Except that you can’t seem to find any actual evidence of any “furious apologism” for the Charlie Hebdo killers on the part of any leftists. Just a lot of statements saying something entirely different, which apparently turn into “furious apologism” when translated with the Haberdash Super-Seekrit Leftist Code.
Your problem is that you think the average person reading this somehow won’t understand that standing over the corpses reading out a litany of reasons, real and fabricated why the murderers didn’t like them constitutes apologism for murder. That the average person doesn’t understand that when a spurious campaign is launched to demonize murder victims as racists, it’s done for a reason. That words have context and are said hoping to achieve some goal.
Does the normal English speaker understand that Trudeau, Cole, Gawker, Salon, and you endorse Muslims murdering anyone who hurts their feelings? I think they do.
Oh, I think that the average person reading Teju Cole’s column will understand quite well what he is saying.
Unfortunately for you, it just doesn’t happen to be what you want to pretend he’s saying.
There you have it, folks: the Haberdash Super-Seekrit Leftist Code in action. When Teju Cole writes that “the killings in Paris were an appalling offense to human life and dignity” and “we rightly condemn criminals who claim to act in the name of Islam”, what he must really mean is “we endorse Muslims murdering anyone who hurts their feelings”.
Must be true, because Haberdash says so. And we know he never gets his facts wrong.
Yes, this is correct, as can be seen from the context of the entire column and its further use by Cole and his supporters.
Well, according to the Haberdash Super-Seekrit Leftist Code, at least.
Read in the context of ordinary realism, of course, it’s flat-out delusional.
Once you’ve decided to argue not with what your opponents are actually saying but what you’ve decided they secretly mean irrespective of what they’re actually saying, you’ve basically put yourself outside the pale of rational discourse. And you, Haberdash, were never very far within that pale to begin with.
Cole thought that the murders at Charlie Hebdo were such as “appalling offense to human life and dignity” that he began writing libel about the victims before the murder spree was even over, then led a boycott of an awards ceremony for the survivors.
That must be what rational, non-delusional people do in Salon.com world.
I’m going to spend the next year telling everyone I meet that Nicole Brown Simpson was a racist. I’m really concerned about spreading this message. Nicole Brown Simpson was a racist. I will also lead a boycott of an awards ceremony honoring survivors of domestic violence. Nicole Brown Simpson was a racist. I definitely don’t like appalling offenses to human life and dignity, but why are we talking about a white woman getting killed when black women get killed every day? Anyway, the important thing is that everyone understand that Nicole Brown Simpson was a racist.
No, I’m not justifying what O.J. did. How could you ever think that, you delusional person? Also, Nicole Brown Simpson was a racist.
How about this: if Cole were murdered tomorrow by an Islamophobe, would you suddenly stop saying bad things about him? Would you support a posthumous award given to him for freedom of expression?
Or would you feel that you could simultaneously condemn the murder and think that Cole was a bad person who shouldn’t be honored posthumously?
In short: can you hold two ideas in your head at once?
What libel? Please quote specific remarks by Cole that you claim were actually libelous.
Yes. It’s what we call “free speech”.
You see, in the real world which allows genuine commitment to free expression, it’s perfectly possible for a principled person both to sincerely condemn brutal terrorist murders and to sincerely oppose giving a literary award to honor the work of the victims of the murders.
In Haberdash Looking-Glass Land, of course, it works differently. There, anybody who disagrees in any way with the diktats of Haberdash must be excoriated as a lying traitor and condemned for clandestinely promoting, by means of the Haberdash Super-Seekrit Leftist Code, views that they explicitly oppose.
I happen to like how free speech works in the real world better. But then, I would, wouldn’t I?
No one is questioning Cole’s right to be a Sharia-compliant, Islam-apologist coward who advocates giving Muslims a free pass for murder. Just pointing out that he is one.
What is it with lefties and not getting what “free speech” is?
Would you, if he were murdered, stop “pointing out” that he is one? Would you support him for a posthumous free speech award? Or would you consider talking shit about him and say he shouldn’t be honored by fellow journalists?
