Charlie Hebdo

How do we stop another one? Thoughts from Richard Epstein on religious tolerance:

The hard question then is what should be done with those who refuse to accept the universal truce not to use violence against those who dare to utter statements that they regard as blasphemous.

Here again the libertarian theory offers the first step towards a response. By their refusal, they become outlaws. Those who are prepared to use force should be subject to the full range of criminal and civil sanctions. Individuals and the state may use force to resist force, they may work hard to ferret out threats of the use of force before they materialize, and they may root out conspiracies of individuals for particular acts of violence. Similar hostility is the order of the day against the nations and groups that practice the use of unlawful force or harbor those that do. Once again, it is critical to note that the libertarian vision seeks to preserve a large domain for protest and dispute, but it is relentless against those do not play the game in accordance with those rules. Its basic principle is: you disarm, we disarm, but if you fight, we fight harder.

At this point, the practical program should be clear. It is no longer defensible to try to soft-pedal the enormity of the difficulty by announcing some supposed parity between murderers and the people they murder. Supposed social grievances against those who ridicule and deal in satire must fall on deaf ears. Moral equivocation worsens our ability to maintain an ordered liberty. Force must be met with force. France, the United States, and other nations must conduct massive manhunts against those who commit terrorist actions, properly labeled as such. They must go further and deprive these individuals of the sanctuaries from which these attacks can be brought, which means troops on the ground, as well as planes in the air.

No one has a right to not be offended. And yet, with perfect timing, the largest Islamic organization in the world calls for more anti-speech laws.

[Update a few minutes later]

Popehat has some questions for the New York Times regarding its policy on depicting Mohammed.

20 thoughts on “Charlie Hebdo”

  1. 1.Large scale immigration
    2. Multiculturalism
    3. Freedom

    Pick any two. Epstein plunks for 1 and 2 and calls it a “libertarian” option. Stopping small groups of violent individuals requires enormous police resources and the near complete destruction of privacy. This has been classically known as a “Police state”. The main reason I stopped being a member of the Libertarian party is their 2+2=5 concept that open borders and any type of welfare state are compatible with freedom. I see Epstein is following a similar path.

    1. The main reason I stopped being a member of the Libertarian party is their 2+2=5 concept that open borders and any type of welfare state are compatible with freedom.

      I don’t know any libertarians who believe that. The problem is that they’re unrealistic about the prospects for ending it.

  2. Well, we can stop them in one of two ways: have police arrive on the scene instantly (almost never happens), or have more people carrying firearms. But no law will ever stop them; we already have a universal truce against the use of terror in the civilized world, and all it does is allow us to go after those who violate it (or, rarely, stop some who are on their way to violate it).

    But how much of a “widening circle” of violence is there? Terrorism is “up sharply,” but the 2012 stats (marking a 15% rise) amounted to 12,000 murders world-wide. The United States alone has something like 14,500 murders per year. Scaling our murder rate to the world would mean that terrorists would have to be killing 350,000 people a year before we paid as much (or as little) attention to it as we do the U.S. murder rate.

    1. At the least, we need armed police to arrive. That helped in Canada, and it stopped a gunman in Austin, such that it was hardly a story. Instead, we have protestor begging to disarm the cops (and the civilians) and that worked out so well in Paris.

  3. I think this guy is on the right track.

    The Moroccan-born mayor of Rotterdam has said Muslim immigrants who do not appreciate the way of life in Western civilisations can ‘f*** off’. Ahmed Aboutaleb, who arrived in the Netherlands aged 15, spoke out in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris last week. Appearing on live television just hours after the shootings, Mayor Aboutaleb said Muslims who ‘do not like freedom can pack your bags and leave’.

    ‘It is incomprehensible that you can turn against freedom,’ Mayor Aboutaleb told Dutch current affairs program Nieuwsuur (Newshour). ‘But if you don’t like freedom, for heaven’s sake pack your bags and leave. ‘If you do not like it here because some humorists you don’t like are making a newspaper, may I then say you can f*** off.

    If you immigrate to another country, it’s up to you to conform to the local customs. If you insist on living under Sharia law, why not stay home or move to a country that already has it instead of trying to force others to adapt to your customs. Anyone who tries that here will encounter more than a little push back.

  4. I have a partial answer to Ken White’s questions for the NYTimes Editors over at Popehat.

    In the future publish any and all image depictions of the Prophet Muhammad only as autostereograms (i.e. MagicEye(tm) etc.)

    Since I have never been able to “see” any of the supposed items depicted in this format, there is nothing, image or otherwise for me to idolize.

    Of course anyone who reports that they can will be automatically doomed to hell. There might be an interesting Darwinian experiment here on a massive social scale. If the ability to “see” through autostereograms is bread out of humanity, then we have literally realized the photographic form of the Newspeak ideal that is apparently so desired. The Islamic version of the Tetragrammaton.

    Dave

    1. Of course the “authenticity” of the offical autostereogram can only be vouchsafed by the last sinner that was doomed to hell in this fashion.

      Dave

  5. While there’s plenty in the article I agree with, this bit: what should be done with those who refuse to accept the universal truce not to use violence against those who dare to utter statements that they regard as blasphemous.
    . . .By their refusal, they become outlaws.

    So how is that supposed to work, everyone in the country is lined up, asked if they renounce violence if confronted by blasphemy, if they don’t say they do they go to prison?

