12 dead in shooting in Paris

GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Necronic said:
The IRA goes back almost a century before the troubles
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Yes, but in the context of the discussion, it's the applicable part of the Irish-British conflict - it's still within the purview of modern events. The terrorist attacks performed within our lifetime were not religiously motivated, they were politically motivated. Your original quote invoking the IRA and comparing them to catholic jihadis uses the present tense -
Necronic said:
The IRA is such an interesting example of religious terrorism. The fact that it feels different is really just our own racist preconceptions. No offense intended by that. None of us easily consider that anyone in the IRA could be motivated by Catholicism, because their actions so clearly go against the primary teachings of the religion. And most of us recognize that the actions are much more motivated by political ideologies and feelings of historical oppression etc.. What's so interesting is that the exact same template could be directly overlaid on many muslim terrorists, yet we choose to see them in such a different light.
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This use of the present tense would tend to shift the focus away from any original religious conflicts between the British and Irish people (which do date back hundreds of years) that gave rise to the violence originally - and instead, focusing on groups such as the RIRA, who are still sending letter bombs to British army recruiting centers and firing mortars even as of 2014.
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

Anonymous has declared they're going to take strong countermeasures and attack those who attack the right of free speech.

On one hand, sure, feel free.
On the other hand....what, you're going to block torrents for Game of Thrones to Syria?
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

Yeah, I'm just not going to respond to Charlie on that. Trying to white knight these guys is beyond ridiculous. They're returned Syria warriors who WERE SCREAMING they were "avenging Allah" and "taking vengeance" "in the name of IS".

It really, really doesn't get any clearer than this. No, I don't like Charlie Hebdo myself. That doesn't matter - they've made fun and ridiculed anything and everything - pictures of the pope abusing kids, of the French president in bed with Assad (he's been involved in a few scandals and he supported Assad for a while, you know), pictures of Berlusconi in bed with children, of American soldiers shooting "in the name of Oil" at innocent children - what have you. They're not racist ,they're equal opportunity attackers. In that sense, the Onion picture wasn't far off - while there's been plenty of lawsuits and negative responses, nobody else went to the extreme of shooting them.

This has NOTHING to do with Islam, and EVERYTHING with not accepting a defining cultural trait of European (/Western) society. You want to live in a society where freedom of speech isn't holy? Too bad, go live somewhere else. Accepting other points of view, even and especially the ones you don't like/don't approve of, is the very basis of any possible multicultural society.
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

And anyone trying to white knight someone who just murdered 12 people, because of an opinion held by the victims, deserves a swift kick in the nuts.
 
Necronic

Necronic

Staff member
Serious question for Europeans here though. If freedom of speech is such a sacred cow then what's the deal with holocaust denial being illegal? In fact didn't that very same newspaper fire someone for not apologizing about an antis emetic joke?
 
tegid

tegid

I read an interesting piece yesterday about how a majority French muslims are not interested in politics, or religion, or (a bigger majority) religious politics, and it propposed the theory that this was less about avenging the offence to Islam than about generating tension and islamophobia so that the radical organizations gain pull among the French muslim population. I think it's very plausible and, at the very least, it's worrying that the far right is going to benefit from this. I know I'm not the first to say it here, but when you think it was by design it's even more scary.
 
sixpackshaker

sixpackshaker

The perpetrators have been cornered in a printing shop north of Paris. Recent reports say that the suspects have been killed in the raid. I hope the hostage and Gendarmes are safe.
 
Gruebeard

Gruebeard

Necronic said:
Serious question for Europeans here though. If freedom of speech is such a sacred cow then what's the deal with holocaust denial being illegal? In fact didn't that very same newspaper fire someone for not apologizing about an antis emetic joke?
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Not European, but oh well.

I can't find any stories about Hebdo firing the guy that aren't from two days ago, and these stories seem to exist as a way to blame the victims at least a little.

