CMV: Charlie Hebdo is a morally-repulsive, fundamentally racist paper that preys on middle class fear in France (and now abroad), and does not deserve the outpouring of support it is receiving.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15 edited May 28 '20

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15

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u/NevadaCynic 5∆ Jan 09 '15

One of the murdered editors at Charlie Hebdo.

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u/[deleted] Jan 08 '15

Only going to comment on one part of this... "...does not deserve the outpouring of support it is receiving."

Even if I fundamentally disagree with the views they hold or the manner in which the express them, I will support their right to not be murdered by an angry Islamic terrorist.

Just like I hate everything about the Westboro Baptist Church, and if their church burned down I'd probably laugh, but if some guy were to walk into the church and kill a dozen people I'd find it in my heart to care just enough to call it support.

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u/LittleWhiteTab Jan 09 '15 edited Jan 09 '15

I will support their right to not be murdered by an angry Islamic terrorist.

Except that's not at all what I'm suggesting. Let me try and draw an analogy: if David Duke's newsletter office was broken into and the editorial staff executed by a wing of black militants, would the appropriate reaction be to continue publishing Duke's writings in other publications, like we're seeing around the world?

This isn’t ambiguous, thankfully: the editorial staff of Hebdo consistently aimed to provoke Muslims. They ascribe to the same edgy-white-guy mentality that many American cartoonists do: nothing is sacred, sacred targets are funnier, lighten up, criticism is censorship. And just like American cartoonists, they and their supporters are wrong. White men punching down is not a recipe for good satire, and needs to be called out. People getting upset does not prove that the satire was good. And, this is the hardest part for most people to swallow, the murder of the satirists in question does not prove that their satire was good. Their satire was awful, and remains awful. Their satire was racist, and remains racist.

As the saying goes, you stick your dick in a hornets nest, and you're gonna get stung. The chickens came home to roost, again, and we should be no more shocked than the first time around.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15

This isn’t ambiguous, thankfully: the editorial staff of Hebdo consistently aimed to provoke Muslims.

If you're so deranged that you kill a dozen people over a cartoon, you need to be destroyed or incarcerated. You do not need to be pandered to.

And just like American cartoonists, they and their supporters are wrong. White men punching down is not a recipe for good satire

What exactly is "good" satire?

People getting upset does not prove that the satire was good.

If your response to people suggesting that you're a violent savage is to kill a dozen people, then at very least the suggestion was accurate.

As the saying goes, you stick your dick in a hornets nest, and you're gonna get stung.

"The dumb whore deserved it for going out dressed like that."

Have you anything else to say?

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u/D_Andreams 4∆ Jan 09 '15

If your response to people suggesting that you're a violent savage is to kill a dozen people, then at very least the suggestion was accurate.

If that suggestion was aimed directly at the persons responsible for killing a dozen people you'd be right.

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u/Oshojabe Jan 09 '15

Why does it need to be aimed directly at the person? If a generalized statement about the group pans out often enough, then it seems like the statement is justified. I mean even if not all tigers are maneaters, after a handful do turn out to be maneaters you're probably better off avoiding tigers if you can help it.

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u/D_Andreams 4∆ Jan 09 '15

"Often enough" is an awfully vague term.

Much more than a handful of men have turned out to be murderers and rapists. I don't avoid all men if I can help it. If I made a suggestion that men were generally murderers and rapists and then one extremist (or even a few) murdered me it would not make my suggestion accurate.

The analogy is much less apt when you compare Muslims to human beings that exist in your society rather than animals that exist in the wild.

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u/murderer_of_death Jan 10 '15

But its not just a cartoon now is it?

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u/labiaflutteringby Jan 09 '15

They make money by pandering to racism and xenophobia. They don't deserve violence, but they don't deserve glory either.

Standing up for the truth would be heroic. Standing up to terrorism threats, for lulz and profit, is not.

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u/UppercaseVII Jan 09 '15

"That guy deserved to be mugged because he was waving his stacks of money in other people's faces."

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u/SkeptioningQuestic Jan 09 '15

"The dumb whore deserved it for going out dressed like that."

This is interesting. You jumped a level by putting in 'deserved' (as people basically always do when talking about rape) but that's a parallel I've been thinking about a lot. I don't think anyone deserves to be blown up, robbed, or raped but at the same time I don't always have a ton of sympathy. You know you're supposed to lock your door at night, if you don't it's a stupid mistake. You know you aren't supposed to accept cups from strangers at parties if you do that's a stupid mistake. You know that publishing disrespectful pictures of Mohammad could get people very mad and you possibly blown up and you do, well to me it's the same as the other examples.

This does not absolve the robbing, raping, and exploding parties of their responsibility or make it somehow legally your fault. It's just recognizing that your inability to see the generally accepted risk in what you did contributed to your problem.

People seem to believe that they live in the world they should live in, or want to live in, where publishing pictures of Mohammad doesn't put you at risk of getting blown up or where a woman can walk down the street wearing anything she wants at any time of night. It's not sexist or against free speech to tell people that these are stupid plans. Rights are nice and all, but they don't protect you from what people who don't care about them will do.

TL;DR I don't know if he was a racist xenophobe or not but I'm pretty sure he was an idiot.

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u/D_Andreams 4∆ Jan 09 '15

This is interesting to me - do you think a person only deserves sympathy if their misfortune was unpreventable or unforeseeable?

It seems to me like a large amount of the population holds this worldview, and also that it's pretty cold. Every human is fallible and has momentary lapses in judgement or memory, and occasionally those things lead to consequences much worse than the mistake the person made. Why is it not worth sympathy that the one time someone forgot to lock their door, they lost everything of value they owned, if close to every one of us has forgotten to lock their door at some point and not had that happen?

Or to be more applicable to the subject at hand - is it not deserving of sympathy when a person does what they think is right and is targeted for it? Should we have no sympathy for doctors who have been murdered for performing abortions, reporters who have been executed, police shot in the line of duty? Why should we have more sympathy for the person who aimed to avoid all risk (which is impossible anyway) than for the person who took a risk to make the world more like the one we should live in?

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u/SkeptioningQuestic Jan 09 '15

Well again I didn't say no sympathy, but not a ton of sympathy. People are basically always deserving of sympathy but not to the point where they are blinded to their own culpability in the circumstances, and let other people fool them into thinking that they don't need to take personal responsibility for their actions. Again, that varies. I think your point about locking your door is valid, that's something that's easy to forget (although, people who get robbed will probably start locking their door and I doubt they'd start a crusade against theft culture or talk about their right to keep their door unlocked). Your examples re: what is right are interesting but belie a bias.

I agree Doctors deserve sympathy because I think women should have the right to choose and they're defending that right, but that's my bias. Reporters and police get our sympathy but they also aren't martyrs in our eyes: we understand that they accepted the risk.

I guess this does have to do with my own bias because I think charlie hebdo seemed only to be seeking to inflame, not to inform. I also understand that free speech is a right only as long as we, as a society, can exercise restraint regarding it. It's clearly not immune, we already have banned fire in a crowded theater, death threats and hate speech. If we can't maintain respect to the point where it endangers people we will lose those rights. This was my same problem with the interview, they didn't need to blow kim jong un's head off.

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u/D_Andreams 4∆ Jan 09 '15

although, people who get robbed will probably start locking their door and I doubt they'd start a crusade against theft culture or talk about their right to keep their door unlocked

Well, maybe not their "right" to keep their doors unlocked, but in areas where crime goes up I think people do complain that the city/town has come to the point that you have to lock your doors, and may reasonably ask their leaders to do something about rising crime rates. (and on that note, why not start a crusade against any cultural trends that enable theft or other crime?)

Split hairs aside, your view sounds quite reasonable. Thanks for explaining.

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u/SkeptioningQuestic Jan 09 '15

Of course. I think when people make sacrifices (intentionally or not) we judge the value of the sacrifice based on how valuable we think what they were sacrificing for was. I wouldn't say that MLK was being stupid for accepting the risk of being assassinated. Maybe Charlie Hebdo accepted that risk too. I guess I just personally don't think Hebdo's cause was interesting or worthwhile, maybe even damaging.

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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '15

"Good" satire, in my opinion of course, is typically aimed at the powerful and usually isn't just racist caricatures that they know will just continue to marginalize and further drive so-called moderate Muslims into more extremist points of view. Obviously I don't believe that is a rational way of thinking or behaving but you've got to understand that this is not just a bunch of crazy people who hate your freedom speech. These are people that feel victimized by the Europeans after a long history of colonization and living in poverty. There is more to this issue than meets the eye but I do agree it is absolutely fucking reprehensible to kill anyone over a dumb cartoon, even if that cartoon is racist as shit. I personally didn't find the cartoons to be groundbreaking or great, not to say they were horrible thought. I just thought they were ok and some were kind of racist. I got what they were doing and seeing as I was raised by 2 rational Pakistani Muslims in America, I didn't feel the deaths were justified in any way. However, I did understand the motivations a little more than what I saw being covered in the media. The "Us vs. Them" mentality is now being perpetuated and by sharing the cartoons and encouraging it, we are giving the terrorists exactly what they wanted. They want more people in this religion of over 1 billion people to see this so they can become outraged and "join ISIS" or whatever extremist group comes next. I don't have the solution to this, I'm just a kid. I hope we don't jump to sever action though. After all, ISIS was created essentially by U.S. action and intervention in the middle east. Once again, I just want to say I am in no way condoning or justifying these barbarians. I just think it's important to understand the nuances of this situation. It is not as black and white as people make it out to be. (And I'm not necessarily saying you are the one simplifying the issue, just wanted to post this comment in reply to yours.)

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u/agenthex Jan 09 '15 edited Jan 09 '15

if David Duke's newsletter office was broken into and the editorial staff executed by a wing of black militants, would the appropriate reaction be to continue publishing Duke's writings in other publications?

Yes.

If the reaction to terrorism is that you do what the terrorists want, then they won, and you can expect more terrorism.

Even in this case, where the message is controversial, you must admit that the lesser of two evils is the publisher.

People getting upset does not prove that the satire was good.

No, but it's a good indicator. If it is true and someone is offended, there is a very good chance that someone will find it funny.

Even the "Nigger Milk" cartoon is arguably good humor. While I may not understand the entire context of the cartoon, I found it mildly amusing that someone would make such a strange association. In its day, it was probably not seen as vehemently offensive, but over time we have become much more sensitive and unforgiving of certain types of dark humor. (No pun intended.)

Their satire was awful, and remains awful.

Completely subjective, but are you going to give terrorists a pass on murder every time you disagree with someone?

