- “Today’s horrific events only reinforce the idea that we cannot and will not let extremist zealots dictate what we can and cannot say,” is a comment that we will quote, but one that we do with a legitimate sense of uncertainty over whether it could incite an attack against the speaker or their loved ones, a sense of uncertainty that feels awful, grotesque, and wholly unnecessary in this day and age. “We live in a society in which every person is entitled to his or her own opinions, and every person is entitled to express those opinions without fear of harm. And that isn’t changing, whether a small minority of psychotic, murderous degenerates like it or not.”
I'm sad. What can you do against such hatred.
I was driving today and listening to the story, and I thought of The Onion, and how I would feel as the editor of it. I would feel obligated to respond in some way, and yet, I would fear for myself, my staff and my family. This isn't as simple as hatred. Zealotry is a thing all of its own.
We stand against it. Against people like this, we stand up and put ourselves in front of the bullets. We put courage and society before ourselves and our families. We state simply that these attacks do not, will not, and can not phase us, and that these people who do these attacks are, and will remain weak and ignored. In a perfect world, at least. Would I be willing to put my life on the line? I honestly do not know. I hope so, because the risk of death to myself and my family is far lesser than the risk we would be at if one person with a gun could silence an entire society. While there may be a day that we are attacked for speaking our minds, the chances are similar to that of being hit by lightning. However, if we all stay quiet, the chances are 100% of things going very wrong for all of us. Even then, what about those who are known for saying such things, like the comic writers were. Do we protect them with police, guard them endlessly from an invisible threat? Should we assume that these people should be brave enough to stand for what they want when the chances of them being attacked are far higher? Do we protect them to offset that, or do we protect them to send a message? Is that message that we fear the radicals? Or is it that we are so scared of them that we will hide in a crowd and behind armed men? From my point of view, I know that I can stand up and say that these radicals are horrible people, that I can make Mohammed jokes, and I can say what I want. I'm not so sure about those people who are actually heard by others. I say we stand behind those who do keep talking, and we as a society offer our support, we give them the protection they need to keep speaking, if necessary. It doesn't show that we are scared of the terrorists, but instead that we are willing to fight them and the things they stand for. If they want to come out in the open and speak, they can, and we will allow them to. Until then, they are the ones hiding in the crowds, we are the crowd they fear enough to attempt to silence.
I'm divided on this. Free speech is amazing, but the newspaper wasn't Private Eye or the onion. It published cartoons that I recoil when seeing, even with my minimal french. It is so awful to see people parade these comics around like that is some kind of victory.
I plain out disagree Every one is born with the indeniable right of saying what they want to say without being killed for it. These people just made some humorous comics which may be offensive, but hey -- So is 99% of other things It doesn't matter whether or not it hurts someone, you should be able to say itI'm divided on this. Free speech is amazing, but the newspaper wasn't Private Eye or the onion. It published cartoons that I recoil when seeing, even with my minimal french.
Exactly, and as such I find all the celebration a bit creepy because people will yell FREE SPEECH to get me to shut up about the problem of this celebration.
Bad taste isn't something I celebrate, but your ability to freely and openly have bad taste is.
Awesome! Thanks for pointing that out. I went to see what the 200kth comment/post was and it turns out it was a PM between myself and StJohn. StJohn, I think that means you win something. Hmmm... I'll send you one of the new stickers when they arrive, how is that? Same goes for you veen!
Seriously? You're joking! So it was fate that I didn't receive any Hubski emails for so long. Now we've been immortalized in numbers and stickers. If you want to do a mail swap, I'll send you something cool for stickers. Just remind me to give you my current address — I think it's changed since the last time we exchanged stuff.
The point wasn't that they were perfectly non-offensive, the point was that they should be allowed to say it without some fuckface with an AK murdering them. No matter how terrible they are, people are sharing them to show that killing does nothing. Ten times the people have seen these things now. "The more it gets shared", the faster they see how futile their efforts are. EDIT: the bit in quotes sounds like Facebook activism. Disregard any notion that that's all that needs to happen.
