Terrorist attack in Paris on French magazine

[MH]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

One thing I have felt from the beginning but have not mentioned; I do not care for the whole Charlie Magazine bashing and mocking religion for the sake of it (and profit). Sure, I will grant that they have the right to do so, but it's bad taste (don't forget, I am not religious at all). And how is it not considered hate speech? Or at the least, incitement to violence. Don't get me wrong, I am not on the side of killing people who draw Mohammed or Jesus, not at all. I definitely want to see the French root out the fledgling terrorists in their country and imprison or deport them. But yeah, twist the tiger's tail...

Great point of view yet if one wants to live in the western culture should get used to it or stay in ME or N.Africa.
When you look at all political cartoons and a like , it is chaos..now should religion be any different.
Now ... was anything racist , xenophobic in those cartoons , I think it is a little bit too much of understanding also " twist tiger's tail " sound wrong too me.
looks like the terrorist succeeded in making their point.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Tango589

I agree that whilst freedom of speech is a fundamental right, you should be a bit wary of putting a stick in a bees' nest, especially one that looks to be full of Killer Bees.

Means exactly what?

Since Salman Rushdie, and often reiterated since then, from 9/11 over Ylland Posten to Ford Hood, from Madrid over Bali to London, there have been demands by careful Westerners to be careful with that one does not use freedom to offend others who might react angry towards freedom then.

But I tell you what. Either you have freedom, or you have not. There is no "being wary of"-part in it. There is no middle-ground. Its no grey scale, but an issue of black or white. You must chose, and you can have only one, not both.

At best you can advise style, class, manners. Satire can be any of these. Or it can be more rude as well. But that has to be accepted. Do you think I have sympathy for the political ideas behind Charlie Hebdo? Me...? They are extremely left-leaning, by all what I understood! And I skin lefties for a hobby!

I once was told by one of these special subsim members (that since long time is gone) that apparently I would love the idea to send everybody into the gas chambers who disagrees with me. But you see, something like that you will get for sure if you limit freedom of speech by mislead warnings of that one should be careful regarding for what to say one uses this self-censored freedom.

For example the Shariah. It claims to make people free, yes. But free by its own restricting limitations only. You are free within the limits set by Shariah, Islam. In other words: you are free within your cage.

Only when I am free to do something anyway, I can consider in all voluntariness and freedom not to do it. Else I only get blackmailed, and/or subjugated by circumstances.

Same with tolerance. The weak cannot tolerate the strong, for he is not in the position to decide what the strong does to him. The weak endures what he must, the strong does as he pleases. And if the strong decides to not use his strength against the weak to make him do what he wants him to do - only then it may be a sign of tolerance. But never the other way around. For victims, tolerance is no option. It is unavailable to them. Needless to say: because this is so, every tolerance must have limits, else it is self-denial. And self-denial is what certain ideological and political circles in the West indeed love to hide behind the term "tolerance".

Same for solidarity. Only where I am free to decide on whether to be solidaric with somebody or not to be soldaric, I am solidaric indeed if I decide to be that. Where I am forced and pushed by pressure or expectation to comply with a demand for being solidaric, in fact I am only obedient.

It'S all about voluntariness, and power. Only where my decision bases on voluntariness, I can be solidaric. Or tolerant. Or free in speech and thought. It is not the other's business to decide any of this for me, or to blackmail me.

I may find that I am too weak to be free. Tell me - are we that far in the west already, are we that weak already that we should sanction, that we should ration freedom over threats by the other? What does that tell us about ourselves - and the other then? Is really us the strong one - or isn't it already the others being stronger?

[MH]

I may find that I am too weak to be free. Tell me - are we that far in the west already, are we that weak already that we should sanction, that we should ration freedom over threats by the other? What does that tell us about ourselves - and the other then? Is really us the strong one - or isn't it already the others being stronger?

Maybe the Stockholm syndrome thread should be revived after all...
...not that I agree with many of your ideas ... too totalitarian for me.

You seem too much into this ... who is Muslim and who is not with the claim the true Muslims are ISIS.
To me all Muslims are Muslims including the ISIS , you cant define for others who they are , when it comes to people and religion it works this way.
The definitions are for the scared politicians , who are not sure whom to fear more ...the Muslims or the voters to go nuts and they act like big responsible kindergarten teachers.
Yet with your approach you are actually blocking any possibility of reformed Islam to be embraced.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by MH

...not that I agree with many of your ideas ... too totalitarian for me.