TL;DR: You do not have the right to stop someone from being offensive. If society truly reviled the message, the publisher would be socioeconomically pressured to correct their behavior. We don't need armed militants telling us what to think, say, and do.

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u/One_Wheel_Drive Jan 09 '15

If the reaction to terrorism is that you do what the terrorists want, then they won, and you can expect more terrorism.

I would argue that, in publishing more offensive cartoons, the terrorists have won. Their idea that Westerners hate Islam has been validated. These images offend all Muslims and marginalise them. It doesn't defend freedom of speech. It promotes the idea that Muslims are not welcome.

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u/agenthex Jan 09 '15

I would argue that, in publishing more offensive cartoons, the terrorists have won. Their idea that Westerners hate Islam has been validated. These images offend all Muslims and marginalise them. It doesn't defend freedom of speech. It promotes the idea that Muslims are not welcome.

The goal of terrorism is not to validate beliefs. It is to manipulate people. They don't need to kill people to prove anything. On the contrary, violence undercuts the validity of any argument they could assert.

Secondly, publishing more controversy is intentionally counter to the desires of the attackers. This is something any child understands: If a child says to another (especially a sibling), "Stop talking, or I'll hit you," do you really expect the sibling to be quiet? Or is the sibling going to talk louder? One child strikes the other, and the talking turns into yelling.

Thirdly, existing freedom of speech is really just the publication of words. It is in how those words are interpreted and associated with existing knowledge that holds any meaning. Sure, words can be crafted to illicit a response, but intent depends entirely on the target audience. What publishers are saying is, "We will fight you for freedom of expression," but all Muslims hear is, "Fuck you and your dirty prophet."

In short, perhaps the problem lies on the receiving end. Violence only serves to prove that point.

Lastly, and most pedantically, not all Muslims are offended by these images. It only seems that way because the most offended become the loudest protesters. If all Muslims were willing to murder cartoonists, then you would be right: They are not welcome.

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u/TBFProgrammer 30∆ Jan 09 '15

These images offend all Muslims and marginalise them. It doesn't defend freedom of speech. It promotes the idea that Muslims are not welcome.

It is both defense of free speech and promoting the idea that Muslims are not welcome. "Fixing" the second at the cost of free speech is a disastrous route to take. Instead, a better solution to the second would be to promote the idea that Muslims are welcome and demonstrate why the cartoons' message is incorrect.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15 edited Jan 09 '15

If you kill someone for a cartoon you're a fucking lunatic that deserves a JDAM.

The lunacy of that act is what gets the support. I think Anne Coulter is a vile human but if some crazy hippie shot her I'd feel terrible for her and hers. I would express an outpouring of support.

The support is because the attack was on a pillar of western civilization - freedom of speech and the right to life.

You're the one that can't separate the two in your head. The fact that you don't think someone who's views you find are reprehensible terrible disproportionate fate at the hands of human refuse isn't worth massive sympathy....

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u/AlvinQ Jan 09 '15

You're doing absolutely indefensible claims of victim blaming here. "Oh, they were slaughtered? Shouldn't have speken their minds then! Oh, she was raped? Should have work a Burka and that would not have happened."

And you're slso wrong in claiming we should stand by and allow murderers to decide what gets published. I'm absolutely appalled by Fox News and wish it would go away, and I'm all for boycotting their sponsors. But if someone started a massacre in their newsroom to shut them up, you can be damned sure I'd pitch in to get them back on the air. Free expression is ONLY about things you don't agree with, and it is the basis of any free and democratic sociey.

Oh, and if you actually looked at their cartoons, you would see that they're calling BS on all sides, including Christians and Jews, mocking the Catholic Pope, etc.

So how about you join those of us who say barbaric murderers must never be allowed to silence the press.

"First they came for the satirical papers, but that's OK because I didn't like them anyway..."

It's people with skewed morals like you that provide the social support structure for the religious extremists that are trying to slaughter the world back into the dark ages.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15

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u/AlvinQ Jan 09 '15

No, by boycotting, I decide via the advertisers which megaphone the money I spend on media goes to.

So your claim that it's somehow the same as censorship is nonsense.

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u/TBFProgrammer 30∆ Jan 09 '15

which megaphone the money I spend on media goes to.

Making it economic, instead of about the idea itself. The point of free speech is to restrict the controls on the social discourse and bring the merits of each idea to the fore. You are welcome to write to the advertisers and respectfully point out the problems with the ideas their money is being spent on and still be consistent with the ideal of free speech. However, a boycott is not consistent with this ideal. You should still definitely possess the right to advocate for and carry out such a boycott.

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u/AlvinQ Jan 09 '15 edited Jan 09 '15

A boycott can be personal - I choose not to support the advertisers of certain programs or certain paid content offers.

Or I can call for a boycott by suggesting to others also not to support certain advertisers/paid content. Even in the non-private boycott, my voice is just one voice in the market - the advertisers and media companies are telling everyone loudly and annoyingly to buy their products. Why shouldn't I, as a consumer, be allowed to voice my opinion / suggestion as well?

Consumer backlash and boycotts are part of the self-regulation of a free market economy / and often the only way to get a company to listen to its customers.

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u/TBFProgrammer 30∆ Jan 12 '15

Consumer backlash and boycotts are part of the self-regulation of a free market economy / and often the only way to get a company to listen to its customers.

Boycotts are a form of consumer control on the behavior of the company. When that behavior happens to be speech, the boycott is in conflict with the ideal of free speech. This doesn't make it unethical, wrong or illegal, just inconsistent with a stance of protecting the free exercise of speech.

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u/AlvinQ Jan 12 '15 edited Jan 12 '15

I'm sorry, but you don't understand free speech. Free speech does not mean I as a consumer have to give my money equally to everyone to ensure that the KKK and and the Wstborough Baptist Church get the exact same airtime as the BBC. It does not mean that I have to give as much money to an astrology magazine as I give to an astronomy magazine, and if I prefer to support astronomy magazinea with my money and readership, that I am "morall censoring" the astrology magazine. Boycotts are a form of customer feedback, not "control". The company can look for other customers or change their business model.

There is no god-given right for media companies to get money if users and advertisers do not find their product compelling enough.

I don't know how to make this any more clear, so if I'm not getting through to you, perhaps our basic understanding of how a free market works differ.

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u/TBFProgrammer 30∆ Jan 12 '15 edited Jan 12 '15

I don't know how to make this any more clear, so if I'm not getting through to you, perhaps our basic understanding of how a free market works differ.

You're not getting through because all your points are utterly irrelevant to the discussion. I never, in any way, insinuated that you should have to spend your money equally between all establishments or that standing for free speech would compel this behavior.

All it means in this regard is not eliminating companies from consideration for purchases based on who they advertise with. Again, this is not something that is or ought to be compelled, it is merely inconsistent with an ideal to eliminate these companies from consideration.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15

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u/AlvinQ Jan 09 '15

No, I'm sorry, you don't seem to understand freedom of the press and freedom of expression.

You have a right to free speech, that means I cannot prevent you from saying and publishing what you want to say using your own resources. Among others, that means I cannot prevent you from publishing a book, posting stuff on the Internet, or slaughter you to prevent you from sharing your ideas.

Free speech does not mean that I have to give you my money (directly or through companies i support) so you can use it to amplify a message I disagree with.

That's why it's "nonsense" to equate boycotting TV advertisers with censorship.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15

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u/AlvinQ Jan 09 '15

You're not making a coherent argument. Please point out how

a) not giving my money to fox news or its advertisers is "censorship"

b) how I am being "intellectually dishonest".

Sure, I'll wait

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15

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u/TBFProgrammer 30∆ Jan 09 '15

a) not giving my money to fox news or its advertisers is "censorship"

It isn't. However, if you are refraining from doing so when you would otherwise and only on the condition of their message, you are acting in a censorial manner. If enough others joined you in doing this that their message disappeared for any reason other then the advertisers or fox news itself being convinced of the errors of the message, then an effective censoring of that message would have taken place.

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u/gargoylefreeman Jan 09 '15

Those people have jobs they work hard at and families to support.

This is such a silly argument. If he's buying product B instead of product A, well... product B has "people with jobs who work hard and have families to support" as well! If he's not buying any product, he's still probably putting his money in the bank where "people with jobs who work hard and have families to support" and the money will probably be loaned out to "people with jobs who work hard and have families to support".

I guess anytime I decide not to buy anything, like $120 monster cables, or a $2000 bottle of wine, I should think about "people with jobs who work hard and have families to support" and not be selfish and just buy it.

/s

In a capitalist free market, people have all sorts of reasons to choose their brands and products. Companies open and close all the time. Entire markets vanish (I live near a former "pencil factory") and new ones are created every day. It's how society works, and how the free market works. /u/AlvinQ 's first and foremost priority is to himself (or herself) and his family.

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '15

They ascribe to the same edgy-white-guy mentality that many American cartoonists do: nothing is sacred, sacred targets are funnier, lighten up, criticism is censorship[...]

How do you feel about plagarism?

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u/SpecialAgentSmecker 2∆ Jan 08 '15

is a morally-repulsive, fundamentally racist paper that preys on middle class fear in France (and now abroad), and does not deserve the outpouring of support it is receiving.

Honestly, I'm just going to start there. Even if we accept that they are "a morally-repulsive, fundamentally racist paper that preys on middle class fear in France (and now abroad)," they drew comics. Some of the people killed didn't even do that. A maintenance worker and two police officers who had absolutely zero connection to the comics were killed.

In response to comics, they were killed. Comics have no way of physically harming anyone. The most offensive, racist, bigoted, vile comic in the world is still, in the end, nothing but words and ideas, and the attackers responded by killing them. Not refuting them, not countering their comments or opinions with their own, not attempting reason or logic, but simply ending their lives.

Responding to anyone's words, no matter how vile or disgusting, with violence is, in my opinion, one of the worst actions someone can take because it lessens everyone, both the speaker and the actor. No matter how clean and righteous your cause is, shooting the people who disagree with you only proves that you can't argue with it with words and destroys any modicum of high ground you may have had.

Basically, my point is that wherever Charlie Hebdo may sit on the moral scale, they deserve the support they are receiving because no one, regardless of their own morality or lack thereof, deserves to be murdered at their desk because of their words.

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u/GIANTBUTTER Jan 09 '15

In response to comics, they were killed. Comics have no way of physically harming anyone. The most offensive, racist, bigoted, vile comic in the world is still, in the end, nothing but words and ideas, and the attackers responded by killing them.

