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The redaction of the satirical magazin Charlie Hebdo - probably best known in America as "that one magazine that published those Mohammed cartoons and got firebombed a few years ago" - was the target of a shooting today.
Two men with Kalashnikovs broke in and shot (at least 11) people, including their most famous writers and cartoonists - one of them being the one who drew those Mohammed cartoons.

It's already been classified as a terrorist attack, and is widely considered a direct attack on the freedom of the press and freedom of speech.

I hope they're captured and brought to justice.

I never understood the terrorist thought pattern. That if you keep kicking the hornet's nest they will back off. The western world is just getting more and more involved in the Middle East since the surge in terrorism since the 1970's.

NSFW:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/no-one-murdered-because-of-this-image,29553/

Dave said:

NSFW:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/no-one-murdered-because-of-this-image,29553/

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I think it's good that the image there offends me (it really does), and yet I'm also glad they can do so with little fear of violence. So I'm conflicted on that one. Regardless I'm glad they did it. So... ya. Conflicted! But happy!

Does that make ANY sense?

Dave said:

NSFW:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/no-one-murdered-because-of-this-image,29553/

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I don't know. This, once again, seems to like to point the blame at Islam - which is false. 99,9999% of muslims aren't attacking newspapers, after all, and violence in the name of Hinduism or Christianity isn't exactly unheard of (oh, sorry, did you think those terrorist attacks in Sudan were all by muslim terrorists? Oops). Posting an image like that and saying "no-one died because of this" is sort of missing the point and can even be dangerous, further repeating the stereotype "Islam = evil and violent" - leading to such fun little anti-Islam movements as we've seen recently in France and Germany...which some people are starting to comapre to Kristallnacht. Let's not go that way.

Terrorists attacked a newspaper because they said/drew something that offended them, and they don't accept the freedom of speech. We, all people of all denominations and all sides, need to accept that people are allowed to say things that might offend us. Response in the form of language is OK, responding with violence is not.

I think
pic.twitter.com/LqIMRCHPgK
pic.twitter.com/mt9NJHUSCV

pic.twitter.com/kNxhIeaYIn




are better response pics.

I've seen the video taken from the rooftop of one of the gunman wounding someone, running up to them and executing them at close range.

Fucking awful.

They need to be captured.

And they're getting their way. The major news outlets are blurring out the "offending" comic when they report on them.

GasBandit said:

And they're getting their way. The major news outlets are blurring out the "offending" comic when they report on them.

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The American news outlets, perhaps. The "offending" comics are all over French, Belgian, Dutch, German, British,... news outlets - both websites and in print and on TV. European media are calling it an attack on European intellectual freedom similar in symbolic value to the 9/11 attacks as an attack on American economic freedom values.

Bubble181 said:

The American news outlets, perhaps. The "offending" comics are all over French, Belgian, Dutch, German, British,... news outlets - both websites and in print and on TV. European media are calling it an attack on European intellectual freedom similar in symbolic value to the 9/11 attacks as an attack on American economic freedom values.

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The BBC is blurring it out, or changing to different photos.

I have no idea what site you're looking at, or your provider's bluring them or some such. BBC WOrld is showing them.

I've lost the link now, but it wouldn't matter - the web page changed from a clear photo to a blurred photo to an entirely different photo.

Are you talking about the *photos* where you see people getting shot (which some may consider offensive and I do'nt care about but does tend to get blurred) or the comics themselves which caused the attack, which, as you can see in the screeenshot above, are clearly displayed still on BBC (and plenty of other news sites)?

Bubble181 said:

Are you talking about the *photos* where you see people getting shot (which some may consider offensive and I do'nt care about but does tend to get blurred) or the comics themselves which caused the attack, which, as you can see in the screeenshot above, are clearly displayed still on BBC (and plenty of other news sites)?

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It was a photo of the physical paper, but with the comic blurred out.

Odd, given that they'er distributing the comics themselves all over. Oh well. Copyright or whatever, I guess

This is the image that is supposed to have caused the attack.


