At some level you have to accept that if you believe a topic is fair game in political discussion and somebody else is personally offended, the problem is not with the political discussion. At least that appears to be a ground rule of this here forum: no subject matters are out of order (there are exceptions: we have on occasion banned openly antisemitic content and anything that could lead to legal liability for the blog itself, such as libel or copyright violation).

Personally, I find that a lot of the Mohammed cartoon issue involves people in a politically dominant group gratuitously offending people in a minority group. I fail to see what above-board political argument is advanced by publishing a slew of cartoons that the publishers know will cause offence, and with the deliberate aim of causing offence.

word-perfectly put.

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty