# The Fallen Blogger and the Spectre of Secularism **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 28, 2015, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827 "2015-02-28T03:21:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2015, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/241 "2015-04-13T22:28:46Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > I will tell a leftist, Islamist violence-apologizing, anti-freedom agent of darkness whatever I feel he needs to be educated about. You are simply a hateful bigot who is only 50 years different than the nazi. Same steps only slightly removed in time. Merely hypocritical ignorant scum. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2015, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/242 "2015-04-13T22:30:09Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > For a bunch of people who claim not to be American, you sure do seem to know a lot more about what an American cable station airs than I do. You do not know how much your source of information has been mocked for its ignorant bigotries around the world, we laugh at you. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2015, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/243 "2015-04-13T22:33:22Z")
> [@Ramira](#): > > we laugh at you. No, you don’t laugh. You shoot and behead and blow up those who laugh instead of countering words with words and satire with satire. That’s the problem. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2015, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/244 "2015-04-13T22:34:41Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > Metaphysically, yes. While their bodies are still cooling, no. Well, it’s been four months. I’m reasonably sure they haven’t been microwaving them every couple hours ever since. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2015, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/245 "2015-04-13T22:47:39Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > No, you don’t laugh. You shoot and behead and blow up those who laugh instead of countering words with words and satire with satire. That’s the problem. No the problem is your bigotry and the statements that show me and Kobal as francophones you have only hatred. We here laugh at you. I have not ever shot a gun, nor a bomb… The disgusting implication you make, it reveals your true self. ---
**Author:** ![Pedro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/919ad9/32.png) [@Pedro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pedro)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2015, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/246 "2015-04-13T22:50:22Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > You’re missing my point. The idea was that two political systems, otherwise opposed in everything from stem to leaf, would nevertheless coincidentally reach the same conclusions regarding a peripheral topic, both coming from completely different; antithetical; incompatible lines of reasoning. For one side it was a straight and narrow path to that conclusion ; for the other it took a lot of work. Sorry but I’d need a lot more than just your word to accept that they reached the same conclusions. > [@](#): > > This is not an indication that Charlie compromised itself. It’s an indication that Charlie fucked its line of thought somewhere along the way. And to be honest, I’m not even convinced it was sincere of “Charlie” - I’m reasonably convinced Charb was a punctual islamophobic cunt who did a lot to foster that editorial line in the paper, I’m not so convinced the majority of the folks who went in that direction (again, both in articles and drawings) were as militant. Many old collaborators seem to have just gone with the flow. > Which is reprehensible too, but, yanno, maybe not as much ? I liked some of these guys, once upon a time… I also have a hard time taking the islamophobe rhetoric very seriously. Beyond that, as a general comment, you’re obviously free to phobe on Charlie Hebdo all you like. Much of it is actually interesting. It’s just the fallacy of argument from frenchness I could do without. ---
**Author:** ![A\_isha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@A\_isha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_isha)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2015, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/247 "2015-04-13T22:51:24Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > Is there some reason you are repeating the fact that the incident in which Muslims killed people for satirizing Muslim leaders in France happened in France, Because France has those very same “hate speech” laws that you keep fearmongering about, unlike the US, and yet Charlie Hebdo was not censored by those laws. So your “hate speech law” boogieman is just as much a strawman as everything else you’ve said. > [@](#): > > rather than answering the question about whether “hate speech” laws should exist, in France or anywhere else? I don’t think they should exist in France or anywhere else. Now, are you going to answer _my_ question now, or are you too busy spewing bigoted bullshit at Ramira? ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2015, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/248 "2015-04-13T22:54:27Z")
> [@A\_isha](#): > > BI don’t think they should exist in France or anywhere else. Now, are you going to answer _my_ question now Fair enough. What question would you like answered? