[Bobboau]

and you have the same right.

[T-Man]

If any of you are wondering, the terrorists involved in this have just been dealt with, and another gunman who held hostages in a Kosher supermarket. Hopefully there'll be no more events in the coming days.

(If I may a moment, I can't help but be sickened a little at how two people (and one admin through their goading), none of whom were really affected by this event, have turned this topic into a rant-match lasting eight pages, which throughout has never mentioned the fact over a dozen (if not two dozen) people lost their lives, and seemingly focused instead on soapboxing themselves. Have you ever wondered whether it's people like you that cause stuff like this to happen? Apologies for being brutal, but someone has to.

Go and think about the dead, and think about yourselves too please. None of us deserve to put up with this kind of rubbish).

[Luis Dias]

And I thought my jokes were bad.

Clearly you have problems with people using forums to actually speak about the issues they are thinking about. There's an easy solution for that.

[Bobboau]

you're bad and you should feel bad!

well the important thing is that you managed to find a way to feel superior to both sides.

[Aesaar]

(If I may a moment, I can't help but be sickened a little at how two people (and one admin through their goading), none of whom were really affected by this event, have turned this topic into a rant-match lasting eight pages, which throughout has never mentioned the fact over a dozen (if not two dozen) people lost their lives, and seemingly focused instead on soapboxing themselves. Have you ever wondered whether it's people like you that cause stuff like this to happen? Apologies for being brutal, but someone has to.

Go and think about the dead, and think about yourselves too please. None of us deserve to put up with this kind of rubbish).

Oh please.  "Thinking about the dead" won't bring them back, and it won't bring comfort to their families.  Do you think this thread would be better if it was nothing but weeping about people no one here actually knew?  The issues highlighted by their deaths matter, and they're worthy of discussion.  If you don't want to "put up with this kind of rubbish", there's absolutely nothing forcing you to read the thread.

As callous as it sounds, people die every single day.  The only reason we have a thread about this particular incident is the reason why it happened, and who it happened to.  Two dozen people dying?  That probably happened again in the time it took me to write this reply.  Should we have a thread about them?

[Luis Dias]

Go and think about the dead, and think about yourselves too please. None of us deserve to put up with this kind of rubbish).

Meanwhile, in the arab world:

http://imgur.com/a/zd5rl/#JeSuisCharlie

[Col.Hornet]

That's a good thing to see Recent events are tragedy but also... an opportunity. For Muslims to say it loud and clear that killing in response of a silly cartoon is just cruelty and such actions should be rejected entirely even if the actions of the terrorists have been motivated by their religion (I know, bad interpretation stuff but the roots of this killing are sadly in ideology which is connected directly to Islam) . And that must be a strong reaction. If there will be not enough resistance against terror acts among the Muslims themselves or they will stay neutral on that issue..... then I simply cannot imagine how our cultures can coexist without such violent incidents. By not resisting the violence we give the "bad guys" quiet permission for their actions.
 
And this is not only about the drawings of the Prophet. it's also about stoning women, hanging gay people and many other issues. We Europeans (and not only) shall not tolerate any form of support for such beliefs. It simply stays against our code of morality. Of course we should not involve in Muslim countries issues. it's their land and rules. But in Europe. Our values, our rules, our morality, our laws. And it is our duty to stand behind them. 
I hope I didn't offend anybody

[Bobboau]

that is indeed good to see.

[T-Man]

Aye gotta say thanks for sharing the link. Never thought responses like this (newspaper cartoons etc) would come in from so far and wide; get the feeling the Newspaper cartooning community worldwide is quite closely knit.

[Phantom Hoover]

they need to make sure nobody starts making their commentary subtle in case the readers catch on

[Flipside]

I don't want to be part of this Forum any more.

"We hurl abuse at Christians, and that gives us the right to hurl abuse at Muslims!'

Really? That's what 'Free Speech' has come to?

Humanity is doomed.

Just like people think they have the 'right' to make rape jokes because they haven't been raped...

General Discussion has become the pit it always tried so hard to become.

[Mr. Vega]

Yes, you must long for the days of an0n, Kazan vs Lib, and the vadar_1/Stealth flamewar. Truly a more civilized age.

[Flipside]

Oh put them away, they went years ago, and were no worse than some of the people we have today, stop thinking there's been an improvement.

I'm on the side of Free Speech and even I'm beginning to see how radicalization happens with attitudes such as this. So apparently, when Islam wants the entire world to work to its values, that's evil, but when the West wants the whole world to live to its values, that's Freedom....

