Right, maybe I was not clear enough in my meaning - I have some hope that there are ways to make this not happen at all or at least happen a lot more rarely, and I think the way to get there is to get the standard of living and education, and the openness of society, extended to all people, and for religion and fundamentalist thought to be a rare fringe activity and not commonplace.
I don't think an absolute police state can prevent violent acts, because an absolute police state IS violence.
It's easy to forget that less than 100 years ago the whole world was at war. There has been progress, even though things may seem bleak. We are still at the infancy of global civilization. Of course it's possible that we're also at the zenith of global civilization, but that's where the hope comes in...
In America we like say "freedom isn't free" while we waste trillions on ineffectual wars, but we don't like hearing "freedom isn't free" in cases like this. But you are unfortunately absolutely right, we have to accept that our freedom implies risks.
No. We shouldn't. We as a society need to stand for values of openness, freedom of speech and freedom of religion. There is no way to do this other than to accept that there are psychopaths and lunatics among the human race and sometimes they do something terrible.
After all, the only way to truly prevent acts like these is with an absolute police state. I am Charlie, and I will not stand for such a crackdown.
We have to stop imagining that we can entirely cure the human race from mental sickness or extreme radicalism. We have to accept that, in a free society, sometimes horrible things happen. One day it's a hurricane, the other day it's a terrorist attack. Nobody is to blame except the perpetrators and their direct influencers.
Stoltenberg (ironically now the boss of NATO) said it best the last time something like this happened in Europe: "The Norwegian response to violence is more democracy, more openness and greater political participation". That's the only valid response.