Je suis Charlie, up to a point. After a conversation with Bob Olmstead last night over some very fine bourbon, my position has nuanced a bit. The murderers, may they burn in Hell if that is what is happening now, according to Islamic clerics I have read. No way would I defend their actions. Free speech, freedom of expression, this is important to Europeans and Americans. But West and East are increasingly interdependent. Do we—cartoonists, journalists, writers, poets— have to prove our freedom-of-expression bona fides by being just as outrageously and even disgustingly offensive as possible to another civilization and another religion? Whats the point of behaving like obnoxious brats just to prove a point? How about a modicum of maturity? We are asking Muslims to respect our ways. Shouldnt we treat the religion of Islam with respect? Aretha said it years ago: R-E-S-P-E-C-T. So Je ne suis pas Charlie, not really.
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 21:28:21 +0000
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