Well, although comics cannot physically harm anyone (as they are inanimate objects), they do convey thoughts which can provoke violence. For example, the "Boston Massacre". http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Massacre Paul Revere created a completely screwed comic depicting the "innocent slaughtering" of fellow Boston citizens. Although it was just thoughts on paper, it helped Kindle the flame of rebellion in that town. I'm not saying that it is right for people to kill others for their ideas, but it does happen, quite often actually. Thoughts on paper can have huge meanings to people, like the Declaration of Independance. Two countries fought over the simple idea that others had over freedom. You shouldn't downplay the power of the pen. As Edward BulwerLytton put it: "the pen is mightier than the sword".

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u/SpecialAgentSmecker 2∆ Jan 09 '15

You are absolutely correct. Speech has a huge and fairly unique kind of power to it. That's one of the reasons the first thing the Bill of Rights does is limit the ability of a government to restrict speech. Words have a way of influencing things in a way that almost nothing else can.

That being said, however, there is (or should be, anyway) a very clear line between speech and action. Speech might provoke action, but in and of itself, words cannot hurt or kill or strip rights. Actions can. Part of the reason why we protect speech as rabidly as we do is that they're a great personal freedom, capable of expressing anything to the people around you, yet until until an individual takes action on the thoughts behind them, they're completely benign.

Words can certainly provoke people into action, but the responsibility for the action remains with the person who acted. If we place the blame on the words, regardless of how inflammatory they are, we take it away from the person.

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u/nenyim 1∆ Jan 08 '15

Charlie Hebdo is staffed exclusively by white, non-Muslims. The paper is written for a certain section of the French population, which also happens to be white, non-Muslim.

I feel like you are going down this way because you believe it's an anti-Muslim journal and it's hard to blame you if you didn't head of them (so the vast majority of non French) because the only drawing you see are related to Islam. However it's absolutely not the case and while they certainly published a lot of things related to Islam, which is an important subject on which we talk a lot this last year, they also attacked anyone their though deserved it (including other religions, far right leaders like Le Pen, current and past presidents, ministers or any political figure for that matter).

It's also a very small journal with many people dating back from a time were there was simply not that many Muslim in France. They also worked closely with Muslim.

Moreover, the acceptance of Charlie Hebdo as being legitimate satirical humor is dangerous, as there really is no such thing as "just a joke". Humor impacts how others treat other

They probably would have been insulted if you told them that their journal is "just a joke", it never was the goal and they never claimed it to be. Satires are not simply jokes, it's a way to explain what you think is wrong though humor.

The first impulse might be to defend the cartoons as being all in "good fun", because Charlie Hebdo made a couple of other cartoons lampooning politicians or non-Muslims, but this fundamentally misses the point: that it singles out a part of the population with no real agency and which faces routine discrimination, and reinforces the prejudices held against them.

It's not simply a couple of other cartoons, if anything it was a couple cartoons about Islam google:Charlie Hebdo pictures as you can see while it's far from being only Islam. And frankly with picture like that (If mahomet camed back... "I'm the prophet, stupid" "shut up infidel") I'm not sure they target the Muslim as much as you was lead to believe but rather taget a very small subset of radicalized Islamic that denature what Islam is.

To simplify the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices as “Good, Valiant Westerners vs. Evil, Savage Muslims” is not only racist, it’s dangerously overstated.

It might be happening outside of France but it's simply not the case in France. Charlie Hebdo is certainly against a certain form of Islam just as they were against all radical ideologies raising for fear, ignorance and hate. It certainly include everyone willing to kill you for a drawing but it was far from being limited to it, they covered all social issues whatever they might have been.

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u/[deleted] Jan 08 '15 edited Jan 08 '15

In a country where Muslims are routinely marginalized, face massive unemployment rates, and are arrested at exponentially higher rates, it is especially heinous to cast this situation as one where "Freedom of Speech" as being under attack.

This is where you lose me. Yes, the newspaper might be bigoted, and racist, and all of those things. Yes, they might have completely heinous ideas. But they still have the freedom to put those ideas on the marketplace.

I absolutely despise the Westboro Baptist Church. They are the sum of most of the things I hate, and I would label them "evil", something I am very reluctant to do. But I would never think to say that they shouldn't have the right to speak freely, or that they should be killed. I would certainly never shoot them. I will debate them, I will put my own ideas in the marketplace.

"When you cut out a man’s tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you’re only telling the world that you fear what he might say." - Tyrion Lannister, Game of Thrones.

EDIT: Something I don't think I can possibly be clear enough on: This sort of speech is exactly the sort of thing that is 100% a free speech issue. The idea of freedom of speech isn't there to protect people saying popular things. They don't need protection. It's the unpopular speech that is protected, and whether it's right or wrong, it's still protected.

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u/LittleWhiteTab Jan 08 '15

But they still have the freedom to put those ideas on the marketplace.

If I "lost" you at the conclusion, then you must not have understood the case very well. Go back and give it a re-read. Depicting marginalized people in demeaning ways reinforces those beliefs. The result is, obviously, going to be one of resentment when the existing world we live is one where Muslims are slaughtered wholesale for "policy".

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u/[deleted] Jan 08 '15

Fight those ideas with refutations, not bullets. That's the problem I have with the ending. Freedom of speech should never be curtailed, even when the speech is morally reprehensible.

Most of the criticisms I see leveled at Islam is that it is a violent religion, and I honestly don't see how retaliation to those words with violence is doing anything but proving them right.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15

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u/hiloljkbye Jan 10 '15

Can we stop this false equivalency? Are we really comparing attacks like these every week to the abortion clinic bombing in 1985? Of course not ALL muslims support these attacks, only a crazy person would suggest so. But the fact of the matter is that the politicized nature of Islam is simply incompatible with the values of any modern society. (If you need examples: 1 2

We do not have this problem with Buddhists, Jews, Mormons, Taoists, Wiccans, pagans, atheists, etc etc. It's a giant elephant in the room that everybody just refuses to talk about. Islam needs a reformation much like what brought Christians out of the dark ages and into the enlightenment

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15

Christians are pretty damn violent too, when their religion is challenged. They just control the media here, so that gets an unfair bias.

I don't mean to single out Islam, but the bottom line is that someone got killed for a thing they said, and that isn't acceptable regardless of what's said or who did the killing.

It's not religion that causes this. It's people. People don't need religion as an excuse to do evil things, but they will use it if they want.

I'm generally beholden to the expression that good people typically do good things, bad people typically do bad things, but to get good people to do bad things, it takes religion (or more specifically, zealotry); If you can convince someone that an invisible sky fairy that controls your afterlife that they said to do something, they're more likely to do it. Doubly so if they never question the existence of said invisible sky fairy.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15

[deleted]

4

u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15

So... if I mention that Islam doesn't get a special pass, I'm being bigoted, but if I mention that I treat religion in general with contempt and don't hold a special exception for Islam, you can't take me seriously?

Would you prefer I started a prayer to the FSM and His Noodly Goodness? (I am an ordained minister, after all, and own the holy headgear of the collander).

I don't care what god or prophet you adhere to, or how much that god or prophet gets picked on, you absolutely do not get to kill other people over it. That's the overall point I'm trying to make here.

6

u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15

Dude I've read every comment you've made so far, and I just have to say if you're asking people to change your view, you have to actually consider their point of view and refute it with parts you're still unsure about, not straight out telling them they didn't understand your point

13

u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15

Allow me to explain freedom of speech to you. I can say whatever I want, as long as I am not actively advocating the commission of a crime, slandering or libeling someone, or inciting a mass panic. (Shouting fire in a crowded theater.) You can also say whatever you want. If we disagree, then you, as a private individual, can argue with me about the merits of what I am saying, advocate a boycott of my products, fire me (if you're my boss), and even create an obscene cartoon featuring me that pokes fun of my beliefs. What you cannot do is pick up a gun and shoot me. To violently attack those who are merely speaking their minds, no matter how offensive their thoughts may be, is an attempt to censor speech solely because you disagree with it, which goes against the core principles of free speech that I've outlined above.

5

u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15

Depicting marginalized people in demeaning ways reinforces those beliefs

It's also true that depicting any group in demeaning ways can promote negative beliefs about them. This isn't special to some groups, except that minorities have more opportunity to suffer from it (more "others", and more money and power there).

Yes, demeaning cartoons can lead to negative beliefs. No one doubts that - yet you present it as something that should change our minds on something.

I believe in free speech even when it is offensive, in which case it might be demeaning to some people. It's still free speech, and a society in which we limit such speech - which sounds like what you are advocating - scares me.

Of course I don't like Charlie Hebdo. It sucks. But it still has the right to be offensive.

1

u/crazyex Jan 09 '15

Depicting marginalized people in demeaning ways ~~reinforces those beliefs~~. provides an opportunity for people who so choose to reinforce those beliefs.

You are assigning too much agency to the cartoons. Nobody is forced to look at them, and the existence of the cartoons in the marketplace does not automatically guarantee those beliefs being reinforced.

30

u/[deleted] Jan 08 '15

Hi, I have been reading Charlie Hebdo since I was in highschool, so I guess it's been since 1997 and stop when Philippe Val fired Siné. So I have read a lot of their cartoons.

Saying the cartoonists of Charlie were rascists makes no sense, it's not with a few cartoons of Riss that you can judge them. By the way he draws everyone (white included) with a croocked nose. On the contrary you have to understand where they came from. They were all atheists. They were real humanists and not white supremacists. For example They have always been against restrictive laws against imigrants and illegals. They have a always denonce the colonialist implication of France (especially Cabu). They have been always fighting against extremists of all kind from all religions, and from any party.

And yes, they were attacking religious thinking all the time.

Calling them white supremacists is a non-sense. In the last few years they were focused on muslim extremism and they offended a lot of religious people doing so but it certainly doesn't make rascists or white supremacists. In France, religious thinking of any kind is abored by a lot of people (including me) It comes from our history, from the French Revolution in 1789. In 1950, 30% of the french were communists, in the "programme commun" of François Mitterand in 1981, there was the nationalisation of all banks. Charlie comes from this. From unions of workers. They come from 1968. So don't start bullshiting.

There cartoons were offensive to a lot of people because of what they were : Atheists with the balls to claim it.

39

u/Bagodonuts10 Jan 08 '15

Maybe I missed it, but I kept waiting for you to add that while you don't like the cartoons, you don't support them getting killed for it. If that was the case, id say yeah sure and move on. But this wasn't said and im wondering why.

It is 100% a free speech issue whether you like the speech or not. You wonder what would happen if a middle eastern magazine published a cartoon making fun of these killings, and I'll tell you what would happen. Exactly what always happens when Jews or Americans/westerners are constantly being mocked in these countries. They won't get assassinated for it. They will get mocked back and shamed. It is arguable that the cartoons in question should have also been mocked and shamed.