As disgusting as I find the acts of Terrorists of recent days, the whole idea that attacking the entire culture for it is some kind of solution is ridiculous.

I remember during the desegregation of South Africa, there was an interview with a white couple who said they thought whites and blacks could live together but the blacks would 'have to come up to our standards'. For some reason that interview pops into my mind.

[Mr. Vega]

I wouldn't call it an improvement - the admins let a lot of flaming through, but the freer atmosphere let this place take advantage of some really smart, funny, and opinionated people. The admins could also take criticism a lot better too. And hey, at least Stealth and vadar snapping at each other was entertaining in a train wreck kind of way, as opposed to the passive-aggressive slap fights you carefully referee now.

You want my actual opinion on this stuff? The CH cartoons are tacky. They're not genuinely racist the way the Dutch cartoons were. If noone had been already been killed for drawing a mocking picture of Muhammad, my response would "guys, come on, cut that **** out".

Now we have news outlets afraid to post the unblurred images because they don't want men with guns to come after them. We need to show we're not afraid, that if you attempt to stop blasphemous disrespect of your beliefs by violence, it will backfire. Horribly. We can call out this stuff for being tacky once we make it clear through action that self censorship is not an appropriate response to violence. Don't try to cross the bridge before you come to it.

[Flipside]

Ageed, self censorship is not a solution, but neither is the act of bombarding that culture with more offensive images. The whole idea that you can cast abusive comments into another culture and it will have the same effect as it would in your own culture is flawed.

We are trapped now, these stupid drawings have become some kind of flagship.

The whole point about 'extreme' forms of speech was the rarity, so when people like Wilde, Voltaire or Twain made those comments, it raised eyebrows, people paid attention, that was the point of using Free Speech. Voltaire wasn't trying to get the Church to get used to be being abused, he was trying to promote a dialogue for change, he wasn't just doing it for 'likes'.

If you make that the norm, where everyone is using abuse to prove their point, then it becomes totally pointless in and of itself, it just becomes abuse for the sake of abuse, and the point gets lost.

[castor]

Free speech means having to accept people will use that freedom to say **** we don't like.  It's still worth it.

And every now and then, the speech will aggravate a mad man or two, enough to make them blow up stuff. And *that* fact will not be helped by any amount of cartoons drawn (nothing short of planet wide lobotomy would help).
That's why, regardless of the subject, it makes sense to think about the expected outcome before exercising the freedom of speech. Otherwise it's like you're bringing a knife to a gun fight, you are free to do so, but what sense does it make?

Personally, I think this whole idea about cartoons helping here is mostly a juvenile day dream of sorts. Depending on the background of the person viewing the images, the source will be rated as either a troll, an idiot or an evil being - not someone providing information to be integrated into ones view of the world.
 
I don't expect anything else but steel to be of help in this mess. Plenty of it, in the correct place, at the correct time.

[Bobboau]

The West is perfectly willing to let other parts of the world wall its self off if they wish but the way things work in the west is people are allowed to say things, anything they want. you can get pissed, you can protest, you can say things in response, anything you want in response, What you can't do is silence anyone. (Or that's how it's supposed to work anyway, many parts of the supposedly western world now have crimespeek laws.) This is what we do, Not doing this would be betraying our own values. To the people on the other end of the world if they cannot handle this they need to wall themselves off from us like North Korea did. that simply is the way it is, Our values might actually be compatible, and I am not about to compromise mine, least of all for anyone's skydaddy.

[Flipside]

And there are other people in other cultures who also feel just as strongly, in a way, understanding that fact gets halfway to the root of the problem.

[Bobboau]

I understand that fact, like I said, our values might actually not be compatible, it might actually turn out that that is the case after all. I have to consider that possibility and it's your discussion here that led me to consider it.

[Scotty]

I think it's rather interesting how people expect, when it is at its very basest cultural violence, Draw Muhammed Day to do anything helpful.  This is, on a cultural scale, picking on the kid who lives in the beat up trailer until he punches someone, and then getting pissed off that he punched you and retaliating by making fun of the kid even harder, and spreading it around to all of his friends, too.  Does that make the kid right to throw a punch?  Of course not.  But how can we consider this a positive thing when we're the ones escalating it still further?

If the best way to respond to terrorism is to not let it affect you, we failed really ****ing hard if that's our next step.