"Bullies know that the key to dominion always lies in the first conciliating act of submission."

As usual, Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal nails it:

Ms. Geller’s outrage is that she disapproves of political Islam in about the same way Bill Maher does, except that her politics skew right while his go left. Therefore she’s a vicious hatemonger whereas he’s an amusing freethinker, if sometimes a bit outré. Ms. Geller also seems to think that the appropriate response to violent Islamist histrionics is abrasive public derision, a view shared by the late editors of Charlie Hebdo. But so far not many people are je suis-ing Pam Geller, apparently because mocking Muhammad is acceptable only if you’re also mocking Jesus, Moses and Buddha.

...In particular, Ms. Geller is hammering home the point, whether wittingly or not, that the free speech most worth defending is the speech we agree with least. That’s especially important when the enemies of free speech—in this case, Muslim fanatics — are invoking the pretext of moral injury to inflict bodily harm.

...Should the polite consensus of American opinion concede the legitimacy of the complaint about cartoons, another complaint will follow.

What will it be? Daytime eating by non-Muslims in certain neighborhoods during Ramadan? Criticism of Islam in the form of writing rather than images? Bullies know that the key to dominion always lies in the first conciliating act of submission.

Read more here.