That attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris was really terrifying.
Islam should just be banned. Sick fucks.
Excuse me?
Their religion justifies murder. Don’t tell me you support that. They killed people over cartoons? Who does that?
I don’t support any form of murder. Or oppression for that matter.
Have you forgotten about 9/11? Or Boston? Muslims are attacking us everywhere!
Have you forgotten about the Crusades? Or the Inquisition? The Federal Building in Oklahoma City? Bombing the NAACP office? Bombing clinics? The people who did this are sick fucks, but it’s not because of their religion, it’s because they won’t accept anyone else’s right to different beliefs or behavior.
I can’t believe you are sticking up for terrorists.
I’m not sticking up for them, I am disagreeing with your views condemning an entire religion because some of the people in the religion are sick fucks.
You don’t even like religion!
It’s true. I don’t. I think many people use religion for purposes God would disapprove of if there was one. I think sometimes religion is just an excuse for people to do all sorts of things.
Probably so.
Religion is only the excuse people use to justify the fucked up shit they are doing. Religion and politics. I’m just sick about this, and I don’t even like the sort of cartoons they published in Charlie Hebdo–I think they are disrespectful. In the same way Piss Christ is disrespectful. Art and comedy often use disrespect to throw light on something that needs attention.
And that justifies killing?
Would you think it was OK for me to kill you if you called me a bitch?
Of course not!
Right. Disrespect doesn’t justify murder. Even extreme disrespect. I might not care for their form of satire, I might even think it skews toward racism,but it’s their right to publish it. Extremists don’t even really care about the disrespect. All they care about is silencing all dissent through terror.
Who do they want to silence?
People who believe in equality for women, for homosexuals, freedom to choose their religion, show their faces in public, choose when to have children. Anyone and anything, pretty much. Anyone who disagrees. That is why supporting the right of journalists, writers and the media to speak freely is so important. They help make sure other voices are always heard. Our voices.
Even voices we find repellent?
Especially those. Everyone agrees with the easy stuff. We have a harder time defending things we disagree with.
It’s easier when we think about what is at stake, isn’t it?
I hope so. What’s at stake is pretty much…everything. We can’t keep letting people silence us for anything they disagree with.
So what’s the solution? Kill them all?
It doesn’t seem to have worked so far. Jail the ones who do this…go after the training camps…invade a country they hide in…turn the entire country into a training camp for terrorists when they object to the invasion. It seems like there must be some other way. Although obviously, we have to find them and put them behind bars. It doesn’t seem like much, does it?
So what more should we do?
Build more schools? Feed more people? Work harder to eliminate poverty and repression through non-violent means?
Do you think that would work?
I wish I knew. Peace, love and understanding seem like a better solution than an arms race, don’t they?
A little of all of those would be good right now.
We all need to keep using our voices, and not just to drown each other out, but to try to understand each other.
So the thing is
I’ve been having this conversation with myself all day
And what it seems like to me
Is that everyone is wrong about all of it
And it all goes in a circle
Clearly, it is never OK to storm a newspaper office and kill people. Never.
Clearly, it is never OK to “round up all the Muslims and shoot them all” which I have heard from more than one normally sane person today.
To me it seems clear that religion is a scapegoat here.
The people who invaded Charlie Hebdo were not really doing it for Islam. They probably thought they were.
The people who got them whipped into a murderous frenzy probably know it though.
They know it is about taking and maintaining power.
It does NOT excuse murder, but in many ways these young people are just pawns being used to serve a purpose they don’t even really understand.
They think their murders will serve a greater political or religious purpose.
ISIS, the Taliban, the warlords, they put a religious or political spin on it so people will sacrifice their lives and the lives of other people to do their bidding.
And really, it is all about power and repression.
More for them.
Less for everyone else.
And then there’s the element of simple macho bullshit. Killing people because a cartoon disses your prophet? I would just call it asinine and juvenile except that people are getting killed.
I will say it again: people are getting killed for drawing pictures of a dead guy. Because some people think it’s dissing him.
Sounds like gang bangers, doesn’t it? Killing each other over colors.
All I know is until we figure out what is turning young people into terrorists, it won’t stop. And that is going to involve answering some very hard questions about social justice, race, and religion.