Check out my new editorial essay at ANewDomain.net, in which I call out the fake liberals who support free speech, but only with reservations and qualifiers:
Cartoons like those in Charlie Hebdo make … me — uncomfortable. They set off all sorts of triggers rooted in political correctness and identity politics, some, no doubt well-intentioned.
But that’s exactly the point.
If those cartoons hadn’t been outrageous, the cartoonists who drew them probably wouldn’t have gotten shot to death. (Similarly, my cartoons about 9/11 icons were over-the-top. That’s why they stirred a fuss.)
To believe in freedom of expression, to truly defend satire, we must stand up for it unequivocally, without reservation — not despite our distaste for the cartoons or standup routines or humorous essays or films drawing fire from critics and potential murderers, but because they make us uncomfortable.
More.
6 Comments.
Update on the state of “free speech” in the country that just hosted a “free speech” march attended by 40 world leaders: http://tinyurl.com/p68e674
Arthur Silber explains:
“When over 40 “world leaders” enthusiastically take part in an event of this kind, that fact alone establishes a single incontrovertible, irrefutable fact: whatever is happening, whatever views are being expressed, none of it is any threat whatsoever to power and authority. More specifically, it is no threat whatsoever to State power. No wonder all those world leaders were eager to take part: the largest demonstration “in modern French history” was nothing less than a glorification of State power.”
http://tinyurl.com/pnyfykh
I’m glad to read this. It’s been a really frustrating two weeks, seeing people on the left give the nauseating argument, “We are shocked by the murders of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists … but they kinda deserved it because we’re holier-than-thou.” All based on their poorly-informed readings of a few cartoons without any context or discussion of who or what Hebdo was targeting and trying to say. (Kinda like American satire am I right!?)
Although it has been heartening to see French people and Muslims (cartoonists included) calling them out on it.
CH’s cartoon hypocrisy* was popularly being ignored to the extent of bankruptcy before the CIA, Mossad, and a mixture of French opportunists decided to False-Flag’em. Now? EVERYBODY has to buy their flavor-of-the-week just for the political correctness of it all. But after the excitement dies down? A year down the road, it’ll be back to the bankruptcy blues. Who will benefit in the long run? Not cartoonists, I’m pretty sure.
*Which cartoonist ironically survived this massacre because he was fired for making fun of a Jewess?
http://shareverything.com/2015/01/14/im-not-charlie-im-maurice-sine-fired-by-charlie-for-anti-semitism/
DanD
I have, regrettably, concluded that satire (like irony) is one of those things that a lot of people SIMPLY DO NOT “GET” and the inability to comprehend it appears to be a function of time.
Pretty much everyone understands Jonathan Swift was being satirical when he wrote about eating Irish babies. Pretty much everyone who reads “Oliver Twist” understands that Dickens’ comments on the orphanage system near the beginning of the book are scathing social commentary on how cruel the system was to the children, that he was using satire to point out a problem.
But both of them have been dead for, what, at least 150 years? There’s no personal investment in that satire now. The potato famine is long gone (although the threat of monoculture famine still remains). Dickensian orphanages in the developed world simply don’t exist anymore. There’s no obligation pushed onto the reader to DO something.
For instance, I still don’t know the answer to this one: All these Wahhabi Sunnis, the ones going around shooting up editorial offices and bombing places, they represent a tiny fraction of Islam. Have any of the more moderate groups declared a fatwa on Wahhabism for its use of violence?
You do realize that agents of the Shin Bet can speak (even coloquial) Arabic as extensively as any handjob Saudi Cleric, and knows the foibles of Islam as well as any scholar of the Koran.
Wahhabism is some really stupid shit … and that’s using a Catholic Inquisition standard. But just because it has a nondescript duck suit on and kinda’ quacks don’t necessarily mean that the perps were really Muslim (of any charter).
As said elsewhere, Gulf-of-Tonkin, though I believe “King David Hotel” is more appropriate..
DanD
C’mon, Ted! Get with the liberal program! You’re only allowed to insult white, male or Christian people!