I take issue with your claim that these "prophets" served as great examples and deserve respect. They may do, they may not do, but I'm not going to self censor just because you claim they do.
This isn't about believing our freedom to draw Mohammed is restricted. It's about believing our freedom is restricted full stop.
Any time anyone says "We threaten to kill anyone who does X", where X is an activity that causes no more harm than hurt feelings, I think we should all take it upon ourselves to do X regardless of whether we would have wanted to or not beforehand.
That's the way to preserve our freedom. To make sure we take (very limited) action to assert that we are not going to be bullied into submission (pun intended).
Very few would ever have drawn a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed if it had not been for these death threats. If no radical muslims existed they wouldn't feel the urge to defend the free world from them, and would have no wish to insult the feelings of tolerant muslims.
This isn't about believing our freedom to draw Mohammed is restricted. It's about believing our freedom is restricted full stop.
Any time anyone says "We threaten to kill anyone who does X", where X is an activity that causes no more harm than hurt feelings, I think we should all take it upon ourselves to do X regardless of whether we would have wanted to or not beforehand.
That's the way to preserve our freedom. To make sure we take (very limited) action to assert that we are not going to be bullied into submission (pun intended).
Very few would ever have drawn a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed if it had not been for these death threats. If no radical muslims existed they wouldn't feel the urge to defend the free world from them, and would have no wish to insult the feelings of tolerant muslims.