Je Suis NON Charlie

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What I am saying is, go up in front of Muslims and start insulting them to their face instead of hiding behind a publication.

What? People CHOOSE to be offended. No one knows what will set people off, you can't expect people to say nothing at all. Look at the Taliban, those jerks blew up a 1000 year old Buddha statue just because they chose to be offended by it. No one can take that s**t serious. The only thing to hope for is that the good guys shoot first.

So if someone comes up to you and says something hateful about you to your face, you will choose if you are offended or not, when it's painfully obvious they are saying it just in an attempt to get at you? You will just stand there and not be offended, even if it is about someone you love, or who is sacred to you, a family member for instance? Someone's who honor you would feel obligated to defend?

I assume you are male and I have no idea if you are married or not, but let's say you are and you were out with your wife. Someone approaches her, and you, and says something really horrible to her right in front of you, like, the worst thing they could say to a woman, let alone someone's wife. Are you telling me you would simply choose not to be offended by that, even with her standing there hearing it and judging you if you don't defend her honor?

This is wrong. No one chooses to be offended. People offend and get offended all day long, all the time. They have no choice in the matter. They have a choice to how they react to their feelings of offense. Some people would rather just kill people than acknowledge their own feelings. I'm not saying this to be cruel, just as a matter of fact observation.

When a person wants to dominate another, whether it's a mild verbal assualt, a passive aggressive snarky comment, an insult turned into a joke, or at the extreme, physical and emotional violence, they are doing so because for one reason or another, they feel it is their only out. The exception to this might be a genetically predisposed psychopath but we can not just say that all these terrorists are psychopaths. It's inhumane and immoral to do so and in fact rather abusive. Terrorists are a product of their environment, and without some global reconstruction of our values, our system, the way we treat others, the way we think about others, we are doomed to violence over and over and over and over again.

Whether people choose, or don't choose to be offended is question that makes no difference, they don't have a right not to be offended. That isn't a fundamental right for good reason.

As you say it is subjective, and one person’s right cannot supersede another's. That is a principle of fundmantal rights.

I know what you are saying, but it is irrellivant to this question of freedom of speach.

So it's okay to yell fire in the proverbial crowded theater because it's freedom of speech even though people might be offended when their movie is interrupted and there's no actual fire?

I hope that you understand that the proverbial "yelling fire in a crowded theater" is not about "offending" people. Its about causing people to stampede out of theater and get killed or injured.

Yes, people get injured.

You just convinced me me further you aren't really grasping freedom of speech, or the reasoned limitations on it.

Yell fire in a crowded theatre causes intimidate panic, and public safety issues.

Someone being offended is not a public safety issue, normally.

A terrorist act is, but the responsibility lies with the perpetrators.

Too often people are not wanting to take responsibility for their own behaviour.

This is why a victim mentality, is so dangerous. At best it leads to continued suffering to them and people around them, at worst a malignant narcissism, that is self righteous and transfers capability onto to the actual victims of their actions.

It is enormously attractive to be pulled in by some sob story, and we must be compassionate people, however some people are in perpetual cycle of seeing themselves as a victim, and that is a nuerotic issue in of its self, which can have negative consequences for all involved.