Ask Lemmy

A week ago I was in line to check out and there was a young woman in a hijab. When she turned to help me I saw her entire face and hands (all I could see really) had acid burns all over.

The paradox of tolerance will never be something I struggle with once The Fall happens. Regardless for whichever religion seeks to lynch me.

Reality keeps sliding into absurdity rendering satire mute.

Satire should be staunchly defended. Some people may find it offensive and they can go fuck themselves.

Satirical publications are often the last free press able to publish in authoritarian governments and have often played a critical role in communication to weaken oppressive regimes.

We can all occasionally suffer jokes in bad taste in exchange for freedom of the press.

In the words of Sam Harris: "People were murdered over cartoons. End of moral analysis."

Prohibiting satire of religion is a form of blasphemy law, and blasphemy laws shouldn't exist.

As in everything in life, your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.

If you don't like the satire of Charlie Hebdo, your right is to not read it. If you don't like a comedian who makes pedo jokes, your right is to not buy their tickets. If you don't like a TV show that shows drug use, your right is to not watch it.

That's it. That's the end of your personal rights on that issue. You do NOT have the right to tell other people what they personally view, watch, read, etc...

If enough people share your view, that publication/comedian/show will either change or go out of business naturally because of lack of subscribers. That's how it works.

I personally find Charlie Hebdo to be racist twits. But that doesn't give me any right to kill them. I have the right to just ignore them.

It was depressing that every newspaper in the developed world didn't print the cartoon :(

Everything is and should be allowed in comedy. Religion is no exception.

I think the people's presumption that they have some right to be free from offense has done way more damage than anything.

Satire should be free. Hate speech should not. People shouldn't be killed for either. I don't particularly cry when bigots die though.

All that said, there's reasons some jokes just aren't worth telling. There's times and spaces, and for some jokes there's neither and that's ok.

I think Charlie Hebdo comics are often in bad taste and more shock value than critic, but that's no legitimate reason to massacre people.

More than the attack on Charlie Hebdo itself, which I can "understand" in the twisted sense of a religious fanatic, it was the overall ruthlessness of the attackers that shocked me. I remember vividly seeing a video of one of the attackers walking up to a wounded police officer and executing him at point-blank range.

"Islamists" are politically far-right - paleoconservatives, theocrats, fascists.

We pull back too much because Islamic nutjobs will get violent because you dared draw a picture that resembled their stupid prophet. By doing that, we are giving them what they want and telling other religious groups that if they get violent enough, we’ll stop to appease them too.

You can mock Jesus, Moses, Krishna and any other religious figure because their followers, at worse, are going to verbally protest, if they do anything at all. But draw fucking Muhammad and people will tell you to knock it off because we don’t want to upset the assholes who will riot and kill people because they can’t handle someone having a differing opinion. Society bends over backwards to not offend Islam out of fear.

In response, we should have doubled down. Make more cartoons, get more vulgar with it…go all in, not stopped to appease them. Some people did for a while immediately after the attack, but not enough and not long enough, imo.

I don't have any issue or opinion or dog in the race with the prophet Muhammed, but those idiots made it important to say "muhammed the prophet is a giant cunt who should be laughed at and get a pie in the face" every now and then just to remind everybody how getting to talk works.