Massacre in Paris - a dozen newspeople shot

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181

“myself got a similar earful from a crappy “stand up comic” not too long afterwards while with a couple of out-of-town friends who didn’t understand at first why I was so disturbed by said comic asking if I’m going to be the next mass murderer because I “looked Korean”.”

I bet you Joan Rivers could have made the same comment and everyone would have laughed.
Different people have different senses of humor. You post those barbarian videos on here which aren’t funny at all to me, just stupid. Similarly, this comic’s humor wasn’t to your taste. So what? Then walk out, or complain to the management. He had a right to put on his show, and you had a right to walk out of you found it offensive.

182

“However, to be a devil’s advocate, why not charge the owners of Charlie Hebdo or their estate for the police chases and loss of economic benefit from closing the major thorofares and CDG airport?”

Sometimes I find it hard to believe you really went to Penn.

CH may have been offensive – no, I’m sure they were offensive. But the fault lies 110% with the murderers.

183

“More importantly, people are refusing to admit that free speech SHOULD be limited.”

It already is limited. I can’t yell fire in a crowded theater, take out a newspaper ad proclaiming my neighbor to be a child molester when he isn’t, or say “I’m planning on killing the president.”

I can say, however, that other religions are stupid if I want. How can you stop me? I can’t incite violence, but I can make my views known.

184

Such “social pressures” and assuming individuals part of a perceived “foreign” or “outsider group” can easily escalate into potentially violent deadly attacks against those who seem to fit as shown in this SPLC article on anti-Muslim attacks on and after 9/11:

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/news/splc-testifies-about-increase-in-anti-muslim-bias/anti-muslim-incidents-since-9-11

Some incidents where deadly violence with guns or other forms to deadly violence were used:

And more recently on the 10th anniversary:

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2011/winter/9/11-anniversary-sparks-hate-crimes-a

185

Yes, but it wasn’t. Your Korean friends were not held at gunpoint and forced to apologize for VA Tech, so don’t go pretending they were “forced” to do anything. If they issued apologies on social media, that was THEIR choice.

186

Indeed, no one on FB or other social media is “forced” to do anything. This is about as stupid as the discussions claiming that people were “pressured” into doing the ice bucket challenge last year.

If you don’t feel like proclaiming Je Suis Charlie, then don’t. Stop confusing your own extremely high need for social approval and validation through all your buddies, with pressure.

187

And you are missing the larger point that visible minority groups are held to a different standard when crimes or negative actions of a few individuals happening to be part of or perceived to be as such that everyone in those groups ends up being presumed responsible by mere association.

For instance, do mainstream Americans expect all White Americans to apologize for the actions of White supremacist groups or individuals like Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Oklahoma Federal Courthouse in the mid-'90s at all, much less to the same extent our society tends to hold the entire community of visible minorities responsible for crimes committed by a few individuals who happen to be or perceived to be part of the group?

Did you feel it was right for my Caucasian-American friend to be implicitly held responsible for actual/anticipated crimes committed by being profiled by local Japanese cops in the region he happened to be staying because he happened to share the same race and nationality of those who were suspected/convicted of them in that area?

And if you go beyond and actually examined history…including recent history, such social pressures and the mentality of holding the entire group of perceived visible outsiders/minorities in a given society responsible for the crimes of a minority of their number can escalate to deadly violence if the conditions/environment is right…

The SPLC articles I linked above and the rise of Fascism before and during WWII are just a few of many countless examples in history of the dark road such “social pressure” and mentality of holding the entire visible minority/outsider group could lead…

188

Climbing a mountain is “reckless” due to the realities of nature, not because it offends certain people.

Charlie Hebdo was only “reckless” because a group of religious terrorists said so. How far are we going to scale back our Western culture in order not to “recklessly” offend terrorists?

189

“And you are missing the larger point that visible minority groups are held to a different standard when crimes or negative actions of a few individuals happening to be part of or perceived to be as such that everyone in those groups ends up being presumed responsible by mere association.”

But they aren’t being held AT GUNPOINT, cobrat. Your Korean friends may have FELT compelled to apologize for VA Tech, but they weren’t ACTUALLY compelled to do so by force. They were absolutely, perfectly free to go about their day and not offer any kind of “apology” for a crime they had nothing to do with. Just like every single Muslim here in the US is free to go about their business and not mention or acknowledge or apologize for the Charlie murders.

You really don’t understand or acknowledge the difference between so-called social pressure, and REAL pressure (which is physical violence).

190

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191

Yes, Rhandco. We should also make sure we tiptoe around terrorists! In fact, perhaps the govt can make it a crime to say anything other than praise for Islam. Why stop there? Make it any religion. Only nice, agreeable pleasant things. Think it’s stupid that Jews don’t eat pork? Keep it to yourself! Evidence of Catholic priests abusing boys? Shhhhh! Think the fundamentalists who think man walked with dinosaurs are idiots? Now, now! Have a differing point of view on how Israel /Palestinian issues should be dealt with? There will be one uniform view tolerated and that’s that!

I think the word for what you propose is thoughtcrime.

192

Actually, it is you who doesn’t understand how such forms of social pressure could easily escalate into what you termed “real pressure” given fertile conditions…such as widespread inflammatory rhetoric promoting stereotypes which cast aspersions on perceived “outsiders” within a given society.

There’s too many examples in history, including recent history to argue otherwise. That is, unless one is in deep denial or worse…

193

And make no mistake, there were plenty of Korean Americans in the US who did just that-they were horrified like the rest of us, shook their heads sadly, and went about their way with no apologies to anyone for any sense of guilt by association. And their lives went on just like everyone else who also had nothing to do with it.

