12 killed in shooting at satirical newspaper office in Paris

Because if you check the news, the terrorists of the moment are trying to kill Jews not Muslims. (Though they seem to have little objection to killing Muslim policemen).

 

Can't Stop The Signal, Mal...

 

They had my support when Charlie was gunned down. I even contemplated adding Je Suis Charlie in my game name. Now they lost my support. We all know it can be seen as highly offensive to depict the Prophet Muhammad in any form.

So let's go ahead and do it again!!!! Not in my name. Thank you.

They are asking for trouble and they get no sympathy for baiting Muslims. Nor if there are any consequences by depicting the Prophet for a second time.

We have the right to free speech. We do not have the right to knowingly piss people off for no good reason.

 

If you have the former, then you have the latter.

 

Are you saying that they haven't learnt their lesson or something?

 

Of course you're right. You know what I'm getting at though.

As pointed out by Krazeh, they have the right to piss people off. But they get no support from me a second time. We live on a rich and diverse planet with differing cultures and people. I'm happy not to portray the Prophet if people find it offensive. But hey, that's just me. I'm kinda good like that.

If anyone out there supports depicting the Prophet a second time why not show your solidarity by changing your avatar to the Prophet? Go on.

 

I guess that depends on what lesson you read in it.

 

I would like to mention something semi-relevant that hits a little closer to home for me. Last January a religious satirist in Greece was convicted to 10 months imprisonment for blasphemy. Barely a year later, Greek politicians were holding Je suis Charlie signs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elder_Pastitsios

Meanwhile in Paris, political leaders from around the world that oppressed freedom of the press in their very own countries now parade in solidarity with France. Politicians do not even need to disguise their hypocrisy nowadays.

So what is the deal? Do we have freedom of speech or not? Are we allowed to say what we want as long as we don't piss off the wrong people? The politicians' reactions made me more sick to my stomach than the act of terrorism itself. Was it even terrorism? Where those guys part of a group with an agenda or were they a couple of psychotic chumps acting out their own vigilantism because their shitty little opinions were offended? The politicians on the other hand, are trying to capitalise on mass murder. Huh? Politicians benefitting from mass murder? What else is new?

As soon as the news of the attack went global Obama offered his assistance to catch the attackers. I bet plenty of US politicians practically ejaculated in their pants as soon as they heard "terrorist attack". I wondered if they already started making plans on who they're gonna bomb next, but I realised that they're probably way ahead of me, and most likely already have a schedule for the next 5 or so countries that they're gonna bomb next.

Why don't terrorists attack parliaments? Nobody gives a damn about politicians and they're the ones screwing with peoples' lives in the first place. I hear about attacks on public transport locations, public gatherings etc. Why attack that school in Pakistan? I'm not a conspiracy theorist but I'm struggling to believe that terrorists are this god damn stupid, warped as their minds are. The presidents of Israel and Palestine participate in the same parade, for "freedom of speech" no less, and there's no hidden agenda? Come on...

 

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=959_1421174701



religion is an oxymoron, that is why the Buddha nearly starved himself to death, if it was easy it would be evident, if it was common or fell upon in each of our day and able to be mastered then it would not be a valued commodity, and inverse the valuation and monopoly over an infinite land from the shores of the finite is beyond laughable.

No single person has ever had the answer, be it Buddha, Jesus or Muhammad, that is why they weep in their time and if they do not weep then they are false.

if your ethos, religion or means of navigation here does not facilitate understanding, fostership, partnership, almost infinite compassion then you are incorrect.

In this universe we are in, it is a dance of action, of action and consequence and in the time you have here consequence is meant to teach you.

It is nobility, sharing, honesty, virtue, compassion, understand that are the glorious affects to others from a just mind.

How wrong it is for others to lay of waste, of decomposing material because of your action.

The Paris shooting of art personal was wrong.

This event has nothing to do with Islam and I am not a great fan and hold no great impression of Islam or Judaism.

Our fun of life is so important and means so much more than we can understand to do away with it for the promise of something else beyond mortal reach but lethally enforced be it by any agent is wrong.

