Charlie Hebdo attack, Paris, FR

Re above amusing cartoon.
Is it OK on this thread to post pictures "gently poking fun" at other religions?
Or just Islam?

This type of cartoon is not something separate from religious and race based attacks on people and property, it is part of the same thing.

In no way does it justify the murder of innocent people, but it may be part of the cause, stirring up animosity and hatred between people of different beliefs.

 

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Watching some of the France Unity March.
Mightily impressed by it.
I was afraid that it might be highjacked by the extreme right,
but it's an astonishing display of solidarity.

 

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where is the unity march for:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/09/boko-haram-deadliest-massacre-baga-nigeria

or

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/taliban-attack-on-pakistan-school-leaves-141-dead-1.2874449

 

I watched about two hour of the TV coverage and saw no British or American flags in the crowd, nor were those countries represented in marching line of high government officials from many lands. I was married to a Norwegian and now am to a Brazilian. I spotted both those country's flags several times, so no problem with my "flag spotting" skills. It did take some courage for high officials / many country presidents, to go there as "sleeper cells" reportedly have been activated. Perhaps a problem with the "land of the free & home of the brave"? Personally, I think at least Obama's wife should have been there in the front line of the march.

 

In my book, it's ok to mock any religious belief or cultural practice. As I said to pjdude, if there are Christian or Jewish forces using violence and legal suppression to block criticism of their beliefs, I'd respond in the same way.

Too fucking bad for them, I guess. It's vilely offensive to the very idea of modern human civilization that the members of a society shouldn't have the right to freely criticize other peoples' beliefs. If Muslims don't want to be offended and wish for me to practice voluntary self-censorship, then they need to stop brainwashing their kids to the exclusion of proven scientific facts and critical thinking, stop coercing people into joining or staying in their religion, and stop questioning my right to say and publish things which may offend them. Western society has long been far too tolerant of other peoples' intolerance and allowed them to mistake generosity for weakness, so it's time to reverse course and lay down the secular laws of the land.

 

It seems to me that western society, in its caution, fails to make some crucial distinctions that would help to frame the debate. Bashing Islam does not amount to the same thing as bashing Muslims, just as criticizing the Pope is not the same thing as accusing all Catholics of pedophilia. I can criticize and mock the concept of a flat 6000 year-old Earth or mountains teleporting or anything that comes out of any given interpretation of a religion without categorizing its followers as belonging to some derelict subspecies. If you don't want your ideas to be challenged, then don't put them out there where people can learn about them in the first place.

 

Where are all the angry riots in Pakistan? Maybe their government should have faked a video of the Taliban burning copies of the Quran in the school's library.

 

The European Court of human rights made an interesting comment when upholding the French Government's ban on women wearing the burqa.
They said that preservation of a certain idea of 'living together' was a legitimate aim of French authorities.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/01/france-burqa-ban-upheld-human-rights-court

If they want people to coexist peacefully then banning of hate crimes in the form of grossly offensive cartoons might have been a better target.

Would they allow people to publish this magazine in the USA?
That isn't a rhetorical question.
I wonder whether it would breach US law.

 

The Burqa bans sound more extreme than anything going on in Canada or the US. If it can be established that Burqas are being used by Muslim societies as a systematic tool to differentiate and isolate themselves from even the most tolerant elements of secular society, then I can sympathize with France's reasoning, but the same logic goes for any other kind of tool used by a community's hardliners in order to isolate their members from integrating or assimilating into the secular society at large. You should go to a free country to be free, not to bring along oppressive medieval superstitions with dreams of slowly turning your new host into the same shithole you came from. It's not only Muslim conservatives I have a problem with, but those are the ones causing the present troubles in France, and believing that blowing yourself up in a supermarket is "going too far" doesn't make you ipso facto a liberal.

I don't know much about Charlie Hebdo and don't see much of personal interest in their style or content (I guess their crap looks cool to some people raised a certain way in some weird part of France), so you tell me what's so objectionable that you think it should be banned. Frankly, nothing should be banned if it's only defamatory against a fictional character from a fairy tale. I don't think anyone in the US has a legal copyright on the usage of Mohammed as a character (maybe Disney should file for one).

 

Think about it this way:

Am I allowed to start my own church, where I preach that my urine can cure cancer but only when accompanied by intense prayer and avoidance of all conventional therapies? No? Then why the hell should established churches, synagogues and mosques be allowed to preach anything they want either?

Can I teach my kids that they have to do all my house chores for me every night, or else the Bogeyman will come and rape them up the butt? No? Then why the hell should anyone be allowed to teach children about hell?

Oh let me guess, I have to objectively prove each of my claims first, just like all the established superstitions have done.

 

I don't think CH should be banned, but when it strays from reasonable comment it should be subject to laws of inciting hatred.
What is reasonable would have to be up to a court to decide.
This might have happened even if the cartoons had been less inflammatory

 

Precisely.