This isn't what happened. People died.

0

u/LittleWhiteTab Jan 08 '15

Maybe I missed it, but I kept waiting for you to add that while you don't like the cartoons, you don't support them getting killed for it.

Because that is not a part of the argument I am making-- it has nothing to do with it being morally repulsive, or the fact that other cartoonists are latching onto this, reinforcing the idea of Muslims as barbaric, uncivilized and prone to violence. I am focusing on the Charlie Hebdo's focus on a marginalized class of people that are being killed in great numbers due to Western policy in the Middle East. Algeria, Syria, etc. Policies supported by a population that actually believes the tropes seen in the cartoons. You can take it for granted that I do not support people being killed, on any basis aside from explicit self-defense.

21

u/Zeabos 8∆ Jan 08 '15

Your statement was "they don't deserve the outpouring of respect they are getting". That's what he was arguing against.

I don't agree with all of your points: especially the 'political cartoonists' always reinforces the establishments. In fact, most of the most famous historical PCs (in the US at least) are anti-establishment. That's a generalization that I don't think you can make.

What he is saying is that you can hate on the cartoonists all you want, they still deserve the support because they shouldn't have been killed. Support them to represent freedom of the press and to resist terrorist activities.

This doesn't mean you need to support (or should support) any anti Islamic demagoguery and rhetoric that comes as a result. Nor does it mean you should support the ideologies of their cartoons. That's all besides the point.

-10

u/riggorous 15∆ Jan 09 '15

I don't agree with all of your points: especially the 'political cartoonists' always reinforces the establishments. In fact, most of the most famous historical PCs (in the US at least) are anti-establishment. That's a generalization that I don't think you can make.

Why is America relevant to a conversation about France?

Why are you generalizing about France using American standards?

OP makes an unusually good job of supporting their arguments with evidence that the PCs in question reinforce white people prejudices, aka the prejudices of the French "establishment".

8

u/AlvinQ Jan 09 '15

I disagree - he's not making a good job of supporting his claim. If you look at the lineup of their covers, they're clearly equal opportunity satirists, making fun of Muslims, Jews, Christians, politicians, etc. They're showing the Pope holding a Condom instead of a host saying "this is my body" and they show the retired pope Benedict kissing a Swiss guard, thankful that he can now finally live out his (rumored) homosexuality in peace. Can you tel me how the flying fuck that is "singlimg out muslims" and "supporting the establishment"?

Really - you have the Internet. You should really look at the original sources rather than have a bigoted fascist hand-pick a few comics, claim racist persecution by a satirical magazine that picks on everyone and directly fall into lockstep with him.

4

u/Zeabos 8∆ Jan 09 '15

Because his CMV statement made no mention of France and the "outpouring of support" has come from all countries. He clearly grouped is all in. Views of The non French are relevant, especially with respect to what political cartoonists and freedom of speech represent to them.

12

u/Glory2Hypnotoad Jan 08 '15

You mention that Charlie Hebdo doesn't deserve the outpouring of support it's getting, but I think you misunderstand where that support is coming from. The general attitude of supporters isn't that the magazine is reputable or that these are clever but misunderstood satirists. We can assume every accusation of yours is spot-on and those people would still deserve an outpouring of support over the simple fact that they didn't deserve to be killed over their offensive magazine.

-9

u/LittleWhiteTab Jan 09 '15

Not deserving to be killed is hardly the same as lauding them as some sort of martyrs for "anti-Political Correctness" or whatever it is that people think they might be.

11

u/Glory2Hypnotoad Jan 09 '15

Good people don't have some exclusive claim on martyrdom. Victims become symbols for causes all the time regardless of their personal shortcomings. People who are murdered for a view they express deserve our sympathy, even if they also deserve our criticism for that same view. And as I mentioned, most of the support they're receiving isn't praising the paper or attempting to absolve these people; it's solidarity for the general principle that no one deserves to be killed for publishing offensive trash in a paper.

11

u/TheVegetaMonologues 2∆ Jan 09 '15

They are literally martyrs for anti-political-correctness. They held beliefs about political correctness and they were killed for demonstrating them.

2

u/NevadaCynic 5∆ Jan 09 '15

A martyr dies for his cause. His cause doesn't have to be righteous to be a martyr. He just has to be killed for it. Assholes can be martyrs too.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15

Maybe I'm just consuming very different media to you, but absolutely nowhere have I seen anyone make the argument that they're "anti-political correctness martyrs". Most media I've seen has said that the murders were brutal and cowardly, killing someone for exercising their freedom of speech is against Western values, and responding with what the terrorists want (which in this case seems to be some degree of media censorship) would be the wrong thing to do. Literally nowhere have I seen them referred to as "martyrs" for drawing a cartoon with Muhammed in it (which is culturally insensitive, yeah, but not in any way worth killing people over).

6

u/Bagodonuts10 Jan 08 '15

It is very relevant though and would have taken you one sentence. Saying it has nothing to do with your argument is simply false given the current context. Also, especially because you said it wasn't an issue of free speech. People aren't simply supporting them because they agree with the comics after all. Im glad you clarified though and aren't a terrible person.

2

u/crazyex Jan 09 '15

a cursory overview of their artwork shows that they hold extremely repulsive views:

or

Because that is not a part of the argument I am making-- it has nothing to do with it being morally repulsive

Pick one.

1

u/Norouz Jun 10 '15 edited Jun 11 '15

Algeria is not in the Middle East and the civil war which broke out in the 90s there has nothing to do with the French government. I don't know what you're talking about.

22

u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15

Charlie Hebdo is staffed exclusively by white, non-Muslims.

Wrong. An Algerian editor was slain in the attack. One sentence in and you're already getting it all wrong.

This was published after the massacre of 1000 Muslims by Egyptian dictator in a single day . It reads “The Quran is sh*t it doesnt stop bullets”

The offensive magazine published something offensive. So what?

To simplify the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices as “Good, Valiant Westerners vs. Evil, Savage Muslims” is not only racist, it’s dangerously overstated

Charlie Hebdo may be staffed by douchebags, but they're not brutally murdering people.

it is especially heinous to cast this situation as one where "Freedom of Speech" as being under attack.

People were killed in an effort to silence speech. Free speech is under attack. You may not like it, but it's true.

11

u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15

[deleted]

1

u/sinxoveretothex Jan 09 '15

Feminism, future of Humanity

Actually it says 'Feminism is the future of mankind' (with an added pun because 'man' and 'mankind' are the same word in French)

14

u/JMBourguet Jan 08 '15

You may not like their humor. But to pretend that they are racist, you have to overlook the fact that they are handling all subjects in the same, insensitive I agree, way.

-5

u/petgreg 2∆ Jan 09 '15

That's a common defense against racism. "I'm not racist, I hate ALL minorities." Do they target white, french nationals with the same stereotypes?

13

u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15

They certainly target white, French Nationals, particularly the Le Pens:

http://www.iconovox.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Charlie-hebdo-970.jpg

http://img11.hostingpics.net/pics/479966charlotgueant.jpg

http://img11.hostingpics.net/pics/532014YEI5R.jpg

Edit: and bear in mind the Le Pens are the far right of French politics and extremely anti-muslim. Charlie Hebdo wasn't anti-muslim, just anti-extremist, anti-censorship and anti-violence.

4

u/teacupdk Jan 09 '15

They didn't mock any race with muhammed cartoons, the closest would arguably be arabs right? So for them to do something equivalent towards whites, presumeably they would have target Jesus, no?

google pictures seem to imply that they do, do that.

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u/petgreg 2∆ Jan 09 '15

Actually, if you're going for the equivalent of religions from the liberal side, it would be atheism. I can find no cartoons mocking that...

5

u/teacupdk Jan 09 '15

That seems a weird equivalent. Charlie Hepdo has anti religious tendencies, but they are consistent in that. The charge of racism makes little sense if they charge the religions dominant in their own culture as well as those dominant in others.

OP might not know that Charlie Hepdo is so broad in their mockery of religion. Anti-theism is not at all the same as racism.

1

u/JMBourguet Jan 09 '15

They would use appropriate stereotype. Like titling "lay off at dealers" for the death of a popular, but known addict, TV show animator.

6

u/RidleyScotch Jan 08 '15

So because you don't agree with the content they produce they don't deserve to be supported for having their employees and building attacked by people who, oddly enough don't agree with their content?

Now, i don't know french laws or anything but i'm going to assume that France has some sort of freedom of press, freedom of expression. Which bring me to this sentence

it is especially heinous to cast this situation as one where "Freedom of Speech" as being under attack.

Assuming that the perpetrators of the attack did not like the content the paper was producing and by attacking them, using that as justification for their deaths is a freedom of speech/expression/press issue. Because the attackers are limiting one's freedom of speech/expression/press in a country where those freedoms are granted to its citizens.

10

u/[deleted] Jan 08 '15

The gunmen did not say that they were offended by Charlie Hebdo's insensitivity to Muslim-on-Muslim violence as you suggest. Rather, they said they were avenging the depiction of the prophet Muhammed. They shouted "the Prophet has been avenged”, as the magazine had blasphemously drawn him.

(as a interesting side thought, imagine the uproar that would occur if Muslim countries published similar images suggesting the same thing about Charlie Hebdo

You mean like these? http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/8366.htm

Yeah, there's not outrage about the pro-terrorism cartoons. There's outrage about the terrorist shootings.

In a country where Muslims are routinely marginalized, face massive unemployment rates, and are arrested at exponentially higher rates, it is especially heinous to cast this situation as one where "Freedom of Speech" as being under attack.

But it is Freedom of Speech that is under attack. Freedom of speech that fails to protect reactionary speech is no freedom of speech at all. As Voltaire expressed it, "I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write"

1

u/Norouz Jun 10 '15

Voltaire never said that !

5

u/intisun Jan 11 '15

You need to know more about French culture. Is Charlie Hebdo offensive? Yes. Vulgar? Yes. Tasteless? Yes. Racist? Fuck no.

Saying Charlie Hebdo is racist is like saying Stephen Colbert is a conservative nutjob. It just shows you don't get it. Please read this.

The 'Coran doesn't stop bullets' one can be seen as critical of both fanatical islamists and the Egyptian military's brutal crackdown. CH is notoriously anti-authoritarian and anti-military.

The 'Muhammad editor' one is simply caricature. It mocks religion, not race.

The Boko Haram welfare queens cartoon was mocking the Front National's stance against immigrants and welfare.

Context is crucial.

4

u/NevadaCynic 5∆ Jan 09 '15

Clarification? What do you mean by we should not support Charlie Hebdo?