The Life of Muhammad showing him with his six (or seven) year-old wife, Aisha. He wasn't a pedophile, though. He waited until she was nine or ten to consummate the marriage.

And of course I don't think all Muslims did this. That would be insane of me. But it seems it's almost exclusively Muslim radicals who do this sort of thing. Yes, there are christian extremists and some of them have done some terrible things, but in the scheme of things it's always the Muslim extremists that perpetuate this level of violence.

Which is exactly what the Onion article is talking about.

Dave said:

it's always the Muslim extremists that perpetuate this level of violence.

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It isn't, by a long shot. In the Western world (so not counting the Middle East and Central Asia), there have been more deaths by Christian fundamentalists than by Muslim fundamentalists in the last 20 years - but they receive far less attention from the media.

Ever since 9/11 there seems to be a vested interest in singling Islam out as THE terrorist religion and "it's not a bad religion, but..." sorts of statements. Religious fundamentalist nuts are just that. Terrorists are terrorists, no matter what flag they wave or what color they wear, and it has little to do with the actual religion.

Bubble181 said:

It isn't, by a long shot. In the Western world (so not counting the Middle East and Central Asia), there have been more deaths by Christian fundamentalists than by Muslim fundamentalists in the last 20 years - but they receive far less attention from the media.

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I'd like some links to more info about that.

Can't find the link - read an article about it some while ago.

I do admit, it included the IRA and Anders Breivik as Christian fundamentalists - while true, it also distorts the numbers, obviously. Still, I'm really wary of people going along far too easily in the "it's always those darn Muslims, isn't it?" which is being pushed far too hard by media - and is frighteningly similar to "it's always those darn Jews, isn't it?" in early 1930's Germany.

Heck, on several occasions, things attributed to Muslims have had to be retracted because it turned out tob e completely unaffiliated different groups behind it (one particularly vicious murder in Brussels, caught on tape, and a group of home jackings in the Netherlands come to mind - one turned out to be a couple of Polish guys, the other a group of Albanian mafia - but both were, at the time, widely reported as being by Moroccan immigrants and used in lots of right-wing pushing of issues...and the retractions after weeks and months of mud-slinging towards Moroccans were one-time small articles at best)

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.

I think the reason the eye gets cast on Islam in particular is that Islam seems to expect to be exempt from satire and parody. Every group has been mocked: to insult or for humour or with an ideological motive. Christians, especially cartoons with paedophile priests; Jewish people in controversial images about Israel-Palestine or cartoons published by or in support of the Nazis, Communists in Russia or contemporary enemies like Iran; women demanding the right to vote were ridiculed in cartoons; there's a history of racist depictions of black people in cartoons for hundreds of years.

Some of this might be a joke, or to push a ideological agenda, or just plain mean, and much of it may be wrong or tasteless, but no group says, "You can't do this to us." They may be offended, or angry, and demand it be censored. But only Islam says, "You can't do this to us." This isn't to say that Islam is therefore the problem, however. I just mean to explain why Islam is the focus in these incidents.

I think the biggest problem is that people listen to that edict. It's not controversial for me to draw a paedophile priest joke. People will laugh, or roll their eyes. But if I draw a guy with a turban and dynamite strapped to his chest, it's all, "OMG IS THIS OKAY?!" Forget about the Islamic world's reaction to my drawing: that's a reaction produced by our own media.

I agree that Islam isn't the problem, but I understand why it is seen as exceptional in this case, and others like it (e.g.: the Jyllands-Posten Mohammed cartoons in 2005, and Charlie Hebdo was firebombed in 2011 before this). The only cure for that is to ignore the claim that it cannot be done, until doing it is not controversial in Western media anymore (viz., that it draws the same amount of press coverage as any other critical cartoon; what's the last objectionable cartoon not related to Islam that made it into the news?).[DOUBLEPOST=1420664361,1420664315][/DOUBLEPOST]

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 is well said.