 

Well that's the crux of it; we need to protect people from being harassed and discriminated against based on race, gender or creed, without restraining people from their right to freely and openly criticize legends and ideas. Drawing caricatures of a well-known mythical figure does not fall into the restricted category above. There's no human right to not be offended by what other people do or say, if it doesn't prevent you from going about your day doing your own thing all the same.

If we're going to censor publications which are critical of specific religions or cultures, then places of worship should be held to the same standards when they go out preaching against other religions and ways of life. Mosques, churches, synagogues and their affiliated schools should be treated the same way as magazines when it comes to what they are and aren't allowed to say.

Indeed, I don't see treasonous rats like Anjem Choudary complaining that it's our cartoons keeping people like him down in society. I'm not in favour of insulting people just for the sake of insulting them, but when it happens, it's not enough for those who feel insulted to simply condemn the most indiscriminate of responses; rather they must be willing to swallow their pride and condemn any sort of force or coercion whatsoever.

 

Why didn't you attend?

 

Well I'm specifically focussing on the secular democracies of North America, Europe, Australia and Japan. To my knowledge, you can't just start a church and preach anything you like whatsoever (see Waco standoff), but if I'm right about this, it would indeed constitute a major double standard.

Absolutely! If governments think it's their job to control the amount of porn a kid gets to watch, then they should also take in interest in all the other things kids might watch. Religious brainwashing involving threats of violence, whether in this life or the next one, constitutes a clear form of child abuse with demonstrably devastating consequences to their critical thinking abilities and quality of life.

True enough. In hell, furnace fires cauterize the rape wounds so they can be inflicted infinitely many more times, a much cleaner procedure. And who said anything about just cleaning their room? If I'm going to brainwash my kids into total obedience, might as well also get them to wash the car, mow the lawn, shovel the snow, sweep the chimney, cook my food, clean my dishes, and maybe whore themselves out on the weekends to make me some extra cash.

Well I'm only here to defend the right to mock.

Well, to be blunt, France has long been known as a nation that believes in social engineering, and after 100 years of it, doesn't look like it's achieving the desired results or reminding anyone that it used to be an important country. Radical Islam is only one issue out of many to be dealt with, but it's become an elephant in the room and needs to catalyze major changes in society's approach to integration and tolerance. If out of fairness we have to alter our standards towards other institutions in the process, then let it be so.

I'm fed up with Netanyahu's antics, and if he wants to justify his actions by comparing himself to Bashar Assad next door, then he should be held to the same standards and international privileges that Assad gets. That said, France needs to do a lot, LOT more to protect its Jewish population from anti-semitic attacks and incitement alongside combatting Muslim radicals; they're failing miserably at it, and it's deeply undermining France's credibility when trying to play a constructive role in Middle East peacemaking.

 

You can, pretty much. It wasn't the preaching that got the Waco folks crossways with the National Guard.

 

Cost of round trip from Brazil. - I would have liked to show my support for freedom of speech / press. Would have gone if some one paid my air fare.

"Think globally, act locally" is a rule I try to follow. - Why I often march a few blocks in the world's 2nd largest Gay Pride day celebration despite being as heterosexual as they come. Why I took a summer off from my Ph.D. graduate experiment to lead the successful civil rights movement that opened the restaurants of Baltimore to all, regardless of skin color. (The two prior summer efforts lead by others failed - they were based on "moral persuasion." Mine was based on economic pressure.)

With help of many cars owned by rich girls of nearby Gaucher College, and precisely timed / coordinated* sit-ins, on a good Sunday we could cost restaurants more than $25,000 in lost business. After a few month of doing this, the Restaurant Association, RA, did a 180 turn, and joined us in asking the MD legislature to make discrimation based on skin color illegal, which they promptly did.

* This was required as during the prior two summers the RA had developed a telephone chain alert system that got restaurant's doors locked after the first one or two sit-in groups got in. (A waitress stood at door opening it for normal customers.) Our sit-ins were simultaneous - timed to the minute. About 5 minutes before 4 or 5 five blacks ran to and thru the door, the white car owner went in and ordered some thing expensive, like a well done steak, that would take time to fix. Soon one of the blacks she had deliver (car parked at least a block away) sat with her and others sat at other tables. - That was when the shouting began until the cops arrived. A Waitress had to read a long notice designed to prevent hunters from entering a posted farm land, before the cops told us to leave. We did and picketed outside for a few hours. The Baltimore AfroAmerican newspaper was already paying the legal cost of test court cases for two who had not left when told to - did not want more cost.

It was not the "Normandy Invasion" but just as precisely timed and planed - I had to be careful that the car driver had not been sent to that restaurant before as she might have been recognized and tripped the RA's alert system. Also as traffic conditions could cause delay, all sat in the parked car for 10 minutes, waiting for WBT, "white body exit time." The "BBs" (black bodies) were with rare exceptions, only high school kids. We had an essentially infinite supply of BBs as summer was otherwise boring for most. I had gone to Morgan State, an all black college inside Baltimore, but none there wanted to help - they were making it out of poverty. - Not their problem as they saw it.