As for Holocaust denial being illegal, that, as i understand, is essentially Germany telling its citizens to shut up and accept responsibility for the horror the country committed. They've decided it's one of those allowable limitations on speech, like yelling fire in a theater, libel, slander, and false advertising.
 
Necronic

Necronic

Staff member
I could see that in that context. I mean, it did literally lead to hitler...

But I've never gotten the feeling that Europe really was that into freedom of speech, at least not like the US was. Hate speech seems to be illegal in all sorts of countries over there, which most Americans would find problematic. In fact I'm not convinced that the comics wouldn't qualify for hate speech in Denmark based on their law:

Any person who, publicly or with the intention of disseminating ... makes a statement ... threatening (trues), insulting (forhånes), or degrading (nedværdiges) a group of persons on account of their race, national or ethnic origin or belief shall be liable to a fine or to simple detention or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.
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France in particular has some really weird laws around freedom of speech. The Gayssot Act seems to prohibit the exact kind of speech that was happening in those cartoons, but maybe I misunderstand the laws. And they also have laws against "positive presentation of drugs and the incitement to their consumption".

I just...I think if there is something to be taken away from this incident I think its time for Europe to really look at what it considers to be freedom of speech. They are paying heavy lip service to it at the moment, but it also seems like there are some very draconian (at least from the US perspective) laws against it that seem to be selectively enforced, which is particularly heinous, especially with things like Hate Speech laws. If you selectively enforce them then its down to public opinion about what will actually be stopped, which means that only groups that are already socially protected, like Jews, will see enforcement, while groups that are socially on the fence, like Muslims, may not feel that protection. Which is doubly bad considering that it's the people that are socially on the fence that really need the extra protection.

One example of this in france is that it's illegal to deny the holocaust, but its not illegal to deny the Armenian genocide.
 
Gruebeard

Gruebeard

Canada has hate speech laws, too. If Europe is like here (and here is like I think it is), than these hate laws operate like civil law rather than criminal law. The police and government don't enforce the laws, but they allow people to bring forth lawsuits if they think they've been wronged.

This would likely be the course taken by those various lawsuits launched against Hebdo by the Christian or Jewish organizations that have been mentioned. And you'd probably have to examine the results of those suitss to get an idea of how strong freedom of speech is. I mean, if they were all dismissed that'd tell you one thing. Or If they were all upheld, then yeah, that freedom wouldn't be very strong.
 
Necronic

Necronic

Staff member
Management in Civil courts may be worse than having it managed in criminal courts since it requires deep pockets to pursue. Which means you need charitable backing etc, which makes it even more dependent on popular opinion.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Re: the conflicting hostage reports, turns out there were TWO hostage situations.

http://www.breakingnews.com/item/2015/01/09/to-recap-two-hostage-situations-in-france-have-en/

Editor's note: To recap, two hostage situations in France have ended after police operations: one in eastern Paris and another in a small town northeast of Paris. Cherif and Said Kouachi, the two brothers suspected of a deadly attack on the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, were killed when police stormed a building in Dammartin-en-Goele. The hostage-taker at a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris, Amedy Coulibaly, also died, along with several hostages. An accomplice of Coulibaly, Hayat Boumeddiene, is still being sought by police.
 
evilmike

evilmike

"We are brothers. It's not a question of Jews, of Christians or of Muslims. We're all in the same boat, we have to help each other to get out of this crisis."
-- Lassana Bathily, a Muslim employee at Paris Kosher grocery store Hyper Cacher, saved several people by hiding them in a walk-in freezer when a gunman laid siege to his workplace on Friday.​
 
Tress

Tress

This is a thread about a mass shooting. The terrorists responsible shot people because they were offended by the satire. Most of us talk about how horrible that is, but you post an article describing how satire should have limits and critucizing offensive satirists.

Now, imagine this thread were about a horrible rape. And we all talk about how bad it is. Then, someone posts an article about how people should dress more modestly and criticizing women who dress slutty. How do you think that would look?
 
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