PhantomViper wrote:
The extreme right wing parties all over Europe are already taking advantage of these attacks, with calls to the banishment of Islam in European territory and the closing of borders against outside immigration...

The problem is, these parties were already gaining growing amounts of support and that support will only tend to grow even more as a result of these attacks (annalists now consider it a very real possibility that Le Pen might actually win the next French Presidential elections), making the peaceful Islamic communities of Europe the true end victims of these terror attacks.

The terrorists killed a proof editor of the newspaper who's name was Mustapha Ourrad and the name of the cop that was executed outside was Ahmed Merabet, both of them were Muslim.

It would be a real shame if their killings and those of the rest of the journalists are used as a pretext to advance the cause of the people that they probably despised the most.

PhantomViper wrote:
The extreme right wing parties all over Europe are already taking advantage of these attacks, with calls to the banishment of Islam in European territory and the closing of borders against outside immigration...

 His Master's Voice wrote:

I guess the outlawing of Islam in Europe is worth a facepalm, but stricter immigration policies? What's wrong with that? Multiple countries across the globe have strict visa regulations in place right now.

 His Master's Voice wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:
The extreme right wing parties all over Europe are already taking advantage of these attacks, with calls to the banishment of Islam in European territory and the closing of borders against outside immigration...

I guess the outlawing of Islam in Europe is worth a facepalm, but stricter immigration policies? What's wrong with that? Multiple countries across the globe have strict visa regulations in place right now.

 von Hohenstein wrote:
Land of the free, home of the brave:


This is from the new york daily news:


This is the first succsess for the terrorists. The US media are too afraid to show the mohamed cartoons.
Shame on you.



This is from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung:

 von Hohenstein wrote:
As far as I know only the "The Daily Beast", the "Washington Post" and the "Slate" published the cartoons.
All other mayor newspapers did, what the terrorists want them to do: Shut up.

And come on the ban to glamorize the nazis (you are of course allowed to show a swastika for teaching purposes) has nothing to do with being affraid of some terrorists. You arn't allowed to show the IS flag in public in germany as well.

The journalists at Charlie Hebdo are now rightly being celebrated as martyrs on behalf of freedom of expression, but let’s face it: If they had tried to publish their satirical newspaper on any American university campus over the last two decades it wouldn’t have lasted 30 seconds. Student and faculty groups would have accused them of hate speech. The administration would have cut financing and shut them down.

Public reaction to the attack in Paris has revealed that there are a lot of people who are quick to lionize those who offend the views of Islamist terrorists in France but who are a lot less tolerant toward those who offend their own views at home.

Just look at all the people who have overreacted to campus micro-aggressions. The University of Illinois fired a professor who taught the Roman Catholic view on homosexuality. The University of Kansas suspended a professor for writing a harsh tweet against the N.R.A. Vanderbilt University derecognized a Christian group that insisted that it be led by Christians.

Americans may laud Charlie Hebdo for being brave enough to publish cartoons ridiculing the Prophet Muhammad, but, if Ayaan Hirsi Ali is invited to campus, there are often calls to deny her a podium.

So this might be a teachable moment. As we are mortified by the slaughter of those writers and editors in Paris, it’s a good time to come up with a less hypocritical approach to our own controversial figures, provocateurs and satirists.

The first thing to say, I suppose, is that whatever you might have put on your Facebook page yesterday, it is inaccurate for most of us to claim, Je Suis Charlie Hebdo, or I Am Charlie Hebdo. Most of us don’t actually engage in the sort of deliberately offensive humor that that newspaper specializes in.

We might have started out that way. When you are 13, it seems daring and provocative to “épater la bourgeoisie,” to stick a finger in the eye of authority, to ridicule other people’s religious beliefs.

But after a while that seems puerile. Most of us move toward more complicated views of reality and more forgiving views of others. (Ridicule becomes less fun as you become more aware of your own frequent ridiculousness.) Most of us do try to show a modicum of respect for people of different creeds and faiths. We do try to open conversations with listening rather than insult.

Yet, at the same time, most of us know that provocateurs and other outlandish figures serve useful public roles. Satirists and ridiculers expose our weakness and vanity when we are feeling proud. They puncture the self-puffery of the successful. They level social inequality by bringing the mighty low. When they are effective they help us address our foibles communally, since laughter is one of the ultimate bonding experiences.

Moreover, provocateurs and ridiculers expose the stupidity of the fundamentalists. Fundamentalists are people who take everything literally. They are incapable of multiple viewpoints. They are incapable of seeing that while their religion may be worthy of the deepest reverence, it is also true that most religions are kind of weird. Satirists expose those who are incapable of laughing at themselves and teach the rest of us that we probably should.

In short, in thinking about provocateurs and insulters, we want to maintain standards of civility and respect while at the same time allowing room for those creative and challenging folks who are uninhibited by good manners and taste.

