Low Earth Orbit

Borders spokeswoman Beth Bingham, explaining their decision not to carry Free Inquiry magazine because it contained the Danish Mohammed cartoons, said, “For us, the safety and security of our customers and employees is a top priority, and we believe that carrying this issue could challenge that priority.”

Although their decision to preemptively surrender is appalling, I actually applaud Borders for being honest and acknowledging their real motivation—fear and concern for employees—for not carrying Free Inquiry, instead of concocting an obviously phony statement about “religious sensitivity.”

However, isn’t one of the main complaints by Muslim groups about the Danish cartoons that they promote a stereotyped image of Muslims as violent terrorists—especially the cartoon showing Mohammed with a bomb-shaped turban?

In fact, the accusation of ignorant, racist stereotyping is one of the most common charges levied by Islamic advocacy groups against the people they target for harassment.

So why isn’t CAIR demanding an apology from Borders Books for this open admission that they fear violence from Muslims? Isn’t this a blatant example of “racist stereotyping” by CAIR’s usual yardstick?

It would be, of course—except that in this case, the implicit and explicit threats of violence have had exactly the results groups like CAIR want. Every major American institution has knuckled under to the fear; universities, newspapers, television, booksellers, all of them.

It’s time to break a taboo and place the word “socialism” across the top of the page in a major American progressive magazine. Time for the left to stop repressing the side of ourselves that the right finds most objectionable. Until we thumb our noses at the Democratic pols who have been calling the shots and reassert the very ideas they say are unthinkable, we will keep stumbling around in the dark corners of American politics, wondering how we lost our souls—and how to find them again.