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2015, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/249 "2015-04-13T22:59:08Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > No, you don’t laugh. You shoot and behead and blow up those who laugh instead of countering words with words and satire with satire. That’s the problem. No, no she’s right on that one. The French TV networks ([Canal+ in particular](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2et71d_les-no-go-zones-selon-fox-news-le-petit-journal-canal-2015-01-14_news)) had a field day when Fox News broadcasted a map of the so-called “Muslim no-go zones” that are “worse than anywhere in Iraq”… in the heart of bloody Paris. I mean, I’ll pre-emptively agree that it’s somewhat hypocritical of us to laugh, seeing as most French folk couldn’t name ten US States, let alone the finer demographics of New York City ; but fucking _still_. It’s Paris. The most be-copped, centralist, secularized, statist city in the world. If the perfidious Albion hadn’t beaten us to the punch, in its _ **typical** _ backstabbing fashion, we would have been the world pioneers in beheading religiously sanctioned chiefs of state. D’yall really, \*really \*think oogabooga SHARIAH LAW MUSLIMS AYAYAYAYAYA!!1 are ever getting close to cordonning off fucking Barbès ? Hell no. We \*all \*need our nooner kebab sammich, man. Productivity in an unleavened bun, right there. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2015, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/250 "2015-04-13T23:02:24Z")
I don’t have any idea why you keep talking about Fox News and no-go zones. Is there someone in this thread whose posts I can’t see engaging you in an argument about those topics? I certainly have never mentioned them. ---
**Author:** ![A\_isha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@A\_isha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_isha)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2015, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/251 "2015-04-13T23:03:03Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > Yes, that was a terrible thing when it happened once. If it happened multiple times every day like Islamists murdering people does, it might compare. Ever heard of the Rohingya, Haberdash? > [@Haberdash](#): > > Fair enough. What question would you like answered? Can you quote, specifically, where Garry Trudeau called Charlie Hebdo racist or called for hate speech regulation? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2015, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/252 "2015-04-13T23:26:27Z")
> [@Pedro](#): > > Sorry but I’d need a lot more than just your word to accept that they reached the same conclusions. > > I also have a hard time taking the islamophobe rhetoric very seriously. You mean far right papers republishing CH’s most virulentely islamophobic cartoons (without saying whence they came from of course) isn’t enough of an indication ? Well, no, of course not. You’d be right. The real vomit was in the editorials and articles - the latter would routinely pass off “rumor heard from a friend of a friend of a local” as fact (without necessarily retracting it later ; and even when they did the retraction was often published in the fine print, as it were) ; or just be your average islamophobic bile, “they’re not like us, values utterly incompatible, threat to The Republic, yadda yadda”. I’ll grant you that, unlike the far right, they never went the whole nine yards and printed “therefore we should fuck them all up/evict them/send them brownies back home”. But. BUT. But for one thing, many readers _did_ go those yards, and their letters would be published. At lengths. For another, does it really matter that they didn’t explicitly do so ? I mean, when you publish one article that proves that “2 = 4-2” ; and another that says “4 = 2\*2” ; is “I never ran an article that \*actually \*said 2+2=4 !” a reasonable defence ? > [@](#): > > It’s just the fallacy of argument from frenchness I could do without. I know what you mean, but how else am I supposed to respond to **Haberdash** ’s argument from “you don’t understand Charlie because you don’t understand French [_kyltyʁ_]” ? (yes, pronouncing it _en Français dans le texte_ and writing it in IPA \*\*are \*\*both mandatory, else you don’t really sound pretentious enough for the argument to work. Sorry, **Haberdash** , but it’s ze trooss.) I mean, I _could_ write a 150 historical thesis on the evolution of _Hara-Kiri_ into \*Charlie \*into whatever’s left, and throw in 300 pages of sociological commentary through the decades, plus 200 pages of citations in the annex. Or I could just say “hey, yo, errr… yeah ? Yeah. So, no. What you said is just shit, so. OK.” and achieve more or less the same result WRT our readers (one hopes). I have finals in two weeks, what do you expect from me ? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Pedro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/919ad9/32.png) [@Pedro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pedro)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/253 "2015-04-14T00:28:51Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > You mean far right papers republishing CH’s most virulentely islamophobic cartoons (without saying whence they came from of course) isn’t enough of an indication ? No. > [@](#): > > Well, no, of course not. You’d be right. Great, we agree. > [@](#): > > The real vomit was in the editorials and articles - the latter would routinely pass off “rumor heard from a friend of a friend of a local” as fact (without necessarily retracting it later ; and even when they did the retraction was often published in the fine print, as it were) ; or just be your average islamophobic bile, “they’re not like us, values utterly incompatible, threat to The Republic, yadda yadda”. Even if that is a fair assessment of Charlie Hedbo, which I sincerely doubt, based on your wonderfully balanced rhetoric, they were not murdered because of their editorials. They were murdered for blasphemy because they repeatedly depicted (and insulted) Muhammad in cartoons. So lets keep that in mind please. > [@](#): > > I’ll grant you that, unlike the far right, they never went the whole nine yards and printed “therefore we should fuck them all up/evict them/send them brownies back home”. But. BUT. But for one thing, many readers _did_ go those yards, and their letters would be published. At lengths. For another, does it really matter that they didn’t explicitly do so ? I mean, when you publish one article that proves that “2 = 4-2” ; and another that says “4 = 2\*2” ; is “I never ran an article that \*actually \*said 2+2=4 !” a reasonable defence ? Yes, all of that matters a lot to form an unbiased opinion of CH. There is a serious social issue in France with emmigration and Islam. One you don’t seem capable of doing justice. I am not either, but then again I’m not French. Blame the victim is not an appropriate response for rape victims and it’s not an appropriate response to murdered cartoonists either. Please note well that I’m not saying anybody should expect a consequence free life. And I’m not saying you in particular are blaming the victim either. Just making a point. This goes to Garry Trudeau actually. The CH people may have been crass and unfunny to some, but they were models of sanity compared to Islamic extremists. And provide a much needed, critical and courageous voice in my opinion. Unlike the White House for instance. Religious rites for Bin Laden, really? Oh we must think of all those poor US flags being burned around the world. But I digress. It seems France is going down a similar path as the US did post 9/11. [https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/17/whats-scarier-terrorism-governments-unilaterally-blocking-websites-name/](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/17/whats-scarier-terrorism-governments-unilaterally-blocking-websites-name/) > [@](#): > > I know what you mean, but how else am I supposed to respond to **Haberdash** ’s argument from “you don’t understand Charlie because you don’t understand French [_kyltyʁ_]” ? (yes, pronouncing it _en Français dans le texte_ and writing it in IPA \*\*are \*\*both mandatory, else you don’t really sound pretentious enough for the argument to work. Sorry, **Haberdash** , but it’s ze trooss.) > > I mean, I _could_ write a 150 historical thesis on the evolution of _Hara-Kiri_ into \*Charlie \*into whatever’s left, and throw in 300 pages of sociological commentary through the decades, plus 200 pages of citations in the annex. > Or I could just say “hey, yo, errr… yeah ? Yeah. So, no. What you said is just shit, so. OK.” and achieve more or less the same result WRT our readers (one hopes). > > I have finals in two weeks, what do you expect from me ? 🙂 Fair enough. I thought I’d seen that pattern somewhere else (without the “Fucko” part). ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/254 "2015-04-14T05:25:35Z")
The discussion _would_ be better without tangenting into mocking Fox News. Look, I’ve been an American all my life, and while not the most connected or well informed, I do try to pay attention. I don’t think all our foreign posters really understand what a tapestry of categories of nutjobs we have in this country. The nuance actually increases all the time. You can’t just assume an insulting American watches Fox. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/255 "2015-04-14T11:57:17Z")
> [@Pedro](#): > > Even if that is a fair assessment of Charlie Hedbo, which I sincerely doubt, based on your wonderfully balanced rhetoric, they were not murdered because of their editorials. I doubt Kobal needs americans to tell him what happened in Paris or why. His point was a context around the Charlie Hebdo and their position, as the other post was fabricating claims without real foundation about a charlie hebdo supposedly sollicitious of the ordinary muslim. It is quite stupid to pretend that Kobol is blaming a victim when he only refutes fasle claims made > [@](#): > > There is a serious social issue in France with emmigration and Islam. One you don’t seem capable of doing justice. I am not either, but then again I’m not French. No there is a serious issue in France around the integration of the **native born** citizen minority populations - many who are muslim - who descend from the immigrants of the 1960s and the 1970s. the religious bigots like to make this out as an issue that is principally one that is religious, but the Cités problems are not muslim, they are across the sociological spectrum of