A week ago I was in line to check out and there was a young woman in a hijab. When she turned to help me I saw her entire face and hands (all I could see really) had acid burns all over.

The paradox of tolerance will never be something I struggle with once The Fall happens. Regardless for whichever religion seeks to lynch me.

Satire is a necessary way to call out impropriety in Democratic society. The humor softens the blow of the reality of horrible acts and makes less horrible but still bad acts easier to understand. As long as it’s not saying things that are just totally without merit or using it purely to spread hate, it should be staunchly defended regardless of who is offended by it.

Example of bad satire is something like a cartoon of an LGBTQ+ person going to a psychiatrist and the psychiatrist saying it’s a mental illness and their head explodes. This is pushing the narrative that being gay is something to be cured and that gay people just can’t accept it. This can be considered satire, but like any type of speech it’s stating something designed to harm others. Satire is meant to over-exaggerate a problem, not make up a problem that doesn’t actually exist for the express purpose of hate.

In the words of Sam Harris: “People were murdered over cartoons. End of moral analysis.”

I think most people would agree with the following: even if you feel the cartoon was in poor taste or was “punching down,” the shooting was a terrorist act that just served to reinforce the worst stereotypes about Muslims and—ironically—the offending cartoon itself.

Opinions can vary about the cartoon, but that’s the point of defending satire and free speech; what’s completely indefensible is violence that clearly isn’t in the service of self-defense. People who quibble about the definition of self-defense and even skirt the idea that the terrorists in this incident had a right to do what they did, in my opinion, are likely either sophomoric contrarians or bad faith actors intentionally trying to muddy the waters, akin to some far-right militia members on conservative subreddits.

Murdering humans over a drawing is a sensitive topic for me. Please do not expect civility when discussing ancient barbaric pre-scientific belief systems.

I don’t have any issue or opinion or dog in the race with the prophet Muhammed, but those idiots made it important to say “muhammed the prophet is a giant cunt who should be laughed at and get a pie in the face” every now and then just to remind everybody how getting to talk works.

I am legally obligated not to have an opinion

My opinion is that satire must hurt. Otherwise it may have no impact, then it is nothing else than cheap comedy. But it is possible that it hurts too much, so that some people cannot endure it. Society has a duty to protect the weak as well as the artists. It is a narrow line.

I’m religious, and I think that people should be absolutely free to satirize religion if they want to. What someone else believes isn’t my affair, I definitely think my faith has lots of room for improvement from an organizational perspective, and there are plenty of religious ideas I think are toxic and wrong. Why shouldn’t we have nuance and differing opinions? Why should anyone have the right to hurt others through their religious practices? We should be criticizing those things and calling them out and trying to make them stop, whether we practice religion or not. I think the treatment of women and queer people by a great deal of religious groups is wrong and should be criticized. I don’t think government and religion should be intertwined at all. Just because I practice in a faith doesn’t mean my faith is the authority on anything, but universally we should not be hurting others.

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Reality keeps sliding into absurdity rendering satire mute.

According to collectivistic ideology, anything can be a provocation and you are always a victim.

If so, anything anyone did is justifiable to make you angry or have any other negative emotional response, because as a victim, you are powerless.

Not only that, you, as a person, are indistinguishable from an animal as, like them, you are utterly incapable of controlling your thoughts, feelings and impulses. In essence, you have no control over your life.

Ergo it follows you are absolutely allowed to do anything in your power to stop the thing that makes you have a negative emotional response to stop existing.

You are, erm, justified.

But just you, not the others, those are assholes

Satire should be free. Hate speech should not. People shouldn’t be killed for either. I don’t particularly cry when bigots die though.

All that said, there’s reasons some jokes just aren’t worth telling. There’s times and spaces, and for some jokes there’s neither and that’s ok.

Prohibiting satire of religion is a form of blasphemy law, and blasphemy laws shouldn’t exist.

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