No politically or religion or national power has ever served to the understanding of a mother to her child.

minds are free and of some thing else, that is by nature, to say order is required to a river is like saying a river is wrong for flowing.


If you are a Muslim and you do not like the cartoons of Charlie Hebdo, let me tell you one thing that is true, one million times the aggravation of Charlie Hebdo is in your path if you fall to understand your own limited, finite, short, inconsequential life and in fact Charlie Hebdo will be required as much as the Buddha did need food poison on his own death bed.


The perpetrators of the Paris shooting believed themselves to be of Islam, believe themselves to be of good order and conduct, to be doing good but then why do mother cry or this world request the further works of those slain.

NEVER will the few out weigh the meaning of us all.
Never will cruelty of a group outweigh the power of love.


alone you will be accounted, alone or filled you will be valued and passed.

Millions did not leave your mothers womb and just god did not mean a million just like you, but a million you depend on, a billion you depend on.


All religions are false, man is but a coward to his future.

 

I think the point Risky was trying to make is violence rarely teaches people anything other than to be defiant, it's counterproductive.

 

It does smack of double standards don't it, they say how there all for the freedom of speech and expression and even parade in solidarity with France, then they tell people how they are going to take away some of your freedoms, some of your liberties.

It seems less so nowadays, the politicians have done more damage to our civil rights and liberties than any terrorist could ever do IMHO.

 

Similarly, someone who is prepared to kill people for disagreeing with him is going to respond to defiance in only one way. Thus the cycle continues.

 

Well acquiescing to their demand just because they are willing to use violence is also a vicious circle, in the same way paying to release hostages makes it more likely that others will be taken hostage in the future.

You don't reward unacceptable behaviour by giving into their demands otherwise you are demonstrating that bad behaviour gets results, it's something that most people learn when they are children.

 

In the UK? to some degree, yes, but it's limited. you can't have blanket freedom of speech and have legislation against hate speech, doesn't work, it's a contradictory requirement. So the answer is no, you do not have freedom of speech.

Definition of Hate Speech

 

Yup, but as I said: psychologists think in layers. Compliance reinforces their behaviour, but at the same time defiance tends to lead to escalation --especially with groups like this, who think in terms of retaliation. So the trick is to demonstrate non-compliance without getting caught in the game of escalation. The message should not be: You won't win (We'll see if we don't) but We're not playing this game.

This is what I mean with: what do we learn from this. With the appeal to tolerance and calm it seems ironically that it is the Muslims who are doing the learning: that someone has to blink first and step out of the stand-off. Which is good, but shouldn't everybody else?

 

I would say we have nothing to learn.

My personal opinion is that free speech should mean what it says on the tin and that we shouldn't have such laws like the hate speech ones, if someone want's to demonstrate to the world what an A hole they are then go for it, i would draw the line at incitement though.

 

This is the problem though. No society in the history of the human race has ever enjoyed truly free speech, by definition.

Double-standards are rife. Take the Westboro clan - you can guarantee if that was a church of radical Islamists they'd all be enjoying an extended, fun-packed holiday somewhere on the coast of Cuba about now. But because they are purportedly Christians, they are given the full protection of the law and able to preach what they want, threaten who they want. All the while radicalising new recruits and generally putting a serious strain on the system.

As has been stated many times before on here and elsewhere - freedom of speech is an absolute. If you aren't 100% free to say what you want, when you want to whom you want, then you don't have freedom of speech. You have partial freedom of speech. The minute you introduce variables to please one offended subset of society, you will have others contesting the decision or wanting their own exemptions to be made.

Now it is argued that if someone spends a lot of time radicalising young Muslims, all the while never actually committing any crimes of their own, but these young radicals team up and blow themselves to bits in crowded places, there is a good argument for silencing the preacher. But the majority of people don't blame arms manufacturers for the deaths that their produce cause - they are merely the facilitators. Abu Hamza is no doubt a vile piece of work, but he's never been charged with murder, violence, theft etc. but rather incitement to stir up racial hatred and soliciting murder. I'm not here to judge the man (I'd gladly see him necklaced for his views frankly), but it cannot possibly be argued that he has been granted freedom of speech, because his views are in direct contravention with those of the vast majority of his fellow countrymen.

