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Comment by seabee

11 years ago

I don't think the sloganeering is hastily thought, I don't think it is thought at all. It doesn't need to be. Freedom of expression ingrained in Western culture and you would find it very difficult to believe someone should be executed for expressing an opinion. Fined, jailed, maybe, but never executed.

To think of 'I am Charlie' as supporting the cartoons themselves would require you divorce the victims from their fate. Essentially, you'd have to make a leap of logic, and focus on the selfish part (i.e. they offended Muslims) and at this point you no longer deal with rational argument.

Essentially the devil's advocate argument is 'a mature and reasonable person should practice caution before saying anything that may be taken out of context by any party that is sufficiently upset', which is nigh impossible.

>Freedom of expression ingrained in Western culture

Not so much(it is only for things westeros are not emotional of)

http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/3/5578984/mozilla-ceo-resigns...

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/02/tech/social-media/facebook...

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/john-galliano-fired-anti...

http://greece.greekreporter.com/2014/03/02/greek-doctor-arre...

  • Such is the scourge that is Political Correctness. Take heed, this scourge will bring about the undoing of Western Civilization.

    If you can not call things by their true colors you have nothing and will lose all you thought you had.

True freedom of expression is not ingrained in Western culture, that's a myth. In Europe and in America as well, you either get your platform taken away or possibly face prison time when you say antisemtic stuff, when you say anti-black things, when you say hateful things, etc.

Where and who is arbitrarily drawing the lines for what constitutes permitted freedom of speech?

And, of course no-one (except fringe extremists lunatics) is saying execution of the cartoonists was an appropriate reaction to insulting cartoons.