Bill O’Reilly had a segment on tonight’s show where he claimed Beyonce Knowles courageous stand against Islamic extremism was culturally insensitive. He implied that Beyonce, upon being told by the extremist authorities running Malaysia (a country which has a significant portion of non-Muslims whose freedoms are being limited under Sharia law by the way) that she needed to “cover up” should have knuckled under like the craven Gwen Stefani.

O’Reilly couldn’t be more wrong. Beyonce Knowles shouldn’t compromise her art (no matter what some people think about it) but more importantly should never compromise her freedom. When the founding fathers drafted the Constitution they didn’t claim that the document granted us our freedoms, but that all people were born with these rights. They believed they were granted to us by divine right.

Liberty, and the struggle for it doesn’t end at our borders, freedom isn’t the exclusive domain of America. There are Christians and Buddhists and even Muslims in Malaysia who want to choose for themselves what they watch, what they wear and how they choose to live their lives. There are women in Malaysia who want to dress themselves, not have men dress them according to barbaric notions of women’s sexuality.

Years ago we called the idea of supporting freedom being Pro-American, and supporting women’s freedom was called feminism. Now it’s “wingnut” talk according to the new feminists, and to Bill O’Reilly it’s more acceptable for a woman to allow misogynists to make unreasonable demands of her than it is for a woman to make a stand for her self and all the people world wide who love freedom.

And that is what is truly ridiculous.