says-so logic), I submit that Slahy is wrong. Only that freedom of one person is wrong that harms the physical well-being and ability-to-think of another person. So when Islamic countries ban the preaching of non-Islamic religions, that is certainly bad.

But when the western societies torment themselves day in day out considering the merits and demerits of many things that Slahy considers bad(sexuality, homosexuality, atheism), there is nothing wrong in it. In many ways a fanatic's life is very simple: he does not have to see the other side of an issue and he does not have to walk into anyone else's shows. But there is nothing good in forcing every one to think the same way.

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