Totalitarian? Well, please find another label to descredit me with, becasue the term "totalitarian" is not free from having a specific meaning, which according to Merriam-Webster is this:

the adjective "totalitarian":

1
a : of or relating to centralized control by an autocratic leader or hierarchy : authoritarian, dictatorial; especially : despotic
b : of or relating to a political regime based on subordination of the individual to the state and strict control of all aspects of the life and productive capacity of the nation especially by coercive measures (as censorship and terrorism)

2
a : advocating or characteristic of totalitarianism
b : completely regulated by the state especially as an aid to national mobilization in an emergency
c : exercising autocratic powers

and the noun "totalitarianism":

1
: centralized control by an autocratic authority

2
: the political concept that the citizen should be totally subject to an absolute state authority

And now consider this: that I attack the existence of states, superregional power structures and politial parties, lobbies and monopoles of power; that I refuse to accept the totalitarian (!! ) claims in any relgious or political ideologies including Islam, propagate capitalism and free enterprise, free speech/media/thinking, libertarianism, humanism, individual responsibility, "zero-state" concepts, and if you want: secular Buddhism and spirtual atheism , and I call people to resist to giving up their freedoms in the face of being challenged and being demanded to abandon these freedoms.

But I should be totalitarian here...?

You mistake my determination and intransigence with autocratic control, but if you call me totalitarian, then that is as if you would claim Eisenhower and Churchill and Roosevelt as totalitarian dictators like Hitler and Stalin because they decided and willed those policies needed to bring down totalitarianism and fascism and fought even a war needed to defeat totalitarianism and fascism at least in Germany and Europe.

I think you still refuse to recognise what you are up against when facing Islam, and while trivialising its nature you therefore are not willing to show the determination needed to indeed confront it and stop its further advancing.

You seem too much into this ... who is Muslim and who is not with the claim the true Muslims are ISIS.
To me all Muslims are Muslims including the ISIS , you cant define for others who they are , when it comes to people and religion it works this way.

Oh, that allmighty you are not, as if you can rule that terms and labels of languages should be freed of all their meanings and just any word can be used arbitrarily for just anything. Muslim is not what a person in front of you claims it to be because that person has its interests. "Muslim" is defined by the ideology of Islam, and its written ideological fundament. And that is the decisive criterion, nothing else - not your believing in hear-say, individual assurances or your personal kind beliefs that hope for the best in man. KungTse demanded already in his time and place the sorting of terms and words, complaining that people use one and the same word for too many meanings that were opportunistically chosen and did not reflect their original rela meaning.

Spock would call it linguistic precision.

Yet with your approach you are actually blocking any possibility of reformed Islam to be embraced.

No, actually you are blocking it. And I said it before and I say it again: Islam will not need to see any need to finally, for the first time ever, start a critical, objective self-reflection, if people like you always let it get away with its lies and decptions, self-decpetions and claims for beign given specially designed fvree rides, so that it gets what it ants without needing to chnage. I confront Islamic ideology in general and the Muslim standing up face to face to me instead, not accepting this weaseling and policy of self-vicitmization and intimdiating the other at the same time, and trying to talk the othe rinto a bad coinscience and making him beleive he would owe a totalitarian, supremacist, inhumane, racist ideology anything.

Islam has been far more successful in preventing reformist thinking and reforms in its realm, than the catholic church ever has been, and until today it is more unscrupulous and uncompromised in running policies of enforced unity and monoculturalism in order to make sure that its orthodoy originality does not change. And this unmoved appearance is what makes it so attractive - amongst other factors - for many young ones, btw, for they see it as the antidot to the almost unlimited opportunism and absence of idealistic orientation and values in the modern world.

Your problem is that you see this my determination as "totalitarian". But actually my thoughts are the most bitter enemy of any form of totalitarianism. Religious liberals and orthodox, people being politically left or right, they all deal with each other and cooperate at times to secure their own influence and power over people, but freedom-loving free spirits and libertarians are hated and demonized more than anyone else. Because they know all too well that freedom cannot be rationed and corrupted, cannot be bribed and cannot be bought, and this is what makes such free minds to the worst and most bitter enemies of lefts and rights, religious liberals and religious orthodox alike. This is why libertarians get demonized both by the political left and the political right, and why in all religions heretics and apostates are looked down on, but atheists are being seen as the biggest and most diabolical enemy in all universe.

And if then somebody comes and sees me as one of these incarnations of all lesser and higher evils in the world, or even just calls me "totalitarian" - then I cannot avoid but to feel flattered.

[MH]

You see ...every thing about religion is self deception and flexible logic , whichever way he go.
- a reason why I say , whom ever claim to be true Muslim , on personal level he is one , doesn't matter whether he is ISIS or progressive.
At the same time I also don't claim that Islam should not be criticized... I im portably the last person to do so lol....as we all see... every nut , lost soul or keen follower can be easily brainwashed into the nasty flavor of religion
The line is long and possibly getting longer.

What I find ridiculous is you with your supposedly Spock logic trying to prove that radical Islam must be the true Islam using quotes and so on...
It can be if it wins...besides the fact that it is bad strategy , unless.... you try to prove to us the readers here that radical Islam is true Islam so we agree with your ideology...still bad strategy , yet I do agree with some of your views.

