Yeah, I think it can accomplish something. We recently had a really good thread on a controversial topic, and it did require a fair bit of posting about posting. I agree that backseat moderating can be super annoying, but HLP's conversational dynamics are (by this point in our august history) so ossified and the moderators so ineffectual compared to other forums that I don't think the occasional kick will hurt.
I do think there's a very interesting core point here, one which cuts across feminism, civil rights, and every other sector of cultural policy. To what extent are the traditions of one group valuable when they constrain the freedoms of another? Would we be more responsive to demands to avoid depicting Mohammed if they weren't accompanied by insane violence and rioting? Would these demands be more worthy of consideration if they were presented via peaceful demonstration, mass sit-ins, letter writing, whatever?
There's a tricky entanglement here between the problematic methods used to defend the no-depiction cause, and the question of the fundamental worth of that cause. The prohibition against depicting Mohammed is arbitrary unless you subscribe to a subset of Muslim beliefs. How much do we value arbitrary prohibitions? Should they ever receive any consideration at all? Should that consideration be practical (depicting Mohammed could get people killed) or principled (we should consider the beliefs of others, even those we don't understand, and limit certain freedoms out of respect for them)?
I'm not totally sure where I stand.
e: it's really hard to have good effective debate anywhere, let alone on a modding forum, but I think the most valuable thing is to shoot for a conversational rather than antagonistic approach. Spending time restating the other side's points and exploring their implications like you're gently jerking each other off in a bathhouse lightly glazed in sweat but it's not gay no gay **** here is a lot more valuable than angry morally outraged rebuttals