Also, while violence and terrorism in the middle east is bad, it's sort of a drop in the bucket compared to what has happened for the last century and some change in Central Africa. Want to know what the common denominator between those two areas are? It's not religion. It's a history of heavy handed European/western involvement.

I had heard about the shootings, but I did not know the circumstances.
I want to post thatescalatedquickly.jpg, but I don't feel like that properly describes the amount of areyoufreakingkiddingme.jpg that should go with it.

--Patrick

Somebody else noticed and documented better than I.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/s...-charlie-hebdos-satirical-cartoons#.ooOLjAOme

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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Now I could be wrong, but I don't recall stories about IRA members shouting "God bless the Pope" as they murdered members of the press. It's not really just our own racial preconceptions that make it feel different. It's the people responsible who want it that way.

"The Troubles" was not a religious conflict, it was a conflict between populations that happened to have different religious beliefs, but it was a secular conflict.

Bubble181 said:

I don't know. This, once again, seems to like to point the blame at Islam - which is false. 99,9999% of muslims aren't attacking newspapers, after all, and violence in the name of Hinduism or Christianity isn't exactly unheard of (oh, sorry, did you think those terrorist attacks in Sudan were all by muslim terrorists? Oops). Posting an image like that and saying "no-one died because of this" is sort of missing the point and can even be dangerous, further repeating the stereotype "Islam = evil and violent" - leading to such fun little anti-Islam movements as we've seen recently in France and Germany...which some people are starting to comapre to Kristallnacht. Let's not go that way.

Click to expand...

Let's not forget that, even today, there are parts of the US where a person will get threatened or killed for performing certain taboo acts. While it's not likely some rural southerner will travel to a major city to kill people because of what a newspaper printed, there are still areas where your life would be in danger for being gay, or speaking out in favor of homosexuals. Just because American Christianity doesn't have strong taboos about what can be printed, doesn't mean there aren't taboos that some would kill over.

Tumblr's being tumblr. "What happened today was awful... BUT those guys were racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, and worst of all, *gasp*

WHITE."

(Granted, it's the minority by a long shot, but it's still being said.)

Not all dead were white. The police officer who was wounded, pleaded for his life and was shot at point blank range was Ahmet, from Algerian origin.

Also, dear Tumblr (and AP, by the way, who have decided to give in to the demands and removed all pictures with offending cartoons), we Europeans still tend to value the right of free speech higher than the right t(o be offended. I didn't think Charlie Hebdo was particularly funny, and their cartoons are/were often crude, vulgar and purposefully offensive. Doesn't mean they don't get to say it, though.

A friend of mine works at one of the larger newspapers in Germany and they posted the pictures on the first page of their paper and on the website.
Her workplace hired security and is under police protection. I support this 100%.

The IRA goes back almost a century before the troubles, and while it's true that religion played less of a role in the history of conflict between Irish-British than in the Middle East, it would be hard to argue that division of religion was not a key factor in their problems.

The key difference is that there was always a history of stable governments in this regions, which allowed the conflict to be more secular, but the IRA was not a group that renounced their Catholicism with their actions, they were all god fearing men who felt justified, not just politically, but religiously, in acts of terrorism. That's the point. While their religion was not a key motivating factor, they saw no conflict between their beliefs and their actions.

I'm not going to say "I am Charlie" (ironically), and I even wouldn't call some of their vile shit "satire".

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/01/charlie-hebdo-islamophobia/

No, the offices of Charlie Hebdo should not be raided by gun-wielding murderers. No, journalists are not legitimate targets for killing. But no, we also shouldn’t line up with the inevitable statist backlash against Muslims, or the ideological charge to defend a fetishized, racialized “secularism,” or concede to the blackmail which forces us into solidarity with a racist institution.

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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.

Click to expand...

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.

Ok, fair point, present tense was not intended there, I was speaking far more historically.

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?

Charlie Don't Surf said:

I'm not going to say "I am Charlie" (ironically), and I even wouldn't call some of their vile shit "satire".