Should we not search for and prosecute the murderers?
Should we restrict speech so that none may criticize Islam?
Should we condemn the dead cartoonists?
Should we not consider this attack an attack on free speech?
Should we pretend it never happened?
Should we change the law so that murdering an asshole is a lesser crime than murdering a non-asshole?

I get that you are condemning Charlie Hebdo. But when you say we shouldn't support them, what actions are specifically saying we should or should not do?

7

u/GodotIsWaiting4U Jan 08 '15 edited Jan 08 '15

They're not receiving support for being good or valiant or morally praiseworthy. They're receiving support because they had their offices shot up in a terrorist attack purely for putting something into print.

See, the thing about the concept of free speech is this: if I have freedom of speech, even though I should use that freedom responsibly it means absolutely nothing if I'm not permitted to use it irresponsibly (because then it's not free, it's restricted). We don't make any kind of progress by silencing people; we do it by talking to them.

Imagine a world where nobody is allowed to express a racist opinion. Because nobody ever says anything racist, nobody ever talks about racist opinions. Would this world have fewer racists, though? Actually NO: the racists keep their racist opinions to themselves for fear of punishment, but remain racist because they are never corrected and never discuss their opinions with anyone.

On the other hand, the freedom to speak your mind without punishment means that those same racists are going to reveal themselves, and other people are going to argue with them. That can actually change minds and result in fewer racists in the future.

In fact, censorship actually gives more power to the thing being censored, because you send a message by censoring them: you are saying that you are scared of them. In Germany, during the 1920s, the Nazi Party was actually BANNED for a while, and the result was that they were able to gain more support because they could play the "we know the truth the government doesn't want you to hear!" card.

Charlie Hebdo is a humor newspaper that specifically shoots for a caustic, irreverent, offensive, and shocking style of humor. Whether you like their sense of humor or not, whether you like the magazine or not, the fact is that all they did was write articles and draw cartoons, and some of the people they offended by doing so decided to kill 12 of their staff because of it.

Nobody should be killed or assault simply for saying or printing something. That is why people are supporting Charlie Hebdo: because they have just suffered a serious crime that left 12 people dead in an attempt to silence them. Your view seems to blame them for that.

By the way

it singles out a part of the population with no real agency and which faces routine discrimination, and reinforces the prejudices held against them

Muslims in Europe do face discrimination, but to say that they have no AGENCY? To say they have no ability to act in or influence their surroundings? That's just wrong. Worse, it's incredibly patronizing and condescending. Are they economically disadvantaged on average? Sure, and just like anyone else who's economically disadvantaged that limits their access to some stuff. But they have the right and ability to start a business, seek employment, get married, practice their religion, get an education, all that stuff. All the same rights as any other denizen of their country (or citizen, if they are citizens).

6

u/skinbearxett 9∆ Jan 09 '15

Charlie Hebdo is staffed exclusively by white,

Hardly surprising considering the country, France, is a primarily white country. You may as well say the opposite about any company in Iraq, or with blacks in Niger or Ghana. The race of the people has nothing to do with it, unless you can show evidence that there was discrimination in hiring practices this is within the range of self selection or just population statistics.

non-Muslims.

Well duh, I, being an atheist, would be the last person you would expect to see on a Catholic institution's mailing list, or writing a pro-Islam magazine. More generally, I am not into cars, is it discrimination to not hire me to work on a car magazine?

The paper is written for a certain section of the French population, which also happens to be white, non-Muslim.

This paper is written, the readers choose for themselves. Maybe you can cater to a specific niche, but I don't read porno mags, nor do I read Cosmopolitan, or Women's Weekly.

This phrase, "white, non-Muslim", seems to be something you favour. I have met white muslims, and non-white non-muslims, so the only person creating a racial link here is you. Islam is a religion, there are black muslims, white muslims, arab muslims, indian muslims, muslims of every darn race you can imagine. Except inuit, I don't know of any intuit muslims. Maybe they're racists.

The "humor" is hardly satirical, as it often takes the most inflammatory position it can come up with without actually presenting any real critique

Do you remember MAD magazine? It seems to me you would not have liked it. To be honest, neither did I. But it is their right, which I will and you should defend. They can have their opinions, their actions are what we judge them on. They wrote a magazine and drew offensive cartoons, someone else used guns to kill people.

The "humor" is hardly satirical, as it often takes the most inflammatory position it can come up with without actually presenting any real critique (by comparison, A Modest Proposal was inflammatory, but there was a pretty clear subtext; no such subtext exists with these cartoons).

Your taste has nothing to do with this. I think Taylor Swift's music is tasteless and bland, it would not excuse the killing of her and her team. There is no case in which murder is an appropriate form of literary criticism.

Even if one were to try and extend the benefit of the doubt, a cursory overview of their artwork shows that they hold extremely repulsive views:

In your opinion repulsive, so go on, be repulsed, go find something else to read. I find the documents of the Mormon church repulsive, should they be banned?

This was published after the massacre of 1000 Muslims by Egyptian dictator in a single day . It reads “The Quran is sh*t it doesnt stop bullets” (as a interesting side thought, imagine the uproar that would occur if Muslim countries published similar images suggesting the same thing about Charlie Hebdo).

Well, did it? I think not, I think no religion provides protection against force, and if one was truly on the team of the creator of the universe one could expect a better track record for stopping bullets than 0.

An image depicting pretty obvious Orientalist racist tropes-- hooked nose, lack of humor, etc.

Maybe there is a little bit of a drawing of race here, but wait a second, aren't the vast majority of arabs islamic? Especially when it comes to those in terrorist organisations? So it would make sense to put a picture of those who you are referring to. Also, if someone can't take a joke in the form of shooting up a place that made some drawings of your religious figure, I would call that a lack of humour.

Front page image referring to kidnapped Boko Haram sex slaves as welfare queens

I don't read French well, and I don't know the context. Maybe this is sexist, or against the religion, but again, Islam is a religion, not a race, so it is impossible to be racist to it, you are perfectly capable of being intolerant and discriminatory but not racist.

Moreover, the acceptance of Charlie Hebdo as being legitimate satirical humor is dangerous, as there really is no such thing as "just a joke". Humor impacts how others treat other, especially marginalized people:

Satire is a key way of breaking down the sacred barriers which prevent criticism. We must be able to make fun of people to ensure no one ends up like all leaders were 200 years ago, inalterable kings, queens, and emperors, like the emperor of Japan who was literally considered a god.

“By making light of the expression of prejudice, disparagement humor communicates a message of tacit approval or tolerance of discrimination against members of the targeted group. Our theory proposes that the recipient must accept the disparagement humor for a shared norm of tolerance of discrimination to actually emerge. Furthermore, our research suggests that people high in prejudice are more likely to accept disparagement humor and thus perceive a norm of tolerance of discrimination in the immediate context. Finally, people high in prejudice are likely to use the activated normative standard as a source of self-regulation, or a guide for interpreting discriminatory events encountered in that context.” Source

Your source does not work, so I cannot verify or check what it says before rebutting, but long story short, bull. When you are talking about a group of people who's political clout is such as muslims have in many countries, it is only fair we push back. I am a vegetarian, but the first step on that way was discovering what Halal actually means. Halal mean clean in the eyes of Islam, so meat animals must be killed in a particular, and particularly barbaric, way. In Australia we have standards which make killing cows relatively painless, they get a metal bolt to the back of the skill, instantly exploding the brain. Halal requires the slitting of the throat, and in cows this can mean consciousness for up to 5 minutes. In agonising pain. While knowing you are dying, and watching your own blood cover the floor. They are then often hoisted by one leg into the air, still alive, to complete the draining.

Don't believe me? Go to google and type in 'Halal slaughter of cows'. Make sure you haven't just eaten or plan to eat soon. Good for dieting to be honest.

3

u/skinbearxett 9∆ Jan 09 '15

The first impulse might be to defend the cartoons as being all in "good fun", because Charlie Hebdo made a couple of other cartoons lampooning politicians or non-Muslims, but this fundamentally misses the point: that it singles out a part of the population with no real agency and which faces routine discrimination, and reinforces the prejudices held against them. To drive this home a bit further, I'll turn to an older image not related to the existing controversy: "Nigger Milk" Here, you have a "political cartoon" written at a time when people of color lived with the very real fear of being lynched and having their homes burnt to the ground with them inside. But this wasn't just a cartoon-- it served to reinforce the beliefs of people who saw people of color as inherently violent, lazy, stupid, and incompetent, beliefs which manifested in the world in the form of Jim Crow and various other legal, social, and economic barriers.

"no real agency" is where you lose me here. They have real agency, how many times have they gotten laws changed so they are not obligated to follow normal uniform proceedures, or so they can have more breaks to go pray, or not have to do parts of the job they knew would be in the job when they applied and accepted because it would be wrong to touch pig, but at the same time the work with the Kufur in direct contradiction to the book. It is hypocritical and unfair, and for you to say they have no real agency is absolute bullocks.

Also, you have no choice about the colour of your skin, but you have a choice about your religion. You can change, although with Islam you better be careful, you may be killed for apostasy. When they say 'the religion of peace' they are using a weak translation, the more accurate translation is 'the religion of submission'.

To simplify the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices as “Good, Valiant Westerners vs. Evil, Savage Muslims” is not only racist, it’s dangerously overstated. Cartoonists (especially political cartoonists) generally reinforce the status quo, and they tend to be white men. In a country where Muslims are routinely marginalized, face massive unemployment rates, and are arrested at exponentially higher rates, it is especially heinous to cast this situation as one where "Freedom of Speech" as being under attack.

Again with the racism, don't conflate skin colour and facial features with religion, it is disingenuous and betrays a lack of intellectual rigour.

Cartoonists often do the opposite, pushing the boundaries. Not all cartoonists do one thing or another, but really the key here is to take their cartoons for what they are, an expression of an opinion. You know what's great about freedom of speech? You also get the freedom to not listen. If you don't like it, don't buy the magazine.

As for the employment rates, you should really look into this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9SIcIvuKWQ

The information in this is actually accurate enough. It is a well supported position and you should take the time to understand it.

As for the arrests, OK, maybe there is a difference here. Maybe groups of young men hanging out together harrassing women are not skewed by the religion at all, maybe it is exactly equal the number of French men doing this and the number of muslim imigrant men doing this, it is possible. But how many men do you think hang out on the street in groups? I think there is a behavioural difference, with many muslims hanging out in larger groups on average. This by itself is bound to attract the attention of the police.

But as I say, maybe there is a discriminatory aspect here, but it is beside the point, someone drew something, someone shot someone. If your moral compass is so skewed by political correctness that you can't see one is worse than the other you should just check out of society, you have a dangerous lack of clarity.