Don't mind too much the totalitarian thing ... a bit extreme and odd at times then....

I don't like star trek very much ...love si fi though ...yet I remember that Spock was sort of guy for whom logic did not always work for the best and the poor soul??? struggled to understand human mind while the crew sort of made fun of him .

[Skybird]

That Spock once said in a movie "Logic is the beginning of all wisdom, but not its end", has not caused him to mistake Up with Down, or Left with Right, and Even with Uneven.

To many tell me about Islam and Quran, declare the heaven as green and the grass as blue, and try to tell me that this X actually is a U (German proverb). That is no fault in logic. That is not even a fault in reason. It simply is idiotic, or lacking willingness to look at the sky and the meadow and lacking skill in the ability to correctly read. None of these things are a question of interpretation, or are to be seen relative.

The sky is blue. The grass is green. And that X is no U. That's all I'm saying.

[Jeff-Groves]

Do any of you know that Spock is fictional?


Any argument based on him is also fictional then.
Maybe we should argue the point from the Borg and just assimulate everything?

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by MH

Great point of view yet if one wants to live in the western culture should get used to it or stay in ME or N.Africa.
When you look at all political cartoons and a like , it is chaos..now should religion be any different.
Now ... was anything racist , xenophobic in those cartoons , I think it is a little bit too much of understanding also " twist tiger's tail " sound wrong too me.
looks like the terrorist succeeded in making their point.

I'm just pointing out as reality. Try going into an Italian diner full of wiseguys in Brooklyn and shouting "hey, it smells in here, smells like (insert Italian slurs here)."

[Jeff-Groves]

Spock would say you shouldn't go in there to start with.

[Oberon]

Honestly, if Spock came into this thread...his reaction would be:

[Jeff-Groves]

If one is going to use fictional stuff? Then this point is just as valid.

[Buddahaid]

Forget Spock! What would Frank Herbert say? Eh? Is this how the world views Islam?

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Honestly, if Spock came into this thread...his reaction would be:

(what would evil spock say?)

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

LOL, did anyone ever think maybe they were not invited.

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

Your not thinking it through completely! Mr. Obama is #1 tarjeta del mundo since he pulled the plug on their #1, the late Mr. Bin Laden...With all the marchers and chaos ongoing in France at the moment, sufficient to enable a hot female suspect's escape to Syria or Turkey, the French Security DOES NOT NEED POTUS on its ground arriving in a conspicuous AirForce #1, nor any member of his immediate political family ie the cabinet such as the VP or Secretary of State. We lost one ambassador in Libya; it's dangerous work, and I understand our French ambassador was nearby-that's HIS job and he's doing it. We've lost 4 presidents to political nuts and with Islam's present nut-case plethora ideologically and technical proficiency; with a tradition going back to even King Richard I and the Assassins, no need to risk a fifth POTUS. And, If I can think like that, it means someone else already has. merci mon ami

Originally Posted by August

Neals right. Folks on both sides of the political spectrum here are pretty mad that the best the USA could muster at such a significant event was an ambassador.

Originally Posted by Skybird

I have linked the absence of Obama to security concerns. The deeper dimension of what it would have meant in recognising that several other terror attacks were indeed Muslim terror that absolutely had something to do with Islam, has escaped me.

The implication from that, describing the official view of earlier terrorism, is even more worrying.

I think my consideration (above) is the still correct one; Moreover Besides Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, of Benghazi, Five other U.S. ambassadors have been killed in the line of duty:
Adolph Dubs, in Afghanistan, 1979
Francis E. Meloy Jr., in Lebanon, 1976
Rodger P. Davies, in Cyprus, 1974
Cleo A. Noel Jr., in Sudan, 1973
John Gordon Mein, in Guatemala; 1968 Of the six ambassadors five were killed in moslem oriented or influenced countries. Now that Al Qaeda has claimed a credit for the attack out of Yemen under Bin Laden's successor, and gave $20,000 for the operation, POTUS stays put. ...inasmuch as the overstrained French clearly do not have the security situation under control at present and do not need the considerable headache of Obamas's security added to their other concerns. I'm quite sure the drones in Yemen are scoping out white pickups-of-opportunity and proven killer POTUS has his finger on a button where it and he belong... Even the captain of the USS Vincennes wife was attacked by a pipe bomb in San Diego after her husband's vessel downed an Iranian airliner in 1989 and she had to leave her teaching job and home for security reasons. Clearly this is now all-out war and the enemy is out there and able to strike at will whenever and wherever it chooses. Our response should be like Churchill's in WWII "hunt to destruction"; no quarter-let Allah sort em' all out.

[Von Tonner]

Link for a PDF copy of Charlie Hebdo

http://www.mediafire.com/download/mw...nvier+2015.pdf