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/01/charlie-hebdo-islamophobia/

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Did you SEE what they were wearing?!?

Police badges? Oh, no. Then the Liberals would be defending Charlie (Hebdo)

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.

Unless it's embarrassing to you, then you can have it stripped from the Internet.

Or if you're talking about the holocaust....

Bubble181 said:

They're not racist ,they're equal opportunity attackers..

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"I'm not racist, I hate everybody" - everyone that has said this in human history probably just said a racial slur

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.

Charlie Don't Surf said:

"I'm not racist, I hate everybody" - everyone that has said this in human history probably just said a racial slur

Click to expand...

Bubble181 said:

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.

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I for one am shocked, shocked, to see Charlie blaming the victims.

You know, this thread is kinda funny when you have ignored content.

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?

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.

Tumblr, y'all!

How long before someone complains about the comic being too white?

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.

According to local news the hostage is safe.

From what I hear the hostage is alive, possibly was "released."

Brothers dead, at least 4 hostages dead as well.

GasBandit said:

Tumblr, y'all!

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I love how they don't understand 'culturally, ..., and politically correct' doesn't refer only to minorities. Like, for them, only minorities can be offended, and that it never happens to non-marginalized groups.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

man that sucks.

http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-france-paris-attacks-praise-20150109-story.html

While many condemn the Paris violence, some support it

"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."

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebat...qual-an-world-mocking-all-serves-the-powerful

I liked this.

Charlie Don't Surf said:

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebat...qual-an-world-mocking-all-serves-the-powerful

I liked this.

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So what you're saying is, if women don't want to be raped they should make sure they dress appropriately?

Tress said:

So what you're saying is, if women don't want to be raped they should make sure they dress appropriately?

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No. Go ahead and show me where I said that?

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?

But these "no holds barred" shows never mock, say, 9/11 victims, or soldiers killed in Iraq.

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Skip to 1:30

Tress said:

. How do you think that would look?

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it would look bad since that viewpoint is total bullshit

subtlety is lost on charlie

Charlie Don't Surf said:

it would look bad since that viewpoint is total bullshit

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Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner!

You can't punch down at a worldwide religion that makes up a 1/4 of the Earth's population.

Charlie Don't Surf said:

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebat...qual-an-world-mocking-all-serves-the-powerful

I liked this.

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I don't know about this. He doesn't really make the argument that mocking everyone serves the powerful, he just says that.

I also think there's a significant difference between American satire and European satire. Over here, satire is almost always ideological, which isn't the case in Europe, especially France, where satire is much more whimsical. It's easy to see Charlie Hebdo in our own terms, in our own culture of satire, but that's unfair to the history of French satire. The French don't make the argument, which he says at the end, that satire is a 'courageous' art; they make the argument that it is a free art.

I do think the "Je suis Charlie" stuff is nonsense though. There was a good comment on Twitter, approximately, "I am not Charlie, which mocked my culture; I am Ahmed, the cop who died protecting Charlie's right to do so." I liked seeing this:

That does feel more satisfying than je suis Charlie.

Charlie Don't Surf said:

it would look bad since that viewpoint is total bullshit

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You are amazingly dense.

Your article was bullshit.

Anything else I say to you in this discussion is a waste of my time.

I don't agree with @Tress. That article does not say satire should have limits. Rather, it says satire is already self-limited due to the satirists own worldview, and asks for self-reflection on what that might mean.

Joe Sacco drew a comic in a similar vein to Charlie's article, but approaches it better IMO.



The way I see it, the point is being an asshole just because you can is amusing, but pointless. And so I find it ironic that Charlie posted that first article, since that's basically his entire MO outside of the movie/tv threads.

A free society has to allow the pointless, though. It doesn't matter if they were using satire as a fine art for a higher purpose, or just being crude for the sake of crude, you don't kill people over it. It's really that simple.

I don't disagree, I just think guys like Sacco are mostly musing on the nature of satire itself.

