Here's more from the Blogosphere on Borders' decision not to sell magazines with Motoons. First up is Robert Bidinotto, publisher of the subscription-only magazine The New Individualist, which is running the most well-known cartoon on its cover, who has an open letter to Borders on his blog. Here's an excerpt:

Let me be clear: I did not publish the cartoon to offend Muslims. I did so as a profound matter of principle: to stand up to those who are trying to annihilate our First Amendment rights. I did so because here, in America, nobody can be permitted to get away with coercion and intimidation against anyone's freedom to write and speak and publish. I did so because I learned many years ago, as a child on school playgrounds, that when you surrender to bullies, you grant them dictatorial power over your life.

By its public declaration of pre-emptive surrender, Borders has given the bullies of our age a clear message: Your intimidation works. Your bullying works. Your coercion works. Your terrorist threats work.

Borders has set a morally irresponsible and frighteningly dangerous precedent. It has told fanatics everywhere that all they need to do in order to obliterate First Amendment rights is to growl menacingly -- at which point a leading bookstore chain in America will clear its shelves of anything that could possibly offend the thug of the moment.

Having now encouraged the use of violence and intimidation, which magazine or book are you next prepared to expunge from your stores? Will you remove books about abortion, for fear of provoking some "right to life" fanatic? Will you eliminate Jewish magazines or black publications, for fear of upsetting neo-Nazis and skinheads? Scientology has been known to intimidate critics; are you about to bow to their demands for "proper" treatment in magazines and books, by eliminating all critical material? Or if some investigative journalist probes organized crime, will you hide his work in the back room, for fear of retaliation from the Mob?

You have given a sorry example of where such capitulation begins. But where does it end?

As Tim Blair notes, there was a time, not so long ago, that Borders attempted to shine a light on the dangers of banning books:

In 2001, Borders hosted events to highlight the tragedy of banned books:

Borders Books, Music, and Cafe, 4030 Commonwealth Ave., hosted a reading in honor of banned books week. This was the first in a series of three readings in the Eau Claire area to increase awareness about banned books. Nine area residents read excerpts from their favorite banned books.

One of the readers, English lecturer Elizabeth Preston, said at the time: “Where is the line between banning a book and banning a group of people from reading? Who is in charge of drawing that line?” Beats me. Ask Borders.

Meanwhile, one of Borders' employees writes that the company has a unique policy when it comes to how and where and where certain books are displayed in their stores:

I was shifting rows of books in our religion section and it happened to be that all of our Koran books (a section on its own) ended up on the bottom shelf. The next day I was informed by my General Manager that it is Borders policy as a whole (not my particular store) that due to complaints in the past from Muslim customers, we are not allowed to put our copies of the Koran on any shelf other than the top.

When I heard of this I became so infuriated that the company I work for (and I do love working for it) has caved in to Islamic pressure and is still continuing to do so. I love my job and my company but it does deeply disturb me to see what is happening to it.

As Charles Johnson adds:

This has nothing to do with sensitivity; it’s all about pure, simple fear. If a Christian group complained to Borders about Bibles being placed on a bottom shelf, they would be laughed out of the room. But when Muslims do the same thing, Borders institutes a store-wide policy. The difference? The implicit or explicit threats of violence that accompany the latter.

In yesterday’s statement about their craven refusal to support free speech, a Borders spokesperson admitted it:

“For us, the safety and security of our customers and employees is a top priority, and we believe that carrying this issue could challenge that priority,” Borders Group Inc. spokeswoman Beth Bingham said Wednesday.

Jim Geraghty spots a PBS article on the eeeevils of Wal-Mart that now seems quaint in its naivety:

And when Sheryl Crow released her self-titled album, Wal-Mart objected to the lyric, "Watch our children as they kill each other with a gun they bought at Wal-Mart discount stores." When Crow would not change the verse, the retailer refused to carry the album. This type of censorship has become so common that it is often regarded as simply another stage of editing. Record labels are now acting preemptively, issuing two versions of the same album for their big name artists. Less well-known bands, however, are forced to offer "sanitized" albums out of the gate.

Well, pretty much all of the talk from the anointed (to borrow from a book title by Thomas Sowell) on the importance of epatering the bourgeois, shocking the masses, breaking down barriers, et al, has been shown to be hypocritical. As the Professor writes:

If you don't like ideas, don't bother arguing with them. Just threaten to kill people. They'll back down. Or at least their booksellers, universities, and governments will. How long before other groups take this lesson to heart?

Advancing toward fascism, one cowardly institution at a time.

Well, we'll always have the Internet.

At least for the moment.

Update: Steve Green gets analytical with it: "President Bush isn’t a fascist, and I can prove it":

We’ve seen what American bookstores and publications and universities do when confronted with real fascists: they knuckle under. You might not be able to find those Danish cartoons anyplace respectable, but you’ll sure find lots of anti-Bush stuff.

Ipso facto, America is doing just fine, thankyouverymuch.

As Steve writes, "Don't Confuse Them With Logic".