Fear itself

Glenn Reynolds writes:

NETWORK SOLUTIONS SHUTS DOWN A WEBSITE under Islamist pressure. I’m guessing they wouldn’t respond to complaints from Baptists quite so readily.

UPDATE: Reader Antoinette Aubert emails: “Baptists don’t blow people up for disagreeing with them. Heck Baptists don’t even sue you for disagreeing with them. Thus does multi-culturalism make cowards of us all.” Or encourage violence and litigation.

I think Glenn — law professor, right? — just just nipped a piece of the truth on the way out there. The issue is not, really, having your server blown up. In fact, this is not a realistic risk in the vast majority of cases. That risk — and the ability of Muslim extremists to carry out the threatened violence — was overstated in the past, even though the fear of it was very real.

But litigation? Political pressure? Boycotting? Political correctness police? That is what Network Solutions is really afraid of. And for a major company to bow to that — not, in contrast, taking reasonable precautions to real threats of bloodshed — is where cowardice is, indeed, the appropriate term to use.

Already posted, digested and second-guesseded on Likelihood of Success.

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