A Free Speech Lesson For Muslims

All of us know that with free speech comes responsibility. Our Muslim brothers seem a bit iffy on this, as they do on much of the subtleties of freedom.

Fortunately, very fortunately, they've received a lesson on the limits of free speech from Abu Hamza al-Masri, Imam of London's Finsbury Park Mosque, the "Religion of Peace" congregation that gave us convicted "shoebomber" Richard Reid and "20th hijacker" Zacarais Moussaoui.

Yesterday, Hamza was sentenced to seven years on on 11 counts including soliciting murder, stirring up racial hatred and possessing a training manual "of use to terrorists". He could have served much longer; the jjudge ordered him to serve all 11 sentences concurrently.

Judge Anthony Hughes said he had no idea if any of al-Masri's fiery sermons ever directly led to someone committing a crime, but it did not matter. He's out of his mosque and in the slammer.

Before his seven years are up, Hamza will probably be extradited to the US for trial on terrorist charges related to a jihad training camp he tried to set up.

The aiders and abettors of the enemy ... um, attorneys ... who defended al-Masri said he was simply the victim of a smear, according to Reuters. Fortunately, this time the ACLU-types could not wage effective battle, given the words that came from al-Masri's foul mouth.

Speech laws in the US and England are different, but we need some cases like this in the US to set some clear parameters regarding what's acceptable and what's not.

h/t Breitbart