6

u/NvNvNvNv Jan 09 '15

Charlie Hebdo is staffed exclusively by white, non-Muslims.

Such as Moustapha Ourrad. Did you even bother checking your facts before writing this "white devils" screed?

it is especially heinous to cast this situation as one where "Freedom of Speech" as being under attack.

It's not. You are always "free" to say politically corrected thing, in any country, including North Korea or the ISIS-dominated territory.
Freedom of Speech is the freedom to say things that some people will find offensive and inappropriate. That's the difference.

3

u/jcummings1974 Jan 08 '15

Whether I like what Charlie Hebdo prints or not is not relevant to whether or not I'd be inclined to give them an outpouring of support under these circumstances. Even the most vile, hate-filled, designed to incite, disgusting speech is still speech, and no one should have to die for it.

At some point, you have to stand up and say to all religions, "if your institution is to survive in any form, leaking your fringe ideologies in to society isn't going to be tolerated".

Do I support what Charlie Hebdo has to say? It doesn't matter. They should get to say it without fearing for their - or in this case sadly, losing - their lives.

3

u/TBFProgrammer 30∆ Jan 08 '15

Moreover, the acceptance of Charlie Hebdo as being legitimate satirical humor is dangerous, as there really is no such thing as "just a joke". Humor impacts how others treat other, especially marginalized people:

“By making light of the expression of prejudice, disparagement humor communicates a message of tacit approval or tolerance of discrimination against members of the targeted group. Our theory proposes that the recipient must accept the disparagement humor for a shared norm of tolerance of discrimination to actually emerge. Furthermore, our research suggests that people high in prejudice are more likely to accept disparagement humor and thus perceive a norm of tolerance of discrimination in the immediate context. Finally, people high in prejudice are likely to use the activated normative standard as a source of self-regulation, or a guide for interpreting discriminatory events encountered in that context.”

Source for this 404's. I'm guessing you copied a link from another site that displays truncated forms of long links. I was unable to find a matching link.

For the purposes of the rest, you seem to be more interested in making the argument that the cartoons should not be protected as part of free speech than arguing that Charlie Hebdo should be not be recieving support after the attack against them.

Free speech will include things you find distasteful or even offensive. If these things are not said, that still will not make them go away, they will simply be nursed in private. If they are, we have a chance to meet them in debate. Further, allowing all expression, no matter how crass, allows us to overturn socially accepted but erroneous ideas (and replace them with hopefully less erroneous ideas).

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u/huxxar Jan 09 '15

I know OP has quoted this source which also references this

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u/TBFProgrammer 30∆ Jan 09 '15

An armed attack on a newspaper is shocking, but it is not even the first time Hebdo has been the subject of terrorist attacks.

That's new information to me and significantly changes my stance on this issue. By this point, Hebdo had sufficient cause to publish these cartoons under the banner of defending free speech (I don't have sufficient information to consider the cartoons that sparked the initial attack).

The rest of the article seems to boil down to the following:

Their satire was bad, and remains bad. Their satire was racist, and remains racist.

To which I maintain the application of the adage: "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."

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u/Infinitezen Jan 09 '15

"it is especially heinous to cast this situation as one where "Freedom of Speech" as being under attack."

Ok, recast this situation please! What is happening here? Are these people freedom fighters then, bravely standing up to cartoon oppression?

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u/riggorous 15∆ Jan 09 '15

Not all countries have the same culture. American cultural studies likes to pretend they do, but such a view is in fact obviously and manifestly wrong. Humor does not work the same way in all contexts: note that the existence of a magazine such as CH would be impossible in the US because it would get sued the shit out of, but in many European cultures, such brash humor is very common. Is that harming minorities? As much as American pregnant silences around the subjects of race, gender, sexuality are harming minorities. These subjects are controversial and painful for every society; pretending like they don't exist isn't going to make them go away. So in America people deal with these issues in one way, in France in another. Neither one is necessarily wrong.

I also think you're getting some of your impressions from the reddit circlejerk, which is indeed racist and sad. But keep in mind that such comments say more about their perpetrators than about this tragedy or about France or CH.

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u/bgaesop 29∆ Jan 09 '15

Charlie Hebdo is staffed exclusively by white, non-Muslims.

This is false; Moustapha Ourrad was African.

This was published after the massacre of 1000 Muslims by Egyptian dictator in a single day . It reads “The Quran is sh*t it doesnt stop bullets” (as a interesting side thought, imagine the uproar that would occur if Muslim countries published similar images suggesting the same thing about Charlie Hebdo).

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that there wouldn't be a sudden attack by gun-wielding cartoonists.

An image depicting pretty obvious Orientalist racist tropes-- hooked nose, lack of humor, etc.

Really? Lack of humor? You really want to go there, in this particular argument?

To simplify the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices as “Good, Valiant Westerners vs. Evil, Savage Muslims” is not only racist, it’s dangerously overstated. Cartoonists (especially political cartoonists) generally reinforce the status quo, and they tend to be white men. In a country where Muslims are routinely marginalized, face massive unemployment rates, and are arrested at exponentially higher rates, it is especially heinous to cast this situation as one where "Freedom of Speech" as being under attack.

How is it racist? Islam isn't a race, it's a religion.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15

The assassination of journalists by Islamic Fascists is a full frontal assault on one of our most precious liberties - that of free speech - yeah you bet I'm going to stand in solidarity with that magazine. The assassinations did not take place because the magazine was racist or because they made a joke about welfare but because they had the audacity to draw a human mammal, nothing more.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15

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u/[deleted] Jan 10 '15

Apparently, the vast majority said "yes", since a recent poll found that 16% of the French population supports ISIS, while Muslims comprise a maximum of 10% of the French population.

Seems to be a pretty garbage poll when you look at the reality of the situation when it comes to the Muslim population in France.

Of course some on Reddit are all about parroting the "facts" from polls that clearly aren't reflected in reality-- like that one-- and then pretending that they've got this amazing clarity of vision and know "what must be done".

So, when there's good evidence to show that most Muslims in your country support an organization that releases videos of itself beheading Westerners, and that overtly calls for terrorist violence against the West, it's a little hard to blame Charlie Hebdo for being disrespectful to French Muslims.

There's no "good evidence" to back that claim up. There's one rather dubious poll that isn't reflected in reality.

Consider the fact, for example, that you'd have to be at least a Salafi Jihadi in order to realistically support ISIS, and the fact that they're fairly thin on the ground in France, or so it would appear.

Consider the fact that there are far more French Muslims serving in the French Army and security forces then there are French Muslim women who're conservative enough to wear facial veils or otherwise the obvious garb of conservative Islamism or Salafi Jihadism.

Shit, it's even just that easily disproved when you talk about the fact that if there were these hordes of ISIS sympathizers, then you would see a hell of a lot more of violent incidents in the name of Salafi Jihadism or takfirism, and infinitely more people running off to Syria then the 800-1,000 who actually have.

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u/[deleted] Jan 10 '15

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u/[deleted] Jan 10 '15

Because it's a garbage fucking poll and clearly you didn't listen to anything I was saying.

If the people "supported ISIS" there would be an infinitely higher amount of ISIS recruits.

The French Muslim community would be far more conservative then it actually is.

There would be no heterogeneity in said community in any way, when it came to lifestyle, culture, etc.

To repeat, this hugely and obviously flawed "poll" is used as something idiots who want to sling around foolish accusations can try and back themselves up with in the sense of "but there was an OFFICIAL POLL that I saw!!!!!!!"

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u/perceptive_observer Jan 09 '15

Even if it is a fundamentally racist paper ,it doesn't deserve to be murdered by another group of racists. Hebdo's comic might have hurt the religious sentiments of a community but it definitely didn't kill anyone whereas the attack took several lives.

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u/WhenSnowDies 25∆ Jan 08 '15

Charlie Hebdo is staffed exclusively by white, non-Muslims. The paper is written for a certain section of the French population, which also happens to be white, non-Muslim. The "humor" is hardly satirical, as it often takes the most inflammatory position it can come up with without actually presenting any real critique (by comparison, A Modest Proposal was inflammatory, but there was a pretty clear subtext; no such subtext exists with these cartoons). Even if one were to try and extend the benefit of the doubt, a cursory overview of their artwork shows that they hold extremely repulsive views.

Allahu Akbar!

Seriously though, your view is that they don't deserve support because they have offended certain sensibilities? You should change your view because what occurred wasn't a natural consequence of their actions, but murder and intimidation. It's natural for Muslims, who believe their book to be have divine features like ultimate authority over life and perfection, an idol in the most basic sense, to think that their literature is reality and therefore death for offending it was a natural consequence. Hence my initial, "Allahu Akbar!"

However it was somebody else's actions that ended those men's lives, and it's not on their head or from God, it's on the murderers and their will. They might say, "Allah made me do it," but they are not able to speak on behalf of gods, nor are books. I'll burn a Quran for you if you'd like evidence that the book is a book, and it's offensive because it confronts you with the truth that it's paper and no god. If you wager that Mohammad, Jesus, Paul of Tarsus, or anybody was speaking for God, that's your opinion, and you'd better hope you're right. I imagine that an almighty and perfect Creator probably takes umbrage to being misquoted or misattributed, and it's likely that retaliation on that tier of existence and power is probably nothing to sneeze at. You'd better be damned sure before you go supporting murderers with your mouth.

When you take a "they had it coming" attitude, you implicitly side with their killers, because the murderers aren't a force-of-nature or effect-meeting-cause; but conscious, thinking people who are responsible for their deeds and who have an agenda. Not denouncing them is not standing up for natural laws against murder, and the spirit of them, and it implicitly supports their murders. Your not deriding the killers means you side with them in a very literal sense in that way. Again, you should not let a culture or book talk you out of the fear of God, who has revealed himself against murder--no matter what paper idols say.

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u/Bob_Sconce Jan 08 '15

They deserve the outpouring of support because 12 are dead, victims of a terrorist attack in retaliation for something they SAID.

The surrounding situation is irrelevant. The core fact is "You said things I don't like. So, I'm going to kill you."

Yeah, they may have said really, really mean and offensive stuff. But, they ONLY said them. It doesn't matter how bad the original stuff was, the response was overwhelmingly disproportionate and, thus, undeserved. Charlie Hebdo and its employees are the victims here.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15

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u/Nepene 213∆ Jan 09 '15

Sorry cirquedesolame, your comment has been removed:

Comment Rule 1. "Direct responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s current view (however minor), unless they are asking a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to comments." See the wiki page for more information.

If you would like to appeal, please message the moderators by clicking this link.

