JE SUIS CHARLIE

honeto wrote: 1- Fired not murdered. Correct, and I agree that murder was wrong and unjustified and I stated that. Now, how come a cartoonist who insults Jews get fired as a punishment so no one will repeat such a mistake. While the one who insults Muslims does not get fired, instead get a pat on the back to say the least.

We'd have to look at the specific cartoons, but I'm betting the Jewish cartoon was based on a lie (i.e., one of the many false stereotypes or conspiracy theories about Jews), whereas the Muslim cartoon was not.

Anyway, this is a private decision made by the publisher, who is allowed to publish whatever he likes, and to fire those who don't abide by his editorial policies.  If he wants to attack Muslims and not Jews, that is his prerogative -- as long as he does not spread malicious lies and does not advocate or incite violence.

2- In answer to my comment that it is a crime to question or deny the holocaust you said: "Because it's a lie. Freedom of speech does not include the freedom to tell lies." I am not sure what you mean that it is a lie? Let me get this straight, a group of people who in order to get a better understanding, want to investigate or look deeper into the history of holocaust, you are calling it "a lie"?

You are more than welcome to investigate and look deeper into the history of the Holocaust in order to get a better understanding.  You are not allowed to claim that the Holocaust never happened, and/or that it is all a vast international Jewish conspiracy to rule the world, because those are malicious lies.

It is like making investigation or further study of the Kennedy murder case illegal! You know that is a shame. People study all sorts of past world events to know better the facts. Why is this one off limit? Is there anything that worries them that might come out to be different than what the world has been told? I cannot believe it is coming out of your mouth Ron.

(By "the Kennedy murder case" I assume you mean the assasination of John F. Kennedy?)  I share your concern about "this one off limit", but Holocaust denial is something of a "one-off" situation.  It is the only major conspiracy theory I can think of whose main purpose seems to be to incite hatred against a minority.  I don't see how anyone is threatened by crackpot theories about the JFK assasination.  They are ridiculous, but not dangerous.

3-On the Queen and Royal family insults, I could not get a verification of my claim, but did the Royal family not sue the newspaper that published Kate's topless photos?

This has nothing to do with her being royalty.  If they published topless pictures of my wife, we'd probably sue too.

You are more than welcome to investigate and look deeper into the history of the Holocaust in order to get a better understanding.  You are not allowed to claim that the Holocaust never happened, and/or that it is all a vast international Jewish conspiracy to rule the world, because those are malicious lies.
 
Should you manage to find that all the evidence that there was a mass killing of millions of Jews by the Nazi state you would be able them to deny that it happened. Obviously there is utterly overwhelming evidence that it did happen.

"Je suis Charlie" does not mean you agree with their cartoons or their editorial policy.  It means, as Voltaire is often quoted as saying (but was actually written by Evelyn Beatrice Hall), "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Or as Noam Chomsky put it: "If you believe in freedom of speech, you believe in freedom of speech for views you don�t like. Goebbels was in favor of freedom of speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you�re in favor of freedom of speech, that means you�re in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise."


Edited by Ron Webb - 25 January 2015 at 1:13pm