@BruceAlderman Is it somehow more racist than the comment before it?

@BruceAlderman As I already commented, there's good reason to ridicule all religion and no one is above ridicule when they deserve it.

@BruceAlderman What exactly do you mean "marginalized"? The world is what it is; people are who they are. Sweeping statements, hyperbole, exaggeration, and stereotyping are a hallmark of comedic ridicule. It's part of the rhetoric.

It might upset you if it touches you personally, but that's kind of the point.

It's supposed to do something and hopefully you're mature enough to evaluate why exactly it makes you mad.

I have serious reservations that those who react emotionally and violently take time to reflect on exactly why they are upset about mere words and cartoons.

@BruceAlderman If we take this as a given, what do you recommend then? That Hebdo should censure themselves?

That seems to be what you are implying.

I thought it is mostly considered a God-given right that anyone may ridicule and otherwise talk poorly about someone, so long as it is not blatantly false (cases of slander and libel).

Do you think so or something less than that or more restrictive?

I think his point about marginilisation is that minority communities with strong religious views are generally distrusted to start with, and the magazine picked on them strongly for years.

It can create a culture where everyone joins in.

@BruceAlderman I was making sweeping statements. I think that was obvious and was intentional. We're talking about overall impressions of people and subcultures. There certainly are exceptions. But what is also obvious is how many more violent crimes in the US are committed by blacks compared to others.

In real life you've probably had experiences where you've met a group of people, and one gets the brunt of their jokes. It can be really easy to join in, even if you don't know them well

If the person is cool with getting jokes at their expense, it's all fine, but sometimes they aren't, and sometimes after time it gets too much

Now, if you want, we can talk about what has happened in the past 50, 60, or even 100 years ago, when there was much senseless violence against non-whites by whites.

Today, it is much, much less.

In fact, violent crime is on the decline since the 1992.

I think that's the kind of thing happening in France

The magazine isn't solely responsible by any means

But it was contributing to a culture of marginalisation

So at least we are all getting better as a whole. But the statistics still show that some of us are doing better at abandoning violence than others.

@fredsbendtheGrinch I realise we're talking across each other. It is a good thing that violent crime is going down!

@curiousdannii Sometimes there's a good reason for that. Strong religious beliefs are responsible for many of the world's wars and terrors. It is natural and right to distrust that. Especially in France where some of those terrors played out.

@curiousdannii yea. it's cool.

@curiousdannii Yes, It can go too far, but that is where we hope people know where the line is. Instigating violence when your "opponent" shows no desire to be violent is always wrong.

I'm sure there's hate crime in France, where someone's beating up on some muslims.

I think most of the Muslims in France came in the 60s after the Algerian wars, but terrorism didn't really start until the 90s

@fredsbendtheGrinch To hate crime sure. But what about to the general opinion about muslim people?

Being disliked by lots of people should never result in terrorism, but that's the world we live in

@curiousdannii There's some evidence to suggest that Muslims born and raised in the mid-east act differently than others elsewhere. There's also a bit of evidence that "radical Islam" doesn't seem to show itself in a nation until it reaches a certain percentage (about 8-12% if I recall)

@curiousdannii General opinion often is a reflection on reality. In other words, stereotypes contain a kernel of truth.

But this all seems off-topic anyway. I'm under the impression this is a purely religiously motivated action. I think there's some sort of prohibition against making anything in the likeness of Mohammed.

To do so, I believe that many Muslims see that as creating an idol, setting Mohammed up as a god-thing of sorts, which they are adamantly against any hint of.

"There is only one God, Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet."

@fredsbendtheGrinch It's definitely religiously motivated. If muslims in France are being marginalised it probably isn't causing too much terrorism that wouldn't have happened anyway. But it is influencing young Europeans to move to Syria and join ISIS

So they saw it as blasphemy of some kind. Their religion demands that they are intensely disgusted at this.

And such ridiculousness is what Hebdo ridiculed.

@curiousdannii Huh? Who's joining ISIS? Muslims from Europe?

I gtg anyway. Need to work.

@fredsbendtheGrinch Yeah, 3000 according to the BBC: bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29372494

@fredsbendtheGrinch Good to chat!

@fredsbendtheGrinch By that logic, we could say, "Terrorists are who they are. They kill to defend their ideology." But I don't think either of us would say we should just accept that as the way the world is. Likewise, I'd say that ridicule is often counterproductive, and that it would be better to present a positive alternative than to prey on someone else's weaknesses.

@BruceAlderman I think you misunderstood what I was saying. I was talking about the subjects of ridicule, which in this case are muslims. I meant to highlight that this form of criticism intentionally stereotypes and that you'd have to be really foolish to think this or any stereotype is "wholesale" truth.

Hence, "people are who they are." And it only takes a little bit of objective observation to see commonalities that make and define a subculture.

@BruceAlderman Whether ridicule is effective or not, I can't say. I know I appreciate reading articles that give out a good thrashing to parties that deserve it. I would hope that if they read it they would be able to take some of it to heart and change for the better.

What would be a "positive alternative" that does not "prey on someone else's weaknesses"?

Where I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "prey on weaknesses".

I think you'd probably agree that to change poor societal behavior you need to actually and literally address it.

@fredsbend And yet, I've known a lot of people who so take stereotypes as wholesale truth. I had a college roommate who was afraid to talk to black people because he believed they were genetically a different species than white people--because he had grown up in a small town and the only black people he had seen were athletes on TV...and he had been told (and he blindly accepted) that they were good athletes because they had tendons that white people didn't have.

@BruceAlderman That's pretty far from a stereotype. That's a child being taught a false thing while unable to observe for himself. He probably also didn't have the internet when he was growing up.

@fredsbend Now that I've had time to look through the cartoons published by Charlie Hebdo, I'd have to say that some of them were positive in their depiction of Muhammad. For example, this week's cover, with Muhammad holding a "Je suis Charlie" sign and the caption "All is forgiven." That's priceless. And there was another one with Muhammad surrounded by members of ISIS, saying "It's hard to be loved by idiots." Those cartoons divide mainstream Islam from extremists. But then there's others...

such as cartoons depicting Muhammad naked, or depicting him having gay sex, or something about him and a hook-nosed Jew.

What does any of that accomplish?

@BruceAlderman I would bet that they attempt to show that squimishness about the body and homosexuality are not something worth getting fanatic about.

I don't know about the Jew thing. Probably hints on their 1400 years of killing each other for nothing.