kids from the old colonies or the DOM TOMs who have the wrong skin color and the wrong kind of names. Names that are not metropolitan French-European. And a France that was a very weak job growth and a very serious problem in its code of labor that makes the permanent hiring difficult. It is a situation of the labor elite with the very protected and untouchable jobs, who are mostly the metropolitans and everyone else. The discrimination has been shown statistically and empirically many times with studies, but no french government has truly attacked this. It is a grand hypocrisy of the French Left in fact. > [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > The discussion _would_ be better without tangenting into mocking Fox News. What “discussion”? There is not a discussion, there is just some bigots running around grabbing random web links with anything they feel can support a narrative of their bigotry, without any real connections. The Fox news reference is made because the style and the quality of the presentation, running around to use vignettes only partially or not at all true to support a narrative of bigotry, which only ties back to the myopic short-term political arguments in their home country and really has no genuine concern for the overseas, the big scary overseas places speaking funny langauges. It is mere make-up on their tapestry of bigotry. ---
**Author:** ![Pedro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/919ad9/32.png) [@Pedro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pedro)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/256 "2015-04-14T13:20:09Z")
> [@Ramira](#): > > I doubt Kobal needs americans to tell him what happened in Paris or why. His point was a context around the Charlie Hebdo and their position, as the other post was fabricating claims without real foundation about a charlie hebdo supposedly sollicitious of the ordinary muslim. > > It is quite stupid to pretend that Kobol is blaming a victim when he only refutes fasle claims made Selective quoting is selective. But thanks for calling me stupid and dishonest. So what’s your opinion of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad in the context of a secular state? Not asking about the Paris terror attacks by the way. I’m assuming you are a follower of Islam in some way. I’m just curious about your views. > [@](#): > > No there is a serious issue in France around the integration of the native born citizen minority populations - many who are muslim - who descend from the immigrants of the 1960s and the 1970s. True, many are native born citizens, thanks for that correction to my poorly formulated (and spelling errored) remark. > [@](#): > > the religious bigots like to make this out as an issue that is principally one that is religious, but the Cités problems are not muslim, they are across the sociological spectrum of kids from the old colonies or the DOM TOMs who have the wrong skin color and the wrong kind of names. Names that are not metropolitan French-European. And a France that was a very weak job growth and a very serious problem in its code of labor that makes the permanent hiring difficult. It is a situation of the labor elite with the very protected and untouchable jobs, who are mostly the metropolitans and everyone else. The discrimination has been shown statistically and empirically many times with studies, but no french government has truly attacked this. It is a grand hypocrisy of the French Left in fact. You seem pretty big on bringing your credentials to a debate and I haven’t seen you present yours yet but I don’t have any major problems with what you said. The problem is cultural and obviously religion interwines with that. Economic disenfranchisement plays a big role too. I’m not aware of the political issues involved. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2015, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/257 "2015-04-15T02:24:10Z")
> [@A\_isha](#): > > Can you quote, specifically, where Garry Trudeau called Charlie Hebdo racist or called for hate speech regulation? > **[The Full Text of Garry Trudeau's Speech About Charlie Hebdo](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/04/the-abuse-of-satire/390312/)** > > In his acceptance speech for the George Polk Career Award, the cartoonist made provocative remarks about satire and the responsibility free speech confers. > [@](#): > > Ridiculing the non-privileged is almost never funny—it’s just mean. By punching downward, by attacking a powerless, disenfranchised minority with crude, vulgar drawings closer to graffiti than cartoons, Charlie wandered into the realm of hate speech, which in France is only illegal if it directly incites violence. Well, voila—the 7 million copies that were published following the killings did exactly that, triggering violent protests across the Muslim world, including one in Niger, in which ten people died. Meanwhile, the French government kept busy rounding up and arresting over 100 Muslims who had foolishly used their freedom of speech to express their support of the attacks. > > Freedom should always be discussed within the context of responsibility. At some point free expression absolutism becomes childish and unserious. It becomes its own kind of fanaticism. Now, you might point out that code words like “non-privileged” aren’t the same things as accusations of racism, or, indeed, that even the most baseless and invective-filled slander of Muslims cannot be racist because Muslims are not a race. But, Garry Trudeau, the audience for this column, and the left worldwide do not believe those things. The meaning of the remarks is clear – those racists got what they deserved and no one should ever satirize anything related to Islam. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2015, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/258 "2015-04-15T02:26:12Z")
