Daily KOS would like you to understand Charlie Hebdo in a more complete fashion, so they've published cartoons that they think will make you approve of them much more. And you will, if you like Daily KOS.
It turns out, unsurprisingly really, that they're a completely conventional leftist outfit: we already knew that the anti-Islam cartoons were just a symptom of the kind of severe hatred for organized religion that is common on the French Left (and has been since the Revolution). Now we see them endorsing all the other ordinary opinions of leftist thought: they are against patriotism, against the military, against oil, against the police, against the right-wing, and sure that all expressions of nationalism are merely about murder or theft.
Instead of a revolutionary magazine, its expressed opinions are so ideologically commonplace as to be boring. The only difference is that Islam is more important in France; here we only get this kind of bitter hatred aimed at Christianity.
Turns out you can hold all kinds of wildly offensive opinions, but the guys coming through the front door with guns won't be there to uphold the besmirched honor of patriotism, the military, oil, police, the right wing, or organized religion (except one particularly insecure and murderous kind).
ReplyDeleteOddly enough! The way they portray Bastille Day, you'd think they expected knife-wielding paratroopers to crash their doors.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure they're against much of anything so much as they're for provocation for provocation's sake.
ReplyDeleteEric Hines
Yep. That's one reason I really dislike the whole "Je suis Charlie" shtick.
ReplyDeleteI don't identify with these guys at all, but as we've all discussed earlier, I don't even think that kind of "speech" is particularly valuable in itself either. But that doesn't mean it's OK to shoot people up.
My message isn't the same as Charlie Hebdo's, but the sort of things I say have something very important in common with their message: Islamonutsos are just as willing to kill me for my message as to kill those guys for theirs. The only practical difference is that my message doesn't reach enough people to draw the crazy attention down on me. Yet. But that's only because they haven't been permitted to infiltrate society to the point where I'd hit their radar. Yet.
ReplyDeleteYears ago, I got into a big argument with my Dad over my criticism of Islamist whackjobbery at VC. He as very worried about my safety, and that of my family. It was painful - I ended up telling him to back down and he didn't take it well.
ReplyDeleteWell, he's my Dad and that's what Dads do: try to protect their families. I just don't believe it's necessary to defend all speech in order to make statement that we won't tolerate murdering people. We already have laws about that whole murder thing.
Does it really matter WHY murderers and terrorists kill? Isn't it enough to go after them when they do? I guess I'm just not willing to ardently defend ALL speech just to draw a line in the sand about speech.
I think it's possible to oppose some speech (without wishing to ban it) without condoning murder.
I know you know that, but it's an important point to me.
I don't think we have to defend all speech. But I do think it's important to stress that no outrage over speech, no matter how fervent, will be considered the slightest defense against premeditated murder charges. I think it's also incredibly important, every time someone says "Well, they should have known they would get murdered if they published that kind of thing," to push back very hard. Otherwise it's too easy to drift into the notion that free speech is all very well as long as the message isn't offensive.
ReplyDeleteThere is something special about murder motivated by a hatred of free speech: it's too close to what governments used to think they had the right to do (and some still do). It's right up there with murder for apostasy, or lynching for mixed marriages.
We don't so much need to emphasize that murder for hire or murder in the commitment of armed robbery or to silence a witness is wrong, because we're not (yet) experiencing a societal breakdown in consensus on those points.
We have things like RICO laws because we perceived a serious problem with racketeering. If we didn't have the Mob, we'd probably never have bothered with RICO, because we already had laws against fraud and murder.
In any case, this isn't about what law the courts will use to prosecute the murderers. It's about society affirming an important principle of liberty.
I'm skeptical of the application of hate crimes law in practice, too, but I still think it has a place in our system, because of an ugly history.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it," seems to be very much the core sentiment here.
ReplyDeleteAmazing Logic you have here. It'll bring on the war you desperately seek to avoid, however. Do you have to interview a lot of Leftists to get these Logic from Daily Kos, is that it grim.
ReplyDeleteI don't have to interview anybody. They publish these things.
ReplyDelete