Charlie Hebdo - defiant or plain stupid?

[TheGirlOnFire]

Being famous makes no difference. Understanding what you're talking about is the important part he missed.


And there we get into an area that is far more complex than the media cares to portray. The guy broke the law of the land. If he had been given a fine and slapped on the wrist would we be outraged? No - we wouldn't even have heard about it. We are outraged because we don't like flogging.


Just so you know, when I asked if you knew who said "I do not agree with what you are saying but I will defend with my life your right to say it." The answer is nobody ever said it. It is usually attributed to Voltaire, but it's actually an apocryphal quote made in Evelyn Beatrice Hall's The Friends of Voltaire

All i said Russell makes a good point about what happened.... it is his view....


I still would be outraged with a fine and a slap on the wrist..... that's just me though


I actually missed when you asked if i know who were it came from, i love the book, i won't say things like that out the blue

 

[Genersis]

No one deserves to be murdered, let alone for drawing pictures of all things.
Don't get me wrong, I think being offensive for the sake of being offensive is stupid, but we should be able to agree that what happened was a terrible tragedy, certainly not deserved.

 

[ebia]

No one deserves to be murdered, let alone for drawing pictures of all things.
Don't get me wrong, I think being offensive for the sake of being offensive is stupid, but we should be able to agree that what happened was a terrible tragedy, certainly not deserved.

I don't think anyone here is not condemning the killing.

 

[ebia]

I think Brian Klug makes a very valid point that you may want to consider.

The moral hysteria of Je suis charlie – Mondoweiss

A good piece. Thanks

 

[fat wee robin]

France is in so many ways a very hypocritical country.Being much more proud of her so
called liberte d' expression than other european countries,she can in one moment praise
the "je suis charlie" spontaneous démonstrations ,and put someone in jail for offending
a certain protected tribe even just a little bit .
Dieudonné was arrested and threatened with up to 7 years in jail and a heavy fine in Paris today .
How do they do it ? Someon else has been given four years for a drunken rant in which he supported
terrorists .
I have heard that a certain type of person is easily hypnotised;so I think that this is what happened here,they are being hypnotised by ? ?

 

[King Mob]

Re. this mornings headline:

BBC News - Defiant Charlie Hebdo depicts Prophet Muhammad on cover

Stupid in my view.
It's the equivalent of taking a good kicking in the playground and not learning any lesson from it..

It's also irresponsible if further potentially completely innocent people are harmed or endangered in anyway...

And why insult something or someone that will offend Muslims who have absolutely nothing to do with extremism or any kind of terror activity - i.e. the vast majority?

I find this entire scenario interesting within the French context.
The entire backlash to the killings was based around freedom of speech, that coming from a country where Holocaust denial is a criminal offence. Which is again interesting when the rationale behind it, is deemed as a prevention of anti-Semitism. Yet caricatures of the prophet...well you know the rest

The French version of secularism is very different from here.

 

[fat wee robin]

No one deserves to be murdered, let alone for drawing pictures of all things.
Don't get me wrong, I think being offensive for the sake of being offensive is stupid, but we should be able to agree that what happened was a terrible tragedy, certainly not deserved.

I agree entirely that it is a tragedy,but in the west there is too much hypocrisy.

We invade countries to maintain our high level of consumerism,sell arms to potential terrorists and then wonder why they resent us .In many ways the cartoonists are as much victims of our interventionist policies,as of people whose lives are messed up by poverty and dislocation .

I hope it will make those in the media ,and poitics reflect more on how to create peace and maintain it, by being just, and seen to be .
Many on the left are sympathetic to 'immigrants' from Islamic countries because they hate Israel,but any kind of terrorism must be nipped in the bud, before it grows , while at the same time being less selfish in our foreign policies.

 

[King Mob]

Many on the left are sympathetic to 'immigrants' from Islamic countries because they hate Israel...

You were doing so well too.

 

[theFijian]

This "Je Suis Charlie" is not support for free speech, it is support for the secular liberal principle of being able to offend people you don't like but not offend people who think just like you.

 

[fat wee robin]

This "Je Suis Charlie" is not support for free speech, it is support for the secular liberal principle of being able to offend people you don't like but not offend people who think just like you.

In France it is not quite so simple as that . Yes there is a large contingent like that ,but now as the shock dies down,there is real poltical discussion, which could not happen in quite the same way, in the U.K.
French history has been so bloody that both the right and the left are willing to have debate in order that the "word' ,wins rather than the sword.

There were quite a few 'believers' on the marches because no one wishes to have 'free speech' curtailed, no matter how disgusting it can seem.
It is a matter for discussion all the time now . There is more possiblity in some ways for a larger discussion in France, than in the UK ,and a bigger Spectrum of politics .

I was not sure of the "je suis charlie campaign", but one has to take the history of a country ito account when assessing the situation. I thought it was knee jerk,follow the emotion crowd ,but it is not as bad as that ,when the facts come to light .

 

[theFijian]

In France it is not quite so simple as that . Yes there is a large contingent like that ,but now as the shock dies down,there is real poltical discussion, which could not happen in quite the same way, in the U.K.
French history has been so bloody that both the right and the left are willing to have debate in order that the "word' ,wins rather than the sword.

There were quite a few 'believers' on the marches because no one wishes to have 'free speech' curtailed, no matter how disgusting it can seem.
It is a matter for discussion all the time now . There is more possiblity in some ways for a larger discussion in France, than in the UK ,and a bigger Spectrum of politics .

I was not sure of the "je suis charlie campaign", but one has to take the history of a country ito account when assessing the situation. I thought it was knee jerk,follow the emotion crowd ,but it is not as bad as that ,when the facts come to light .

I suppose I was speaking more about the support from these Isles