If you try to pull off this delicate balance with law, speech codes and banned speakers, you’ll end up with crude censorship and a strangled conversation. It’s almost always wrong to try to suppress speech, erect speech codes and disinvite speakers.

Fortunately, social manners are more malleable and supple than laws and codes. Most societies have successfully maintained standards of civility and respect while keeping open avenues for those who are funny, uncivil and offensive.

In most societies, there’s the adults’ table and there’s the kids’ table. The people who read Le Monde or the establishment organs are at the adults’ table. The jesters, the holy fools and people like Ann Coulter and Bill Maher are at the kids’ table. They’re not granted complete respectability, but they are heard because in their unguided missile manner, they sometimes say necessary things that no one else is saying.

Healthy societies, in other words, don’t suppress speech, but they do grant different standing to different sorts of people. Wise and considerate scholars are heard with high respect. Satirists are heard with bemused semirespect. Racists and anti-Semites are heard through a filter of opprobrium and disrespect. People who want to be heard attentively have to earn it through their conduct.

The massacre at Charlie Hebdo should be an occasion to end speech codes. And it should remind us to be legally tolerant toward offensive voices, even as we are socially discriminating.

 Ahtman wrote:
Paris shooting: Hostage taken as manhunt closes in on factory

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
Salman Rushdie on the Charlie Hebdo attack:

“Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today. I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity. ‘Respect for religion’ has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion.’ Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.” –Salman Rushdie (originally posted on English Pen)

Karl Marx, on religion in general:

"The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo."

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Where in that list does it call for the murder of millions of people?

The part where people oppose your aims and get in your way.

 Medium of Death wrote:


How do you achieve those without murdering people?

If abandonment of religion had nothing to do with the deaths of millions of people then why did so many die? What moral code were people living by? While the Marxist state was in operation millions of people were dying while in the Western countries people lived in relative peace. They weren't perfect but they were a damned sight better than what was going on in the USSR. That's not to say these societies didn't do horrible things, but the quality of life for people was better here than it was there. It was its Christian base that got it there and most Western atheists derive their morals from Christianity. They've changed them and strayed slightly in others but that's where it flows from. If you completely abandon Religion what is your moral compass? Yourself? An inherently and demonstrably selfish being. (Not a personal attack, humanity in general). That's not to say that you must adhere to it all costs, it's something to keep you tied to. An anchor. I'm not a Christian by any proper sense of the word, I'm Agnostic but I acknowledge that our societies morals derive from Christianity and we'd be a lot worse off without it.

 von Hohenstein wrote:
The US media are too afraid to show the mohamed cartoons.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Again, did Marx kill those people? Or was it Stalin?

 Medium of Death wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Again, did Marx kill those people? Or was it Stalin?

One line response. Obviously not reading the reply. You've still not answered how you apply Marxist theory in reality without it turning to mass murder.

Did Jesus kill anybody?

How is Marxism better than Christianity?

 Medium of Death wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Again, did Marx kill those people? Or was it Stalin?

One line response. Obviously not reading the reply. You've still not answered how you apply Marxist theory in reality without it turning to mass murder.

At least six people, including children, have been taken hostage at a kosher supermarket in Paris after a shootout, reports say.

SWAT teams, dozens of police vans and emergency services rushed to the scene in the eastern part of the French capital, as helicopters hovered above.

It is thought that two hostage takers might be inside the shop and that two hostages might be dead.

A police officer told Sky News that a gunman went in the supermarket and started shooting immediately.

"Sadly there are two dead and according to police sources they are confirmed," he said.

According to the AP news agency, which quoted a police source, the gunman said "You know who I am" as he opened fire.

Kosher restaurants were closing across Paris while schools in the Porte de Vincennes area were on lockdown and two subway stops were closed.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve rushed to the scene.

Those involved in the current hostage-taking were believed to be the suspects who killed a policewoman in Montrouge, southern Paris, on Thursday.

French police released mug shots of a man and a woman linked to policewoman killing, saying they are armed and dangerous.

The suspects are believed to have ties to brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, who stormed satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo a day earlier, killing 12 people.
he brothers are holed up in a factory in a separate hostage situations unfolding near Charles de Gaulle airport.

In Thursday's attack, a gunman was wearing a bullet-proof vest and was carrying a pistol and an automatic rifle.

He opened fire and killed the trainee policewoman, named as Clarissa Jean-Philippe, 25. A street sweeper was seriously injured in the incident.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
If its true that the attackers in the second siege are connected tothe first, then its crazy that they didnt receive a knock on their door over the last two days. Would be an amazing screwup.

PhantomViper wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
If its true that the attackers in the second siege are connected tothe first, then its crazy that they didnt receive a knock on their door over the last two days. Would be an amazing screwup.

They seem to be the same that shot the policewoman yesterday not connected to the newspaper attack.

Also, no one died yet at the supermarket. Latest reports talk about 1 person badly injured.