By the way, here are today’s anti-Islamophobia medal winners: [http://www.pakistanchristianpost.com/headlinenewsd.php?hnewsid=5281](http://www.pakistanchristianpost.com/headlinenewsd.php?hnewsid=5281) ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2015, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/259 "2015-04-15T06:53:51Z")
> [@Pedro](#): > > Even if that is a fair assessment of Charlie Hedbo, which I sincerely doubt, based on your wonderfully balanced rhetoric, I’m sorry, should I call a spade an agrarian tool only statistically likely to be used to move soil and manure in order to be “balanced” ? When something is crap, it’s crap… Not that Charlie _as a whole_ was crap, even if it had lost much of what made it great in the past. Just its weird fringe obsession with Islam (and Islam bashing) in the Charb years. > [@](#): > > they were not murdered because of their editorials. They were murdered for blasphemy because they repeatedly depicted (and insulted) Muhammad in cartoons. So lets keep that in mind please. That’s the thing. They really weren’t. > [@](#): > > Yes, all of that matters a lot to form an unbiased opinion of CH. > > There is a serious social issue in France with emmigration and Islam. One you don’t seem capable of doing justice. I am not either, but then again I’m not French. There’s no “Muslim issue” in France. There’s a “disenfranchized youth” issue, which affects a larger spectrum of kids than immigrants or their descendants even. That the State and the media try and turn it \*into \*a Muslim issue is, in itself, a disquieting issue however ;). And a segment of those kids, for one reason or another, have turned Islam (or rather, their sui generi conception of Islam, which is very often pig-ignorant of classical Islamic theology) into a rallying banner, or a social identity perhaps. I could explain my understanding of the social dynamics at lengths if you’d like but it’s an involved and complex issue, and reducing it to “crazies ! fanatics ! muhammad cartoons !” is so disconnected with the real processes at work it might as well be a lie. Even if, on the surfacest of the surface, it’s likely true. Ultimately though, they didn’t attack Charlie because it was Charlie, or because of what Charlie said/drew ; they struck at an identified symbol of a whole spectrum of things. > [@](#): > > The CH people may have been crass and unfunny to some, but they were models of sanity compared to Islamic extremists. And provide a much needed, critical and courageous voice in my opinion. Unlike the White House for instance. Religious rites for Bin Laden, really? Respecting one’s enemies is what one does who has the least bit of class. Or if one wants to make camp on the moral high ground, as the case may be. The Obama administration didn’t want his corpse to become a holy relic (same train of thought as why the Russians made off with Hitler’s corpse at the end of WW2) but simply didn’t want to provide yet another casus belli about it. And besides all that, whatever else he was, Bin Laden was Saudi oil aristocracy. Y’all can’t afford to piss \*those \*off. I mean, what would \*you \*have done ? Wrapped his body in a dead pig and set the lot on fire, like the British used to do with Muslim rebels in India once upon a time ? What \*for \*? Would it have made him extra-dead ? > [@](#): > > It seems France is going down a similar path as the US did post 9/11. > > [https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/17/whats-scarier-terrorism-governments-unilaterally-blocking-websites-name/](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/17/whats-scarier-terrorism-governments-unilaterally-blocking-websites-name/) That on the other hand is a less debatable assertion. And it’s a \*very \*scary thing to me because, well, the US post 9/11. Made all the scarier that the French state is, by design, a very powerful force ; much more so than the Feds are in the US. Which is a good thing when the government has good ideas, but not so much when the government is up its own ass. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2015, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/260 "2015-04-15T08:29:56Z")
> [@Pedro](#): > > So what’s your opinion of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad in the context of a secular state? I do not and I did not care about them, like most normal people. The charlie people can play their baiting game all they want. I ignore them. > [@](#): > > True, many are native born citizens, thanks for that correction to my poorly formulated (and spelling errored) remark. Many = almost all. > [@](#): > > You seem pretty big on bringing your credentials to a debate there is no debate, there is only an idiot bigot who posts random links in this pit thread to as part of his boring “muslims evil” game. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827.md?page=14)