Death threats, recalled ambassadors, denunciations by community leaders, boycotts, and beatings—you would think Denmark did something really serious to anger the Muslim world. Racial profiling as part of an anti-terror campaign? No. Crackdown on firebrand Imams? No. Insensitive comments by Danish politicians? Not even. What then? A cartoon. A silly, stupid, harmless little cartoon in a Danish paper somehow gets millions of believers all in a tizzy.

Granted, the cartoon is tasteless and crude—Muhammad pictured with a turban shaped like a bomb--, but that’s the price of free speech and an open society: every dingbat and yokel with half a brain and a pen has a right to say whatever’s on their mind. And intelligent, civilized people have the same right to measured, judicious analysis and critique. Measured, judicious, civilized people do not undiplomatically recall ambassadors and make death threats when someone scribbles a few ill considered drawings of the prophet.

Living with other people’s unpalatable opinions and unsavory ideas is part of the experience of free speech and life in a liberal society. Robust civil discourse, not irrational overreaction, is the answer to cultural chauvinism. Still, one wonders if the believers are so stalwart in their faith, why does something so minor get them all worked up?