The "can't we all just get along" argument doesn't work with a faction of people whose defining characteristics is "we shall not get along with anyone but our own."

"To find out who controls you, simply consider who you cannot mock."

Drive them into the sea, indeed.

drifter said:

it says satire is already self-limited due to the satirists own worldview, and asks for self-reflection on what that might mean.

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That is a very insightful point. And it is a bit disturbing.

GasBandit said:

Drive them into the sea, indeed.

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I don't think you mean it like that, but this reads a lot like endorsing genocide

Posted without comment...

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall (though attributed to Voltaire)

jwhouk said:

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall (though attributed to Voltaire)

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Yeah. Again, the content of the cartoons doesn't matter. Had this happened to the Westboro Baptist Church, I would still be appalled, because while I think they're lowlife scum and wrong about everything ever, they don't deserve to be murdered for those views.

Ravenpoe said:

Yeah. Again, the content of the cartoons doesn't matter. Had this happened to the Westboro Baptist Church, I would still be appalled, because while I think they're lowlife scum and wrong about everything ever, they don't deserve to be murdered for those views.

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I think Charlie Don't Surf's grievance is not that they deserve censorship (and certainly not murder) but that they also don't deserve publication for their views.

Of course, I also don't have to actually read the crap Charlie puts out there, either, so there's that.







...I'll let everyone think about that for a while.

More free speech in France!

http://www.thejournal.ie/dieudonne-arrest-1880765-Jan2015/?utm_source=shortlink

Oh wait. No. A French comedian put on his Facebook that he was more aligned with the guy who shot a French policewoman. Which is totally offensive. But why is this offensive statement (or print) illegal but Charlie Hebdo's cartoons are not? Could it be because one is anti-Islam and the other (however tenuously) is pro-Islam?

Shooting a policeman is not fucking pro-Islam.

Not that I agree with his arrest.

Frank said:

Shooting a policeman is not fucking pro-Islam.

Not that I agree with his arrest.

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You are correct, of course, but his was only one of 50+ arrests over the same charge, which is a stretch of a charge to begin with. His comment about the suspect in the policewoman shooting is only notable because he's famous. Well, French famous, which means nobody else has heard of him.

Dave said:

You are correct, of course, but his was only one of 50+ arrests over the same charge, which is a stretch of a charge to begin with. His comment about the suspect in the policewoman shooting is only notable because he's famous. Well, French famous, which means nobody else has heard of him.

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Dieudonné is a very well known comedian, who's been arrested several times for several similar things. He's the "inventor" of the Quenelle (which is pretty much the Hitler salute downwards), he's said the Holocaust was vastly exagerated and doesn't deserve the attention it gets, he's supported antisemitic publications. In shows he's publicly called for people to go and attack orthodox Jews (throw off their hats, pull their curls, cut their beards).
On one hand, sure, I'm in favor of freedom of speech and he should be allowed to be an ass. On the other hand, he's still breaking a French law; you can argue the law should be changed, but as long as it isn't, he's....well, duh. Breaking the law.
Note that he's been arrested and convicted 10 times, and tried and found innocent 5 times. And remember the French/Belgian judicial process is different from the American/British one. Napoleonic code and all that.

Apparently a lot of those arrests were for threats, so those arrests are justifiable. The others though....It may be against the law, but that is a very dangerous law to have as it brings a lot of subjectivity into play. This is one of the very few things that I think America gets right and Europe really misses the thread on.

To each their own.

Live right now: big police action in Belgium, 2 potential terrorists shot, several arrested, house searches in progress all over; some just a few blocks from here, hurray. Plans and weapons found as they were apparently planning a similar strike in Brussels, in or around the European quarter...Which I live way too close to for comfort (I live about a 10 minute walk from the European parlaiment and a 10 minute drive from NATO HQ)

From Verviers, are we?

Out of curiosity, is the discussion of the subtleties of freedom of speech something that's mostly coming from the US or are Europeans talking about it as well?

