Anonymous wrote:got this facebook link from a friend which details some of the Charlie Hebdo 'cartoons'. I have to say I found them beyond the pale, and more than satire
http://themarooncolony.com/2015/01/08/jenesuispascharlie/

Read the first of the two long posts earlier in the thread, explaining second degree. It explicitly talks about the cartoon of the black minister of justice Taubira. It was actually an anti-racist cartoon.

"I noticed you left out the jews. "

Oh, CH made fun of everyone -- an equal opportunity offender. It was sued by Jewish, catholic, and Muslim organizations repeatedly. It always won.

But if you ask -- one cartoon for the Jews, and an accompanying cartoon for the Muslims.

Anonymous wrote:

Muslima wrote:Free speech is not absolute!

Says who? You?

Freedom of speech is not absolute. The mere fact that there are slander and libel laws is a testament to this. The press is not free to publish the plans for a nuclear bomb. Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning, Wikileaks ring a bell? The US government has been allowed to limit speech for many, many reasons, because the Supreme Court has recognised that in some cases the harm speech causes can outweigh its value for freedom of speech purposes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CH was widely regarded by the French as hard left, anti-racist, anti-fascist, equal opportunity "mocker" -- which explains the outpouring of support. It looks like many Americans don't understand, and don't try to understand it, and are rushing to judgment.

Maybe Westerners just don't understand female genital mutilation, (which is regarded as pro-female by its proponents/practitioners), and the West is rushing to judgement?

We all see the world through the prisms of our own cultures and experiences. I can deem CH as sickening while still decrying the slaughter

Read the previous two (long) posts explaining CH to people unfamiliar with it.

Anonymous wrote:CH was widely regarded by the French as hard left, anti-racist, anti-fascist, equal opportunity "mocker" -- which explains the outpouring of support. It looks like many Americans don't understand, and don't try to understand it, and are rushing to judgment.

Maybe Westerners just don't understand female genital mutilation, (which is regarded as pro-female by its proponents/practitioners), and the West is rushing to judgement?

We all see the world through the prisms of our own cultures and experiences. I can deem CH as sickening while still decrying the slaughter

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:got this facebook link from a friend which details some of the Charlie Hebdo 'cartoons'. I have to say I found them beyond the pale, and more than satire
http://themarooncolony.com/2015/01/08/jenesuispascharlie/

So what? That's your opinion. Some people find it hilarious. To each his own. The point is, Free Speech is what is important, even to say things that you, personally, find "beyond the pale."

free speech isn't really free speech.

A western cartoonist can make muslim and christian satire.

If said cartoonist made jewish satire, AIPIC and the ADL will link them to 1930's cartoons and blackball said cartoonist from ever getting a job again.

The different in opportunity cost is staggering and completely makes a mockery out of free speech.

Again, so what? That is the price they pay. If I own a business and make some stupid, outrageous comments, people are free to boycott my business so that I fail. I still have "free speech" to say whatever I want.

I think what's being misunderstood is that if you take away my free speech, I'm making sure yours is being taken away too. That's why the attorneys for the Skokie nazis were adamant about protecting their free speech so the Jews would be able to argue with the same ferocity and their free speech rights not be stifled. I remember it well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:got this facebook link from a friend which details some of the Charlie Hebdo 'cartoons'. I have to say I found them beyond the pale, and more than satire
http://themarooncolony.com/2015/01/08/jenesuispascharlie/

So what? That's your opinion. Some people find it hilarious. To each his own. The point is, Free Speech is what is important, even to say things that you, personally, find "beyond the pale."

free speech isn't really free speech.

A western cartoonist can make muslim and christian satire.

If said cartoonist made jewish satire, AIPIC and the ADL will link them to 1930's cartoons and blackball said cartoonist from ever getting a job again.

The different in opportunity cost is staggering and completely makes a mockery out of free speech.

Again, so what? That is the price they pay. If I own a business and make some stupid, outrageous comments, people are free to boycott my business so that I fail. I still have "free speech" to say whatever I want.

Muslima wrote:Free speech is not absolute!

What is that supposed to mean?

CH was widely regarded by the French as hard left, anti-racist, anti-fascist, equal opportunity "mocker" -- which explains the outpouring of support. It looks like many Americans don't understand, and don't try to understand it, and are rushing to judgment.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree the Cartoons were in bad taste and had zero relevance...they were doing it just to be mean spirited. There was no knowledge to be gained...no REAL POINT, just be sarcastic butt holes for no apparent reason. Freedom of speech is not all EQUAL..nor is it all worth dying for.

