I never meant it as an excuse, but when you are dealing with crazy fuckers like this, normal rules just dont apply.

I'm not saying these guys were right to kill innocent people,, what I meant was, if you keep taunting a crazy fucker, bad things will happen, I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying it's naïve to expect otherwise.

Hope that clarifies it somewhat :)

Je suis Charlie...

Such a despicable blow against the values and ideals of European democracy.

Apparently 2 of the 3 suspects have been on watchlists (not that it did much good) since returning from Syria last summer, so wouldn't be surprising if this turns out to have been directed by the so-called Islamic State... whatever is being done currently to monitor the thousands of European returnees, clearly it isn't enough.

Well said. As I see it, the problem isn't freedom of speech, but that Islam(ists) effectively demand special treatment of their particular superstition(s). I'd hope that this is a "phase" which Islam will outgrow, like Christianity et al. did, but if anything radicalisation only seems to be worsening.

I can see your point there but my take on it is someone being a crazy fucker is not an excuse. Yes, it's obvious if you say certain things to certain people they are going to act a certain way, but that doesn't mean you need to monitor what you say, it means they have to monitor how they react to what you say.

It is political correctness and if you try to hide behind "common courtesy and respect", that won't work. Respect beyond basic minimum respect must be earned, it's not given. When you start to tell me what I can draw and what not, you're demanding decidedly more than basic minimal respect and I am not obliged to give it to you. Islam is not the law here in Western Europe so it's perfectly legal to make fun of Mohammed, even if it's in poor taste or childish. I feel no need to draw silly caricatures to make fun of religions as I would consider that a waste of my time but if I want to do that and you get upset, that's your problem.
I'm an illustrator/painter myself so seeing my peers being murdered is particularly aggravating. It does not matter to me if their caricatures were low brow or high brow, it was just drawings. Drawings do not hurt people. Bullets on the other hand do.

If you're going to make any bully analogies, it's the Islamic fundamentalists who behave like bullies. They are trying to sow discontent between Muslims and non-Muslims with their threats and acts of violence, it is their agenda to sabotage peaceful coexistence. Such acts of terrorism are not just a slap in the face of non-Muslims, it's also a slap in the face of all moderate Muslims who want nothing to do with the fundamentalists.

Obviously, such a law is somewhat nonsensical as it can't be effectively enforced anyway. However, there definitely is a problem with many immigrants not learning proper German. You say, let them pick up proper German in kindergarten or at school? That is the reasonable way but what if the majority of kids in a class does not speak German. Here is a documentary that illustrates the point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vjJSC970V0
And no, this isn't right wing fearmongering propaganda to get votes for populist right wing parties from uneducated frustrated Harz IV bigots, don't even try to insinuate that :D This is a rather tame documentary btw, I've seen much worse.
I've traveled to Germany several times and of course it's not that extreme everywhere, but you can't deny the fact that there are areas where integration is failing and it must be a nightmare for teachers etc but of course none of that pressure is felt by far left politicians in their ivory towers.

My father is an immigrant as well, from India, and he assimilated properly into the host country - as do all successful immigrants. Adapting and even assimilation to a certain degree doesn't mean you "give up your identity" or destroy your "self". It's only weak people with big egos and small confidence that need to desperately hold on to their heritage at all costs even if it clashes with the host country's laws and cultural values.
My dad didn't speak Indian to us kids and my mom didn't have to cook Indian food, and I didn't have to become a doctor. When you ask my dad which country is the best, he'll say Switzerland is the best. He'll never say, but India is better or anything like that. He always worked hard, and never complained or felt entitled to anything. He's quite glad that he was able to immigrate into this country and doesn't miss his country of origin in the least bit. Once a year we went to eat Indian food at a restaurant, that's pretty much it.

Yes you are giving in. In fact, you are bending over.
We have laws here, and in order to keep order those laws are above any flowery proverbs. And the law allows for satire, even the very tasteless type. Personally, I usually don't shit on people and that works well enough for me most of the time. But I don't have a special right to be above satire, and it gets especially problematic when courts factor in "feeling insulted" as a factor that reduces sentences. That is completely screwed up as the law should be the same for everyone.
If we do stick with proverbs though, there is another one that says "if you give them the little finger, they'll take the entire hand"
...not even a pun considering there are a small number of Islamic fundamentalists who loudly demand Sharia law for Western European countries. They are a minority and regular Muslims think those guys are lunatics, but as you see it takes a small minority to cause big problems. For the sake of the law-abiding majority, we should banish the minority that doesn't want to play ball. It's shocking to me that such an opinion is often considered extreme right wing, I find it basic common sense to kick out any violent aggressive immigrants. Since I'm of 50% immigrant descent myself, I'm especially interested in having the bad apples removed because if this doesn't happen then xenophobia will rise and anyone who looks like me (Typ "Südländer" :D) is going to be under suspicion.

