Deranged Defenders

The shocking murder of twelve people at the Charlie Hebdo magazine office in Paris has generated many displays of sympathy for the victims and their families, and support for freedom of speech over disgusting acts of terror, many by fellow artists and colleagues. It's possible that the attack was planned by people who considered themselves defenders of their faith in some way, but they were hardly anything of the sort.

The cartoons that were likely the justification the perpetrators will use for their murder spree were often quite shocking, crude, and yes, offensive. This is hardly the point, though. Even crude and offensive speech should be protected--which is not to say it cannot be protested or criticized! But the standard that we have for freedom of speech, that enables the KKK or Westboro Baptist to have their say in public is the same standard that protects people of other, less noxious, but possibly threatened minority positions from being persecuted.  It is never acceptable that ideas, words, and images, be responded to with violence. To attempt to silence people in this brutal way is an affront to civilization itself.

Predictable Haters are Predictable

I did note in my previous blog post that I thought it likely that some people might make the association that the Yezidi have been called "devil worshippers" to assert that this is the wrong thing to do.

Because of course they would:

Fischer believes that President Obama only intervened to stop the extermination of the Yazidis, who practice an ancient religion yet are considered by ISIS fighters and others to be “devil worshipers.” He began today’s edition of “Focal Point” by railing against Obama, saying the president only decided to launch airstrikes in Iraq in order to defend “devil worshipers.”

“They go after devil worshipers and all of the sudden the entire weight of the United States government is sent in there to relieve them and to avenge them,” he said. “Those are the Yazidis.”

 To Fischer's mind, this is just proof that Obama is also a Satan-worshipper. To my mind, this sort of thing is proof that Fischer is terribly uninformed. You know, the Bible is a good book, but it wouldn't hurt if the man cracked open another one and tried to broaden that narrow cell he calls a mind. Also, note that he seems to be endorsing letting thousands of people be wiped out because they believe something different. Huh. Reminds one of the parable of the very bad Samaritan who...

Oh. Or maybe I am thinking of the time Jesus said something about go ahead and let folks starve because who are they to you anyway? Or said "Hate your enemy"?

Sheesh.

Oh.

A story about 9/11 that should make people stop before they judge--

I don't support support religion, just people. And I am tired of seeing people getting maligned just for who they are or what religion they have--it isn't right and it isn't fair. I think the idea of fairness should be to look at people for what they do--to look into the content of their character by how they are living their lives, and not necessarily by what book they are reading from, any more than we would judge someone by dress or skin tone. I'll still call out Khameini and the bin Ladens and all that, but I don't think regular Muslim people should be discriminated against anymore than I'd blame all Catholics for the Pope's bullshit response to pedophilia in general and disparagement of condom-use in Africa (!) of all places and the crap way the Catholic Church seems to treat gays all the time. I know some Catholic people who are awesome even if they have a religion that appalls me, and I think this is true for Muslims too: I'd like them even if somewhere entirely else their co-religionists are pissing me off.

War against bad ideas by providing better ideas, people! But don't think you can win people over by attacking them personally! Even if I think this conflict is so obviously engineered as an election-year wedge issue, I still think some learning from it is possible. We can still try to Coexist.