Tastseless but it is NOT worth dying for no matter how much it sucks.

I don't like the Westboro Church either but as much as I DESPISE them, I don't think they should be lined up and shot (though I might be the only one).

But if someone DID line them up, would you carry a sign saying "I am Westboro Church"?
I'd still seek justice while not identifying with them

I don't think it's so much as 'I am Charlie and I like the tasteless cartoons' as much as it's 'I am Charlie and I have a right to free speech whether tasteless or not...don't like it, don't read it.'

I was remembering Playboy magazine in it's hay day with great articles written by some of the best and most talented writers (Joseph Heller, Ian Fleming, Kurt Vonnegut, and more). Back then, our next door female college neighbor was an English major who absolutely hated the 'porn' in Playboy, but she never missed an issue strictly for the writers. She would have been livid and would've been one of the first ones with a picket sign if the magazine had been shut down though it wouldn't have said 'I Am Playboy' but her sign would've been reflective of the right of free speech.

Whether you find them offensive or distasteful, blasphemous, satirical, funny, boring, whatever it is you find them to be, NONE of them merit the MASS MURDER that was committed in response to them.

Muslima wrote:Free speech is not absolute!

Says who? You?

Another explanation by a French person in Facebook :
What is Charlie? A note for my non-french friends
There seems to be a lot of confusion about what Charlie Hebdo is, or is not. I have even read that some of their drawings were “racists”. That is upsetting since Charlie is rooted in a deep anti-racist tradition.
The lack of understanding of foreign newspapers is not surprising. I remember my first contact with Weekly World News’ Bat Boy as I went shopping in a supermarket near Boston when I was a student. That was a little hard to understand for a Frenchman.
So let me explain Charlie Hebdo.
First, the point of Charlie is to publish outrageous cartoons. It comes from a long tradition of political satire, mocking political leaders and religious zealots. By and large, the main targets of Charlie have been the government and the Catholic Church. In fact, Charlie was created after a previous newspaper, Hara-Kiri, was shut down by the interior ministry in 1970.
That tradition goes back a long way. In the 18th century, satirical papers made fun of the King and the Queen. Louis XVI was often portrayed as a pig, and Marie-Antoinette as a snake or a hyena. The Golden Age of satirical papers was the 19th century. There were many in the U.S. and the U.K. as well. Some of the cartoons are still well-known today. In France, however, unlike in some other countries, there was a strong anti-clerical tradition and many cartoons made fun of the Catholic Church. A famous weekly paper, and probably the inspiration of Charlie Hebdo and countless others, was L'Assiette au beurre, published in the early 20th century. L’Assiette made fun of the police, the army, but also promoted anti-colonial ideas, all with provocative cartoons.
The important point to understand here is that the anti-clerical slant of Charlie Hebdo really comes from a tradition of making fun of the Catholic Church. It is only in the past 10 years that it has shifted its focus against Islamic fundamentalism.
Being anti-clerical is really not being racist. These guys made their most provocative cartoons against Le Pen precisely because they viewed the “Front National” as a racist party. Mustapha Ourad, from Kabylie, in the north of Alegeria, was among those killed at Charlie Hebdo. He was in charge of proof reading and correcting grammatical mistakes. Charb, the Editor of Charlie who was the main target of the killers on Wednesday, was on the same death list as Salman Rushdie. His partner, Jeannette Bougrab is of Algerian descent. She is also a center-right political figure and strongly secular, a little bit like Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
This is what Charlie Hebdo was, and this is why we were shocked and deeply saddened by the cowardly murders that took place in Paris.
This is not to say, of course, that I was an unconditional fan of Charlie Hebdo. As David Brooks wrote “Most of us don’t actually engage in the sort of deliberately offensive humor that that newspaper specializes in.” He is right. Charlie Hebdo, like many papers of that kind, was childish and, to me, a bit repetitive. So many people who grew up with the cartoons of Cabu, also outgrew them at some point. Or so we thought. I was not a big fan on the Muhammad cartoons either. I thought they were mostly not helpful and not funny, although I liked the cover “C’est dur d’être aimé par des cons”.
But the point here is precisely that it is pointless to expect papers like Charlie to be always helpful. They are not meant to be. They are not Le Monde. They are grotesque, random, puerile, and, sometimes, outrageously funny