You may recall the Twitter exchange I attempted with Glenn Greenwald last month on the topic of hate speech, and how disappointed I was that he insisted on labelling any defenders of the notion authoritarian nuts, refusing to even accept that there could be any argument in favour of regulating such speech. To my shock, then, it seems that he is in fact perfectly capable of seeing what could motivate people like Waldron. He doesn’t intend to make the same case, of course, but he puts it rather well:

Islamophobia in the United States is pervasive and intense, and worse, is as ignored and tolerated as it is destructive. The greatest harm from these incidents is not to the property they damage. It’s the climate of fear that is created for Muslims living in the United States. As I’ve written about before, it’s hard to put into words how palpable and paralyzing this fear is in American Muslim communities.

Bizarre.

Hat Tip to The Dish.