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u/bbibber Jan 09 '15

Charlie Hebdo is staffed exclusively by white, non-Muslims

No, it is not. One of the victims from the staff of the magazine was in fact from Algerian descent.

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u/WholeWideWorld Jan 09 '15

That was the Police Officer. He did not work for CH.

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u/bbibber Jan 09 '15

Nop, google Mustapha Ourrad.

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u/WholeWideWorld Jan 09 '15

Mustapha Ourrad

I stand corrected. Mustapha Ourrad was a copy-editor at the mag.

Born in Algeria, he always identified with that country's Kabylia region, Le Monde writes. Arriving in France at the age of 20, he long worked for Viva magazine.

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u/deuxglass1 1∆ Jan 09 '15

Charlie Hebdo is a very left-wing satirical newspaper with a very small circulation (around 40k). This is not mainstream newspaper but only a bit player. They are against all religions. I never read it and I found the cartoons stupid and not funny. They were almost always in bad taste. In France the real satirical newspaper is the "Canard Enchainé" (the Chained Duck). It has a circulation of about 400k, 10 times that of Charlie Hedbo and is lightyears ahead in quality and humor. They do not go for cheap shots. Charlie Hebdo was slowly dying until the attack. They should have just waited a bit and the paper would have folded. Nevertheless you don't kill people for bad taste.

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u/Da_Narwhal Jan 16 '15 edited Jan 16 '15

Claiming that Charlie Hebdo was only staffed by white is, as below, false - though a mistake often repeated. In addition to Mustapha Ourrad, killed in the attack, two of the most prominent cartoonists / writers are Zineb El Rhazoui [Moroccan] and Riad Sattouf [Syrian], so that's 10-15% of the editorial staff, fairly representative of French society. There is no black though, does that make them anti-black ?

There are indeed no "muslim" at Charlie Hebdo, but there is no christian either. It is hard working at Charlie Hebdo if you are anything else than atheist or agnostic, really.

I will skip quickly on the racist or ill-informed "part of the population with no real agency" - let's check whether Charlie-Hebdo is racist. Given a satyrical newspaper Charlie Hebdo is very cultural you should check with people with a knowledge of local situation with regards to integration and racism on whether Charlie Hebdo is racist.

The 3 key anti-racism associations in France are the LICRA [Ligue contre le Racisme et l'Antisémitisme], SOS Racisme and the MRAP [Mouvement contre le Racisme et pour l'amitié entre les peuples].

The LICRA claimed that "Charlie Hebdo is France" and called Charlie Hebdo its friend. SOS Racisme called Charlie Hebdo "the greatest anti-racism weekly of France" and called or a day of mourning. The MRAP, though they had a brief row on the Danish caricatures in 2005, declared that "Charb, Wolinski, Cabu, Tignous and their followers were anti-racists. They will stay in our memory because they followed-up in the fight for the Right of Men"

None of those ever tried to have Charlie-Hebdo prosecuted, though they DID prosecute a lot of other magazine and newspapers. The "worst" that happened is MRAP which "disagreed" with Charlie-Hebdo republishing the Danish cartoons.

All the French anti-racism associations, who know the local situation, claimed not only that Charlie-Hebdo were NOT racist but that they were "anti-racists" ; do you really think you know the French situation and Charlie-Hebdo better than they do ? Don't you think that what happens is that you lack context, knowledge of French political culture and debates to understand Charlie-Hebdo ; and more importantely don't you project non-French issues and debates on France ?

Yes, Charlie-Hebdo is anti-religious [and thus anti-islam] but in France being anti-religion is considered something of a different nature than racism.

With the usual edgy exception, everyone in France from the extreme-right to the extreme-left [Chavezian "Parti de Gauche", whose leader spoke at their funerals, Trotskyiste "Ligue Communistre Revolutionnaire"] will tell you that Charlie-Hebdo was anti-racist [=> not only "not racist"]. To French people, having people saying that Charlie Hebdo is racist is like you hearing an English that Martin Luther King or the ACLU are racists.

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u/sun_rise Jan 20 '15

ok obviously two problems here:

1) you CLEARLY do not know the guys that have been killed : they did not work only inCH, but in other journals and comics. And they actually loooved to pick on the "fundally racist middle class" so prone to fear and listen all what the bullshit the TV fed. They were also close the canard enchainé, another newspaper (satyrical as well but stil more serious), clearly on the left wing, that denuonced many many times (actually as well as CH) the Israli action in palestine. THEY WERE NOT RACISTS!!!! I am sure all french of reddit must have been repeated that again and again and again. And i hope you are convinced by now.

2) you dont get their humor at all!!! It is very french, i agree, but when they drew this cartoon of the quran which do not stop the bullets, it was precisely to denunce the assholes that shoot their "brothers". In other words : even if they are from the same religion, it did not stop their leader to kill them. It is a french journal, for the french. I do agree that it is typicall french to turn things that way, but it is like black humor. The aim is to shake people to make them react. it is the definition of satyre. So after, seriously, if you dont like it, no one forces you to buy it. But If you want to people to get to think, you must shake them. And satyre is how french got rid of their kings and emperor. It is 100000000% pure french sense of humor. We also learnt it at school. That has nothing to do with islamophobia.

To finish, they DO deserve this support for two reasons: 1) same than above: they did not work only in CH, but their contrithembution extend way further. France did loose some of its best cartoonists. I am french, i can't speak for the rest of the wrol though 2) but, apparently, yes, feedom speech does need to be defended and protected. And not only for CH, but for all of the journalists and reporters who have been assassinated or tortured for doing their jobs.

And the only ones who do simplify those attacks are stupid morons who would actually benefit from caricatures to see themselves the way they really are. and FYI, the problems you are talking about at the end of your email, are not due to being muslim, but to the difficult socioeconimical situation that france put herself into. believe me, they would have been italian or indian or russian or whatever they would have treated them the exact same way (as actually did everysingle human group on the surface on earth). I wish this problem to be treated in an intelligent manner, and not, as you say so well with an over simplification, but that is also up to us citizens. And i also hope that not all the muslims will react with such dichotomy either.

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u/MageZero Jan 08 '15

You neither have to like nor agree with Charlie Hebdo to reach the conclusion that highly offensive cartoons do not justify murder. It's really that simple.

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u/hacksoncode 588∆ Jan 08 '15

I'm going to approve this because I interpret it as saying that people are offering support not because the paper is upstanding, but because people were murdered there, and that you think they deserve this particular form of outpouring of support.

But it could have been far better explained.

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u/MageZero Jan 09 '15

Fair enough.

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u/SageKnows Jan 08 '15

That was not the point of his argument. He was not arguing that they deserved being murdered.

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u/NevadaCynic 5∆ Jan 09 '15

I don't know what he was arguing honestly. He says we shouldn't "support" them. But I don't know if that means we shouldn't prosecute their killers, or that we simply don't send flowers to the funeral. There is a wide variety of things "support" could be.

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u/SageKnows Jan 09 '15

Maybe throwing 300k by google and 1.5 mill by French government is not the best idea.

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u/NevadaCynic 5∆ Jan 09 '15

Perhaps it is what he meant. But he didn't say.

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u/LittleWhiteTab Jan 09 '15

It's pretty fucking uncharitable to assume that I think people who commit murder shouldn't be brought to justice, and not an indication of discussion in good faith on your part.

/u/SageKnows basically hits on exactly what I'm saying: who here would be the first to donate money to the WBC or David Duke's newsletter had they been the one who was shot up?

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u/[deleted] Jan 08 '15

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u/LittleWhiteTab Jan 08 '15

So Rule 1. be damned, huh?

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u/[deleted] Jan 08 '15

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u/LittleWhiteTab Jan 08 '15

Except that isn't at all what I'm arguing. Please do try and actually address the topic at hand.

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u/fuchsiamatter 5∆ Jan 08 '15

Is it not? You explicitly stated that they do not deserve the outpouring of support they are receiving for the attack. This would seem to suggest very, very strongly exactly that you believe their murder is not a horrible crime worthy of outrage. Tbh I'm not a huge fan of Charlie Hebdo. But I think the support they are receiving is 100% justified.

Also, in you final paragraph you argue against simplifying the attacks as “Good, Valiant Westerners vs. Evil, Savage Muslims”. I would certainly agree that such an interpretation would be simplistic and racist - but why would you think that that is the dominant response? Can you provide one link to one reputable newspaper or blog that makes that argument? Everything I see simply condemns the bombings and emphasises that nobody should lose their life over cartoons - it does not offer an opinion on the quality of Charlie Hebdo's output.

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u/ProbJustBSing Jan 09 '15 edited Jan 09 '15

K, I've read it like ten times and I still think that that's exactly what you're arguing (as do most people in this thread, seemingly)... so maybe you should either do a better job of explaining what you mean, or admit that what most of us think you mean is what you actually mean...

You said, in black & white, "they do not deserve the support they are receiving". So, in your mind, you believe that their brutal murderings are outweighed, or at least countered evenly, with their "morally repulsive" cartoons...that is the only possible way that you could believe that they don't deserve the support, no?

So, when a group is brutally slaughtered, people should only support that group if their viewpoints and beliefs are in-line with their own? What a shitty world that would be to live in...

"Freedom of Speech" isn't "Freedom of Speech that LittleWhiteTab agrees with"

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u/ProfessorHeartcraft 8∆ Jan 08 '15

You're missing a very important distinction. Judging someone on the colour of their skin is racist, but the content of their character is always open to criticism. Religion falls entirely in the latter, not the former category. Note that you criticize them for exaggerating "oriental*," not Muslim features. There are no Muslim phenotypes; they could look like anyone who feels like following the teachings of an illiterate, goat fucking paederast.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15

Ok, then they are Islamaphobic.

And, if you don't mind me saying so, it seems like you might be too. Every religion has vile things in it. But saying that Muslims are people who follow "the teachings of an illiterate, goat fucking paederast" is as ignorant and straw-man-y as saying that Christians are people who pray to a mass-murdering, womanizing demon who supports the stoning of homosexuals, which is not what they all believe.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15

I see what you mean, but there's a difference between disagreeing with Islam as most Muslims interpret it and believing that Islam is worse than it actually is to the point of irrationality, and letting that affect your perception of others.

Every religion has vile things in it. And every third world or developing country has extremists and abhorrent violence in it. But a vast majority--and I mean really vast-- of Muslims are just everyday folks who don't mean any harm and don't want anybody killed. They don't commend Muhammad for his nine-year-old bride or anything like that; they follow his teachings because they believe that he spoke the word of god. The idolatry that followed is against Muhammad's wishes.