Well (I've read) there was an policeman who might be muslim who died protecting their right to free speech. I find him more heroic.
Well, no - I don't. But had you heard of the policeman? You can't say it doesn't matter when people face aggression from their environment every day for what they believe. That man knew the people in that building hated him. He was still prepared to die to protect them because of his principles. That is heroic.
It does apply, but what they were saying before they died was not heroic or beautiful, it wasn't a braveheart speech. Sharing it is not a victory because what you are sharing spreads hate which contributes to radicalization. I find this is something that is very hard to discuss with/explain my feelings about to people overall, especially Americans so I'm going to end the discussion here.
I love my country... sometimes... This is one of them. The celebration, the spread of offensive images, etc, is not a act of hatred, it is an act of resistance. We are stating that "shooting people is not going to make us fear you". It is the same thing the US reacted with after 9/11. That was an attack to get us to pull out of the middle east. We didn't. Anyone will find anything offensive. Anyone can see a thing and say it hurts them. That gives us no right to not be able to celebrate an image, or to post it everywhere. Offensive imagery is just as protected under free speech as any other, and we will not be stopped from spreading it. You can see some of that in the speeches GWBush gave after 9-11.especially Americans
Disclaimer; I havn't been able to sleep because of pain and fever tonight and my filter is gone. Completely. I'm really, really sorry. Yes, I love that about America to. But you don't realize how much your act affect the rest of the world. You are like that kid who didn't know their own strength and ended up squishing stuff with your love. You boast and brag - but you HAVE the military to back that up. No other country has that power. You are fucking fascinating, but holy shit you are weird. You are a fucking continent, not a country. You are so many people. You are honestly like the reddit of the world. Like I love you sometimes but please can you stop whining - which I don't want you to do but you are such a young fragile country. Like Sweden is super old compared to you. You don't have a history - and that is wonderful . you are fantastic at making your own but you are like the reality stars of the world- We see so much of you and we can't choose not to and if we bitch about it in English you will bitch back immediately because you cover several timezones. Like it's not fair to compare Sweden with America - it is fair to compare America and Europe however. You WILL NEVER BE STOPPED and holy fuck that is amazing but do you realize that we in Sweden and the whole of Europe HAVE to keep up with what you are doing or we will have no idea what is happening to us. Do you UNDERSTAND that SWEDEN is a relatively big country in Europe, with 9 million people. There are Swedish youtuber's with more subscribers than fellow citizens. Like you are wonderful and I love you and bitch about you because I spent one of my formative years inside you and I'm now stuck somewhere in the middle between Swedish and Wisconsin and like wow. I love you but you are the teenagers of the world. Seeing you talk about history gives me the exact same feelings of second hand shame as seeing a teenager talk about romantic relationships. And you know WHY I am so fucking annoyed? Because when my friends ask about you I defend you. But like, you realize Europeans KNOW what free speech is? Like we had it in the 1300 and we know because we have papers from that time. You are like that kid you're seeing that is growing up so fast and you blink and you miss it. You having nuclear weapons is like giving them to toddlers. I would honestly be MORE comfortable with putting nuclear weapons in a day-care cause at least they have a short attention span.
The US has a history. It isn't quite as long as that of many European countries, but you have to remember that a whole lot of the history of Europe is so old that it's not much more than tradition at this point, a lot of that old history effects the US just as much as it effects Europe. After all, most in the US moved here after being a part of that history. As to our country acting like a toddler, or teenagers, or whatnot? I honestly don't understand where you are coming from on that. Do you refer to the "freedom!" values being overenthusiastic? Do you refer to childish revenge? What do you refer to? And the US doesn't really interfere with Europe very often, no? What do you even mean by Sweeden and the whole of Europe having to keep up? Honestly, I don't really understand what you are talking about through most of this.
Me neither. I hadn't slept for a really long time when I wrote that. I have no idea what my train of thought was. I'm sorry. I just remember giggling and writing.