horse of george

Apropos of my pointing to Turkey, a putatively modern Muslim state, under the regressive machinations of Islamist Erdogan as prime example of why accommodation of Islamic beliefs and sensitivities in the West at the expense of the very principles that made the West the West amounts to naive, delusional thinking that invites pernicious outcomes - apropos of that a blogger in Turkey has just been sentenced 13 months in prison for saying something deemed unacceptable viz Muhammed. Curious thing is, here's part of what he had to say at his sentencing:

Telling the historical or legal truth may sometimes be hurtful to the sensitivities, or prejudices, of some people. This is regrettable. Yet I don’t think it would be possible, in a civilized legal system, to derive a legal injury or right from this fact. Nor do I think that there is any public benefit in tying the right to tell the facts to the precondition to heed the fine sensibilities of this or that group.

Why is it some poor, abused blogger in Turkey seems to have a better grasp of free speech and how it needs to work than parliamentarians in England do?

[somewhat unrelated sidebar, having just reviewed IOC dates for the F-35 - why the hell are we selling the Lightning to Turkey? Have we gone mad? I don't care if they're in NATO - I don't trust them, don't trust Erdogan. I know there are all kinds of 'anti-theft' safe guards built into the plane and its upkeep, but in my mind give this technology to Turkey and guaranteed it eventually ends up in the hands of people we don't like. Hell, way things are going, I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the UK having the technology - and sad part is that's only 95% joke]