I found it somewhat ironic that I totally agreed with Ross Douthats comments on the tragedy in France today since I rarely agree with him. Despite my shared catholic faith with him, I find him far too conservative with most of his writing. But found myself applauding his words today. And for him to endorse and quote one of my all time favorite writers and commentators, the late Christopher Hitchens in his position today, amen! A devout catholic and an unabashed atheist making the same point. A takeaway quote from Douthat today, We are in a situation where my third point applies, because the kind of blasphemy that Charlie Hebdo engaged in had deadly consequences, as everyone knew it could … and that kind of blasphemy is precisely the kind that needs to be defended, because it’s the kind that clearly serves a free society’s greater good. If a large enough group of someones is willing to kill you for saying something, then it’s something that almost certainly needs to be said, because otherwise the violent have veto power over liberal civilization, and when that scenario obtains it isn’t really a liberal civilization any more. Again, liberalism doesn’t depend on everyone offending everyone else all the time, and it’s okay to prefer a society where offense for its own sake is limited rather than pervasive. But when offenses are policed by murder, that’s when we need more of them, not less, because the murderers cannot be allowed for a single moment to think that their strategy can succeed.
Posted on: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 06:38:43 +0000
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