Here's an interesting article that argues French Jews should oppose Dieudonne's arrest: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/2015/01/14/not-fight-anti-semitism-france/

Dave said:

From Verviers, are we?

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Nope; that's where the dead were, but there's house searches all over the place - Verviers is a 2 hour drive or so away
I was wondering a while ago (before I saw the news) why there was so much activity - I live right next to the biggest police depot/training facility/staff building in Belgium. Luckily the bomb threat made and the building being evacuated right now is the main operational station, which is a few miles down. I'm safely in my house so I don't care, but I can't help but think of some of my colleagues out right now O_O

Skip to about 35 sec in to see Sky News shit themselves in terror.

Spineless.

It's frankly a terrifying debate with idiots on all sides here right now. Big-name Muslim leaders "not condoning" the attack on Charlie but saying that what they make is "akin to the Jude drawings in Nazi-Germany, slowly perverting the minds of a generation"; leftist politicians calling for "acceptance and understanding" of other opinions and "being careful not to offend - self-censorship is not wrong but merley politeness"; on the other hand right wing idiots claiming "this just goes to show our culture has already been infiltrated by Muslim extremists forcing their agenda on our media", .... Blegh.
The same kind of cartoons are acceptable about the Pope or Buddha, they're not when it's about Jews or Muhammed; being able to laugh with and about certain things is a necessity; being vulgzr and crude and stereotyping "the other" is bad. There's no clear line that can be drawn between what"s "good" art and "bad" art, and having the term "entartete Kunst" being bandied about on both sides is just ridiculous and horrifying.
Some lines are very clear, to me at least, but they've been drawn over and over and seem to be stepped over by all sides - don't kill for opinions. Don't offend merely to offend. Don't consider "not being offended" a right.

Anyway, some 15 people arrested around here; they're being questioned right now. We'll see, though police remain on high alert.

GasBandit said:

I'd like some links to more info about that.

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https://www.europol.europa.eu/conte...ion-terrorism-situation-and-trend-report-2014 for trends and influences in 2013. As they note themselves in the foreword, therse numbers can't be read in a vacuum - which is exactly what some left politicians are doing right now. The beheading of a soldier in the UK? Not a terrorist act. Myeah. Stuff like that. Anyway, those are the numbers the article I saw were based on.

Bubble181 said:

https://www.europol.europa.eu/conte...ion-terrorism-situation-and-trend-report-2014 for trends and influences in 2013. As they note themselves in the foreword, therse numbers can't be read in a vacuum - which is exactly what some left politicians are doing right now. The beheading of a soldier in the UK? Not a terrorist act. Myeah. Stuff like that. Anyway, those are the numbers the article I saw were based on.

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The word christian does not appear even once in that document. Muslim appears 25 times, and islam 23 times. The word behead does not appear, nor decapitate. The word soldier appears 8 times but does not mention any christian-inspired terrorist attacks in their uses. The word catholic appears once, but it is in reference to the bombing of a catholic school in Spain. I'm having a hard time seeing how this document is evidence of an underreported wave of religious-based christian terrorism that is killing more people than islamic terrorism.

Now you're deliberately twisting my words. I never said there was a wave of underrepoted Catholic terorrism. I said a large part of terrorism wasn't carried out by muslims. Leftist Belgium uses that document to say "only 2% of all terrorism was by Muslims" which is, itself, also a deliberate misinterpretation of the numbers. But the idea that "most" terrorism is muslim-extremism is false, though. Also, that's only the 2013 report. Take the same for the years before (same site) and enjoy.

Bubble181 said:

Now you're deliberately twisting my words.

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Am I? You said:
"In the Western world (so not counting the Middle East and Central Asia), there have been more deaths by Christian fundamentalists than by Muslim fundamentalists in the last 20 years - but they receive far less attention from the media."

To which I replied:
"I'd like some links to more info about that."

You then sent me a report that predominantly gives examples of islamic terrorism.

I never said there was a wave of underrepoted Catholic terorrism.

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No, I threw that in there because of the earlier discussion in this thread about the IRA, so I was trying to see if that figured in at all.

