It’s late, but I wanted to tag this for comment – bold sentence is what caught my eye.

Larry Flynt on the Danish Cartoons

What do you think of the situation of the Danish cartoons?

It’s scary, to say the least. Freedom of speech is involved in this, and I’ve always been an absolutist when it comes to free speech, even in countries that don’t have it. I don’t think you’re really free unless you do have freedom of speech and freedom of religion and civil liberties. If you pull any one of those out, it’s like a domino effect. I can understand why a lot of people are afraid, but if they thought a little harder about the issues themselves and asked if they wanted to live in a country of tyranny I don’t think anyone would. I think Americans are just reacting without thinking.
Freedom of speech is only important if you’re gonna offend someone; if you’re not gonna offend someone, you don’t need free speech. As the Supreme Court found in my lawsuit of Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, just because the government finds speech offensive, it doesn’t mean people don’t have a right to say it.
I hate to see so many people waffle on this.