194

^^^In the above example, I think it’s rather a poor comparison that Korean Americans would feel any social pressure to apologize for the Virginia Tech tragedy. There are no widespread Korean factions all over the world proclaiming loudly that they want to kill Americans at home and abroad.

I think this is where Muslims DO feel the guilt by association. Terrorists all over the world have vowed to kill and maim those who are unbelievers, in the name of their religion. They have been doing so for a long time. This is a religion, not an ethnic group, so it’s impossible to know which Muslim communities are harboring extremists and which are not.

I don’t see pressure exerted on Muslims to apologize for the acts of terrorists, but clearly there are calls for them to loudly criticize these acts or make more effort within their communities to preach against jihadism and violence. And yes, I fully anticipate that Muslims in France will feel the eyes of suspicion on them more and more as people wonder “are YOU one of them?” This is not going to get better any time soon.

195

^ ^

Right after 9/11 and afterwards, some Japanese-American activist groups used their own community’s experiences with widespread bigotry and official discrimination/internment after December 7, 1941 to show support and argue what was happening to the Muslim-American communities across the US with stereotyping, profiling, and violent attacks was just as wrong as what happened to members of their community back then:

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_22612000/day-remembrance-japanese-americans-show-support-muslims-sikhs

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/american-muslims-911

196

cobrat, no one is suggesting that it is acceptable to discriminate against ethnic groups or any other kind of definable group because a member of that group does something despicable. Of course it has happened. Everyone knows that. Everyone also knows that whipping up such prejudiced and ignorant emotions and actions is immoral, unethical, and wrong.

In my opinion, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are deeply unethical and despicable people. Because they systematically do just that. For money. Nevertheless, I do not get a gun and shoot them, or even threaten to do so, or suggest that anyone else should. I’d love to see Rush off the air. Several years ago, a man apparently motivated by Beck took a gun to a church service of my denomination and started shooting people. I might consider informing his advertisers that I will boycott their products, but I am not going to advocate his murder.

In a civilized society, civilized people find other ways of indicating disapproval of speech than violence. People who do resort to violence are not behaving in a civilized manner. The fact that some individuals fail to live up to the ideals of Western civilization does not mean that those ideas are a crock.

What is your point?

197

And, Al Sharpton. If we want to talk about motivating crazies to shoot people that one is more current.

198

Yeah, I thought about him, too.

199

Consolidation,

One concern I’ve been having which has been borne out by the dominant strain of discussion here and in popular uncritical mass media is the focus of the main cause of this being focused on free speech.

While there’s some truth it it, the overwhelming focus on it is obscuring the more central causes of these murders…some of which was alluded to by some members of the French authorities themselves*:

This is essentially an act of terrorism by a small group with an avowed affiliation with an international terrorist organization which has been on the ropes and trying to revive themselves after being sidelined as the dominant radical Islamic terrorist group in the world by ISIS/ISIL.

Terrorists like Al-Qaeda by their very nature aren’t affiliated with governments and don’t have any regard for the prevailing social contract of a given society so focusing discussions of this event on free speech is nice from a rhetorical soundbite similar to the post 9/11 “Why do they hate our freedoms?”, but misses the larger point.

It also doesn’t get us closer to understanding the actual root causes of the issue for a better understanding so this problem can be dealt with at varying levels. Rhetorical soundbites are easy and emotionally appealing, but don’t do much to get us closer to understanding the root causes.

Here’s two articles which are making some effort to getting at those root causes:

http://www.juancole.com/2015/01/sharpening-contradictions-satirists.html

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/unmournable-bodies

  • Deep alienation and separation from mainstream French society due to issues like rampant poverty...and it was stated by an official with French law enforcement on a newscast last night.
200

Oh piffle. The idea that French Muslims are so alienated they attack journalists and Jews is ridiculous. Of the known French terrorists - and others - their backgrounds vary, with some poor and some well off, some mistreated, some not. Some have been the beneficiaries of France - or the US, as I pointed out with the Tsarnaev brothers here. Some were never particularly devout, including the ones who did this latest Muslim atrocity: they weren’t regular attendees at prayers. The Tsarnaevs weren’t either, with one being your basic college student and the other more interested in martial arts. If these people have something in common, other than Islam, it’s that they tend to have a history of using and/or dealing drugs.

I hear this argument from the Arab world as well and maybe if I present it you’ll see why it’s so bleeping wrong: the argument is that the West is way, way, way ahead of the Arab world in every material sense, in every sense of invention and technology … but Arabs are Muslim and Muslim life is better so Arabs are humiliated by the West and the Arab world is torn between those who say “we must emulate the West at least in some ways” and those who not only reject that but insist the West must be brought under Muslim control. The argument then becomes that only imposed Shariah will place Muslims in their proper role in the world, that the West humiliates Arabs/Muslims over the things that don’t matter to God.

So one can talk about the disadvantaged, ignoring the reality of who terrorists actually are, because that distracts from the reality of what terrorists want to accomplish, which is the imposition of their control. The difference is this: people say these people are destructive, even nihilists who only seek to tear down, but that’s not what they believe. They believe they are building a world under Allah’s control, under Shariah, a world which they feel compelled to create. They see themselves as creating, not destroying because what we have is not worth anything without Shariah in control.

If you fail to understand this, you just don’t get these people: you continue to view terror through our eyes without acknowledging these are people with minds, with ideology, with beliefs about what should be. It isn’t France’s fault. People are always going to be poor. There will always be abused children. There will always be “losers” in economic competition. So bleeping what? They aren’t terrorists because they aren’t motivated by an ideology to destroy in the name of creation.