    Don’t you Americans have a thing called the 5th amendment?

    1. Let’s get real here. The Fifth Amendment is all fine and dandy, but think back to what the Great Progressive FDR did with the Japanese on the West Coast, with the Supreme Court’s blessing. If the Muslims in the US don’t start turning in their idiot cousins and idiot imams for making specific, identifiable death threats, then public pressure to intern or at the very least segregate Muslims will become a political imperative. Long term and cherished principles be damned. When people start getting shot and/or blown up at the the local coffee shop/kosher deli/pre-school, there will be hell to pay. The Muslims better start self policing real quick like.

      1. You seem to be working on the theory that Muslim terrorists tell all their friends, neighbors and even other Muslims they pass on the street about their terror plans.

        1. I’m saying that we need the fathers of present and future terrorists like Umar Farouk to rat out their sons. And this time we should be on them like stink on sh*t. These guys are sexually repressed. Sexually repressed 19-year-olds whipped into a religious fervor are dangerous:

          As i get lonely, the natural sexual drive awakens and i struggle to control it, sometimes leading to minor sinful activities like not lowering the gaze [in the presence of unveiled women]. And this problem makes me want to get married to avoid getting aroused.
          Alright, i wont go into too much details about me fantasy, but basically they are jihad fantisies
          [sic]. I imagine how the great jihad will take place, how the muslims will win insha Allah and rule the whole world, and establish the greatest empire once again!!!
          Umar Farouk, 2005

          Radical Islamists are an existential threat to the West, including the moderate Muslims who live here. Those moderates better start ratting out their idiot relatives, etc., or their lives might get really unpleasant..

      2. “public pressure to intern or at the very least segregate Muslims will become a political imperative.”

        I’ve a hell of a lot more confidence in the ability of Americans and the US system to stick to their principles than you – at least when dealing with domestic matters.

        1. Accessory to a crime is a crime, but moreover the US over litigious society has long held those, with knowledge of a dangerous situation prior to it occurring and ignoring it, as liable to pay civil damages. Criminal charges and civil law are based on politics.

          Internment as done to the Japanese may be a thing left to progressives of the 20th Century, but only if the US provides the protection to lawyers to give them confidence in trying Imams without fear of being murdered in the streets. It is hardly a different situation than the days of Capone.

          1. Are you also under the impression that terrorists tell all their friends, neighbors and even other Muslims they pass on the street about their terror plans?

            Because unless you’re arguing that that is indeed happening there doesn’t seem to be any reason for your comment.

            It may be that you’re under the impression that lots and lots of Imams in the US are busily inciting violence, but from what I’ve seen when that happens US law enforcement gets interested fairly quickly, if I’m wrong on that I look forward to your contradictory evidence.

          2. “It may be that you’re under the impression that lots and lots of Imams in the US are busily inciting violence, but from what I’ve seen when that happens US law enforcement gets interested fairly quickly”

            Which is it, Andrew? Are the Imams not busily inciting violence, or are they inciting violence and US law enforcement has quickly been on top of it? You made the comment, but I have no idea what you meant by it other than to demand someone else provide evidence to support it.

            As for your question, I am aware that families of terrorist are often rewarded for the acts. Do you think stuff like this are not still happening or was a lie (maybe a Zionist lie) all along?

            If you still think I’m full of it, just know, I based my comment on reality. Let me know when you base your arguments on facts.

          3. Which is it, Andrew? Are [lots and lots] Imams not busily inciting violence, or are they [perhaps on rare occasions] inciting violence and US law enforcement has quickly been on top of it?
            Both.

            Your links have no relevance to the discussion on how peoples refusal to renounce violence is supposed to be treated as a crime.

          4. Are you arguing the link about lawyers suing terrorist has nothing to do with litigation for civil damages? Do you know what the preposition “moreover” means? I’m not providing evidence for your silly arguments, I was quite clear that I’m backing up my claims.

  6. Je suis Charlie!

    Statements like the ones Rand has reported here by the Muslim establishment are one set of reasons why I have started disliking that religion more and more. I might dislike attacks on my own religious views, but rather than attacking and trying to stop people from saying or writing such things, I respond by trying to explain my views and seeing if I can persuade. This kind of behavior has even got me into trouble in far more secular areas — such as the exploration and development of space. Some people with power currently don’t like what I propose as necessary reforms at NASA and the larger STEM fields. I will say, though, that my life has not been threatened by these people. Made perhaps less happy, but not threatened.

    To give people a bit of insight into my views outside of space stuff, let me tell people a bit about my family and me. On January 23, 1615 my ancestor John Donne was ordained a priest in the Church of England. He did so because King James really pressured him to do so. I grew up in a family where saying what you thought was encouraged, not threatened in any way, shape or form.

    Let me finish by pointing people to a couple of blog postings of mine. The first, Any Man’s Death will give people some idea of what I think about murderers, especially those trying to force their religious or political views or whatever down people’s throats instead of trying to persuade them. The other, The Penguins is a bit of humor. I have written another piece along the same lines that at least a couple of people in DC say I should not publish because it will offend certain political figures.

  7. “Those who are prepared to use force should be subject to the full range of criminal and civil sanctions.”

    Okay–but wouldn’t we miss Baghdad Jim and the other State-f*ckers who post here? I mean, if nothing else, they’re fun to mock.

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