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I decided I needed to do this after a short comment exchange with
Shortly after the news of the shooting started hitting the internet and television, the most infuriating question of all started to be parroted by the different news outlets: "Will this have a chilling effect on other satirical and critical publications?" What sort of BS is this? That's exactly what the terrorists want! They want to scare everyone from ever drawing another cartoon of Muhammad. Terrorists don't have the numbers or means to directly confront the state and win, so they want to instil an amount of fear on a large population that is completely disproportionate to the small number of terrorists causing the problem. It's a strategy to get their way while still lacking the physical means to force their will. The worst thing is that it works if we let it - if we allow ourselves to be terrorized. Every bomb that goes off, every AK-47 that kills another civilian, usually signals another notch of infringement on our rights... because we allow it. The only way to deal with terrorism is to stop living in terror and show them how meaningless and ineffective their barbaric gestures are.
I don't want to trivialize the tragedy for the families involved, but to put things in context, the number of deaths caused by terrorism is a drop in the ocean compared to the number of deaths caused by smoking, or by heart attack because people eat junk and don't exercise, or by accidents caused by drinking. And yet, people keep smoking, drinking, and eating junk with impunity. In fact, according to the world health organization, which keeps global statistics on deaths per year, you are thousands of times more likely to die from one of the aforementioned causes than by terrorism. And because close to one third of all global deaths related to terrorism occurred in Iraq alone, if you don't live in Iraq, your chances are astronomically smaller! I'm willing to bet that more people die each year from sex (either while "on the saddle" or after the fact from VD complications) than die from terrorist attacks, and I guarantee you that people are in no rush to avoid sex. It's time to stop giving in to these ignorant asshats, and stop being afraid. That's the only way we'll prevail against them, and the only way we'll stop the attrition of our rights.
The freedom of expression is far too precious to lose. You might not agree with Charlie Hebdo's messages, but that's the whole point of the freedom of expression: people's right to express their beliefs peacefully is inviolable, even if some don't like it. The editors and cartoonists in Charlie were threatened multiple times, their offices burned, and yet they refused to give in to the terrormongers. They died using and defending the rights that we take for granted. They refused to be silent and were not afraid. For their deaths to mean anything, that should be the true lesson for the rest of us. Deeply critical discussion is the only thing that curbs the worst and most barbaric aspects of fanatical religion. The world needs more comics of Muhammad, not less.

Description

I decided I needed to do this after a short comment exchange with
Shortly after the news of the shooting started hitting the internet and television, the most infuriating question of all started to be parroted by the different news outlets: "Will this have a chilling effect on other satirical and critical publications?" What sort of BS is this? That's exactly what the terrorists want! They want to scare everyone from ever drawing another cartoon of Muhammad. Terrorists don't have the numbers or means to directly confront the state and win, so they want to instil an amount of fear on a large population that is completely disproportionate to the small number of terrorists causing the problem. It's a strategy to get their way while still lacking the physical means to force their will. The worst thing is that it works if we let it - if we allow ourselves to be terrorized. Every bomb that goes off, every AK-47 that kills another civilian, usually signals another notch of infringement on our rights... because we allow it. The only way to deal with terrorism is to stop living in terror and show them how meaningless and ineffective their barbaric gestures are.
I don't want to trivialize the tragedy for the families involved, but to put things in context, the number of deaths caused by terrorism is a drop in the ocean compared to the number of deaths caused by smoking, or by heart attack because people eat junk and don't exercise, or by accidents caused by drinking. And yet, people keep smoking, drinking, and eating junk with impunity. In fact, according to the world health organization, which keeps global statistics on deaths per year, you are thousands of times more likely to die from one of the aforementioned causes than by terrorism. And because close to one third of all global deaths related to terrorism occurred in Iraq alone, if you don't live in Iraq, your chances are astronomically smaller! I'm willing to bet that more people die each year from sex (either while "on the saddle" or after the fact from VD complications) than die from terrorist attacks, and I guarantee you that people are in no rush to avoid sex. It's time to stop giving in to these ignorant asshats, and stop being afraid. That's the only way we'll prevail against them, and the only way we'll stop the attrition of our rights.
The freedom of expression is far too precious to lose. You might not agree with Charlie Hebdo's messages, but that's the whole point of the freedom of expression: people's right to express their beliefs peacefully is inviolable, even if some don't like it. The editors and cartoonists in Charlie were threatened multiple times, their offices burned, and yet they refused to give in to the terrormongers. They died using and defending the rights that we take for granted. They refused to be silent and were not afraid. For their deaths to mean anything, that should be the true lesson for the rest of us. Deeply critical discussion is the only thing that curbs the worst and most barbaric aspects of fanatical religion. The world needs more comics of Muhammad, not less.