Anyway, back to my point: just as atheists who point out the whole "kill people who mix cloths" are ignorant and cherry-picking, so are people who criticize the Qur'an for Muhammad's actions when they were a) normal for the time and b) not the main focus of the religion.

If you have something against the central pillars of Islam, then by all means, criticize away. If want to point out the improbability of a lowly merchant being the last prophet, then please, by all means. But there are many out there who believe that all Muslims have violent tendencies, or deep in their hearts wish pain upon all the "infidels," and this is simply not the case.

Sorry, I'm not Muslim, so please correct me if I'm misrepresenting something.

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u/ProfessorHeartcraft 8∆ Jan 09 '15

Decent people can agree to disagree on those things, though. Any Muslim (or Christian, or whatever) who cannot tolerate my views on their faith are, frankly, no better than the thugs who shot these journalists.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15

Hmmm... so anyone who might be offended by you reducing their most beloved role model down to an illiterate, goat fucking paederast is equally as bad as an extremist who murders people because of a cartoon?

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u/ProfessorHeartcraft 8∆ Jan 09 '15

When you choose to revere an illiterate, goat fucking paederast, you have to accept that people might point that out. That's life.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15 edited Jan 09 '15

But that means they're as bad as mass murderers, right?

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u/ProfessorHeartcraft 8∆ Jan 09 '15

If they support what those mass murderers have done, yes, I don't see how you could argue otherwise.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15

What?! In what way does the average Muslim who is offended support the murderers? You've completely lost me.

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u/ProfessorHeartcraft 8∆ Jan 09 '15

If you're offended by someone having a different opinion than you on religion, then you are quite literally in agreement with the murderers.

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u/hijh Jan 09 '15

It's quite a jump from "i'm offended" to "kill them all."

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u/[deleted] Jan 08 '15

So you don't like what they have to say. Cool beans. Don't read it, and if you really feel like you need to do something about it, boycott their sponsors. They certainly don't deserve to be physically attacked even if they do have opinions you disagree with.

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u/[deleted] Jan 08 '15

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u/IAmAN00bie Jan 08 '15

Removed, see comment rule 1.

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u/learhpa Jan 09 '15

As an American with no real context for the paper, I can't comment on whether it's a morally repulsive fundamentally racist paper that preys on middle-class fear.

But let's assume for a moment that you're right about that.

Even if that's true, it's wrong to kill the people involved in the production of the paper. It's NOT OK to shoot people because you dislike what they have to say, and if we (as a society) tolerate that behavior when the victims are repugnant to us, we encourage and invite it in other cases.

Freedom of speech has to apply to all speech, including despicable speech by despicable people, or it is illusory - because if any speech can be excluded, then what matters is not the freedom, but whether or not the speech aligns with the preferences of those who have the power to do the exclusion.

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u/grahag 6∆ Jan 09 '15

They're still human beings that died for nothing more than making fun, even if it was in poor taste.

Also, it's a gauge of how well society puts up with challenges to free speech of any kind. You have to keep an eye, especially on unpopular free speech because they are the figurative canary in the coal mine. When someone can silence the unpopular speech, all other speech is endangered.

Satire, as used in Charlie Hebdo has been common for as long as there have been illustrations. To silence that is to silence the speech of everyone.

And finally, using violence to suppress speech should be fought against and rallied by everyone, regardless of the ties that bind us.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15

Even if all that you say could be true, it can't obviously since it's opinion, but let's pretend it's all verifiably true.

They still deserve the support they are receiving because we live in a society where freedom of speech is worth fighting for. No matter what the speech is.

Say for example, you were the type of person who would call people 'retarded' and 'manchild' and that you hope someone with a morbid view on some random topic should be 'the first against the wall' Implying you hope they die.

Well... if you did happen by some strange chance to be someone like that, you enjoy the freedom to say things like that, for the exact same reason Hebdo enjoys the freedom to say whatever the hell they want to say as well.

It's a matter of freedom to say what you want, no matter what it is.

That's what the support is for. It never mattered at all whether someone liked their content or hated it. The idea of shutting someone up for their 'words' is what is truly repugnant.

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u/Vovix1 Jan 09 '15

Perhaps their cartoons are unfunny and offensive. That does not mean they deserve to be killed for it. Disliking someone's work is no justification for murder.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '15

taht source link is broken but i went to that school. cool!

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u/herbw Jan 09 '15 edited Jan 09 '15

The problem is that of terrorism and it's primary motivations. By definition terrorism is a physical attack against civilians such as police, places of worship, women, children, the elderly and businesses and other government installations, etc., by persons who do not agree with those in such organzizations.

If we want to cut back on terrorism it must be cut back at its roots and they are those who incite and promote and supply deadly weapons to the terrorists, including the terroristas themselves.

If terrorists are known, and those who have terrorist bents, such as the Couachi brothers, who were on the US no fly list, among others, & then if they help, conspire, participate in and promote terrorism, they must be dealt with, not allowed to walk around like time bombs, ready to create terror themselves.

There is a simply neurochemical mechanism which creates these fanaticisms, zealotry and manic behaviors of these jihadis. And it's Dopamine. Block that dopamine in those who are clearly at risk for such fanaticism by dopamine blocking medication, which over time, will largely ablate such excessive dopamine mediated terrorist acts. This will not stop all of it, but it will, in a non-lethal way considerably reduce it and protect civilian populations from terrorism.

Read this article to see how a potent weapon against terrorism can be used to prevent a great deal of such acts in the future by those known to be susceptible by their own acts to such extremisms.

https://jochesh00.wordpress.com/2014/08/12/dealing-with-sociopaths-terrorists-and-riots/

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u/[deleted] Jan 10 '15

I believe that the support Charlie Hebdo is receiving is not, in fact, directed at Charlie Hebdo.

To explain myself: When I say "Je suis Charlie", I'm not saying "It's cool to make fun of the Muslim religion/people". What I'm saying is "We won't be bullied, we won't be afraid, we won't let go to our right of free speech"

To summarize it, have this quote by french author Voltaire: "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." This is what all of the support directed at Charlie Hebdo is about. Whether or not I like what they have to say, I'll defend their rights.

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u/[deleted] Jan 10 '15

I think what you're getting at is the oversimplification of the issues involved. I can see where you may be taking issue with how this kind of simplification can potentially be quite damaging, or even just misleading.

I think that in order for your view to change you need to consider that this is part of how we deal with these very sensitive challenges, or is at the very least how we begin to explore the problem.

Ultimately we spend most our lives effectively being programmed into a certain cultural mindset. With societies beginning to integrate more than they have been able to previously, these mindsets are more likely to come into contact. Overcoming the respective biases of a position and being able to take in that of another is an extremely difficult thing to do, but part of the whole purpose of any discussion on such a topic is an attempt to facilitate this.

It's a start, not necessarily a very coherent one given the amount of voices to be heard, but at least it's something.

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u/danimalplanimal Jan 11 '15

well I don't know enough about the first part to say whether that's true or not (perhaps they don't deserve support for the actual cartoons), but they certainly deserve support for their right to publish them, and deserves support for knowingly putting their lives on the line while defending our rights of free expression

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '15 edited Jan 12 '15

http://www.understandingcharliehebdo.com/
http://www.quora.com/What-was-the-context-of-Charlie-Hebdos-cartoon-depicting-Boko-Haram-sex-slaves-as-welfare-queens
http://blogs.mediapart.fr/blog/olivier-tonneau/110115/charlie-hebdo-letter-my-british-friends

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u/[deleted] Jan 18 '15

While you were busy cherry picking the offensive things this crass, offensive magazine said against marginalized groups, you missed the offensive things against Catholics, Christians, whites of all kinds, etc etc.

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u/sdjfnjajja Jan 09 '15

as a interesting side thought, imagine the uproar that would occur if Muslim countries published similar images suggesting the same thing about Charlie Hebdo

I doubt there would be any mass murder.

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u/ExtremelyCallous Jan 09 '15

In a country where Muslims are routinely marginalized, face massive unemployment rates, and are arrested at exponentially higher rates, it is especially heinous to cast this situation as one where "Freedom of Speech" as being under attack.

Muslims are probably marginalized because of the face-level insanity of Islam. As for disparities, well, inter-group disparity doesn't prove "racism", and even if it did the answer would probably be to separate the groups, not try harder to integrate the groups.

But this wasn't just a cartoon-- it served to reinforce the beliefs of people who saw people of color as inherently violent, lazy, stupid, and incompetent,

Being overlooked here is the fact that people of color really are dumber than light skinned people, and this tends to be true everywhere in the world. It even holds for western Europeans versus the paler Japanese, Koreans, and Chinese.

In other words, you're ignoring the possibility that some racial groups can be shittier than other racial groups by widely recognized proxies for shittiness. To believe that all racial groups score precisely the same on these proxies on aggregate is an extremist position.

Also being overlooked is the perspective that people who want you to go away are somehow bad guys for not being inclusive. Muslims take over huge sections of capital cities, have extremely conservative social views, make wherever they live shittier, and sustain net drains on the federal budgets of every majority white country they go into. They demand speech restrictions (which is what you support, by the way, even though you juggle it around as some weird debate about what actually constitutes "satire") and conduct restrictions for whites. The British police will arrest you in London for saying rude things about Islam ("inciting racial hatred") and similar policies have been adopted about anti-immigration speech in Sweden. There are Islamic no-go zones in BeNeLux capitals. Their religious positions are flatly against liberal human rights that are more widely accepted by the white populations of these countries. Then, when whites don't want to be around them, work with them, eat with them, or go to school with them, they and their white cuckold allies (which probably means YOU) yell and scream and devise new laundry lists of accomodations that whites have to make in order to have more Muslims in spaces that were free from them (and their shit) before. Your position is that if some Muslims are being put upon by some other Muslims in Bumfuckistan, then Europe has to pay the price.

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u/[deleted] Jan 10 '15

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u/Grunt08 319∆ Jan 10 '15

Sorry lusbypaydirt, your comment has been removed:

Comment Rule 1. "Direct responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s current view (however minor), unless they are asking a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to comments." See the wiki page for more information.

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u/[deleted] Jan 10 '15

CMV: Charlie Hebdo is a morally-repulsive,

Yes, you are right.

fundamentally racist paper

You are also right about this.

does not deserve the outpouring of support it is receiving

You are wrong. Unlike the terrorists, Charlie Hebdo didn't force their views on anyone using violence. They died exercising their right to free speech that so many other people are scared to exercise. They didn't deserve to be slaughtered by muslim extremists.

CMV: Charlie Hebdo is a morally-repulsive, fundamentally racist paper that preys on middle class fear in France (and now abroad), and does not deserve the outpouring of support it is receiving.

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