Totally disregarding that machine-gunning to death 11 people because you're offended, which is what just happened, is a gross violation of free speech in addition to being a human tragedy. By bringing this up right now, how could this be interpreted any other way than believing these tragedies wouldn't happen if those people weren't so darn disrespectful of Muslims.
I believe in free speech, including the right to insult other people's faith traditions. (Other people feel free to insult my faith traditions, and do so on a semi-regular basis. I respond with speech, not with bullets or bombs.)
On the other hand, basic politeness means that I do not consider insulting other people's faith traditions to be a virtue.
What's more, we live in a world where violent extremists exist. That's reality. They shouldn't exist, but this is not an ideal world. They're out there. When you choose to deliberately insult the cherished beliefs of violent extremists, in the real world you have to know that you are likely to cause some consequences. (Let me be very clear here. The violent extremists are morally responsible for the violent reaction. But when you push their buttons, you have to know that their buttons are hot-wired to their trigger fingers.)
Now, you may conclude that it's worth it to demonstrate that these people really are violent extremists. That's your choice. I'm not saying that you're wrong. But you'd better think it through before you do it, because the way the world actually works, you may receive some consequences.
Because nothing should be sacrosanct. The moment we say that even a single thing is ... then everything that suits the powers that be will be.
these people do not believe in any self determination.
I don't see that. This is a magazine that you can choose to buy or to ignore. If you don't want to be insulted (most satirical magazines insult everyone, including me), don't buy it.
Charlie was a satirical paper, it was here to provoke thoughts, not just for muslims. The people that took the insult were the people that don't understand satire.
It's just ideas. You're free to have them and express them, everyone else is free to agree with them or ridicule them.
Ridiculing ideas is a victimless crime and the foundation of freedom.
Propaganda using cartoons has been used at all levels of oppression from small groups targeting Others to genocide.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that a cartoon is not an act of violence - because they can be.
(Just for clarity: this does not mean they should be banned)
I am just shocked to hear a CNN representative say that we should find ways to avoid offending people with words: this is not just a futile endeavor, it's a very dangerous one that leads to thought police and arbitrary sentences.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/1133...
> "We must stop blaming ourselves for Islamist terror"
> It is tempting to think the Islamic fanaticism is purely a reaction to the West, but jihadists kill because that is what they do
> [...] Provocation is merely an excuse used by bullies to justify their actions, [...]
I'm not entirely sure why we coddle religious fanatics as we do, but it needs to stop for us to progress as a society.
"Religious practice" is not limited to ritual. Good deeds, helping the elderly, being honest, not stealing, the 10 commandments, sacrificing the goat, killing the cartoonist, etc are all part of religious practice. "Religious reasoning" exists in the Judeo-Christian tradition. The killing in this case is not justified through interpretation, rationalization, or reasoning. It is commanded by the final, uncorrupted word of God.
Edit: You also twisted my statement. I asked whether the freedom should extend to the ideology. You twisted it around and stated that the freedom does not extend to shooting people. You're hiding from the issue.
Regarding "shooting as a religious practice", well, not in the sense I understand "religious practice", that is, a regular ritual. If you're talking about "religious reasons", sure. Much in the same way that plenty of people have died for political reasons due to the actions of fringe movements, which in a democracy is not ground enough to ban the more mainstream version of these groups (eg, the actions of the banned left-wing Action Directe in France did not lead to the dissolution of the Communist Party).
As soon as extremists get involved things change. These murders have caused many people who were against publishing Mohammed cartoons to change their stance.
How is explicitly challenging those who oppose free speech not the best way to be a 'champion of the principle of free speech'?
Far too many people fear to name it for what it is.
Not going to happen. French people value satire and freedom of expression.
Sorry, I meant : yes, really.
This is an important distinction if you are religious but want to pretend to yourself extremism only happens with muslims.
More importantly, the condemnation of "extremism" misses the point. No one's worried about Catholic monks. Yet they're some of the most extreme religious extremists around. Buddhist monks even more so.
Why speak like a politician when you're not one?
On the other hand the Sintoist Japanese did horrible attrocities in China and Korea back in the day, Israeli Jews can also be genocidal against Palestinians etc. And Christianity has had its share of crime, starting with the Crusades.
Budhists might be better, dunno.
Sikhism has violent elements in it's historical fundamentals too, from what I've read. But they have appear to me to have been 'editted' out to some extent (cf history of the kirpan).
Whilst Shintoist Japanese were involved in horrible atrocities Shintoism, at least Confucian Shintoism, historically was quite anti-war.
Simply being an adherent of a particular way or faith or religion and performing violence doesn't make that 'way' a violent one. There is a great difference between this and the foundation and fundamental teachings including violence.
Well, being contradictory is nothing that ever stopped people (religious or not). For example Jesus was all about piece, yet horrible attrocities have been done in his name by people saying their were for Jesus ideals (e.g. the Spanish Inquisition, the genocide of Latin American indians, etc).
There's documentary evidence, via Wikipedia, to support 1250 being sentenced to death by the Spanish Inquisition over a 200 year period. The monarchy in Spain established that Inquisition: the people were tried for things like witchcraft but also child rape, bestiality and such which are still consider serious crimes today - though seldom is capital punishment legally applied for those crimes now. Interestingly none of the motives mentioned in the Wiki' article is "spreading Christianity": indeed IIRC the Inquisitions apply to those "baptised" in to the Catholic church [albeit baptisms were often under duress of being expelled from Spain it seems].
Whatever atrocities can be pegged on Christians I don't see how that stops the Koran and Mohammed from being supporters of violent persecution however.