Fighting Terrorist Ideas
I believe that the Wahabbi-inspired terrorist strain of Islam represents a great material danger to the ideals of liberty and equality, as well as to free inquiry and science. (The state’s response to this danger also creates a great threat to those goods.)
It is thus a pleasure to see a Yemini judge taking to heart the arguments of John Stuart Mill in On Liberty. Mill put forth clearly and eloquently the idea that the best cure for bad ideas is better ideas. And that is what Hamoud al-Hitar is doing. He has challenged captured Al Qaeda militants to theological debates. If they renounce their interpretations of Islam, they are released. Apparently, none have been re-arrested.