If he were murdered for his opinions, I would support honoring that fact, yes.
An organization I financially support has a good record of putting its money where its mouth is on “free speech even for those we disagree with”: ACLU History | American Civil Liberties Union
This weird equivalence has come up a lot in the months since Muslims murdered several cartoonists for drawing Muhammad (CR). “Would you be thinking the same way if Jews murdered an anti-Semite, or blacks murdered a KKK member?” The problem for the Islamophiles who think this is some sort of rhetorical coup is: 1) the answer is always “yes I would and yes I have” and 2) the only group in the Western world that regularly murders people as vigilante punishment for “bigotry” is Muslims. Instances of Jews, Christians, atheists, blacks, gays, or anyone else turning their civil rights activism into a massacre are so vanishingly rare that one only has to consider “how would you respond if a non-Muslim group did this” about once a generation at most.
The only people who have to be concerned about being murdered for drawing a picture or writing a blog are those who criticize Islam. This is why the issue embarrasses Islam’s apologists so much.
Well,
(a) if you had a good case to make that Nicole Brown Simpson really was a racist, and
(b) if there were large swathes of the popular media celebrating and disseminating Nicole Brown Simpson’s racist statements, and
(c) if you made it quite clear that you don’t believe that her racism in any way justified or excused her being murdered,
then what would be wrong with your pointing out publicly that Nicole Brown Simpson was a racist? I certainly wouldn’t see anything wrong with that.
Wait a minute, you skipped steps (a), (b) and (c).
Bzzzt, analogy fail: now you have to go back and start over.
I’ll answer your questions, then you have to answer one of mine.
*I would consider it gauche to point out his character flaws while his blood was still being cleaned up, or while his murderer was still holding other people hostage in a police standoff, or in rebuttal to a claim that murdering people is bad, and would not do so. Cole did not observe these strictures with regards to the Charlie Hebdo victims.
*I would support him for any and all awards, assuming his murder was due to something he wrote or another speech activity and not a random event.
*I would not boycott or attempt to block such an honor.
My question: Why do you think it is that “what if an ‘Islamophobe’ murdered a pro-Muslim speaker” can only be discussed in the hypothetical? What does this indicate about the fundamental issue of whether criticism of Islam may have some kind of point and not be mere “bigotry”?
As an addendum to the above, the fact that Cole is, in fact, a Sharia-compliant, Islam-apologist murder-justifier, and Charlie Hebdo is not, in fact, a racist publication, is somewhat relevant to why the questions of libel, propriety, and honor aren’t exactly equivalent, but in no way relevant to the fact that neither one of them deserves anything but 100% protection of their right to freedom of speech.
Really? If Jews murdered an anti-Semitic writer, or blacks murdered a KKK-supporting writer, you would encourage the dissemination and celebration of the victim’s “brave” anti-Semitic or anti-black statements? You’d be out there wearing a button with the murder victim’s nickname and using the hashtag #JeSuisHymieHater or #JeSuisWhiteDominion?
Uh-huh.
Not the question, though I don’t really believe that you would “not see anything wrong” with it.
The question is whether the person who obsessively libels the victims and leads a boycott of the survivors is attempting to justify the murder, not whether it’s “wrong” to “point out” something.
The ACLU supports racists’ right to free speech all the time.
The issue of what to do when a Jew or a black civil rights activist murders a racist never comes up, because there’s only one group whose vision of civil rights activism involves murdering people. Why you consider that a win for the group in question is up to you, I suppose.
Anders Behring Breivik says hi.
The once in a generation exception alluded to above, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic who managed to blow up a bunch of white Norwegians before being imprisoned. And, somehow, no legion of leftists emerged to libel his victims and demand that his viewpoint be understood. No one led a boycott of ceremonies for the survivors. The major organs of progressive opinion did not run piece after piece about the gall of the victims who “punched down” and the need to reign in their “hate speech.”
How many more secularists will be killed by Muslims in the next thirty years before there’s another Breivik? How many were killed today? The score is pretty disparate.