3 ms·

The idea of having to worry about offending people at all costs is silly. If there was a group that murdered people for using the color purple, I'm sure tons o

The idea of having to worry about offending people at all costs is silly. If there was a group that murdered people for using the color purple, I'm sure tons of people and companies would proudly display people. Why should it be any different here? Why cower because someone might be offended over some arbitrary rule?

rtpg 12y ago
Because unlike the color purple, the Islamic community of France is an oppressed underclass. If this was a bunch of racist stereotypes of blacks, would our answer be to continue to publish racist trash? These things can offend more than just extremists. Obviously this massacre is absolutely terrible, but the content of Charlie Hebdo regarding Islam was extremely offensive, and served mainly to increase the isolation of the French Muslim community
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  Hmm, yeah, if people were executed for putting on blackface, it seems a good protest might have people putting on blackface. The point being that even if you normally wouldn't be "offensive" you would to make it clear that offending people is far less important than executing them. I also like how these cartoons are extremely offensive, as if that has any bearing on anything. Perhaps people shouldn't invent rules that makes them so offended? Like that Onion article about "no one was killed over this image".
- aswanson 12y ago
  Please dont equate mockery of a set of beliefs with mockery and oppression of a set of people based on genetic traits. I guarantee the French Muslims have not gone through a fraction of what blacks have gone through in terms of outright physical violence and state-sanctioned oppression. If anything France, and Europe as a whole, seem more than welcoming to muslims, at least from an immigration and social safety net perspective. Belief systems from Christian to Muslim to atheism must be subject to public criticism and mockery in a free society without threat of violence. People who dont feel this way should be free to leave.
  - deciplex 12y ago
    >Belief systems from Christian to Muslim to atheism must be subject to public criticism and mockery in a free society without threat of violence. People who dont feel this way should be free to leave. Should be made to leave. Accommodating murders, thugs, and people who give them aid and comfort, does not make for good immigration policy.
  - sroerick 12y ago
    I think this connection is not as arbitrary as you make it out to me. The intersection between muslims and Arabs is pretty large. I'm not sure the same secular identity politics exists in the Middle East as exist in America. Beyond that, the Civil Rights movement in America had 3 feet in Islam. I think the comparison is an appropriate one.
    - aswanson 12y ago
      Orthodox Islam, to the extent that it was effective in the US Civil Rights movement in the 60s, had its start with Malcolm X and its end with Clarence 13x and his founding of the Five Percent Nation, which is a rejection of Islam at its most fundamental level: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_13X http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_13X It replaces the "Mystery Spook" Allah and the Prophet Muhammed with the individual himself "A.l.l.a.h" (arm, leg, leg, arm, head) which is an acronym of a human being. There is no god, other than the living person. This is nothing more than atheism with a healthy dose of Randian objectivism. I fail to see the "3 feet" you mention here.
  - Normati 12y ago
    France is not a free society in the same way America is. French people are happy to live under many more restrictive laws but we don't often see it. For instance, Charlie Hebdo's staff could have gone to prison if they had published a cartoon mocking the holocaust. Some people's offense is treated as more valuable than others in France.
    - pascal_cuoq 12y ago
      In “America”, laws forbid people drink beer in public. Not old, forgotten laws: policemen use these everyday as reason to arrest and search people in the street. In fact, in recent weeks, did US courts not repeatedly find nothing illegal had happened when the police executed someone who was standing in the street not being a danger? France is not perfect but you need to get out more if you think “America”, as you call it, is better.

rtpg 12y ago

Because unlike the color purple, the Islamic community of France is an oppressed underclass. If this was a bunch of racist stereotypes of blacks, would our answer be to continue to publish racist trash? These things can offend more than just extremists. Obviously this massacre is absolutely terrible, but the content of Charlie Hebdo regarding Islam was extremely offensive, and served mainly to increase the isolation of the French Muslim community

MichaelGG 12y ago
Hmm, yeah, if people were executed for putting on blackface, it seems a good protest might have people putting on blackface. The point being that even if you normally wouldn't be "offensive" you would to make it clear that offending people is far less important than executing them. I also like how these cartoons are extremely offensive, as if that has any bearing on anything. Perhaps people shouldn't invent rules that makes them so offended? Like that Onion article about "no one was killed over this image".
aswanson 12y ago
Please dont equate mockery of a set of beliefs with mockery and oppression of a set of people based on genetic traits. I guarantee the French Muslims have not gone through a fraction of what blacks have gone through in terms of outright physical violence and state-sanctioned oppression. If anything France, and Europe as a whole, seem more than welcoming to muslims, at least from an immigration and social safety net perspective. Belief systems from Christian to Muslim to atheism must be subject to public criticism and mockery in a free society without threat of violence. People who dont feel this way should be free to leave.
- deciplex 12y ago
  >Belief systems from Christian to Muslim to atheism must be subject to public criticism and mockery in a free society without threat of violence. People who dont feel this way should be free to leave. Should be made to leave. Accommodating murders, thugs, and people who give them aid and comfort, does not make for good immigration policy.
- sroerick 12y ago
  I think this connection is not as arbitrary as you make it out to me. The intersection between muslims and Arabs is pretty large. I'm not sure the same secular identity politics exists in the Middle East as exist in America. Beyond that, the Civil Rights movement in America had 3 feet in Islam. I think the comparison is an appropriate one.
  - aswanson 12y ago
    Orthodox Islam, to the extent that it was effective in the US Civil Rights movement in the 60s, had its start with Malcolm X and its end with Clarence 13x and his founding of the Five Percent Nation, which is a rejection of Islam at its most fundamental level: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_13X http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_13X It replaces the "Mystery Spook" Allah and the Prophet Muhammed with the individual himself "A.l.l.a.h" (arm, leg, leg, arm, head) which is an acronym of a human being. There is no god, other than the living person. This is nothing more than atheism with a healthy dose of Randian objectivism. I fail to see the "3 feet" you mention here.
- Normati 12y ago
  France is not a free society in the same way America is. French people are happy to live under many more restrictive laws but we don't often see it. For instance, Charlie Hebdo's staff could have gone to prison if they had published a cartoon mocking the holocaust. Some people's offense is treated as more valuable than others in France.
  - pascal_cuoq 12y ago
    In “America”, laws forbid people drink beer in public. Not old, forgotten laws: policemen use these everyday as reason to arrest and search people in the street. In fact, in recent weeks, did US courts not repeatedly find nothing illegal had happened when the police executed someone who was standing in the street not being a danger? France is not perfect but you need to get out more if you think “America”, as you call it, is better.