If he's crazy don't you think it's a bit hard to him to control himself?

I'm not trying to excuse them, I'm just saying that this was going to happen in some way or other, Their offices were firebombed, the journalists themselves were under police protection, so evidently something was expected.

Was it worth all their lives to continue what they were doing to advocate free speech? Personally I don't think so, but I cant speak for them, but I cant help but feel what happened could have been avoided/mitigated.

Once again you fail me.

I just found a quote that might clarify my position somewhat:

"On the one hand, religious extremists should not threaten people who offend their beliefs. On the other hand, nobody should offend their beliefs. The right to blasphemy should exist but only in theory. They do not believe religious extremists should be able to impose censorship by issuing threats, but given the existence of those threats, the rest of us should have the good sense not to risk triggering them.

The line separating these two positions is perilously thin. The Muslim radical argues that the ban on blasphemy is morally right and should be followed; the Western liberal insists it is morally wrong but should be followed. Theoretical distinctions aside, both positions yield an identical outcome.

The right to blaspheme religion is one of the most elemental exercises of political liberalism. One cannot defend the right without defending the practice."

I don't have much to add to my statement and people are free to disagree if they want to, I just wish to present my view.

As I said im my disclaimer, I 100% condemn the actions taken by the attackers. No matter how offensive and disgusting the drawings were, they do not compare at all to killing a person. Just the fact that I would have to state that is insane, as it should be self-evident.

With that out of the way, let's not paint Chalie Habdot as martyrs for "freedom & democracy". As I said earlier, freedom of speech means that the government should not be allowed to silence you for criticising it. I absolutely support this. But it does not mean that there should be no consequences for what you say. There are consequences for everything.

Am I blaming the victim here? Maybe, it depends on your definition. But I believe in one's responsibility to protect oneself from harm before you can expect other to protect you. What I mean by that is not to walk down crime alley at 3 AM flashing your wallet that's about to burst, or not leaving the door of your home open while you're away. If you get mugged or your place robbed you have enabled or encouraged the crime. Is that victim-blaming? I will let you decide.

Freedom is a double-edged sword that always implies responsibility as well. If you cannot accept responsibility then you don't deserve freedom.

Of course, and the only way to do that is by drawing Jesus Christ ass-fucking The Father, right? That's BS, they did it because they wanted to be provocative and pander to their niche audience. Criticism can also be done in a more tasteful manner.

The legal ways have been tried, but the government has always had their back. It's why I compared the French government with the teacher protecting the bully. The government is just as much to blame for this, if the civilised methods fail the uncivilised ones will be resorted to.

That's why we have prisons and asylums; be they for treatment or for protection. If someone is going to go nuts and go "postal" for lack of a better word, what do you think is the best solution, make sure no one does or says anything to set them off, or get them off the street? I for one don't want to live in world where my main concern should be 'not aggravating the lunatics'. If we did that we'd have to outlaw talking period because trust me, out there right now there is someone dying to be offended and they will use anything you say as an excuse to blow their top.

If by "certain people" you mean "insane notoriously violent radicals," and by "what you say" you mean "deliberately provoking said insane radicals," then yes... you DO need to monitor what you say. Insisting that the insane radicals should just act less insane may be fair, but it's not realistic.

This really shouldn't diminish the tragedy of a bunch of people being murdered because they offended someone, though.

I do see what you mean and I do agree with it.

These people that committed this murderous act are more than extremists though, they are quite mad in the head and from what I can gather, they have totally and utterly abandoned the actual Koran, with their perverted view of Islam.

They should not be considered as rational people that will obey rational laws, they are murderers wandering around the world just looking for targets that satisfy their perverse need to justify their perverted beliefs.

They don't care about freedom of speech, they just want to kill anybody that doesn't agree with them, they have the weapons, the infrastructure and the expertise to do this effectively. That is a serious thing to consider, when you are putting your life on the line for something like freedom of speech, neither you or your government can adequately protect against these type of people.

That's what they told Gandhi.

If they don't want to learn German send them back to where they came from. My parents are immigrants and my siblings and me all grew up bilingual (I was born abroad, so I had to learn German). Growing up bilingual is no big deal, if anything it enriched us with even more knowledge. The reason children should not speak German at home is so they don't pick up broken foreigner-speak German from their parents. For children who were not born in Germany there are language courses and they will pick up the language very quickly if they want. I remember my first day of school, I didn't know what the word pencil (Bleistift) meant, but I got the hang of it and my German is above that of many native speakers now. And my parents improved their language skills through practice and through us.

This only shows that we need more of those cartoons published everywhere to desensitize the extremists till the last one of them realized, that their religious beliefs are their own private matter and concern nobody but themselves.