# France and the cartoons of Mohammed; what's your take? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 29, 2020, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/france-and-the-cartoons-of-mohammed-whats-your-take/924221 "2020-10-29T16:49:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![lum\_s\_husband](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lum_s_husband/32/3698_2.png) [@lum\_s\_husband](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lum_s_husband)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2020, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/france-and-the-cartoons-of-mohammed-whats-your-take/924221/61 "2020-10-30T00:00:18Z")
That being offended is some sort of choice and the only legitimate response to offense is debate. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2020, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/france-and-the-cartoons-of-mohammed-whats-your-take/924221/62 "2020-10-30T00:26:58Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > > [@Jackmannii](#): > > > > As for Muslims in general, they will be judged on how they react to the actions of violent extremists within their ranks. The same goes for _any_ group which has members that do despicable things. > > Except it doesn’t. > > White Christians are almost never asked to denounce, as a group, all incidents of violent extremism committed by white Christians. This claim is puzzling, seeing that Christian leaders have been asked to comment on numerous occasions about anti-abortion violence and violent acts committed by fundamentalists, and/or criticized for not doing enough to prevent such violence. Here are a couple of examples relating to domestic violence: > **['Submit to your husbands': Women told to endure domestic violence in the name...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-18/domestic-violence-church-submit-to-husbands/8652028?nw=0)** > > Church leaders in Australia say they abhor abuse of any kind. But advocates say the church is not just failing to sufficiently address domestic violence, it is both enabling and concealing it. > **[Silence Is Not Spiritual: The Evangelical #MeToo Movement](https://www.newyorker.com/news/on-religion/silence-is-not-spiritual-the-evangelical-metoo-movement)** > > The women of the #ChurchToo movement aim to reform their faith communities from the inside and to turn them into true safe havens for abuse survivors. Whether a spotlight on “good” Christians has much material effect is another issue. Regardless: the excuse that the great majority in any group are good people has its limits. It’s the extent to which members of that group tolerate unspeakable acts in their ranks that says the most about how “good” the group is. ---
**Author:** ![Enjoy\_Slurm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enjoy_slurm/32/3937_2.png) [@Enjoy\_Slurm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enjoy_Slurm)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2020, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/france-and-the-cartoons-of-mohammed-whats-your-take/924221/63 "2020-10-30T00:28:29Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > the French cartoonists are deliberately trolling Muslims needlessly by drawing cartoons of Mohammed, but these Muslims (the violent few, not the peaceful majority) are also way overreacting to being trolled It’s hard to tell if you are unaware of what freedom of speech means, or you do, and you are using specific words, deliberately. ---
**Author:** ![ZosterSandstorm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e0b2c6/32.png) [@ZosterSandstorm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZosterSandstorm)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2020, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/france-and-the-cartoons-of-mohammed-whats-your-take/924221/64 "2020-10-30T01:05:39Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > “Offensive” can mean indicating that people of a given race, religion, gender, whatever, are not welcome; or are only welcome if they’ll accept a subservient position. People living in a country should be able to go about their ordinary business in public without routinely being told that they’re not entitled to be there, or not entitled to the same sort of respect that those of other races, religions, genders, etc. assume they’re entitled to as a matter of course. What percentage of claims of being “offended” on a given day are in response to “declarations that a given race is subservient”? 1% 0.1% 0.00001% ? I’d suspect the last answer is the closest. “Can mean” is doing a lot of work here. People love to call things racist, sexist, etc. If they had some grounds to do so, then they would. If they fall back on the all-encompassing “offensive” then obviously there is no more meaningful, specific word applicable. ---
**Author:** ![ZosterSandstorm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e0b2c6/32.png) [@ZosterSandstorm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZosterSandstorm)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2020, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/france-and-the-cartoons-of-mohammed-whats-your-take/924221/65 "2020-10-30T01:06:20Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > the right to not have inflicted on one things that are genuinely seriously offensive This doesn’t exist. Problem solved. ---
**Author:** ![ZosterSandstorm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e0b2c6/32.png) [@ZosterSandstorm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZosterSandstorm)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2020, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/france-and-the-cartoons-of-mohammed-whats-your-take/924221/66 "2020-10-30T01:09:47Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > Moderate Muslims need to do the heavy work of making sure that radicalism is discouraged among their own. The problem is that there are groups for whom “moderate Muslims” equal Muslims that they can’t use for their left-wing, anti-U.S. agenda - Muslims who support free speech, believe reform is needed, etc are routinely derided as fake, agents of imperialism, engaging in “hate speech” etc. and excluded from “progressive” venues. This is one of the many reasons that “no one is defending murdering the cartoonists” is a laugh. Those who tell Muslims who are condemning violence that they are sellouts and traitors are defending murder. Those who find a reason that every victim was somehow asking for it or a bad person (racist, etc.) are defending the murder. Those who bring up whataboutery regarding French colonialism or other times that Muslims were victims as a tit-for-tat are defending the murder. Everyone understands the meaning of what the progressive and Marxist response to Charlie Hebdo in 2015 was, and the denial of it is just part of a rhetorical power struggle that didn’t convince anybody. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2020, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/france-and-the-cartoons-of-mohammed-whats-your-take/924221/67 "2020-10-30T01:18:16Z")
> [@ZosterSandstorm](#): > > This is one of the many reasons that “no one is defending murdering the cartoonists” is a laugh. Those who tell Muslims who are condemning violence that they are sellouts and traitors are defending murder. Those who find a reason that every victim was somehow asking for it or a bad person (racist, etc.) are defending the murder. Let’s not get carried away with the hyperbole here. The only people who are actually defending murder are those violent extremists who are claiming that committing murder is okay. Calling somebody a sellout or a traitor, if you believe that they are being too acquiescent in hate speech directed at their minority group, is not defending murder. Calling somebody a racist is not defending murder. We can disagree about what types or levels of anti-Muslim rhetoric should be considered societally acceptable, Islamophobic, hate speech, etc. But that doesn’t mean that the people disagreeing with you are automatically defending murder. ---
**Author:** ![ZosterSandstorm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e0b2c6/32.png) [@ZosterSandstorm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZosterSandstorm)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2020, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/france-and-the-cartoons-of-mohammed-whats-your-take/924221/68 "2020-10-30T01:23:38Z")
I don’t agree with your premise that people do things for no reason. The idea that thousands of prominent leftists were suddenly motivated to write “why everyone who worked at Charlie Hebdo was a horrible racist who isn’t worth mourning” pieces in January 2015 by coincidence, because they suddenly became concerned with evaluating the characters of employees at a French magazine for reasons that had no connection to an ongoing debate about whether those people deserved to be killed earlier that month, is absurd. Not only do I not believe it, I don’t really think you do, or that you expect anyone else does. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2020, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/france-and-the-cartoons-of-mohammed-whats-your-take/924221/69 "2020-10-30T01:25:21Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Again, nobody in this thread has said anything different. Who are you arguing against? In the post to which you responded, which was my first post to this thread, I was giving my “take” on the topic as requested by the OP, rather than “arguing against” anybody. Sorry if I didn’t make that clear. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2020, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/france-and-the-cartoons-of-mohammed-whats-your-take/924221/70 "2020-10-30T01:34:04Z")
> [@ZosterSandstorm](#): > > don’t agree with your premise that people do things for no reason. The idea that thousands of prominent leftists were suddenly motivated to write “why everyone who worked at Charlie Hebdo was a horrible racist who isn’t worth mourning” pieces in January 2015 by coincidence, because they suddenly became concerned with evaluating the characters of employees at a French magazine for reasons that had no connection to an ongoing debate about whether those people deserved to be killed earlier that month, is absurd. I can’t tell if this was intended to be a response to my post immediately preceding yours, or what point you think you were making in it. Even if you genuinely believe that a person who was murdered was a horrible racist, that doesn’t constitute “defending” their murder. Even if you say that a person who was murdered was a horrible racist and don’t genuinely believe it, that doesn’t constitute defending their murder either. Being a horrible racist doesn’t mean that you deserve to be murdered. Calling somebody a horrible racist doesn’t mean that you’re calling for them to be murdered, or in any way excusing or condoning their murder. Trying to claim otherwise is not a valid argument. It’s just an excuse for ignoring and delegitimizing anti-Islamophobia criticisms by pretending that they’re automatically equivalent to defending murder. ---
**Author:** ![ZosterSandstorm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e0b2c6/32.png) [@ZosterSandstorm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZosterSandstorm)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2020, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/france-and-the-cartoons-of-mohammed-whats-your-take/924221/71 "2020-10-30T02:06:09Z")
OK. And if I write an article on “why everyone who wears tight skirts is a despicable whore” using as an example someone who was raped the previous week, and I do it every time someone says “rape is bad,” that doesn’t reflect at all on my opinions about rape in general or the rape of that particular person, right? ---
**Author:** ![Kron](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kron/32/12444_2.png) [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2020, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/france-and-the-cartoons-of-mohammed-whats-your-take/924221/72 "2020-10-30T02:17:26Z")
I imagine you have a point, but I’m having trouble finding it. It helps to base things in reality. I happen to be a “leftist” 🙄, and apparently we “leftists” are supposed to be both militant atheists AND closet Islamists. So you might have seen an article decrying Charlie Hebdo as racist, but you made a leap from “the author of this article thinks Charlie Hebdo brought this on themselves” to “all people on the side of the political spectrum opposite me are APOLOGISTS FOR ISLAMIC TERRORISTS”. For those playing along at home… That is an illogical conclusion. ---
