Jan 7, 2015

Je suis Charlie Hebdo

Jim: Satire is a bold-face determinant of the difference between free people and slaves.

Socrates: Even if  mockery spills over into blasphemy?

J:  Of course. Any deity worth one's while would have a sense of cosmic preposterousness.

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Edit to Extend:  Matt Welch in "Reason" correctly notes that my headline is vainglorious.  It is a wish, not an accomplishment.

Today is an awful day for the basic project of free inquiry. Do you really wanna be Charlie Hebdo? Then get on out there, live and speak bravely. And God help you.

1 comment:

Historian said...

My father occasionally commented that one ought not to ask the Almighty for things one can do without divine intercession. Self defense, for example, is best handled with a good rifle and several spare full capacity magazine. Saving that, a good pistol is mighty useful too.

Perhaps one of these days, the French will stop praying to the golden calf and bowing to the ravings of a seventh-century pedophile, and allow their people the basic human right of self-defense.