Freedom of speech cannot ever be absolute, therefore it is an ideal that will never exist in the real world.

 

But shouldn't we strive to be as close to that ideal as possible.

 

That depends on what you call the ideal.

See? You are already drawing a line. But what is the difference between voicing an opinion and incitement?

"Well that's just, like, your opinion, man!" --the Great Lebowski

A common tenet in psychology is that you cannot make a person think, feel or do anything; how they choose to think or feel about, or respond to your behaviour --whether consciously or subconsciously-- is a process that happens inside their head and that you ultimately have no control over. Thus everybody is ultimately responsible for their own thinking, feeling and behaving.

This means that you cannot incite people to do anything. You can voice your view that they should, but whether they do is ultimately up to them. Neither can you offend people; they choose to take offense. You're just, like, voicing your opinion, man!

"Guns don't kill people; people kill people." --the NRA

To build on Shirty's comparison, the defense of arms manufacturers is: guns don't kill people; people kill people. They just make and sell the weapons; what people do with them is entirely their responsibility.

"With great power comes hot bitches great responsibility" --Voltaire

In the US people are allowed to carry concealed with the understanding that they are mature enough to handle that right responsibly. Arguably this is a more pertinent matter because when you shoot someone, they do not choose whether or not to be shot. But people are primarily emotional beings, not rational ones, and often the fast automatic processing system of your brain that govern instinctual reflexes and emotional reactions get there before the slow deliberate processing system that governs inihibitory and rational thought processes do. Just like our bodies are vulnerable to bullets, our minds are vulnerable to emotions and ideas. You can't choose not to think and feel and act; only what you (eventually) settle on thinking, feeling and doing. So it could be argued that freedom of speech is a right that needs to be handled responsibly: don't fire off your mouth in a public arena where it is likely to hurt someone. Think before you speak. At the same time, don't simply return fire when someone's opinion has upset you. Think before you reply.

Every freedom has to come with self-discipline, else it is not freedom but absence of boundaries. Every power comes with responsibility; every control with self-control. We all have freedoms, but for that to work in a society where our actions inevitably affect others (else it wouldn't be a society) we have to regulate ourselves. Ideas are more powerful than any weapon (before the gun came the idea of killing), and words are their delivery system. Perhaps we should treat freedom of speech not as a right but as a privilege; a power that comes with responsibility, and that children are taught to wield wisely from the moment they learn their first words. That would be my ideal.

 

A great read Nexxo.

Where do you stand on this? Absolute freedom, or regulated with laws and punishment where reasonably applicable?

On BBC Breakfast one of the reporters described the French cartoon group as "cruel and ..." ... I can't for the life of me remember the other word, but I found it eye-opening and reassuring that what the cartoonists do is not necessarily seen as acceptable. I was a little concerned when a UK community spokesperson said Muslim leaders were asking everyone to restrain and not rise to the bait of the second cartoon of the Prophet. I reckon that's a big ask considering the cartoonists know they are pouring petrol on a fire that was going out. Muslims find it offensive ... Is it really that hard not to draw the Prophet, and instead draw something or someone that will not seriously bait people and enrage them?

Freedom ... human rights ... to risk enraging Muslims? To knowingly frustrate and anger some Muslims? It's kinda like declaring war on their ideas, ideals and beliefs. Isn't it?

Side note, to satisfy myself of the size of the ISIS army, I googled for some images. I found what I was looking for but with a load of images depicting beheadings and heads missing bodies. Going back to the 'kids sometimes need nannying by the state because mum and dad are failing' debate, I am reassured that my default on (although currently off) Internet filter is certainly going to help filter out those images from very young and impressionable developing minds. I emphasise the word 'help'. Another note - is that a month or so back my filter was enabled wrongly by EE (happens about 3-4 times per day tbh), I would never had known had it not been for the fact I as trying to access Bit Tech and it was blocked! I assume it was an error because the BT site is usually accessible even with the filter on. Annoying, but manageable.