I said a large part of terrorism wasn't carried out by muslims. Leftist Belgium uses that document to say "only 2% of all terrorism was by Muslims" which is, itself, also a deliberate misinterpretation of the numbers. But the idea that "most" terrorism is muslim-extremism is false, though. Also, that's only the 2013 report. Take the same for the years before (same site) and enjoy.

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There you're twisting your own words, and moving the goalpost. You've gone from "more deaths by christian fundamentalists" to "the idea that most terrorism is muslim-extremism is false." That's two different positions because the latter includes political/secular terrorism, whereas the former directly compares two specific brands of religious terrorism.

Well, yes. I retract my earleir words; I meant the second: deaths by extermists who happen to be christian, rather than christian fundamentalists. My apologies.

That said, our Charlie clearly isn't alone. Remember how the Belgian polce force killed 2 terrorists who were shooting at the cops with Kalashnikovs, and managed to subdue and arrest several others? News outlets are now questioning whether those kills don't count as unjudicial executions, and those policemen shouldn't be brought up on charges. They could've shot them in the legs, pacified or sedated those people, after all!

Clearly, we don't have enough people with a somewhat working knowledge of guns in Belgium. I'm all in favor of trying to arrest people without undue violence. People shooting at the cops are, you know, probably going to get hurt in self-defence. The mere fact that the third one shooting wasn't killed but wounded, and several others were detained, pretty clearly proves the police didn't go in guns ablazing, killing everyone in sight. Good lord, anything to try and discredit our fascistoid right-wing government destroying our liberties (yes, our media claim our government is currently run by not-quite-but-almost Nazis intent on destroying our every liberty. No, those people apparently never visited any other country in the world)

Definitely the first rule of gunnery is to aim for center mass. You never try to "shoot them in the leg."

Also there are major blood vessels in the legs. You can bleed out REAL damn fast if the femoral artery is hit. So it's no guarantee of "non-lethality."

You don't shoot to wound.

Bubble181 said:

Good lord, anything to try and discredit our fascistoid right-wing government destroying our liberties (yes, our media claim our government is currently run by not-quite-but-almost Nazis intent on destroying our every liberty. No, those people apparently never visited any other country in the world)

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This is pretty much how I see the media in Canada as well.

Eriol said:

This is pretty much how I see the media in Canada as well.

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I was about to say this... Although there is a good dose of level-headedness as well.

Frank said:

You don't shoot to wound.

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If you're to the point where you're actively shooting at someone, you'd better only be doing so because, for whatever reason, you have decided that person needs to be killed.

--Patrick

So, Salaah Abdeslam, the alleged/supposed mastermind behind these attacks, has been caught, in Brussels. Around the corner (literally) from his last known address. Door-to-door searches were ordered way back when, but stopped because they were considered a breach of privacy and government overreach by the local mayor. Local reaction was that "the whole neighborhood knew where he was the whole time".
Seriously guys, it's that sort of reaction - true or false - that feeds the fires of the extreme right and makes all of the Muslim community look like they support terrorism. Idiots.

Anyway, we'll see soon enough whether or not he was the mastermind. My money's on "scapegoat".

The howling from authorities about "encryption" is a red herring. The Paris terrorists used burner phones, and didn't send any texts or emails with them.

DarkAudit said:

The howling from authorities about "encryption" is a red herring. The Paris terrorists used burner phones, and didn't send any texts or emails with them.

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Not reported in English, but mentioned in Dutch: they finally managed to get Abdeslam by tracing and following a pizza delivery - it was made just a street over, then he had it delivered to him; he sent a text to another guy to bring them over. Seriously. So...Yes, from a random new phone, a message "yo, bring over the pizza" was enough to find him. Even Belgian police is monitoring texts that closely. Privacy schmivacy.

There's a number of "mass attack" threads in this forum. We may want to consolidate, but this one is the same city: Man arrested after driver hits French soldiers, injuring six
This is in Paris.