**Author:** ![ZosterSandstorm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e0b2c6/32.png) [@ZosterSandstorm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZosterSandstorm)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2020, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/france-and-the-cartoons-of-mohammed-whats-your-take/924221/73 "2020-10-30T02:19:33Z")
> [@Kron](#): > > So you might have seen an article decrying Charlie Hebdo as racist, but you made a leap from “the author of this article thinks Charlie Hebdo brought this on themselves” to “all people on the side of the political spectrum opposite me are APOLOGISTS FOR ISLAMIC TERRORISTS”. No leap necessary. Saying that someone “brought on” their own murder is justifying that murder. If the murder is done as an act of Islamic terrorism, then obviously justifying the murder is apologizing for Islamic terrorism. Do you in fact believe that the Charlie Hebdo editors, the teacher who was beheaded last week, and the churchgoers who were stabbed yesterday “brought on” their murders? ---
**Author:** ![Kron](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kron/32/12444_2.png) [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2020, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/france-and-the-cartoons-of-mohammed-whats-your-take/924221/74 "2020-10-30T02:23:03Z")
No, I do not. In fact, I think Islamic Fundamentalists literally have no place in this world. As you well know, this whole thread is full of leftists decrying murder as a result of speech. You are strawmanning like mad. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2020, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/france-and-the-cartoons-of-mohammed-whats-your-take/924221/75 "2020-10-30T02:23:27Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > See my answer above in this post to ZosterSandstorm. I honestly though I had missed something. Okay, I don’t see any rights in competition as there is no right not to be offended. I find the very idea offensive, which, is fine, as I have no right not to be offended. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2020, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/france-and-the-cartoons-of-mohammed-whats-your-take/924221/76 "2020-10-30T02:24:41Z")
> [@ZosterSandstorm](#): > > Do you in fact believe that the Charlie Hebdo editors, the teacher who was beheaded last week, and the churchgoers who were stabbed yesterday “brought on” their murders? IMHO, it is possible to “bring on” something while that thing is also a gross overreaction. Suppose that I am your neighbor, and I spray you in the face with water from my garden hose every time I see you, even though you’ve already told me many times that you dislike it and want me to stop doing it. Then one day when I spray once again, you pull out a Glock and shoot me. The shooting would be a gross overreaction - however, I brought it on by instigating it with my behavior first. That may not be the best analogy for the Mohammed cartoons, but it shows that one can indeed bring on consequences while those consequences are also unjustifiably extreme. ---
**Author:** ![lum\_s\_husband](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lum_s_husband/32/3698_2.png) [@lum\_s\_husband](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lum_s_husband)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2020, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/france-and-the-cartoons-of-mohammed-whats-your-take/924221/77 "2020-10-30T03:43:33Z")
French doesn’t even have a word for _provocateur._ ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2020, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/france-and-the-cartoons-of-mohammed-whats-your-take/924221/78 "2020-10-30T03:49:46Z")
> [@ZosterSandstorm](#): > > And if I write an article on “why everyone who wears tight skirts is a despicable whore” using as an example someone who was raped the previous week, and I do it every time someone says “rape is bad,” that doesn’t reflect at all on my opinions about rape in general or the rape of that particular person, right? Nobody’s saying it doesn’t reflect on your opinions. But that doesn’t make it equivalent to your actually defending or advocating rape, or declaring that the victim deserved to be raped. It’s possible to have a reasoned conversation about whether and to what extent deliberately offensive anti-Muslim propaganda is a bad thing, without in any way condoning or defending the murder of people who produce such propaganda (much less the murder of people who merely discuss it with their students in a course module on freedom of speech). When you hyperbolically try to argue that any criticism of Islamophobic rhetoric is morally equivalent to defending murder by violent Islamic-extremist terrorists, all you’re doing is sabotaging that conversation. A conversation which several other posters in this thread are nonetheless managing to have in spite of your teeth, so to speak, and I admire them for it. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2020, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/france-and-the-cartoons-of-mohammed-whats-your-take/924221/79 "2020-10-30T03:56:58Z")
You don’t understand that the American left with their cancel culture, free speech is hate speech, speech codes, consequencing folks for exercising freedom of expression are closer to the beheading folks than they are to the liberty folks. On this very site folks advocate violence because of choice of hat. ---
**Author:** ![ZosterSandstorm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e0b2c6/32.png) [@ZosterSandstorm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZosterSandstorm)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2020, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/france-and-the-cartoons-of-mohammed-whats-your-take/924221/80 "2020-10-30T03:58:55Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Nobody’s saying it doesn’t reflect on your opinions. But that doesn’t make it equivalent to your actually defending or advocating rape, or declaring that the victim deserved to be raped. That’s ridiculous. No one in the world would actually maintain such a position if that situation actually happened. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/france-and-the-cartoons-of-mohammed-whats-your-take/924221.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/france-and-the-cartoons-of-mohammed-whats-your-take/924221.md?page=5)