71 Replies to “Attack Of The Superhero Pencils”

  1. Gee now that western media is discovering just how deadly accomodating a philosphy that advocates killing anyone that doesn’t agree with it I look forward to all the new movies and TV shows coming out that will be critical of radical islam.

  3. I wasn’t talking about journalists, Markov, I was expressing my view that it doesn’t make sense (to me) for pro-speechers to mock the “Je suis Charlie” signs or the people holding them up.
    In the West there are millions of indoctrinated “STFU” progressives who still condemn Charlie Hebdo for its “provocations”, and there’s a (probably smaller) group who are instead voicing their support for the *spectacularly* politically incorrect cartoonists, and, by extension, for western freedoms. For some reason, the people who are in favour of free speech are wasting their time knocking the latter, and I just think that’s a misfire of sorts.
    Here’s the way I see it, in short form:
    1. Brave and politically incorrect – times a thousand – cartoonists from Charlie Hebdo, who put their lives on the line and stood up for free speech by repeatedly mocking the prophet Muhammad, are massacred by Islamists.
    2. Tens of thousands of people respond to the atrocity by gathering in the streets to openly express their support for free speech and for Charlie Hebdo.
    3. These citizens are insulted and dismissed, and are called “sissies”, by pro-free-speech blog commenters thousands of miles away.
    Why not see the public displays as a positive instead? In what sense is it not a positive thing to see people on the streets expressing their support for the right to freedom of speech, especially such spectacularly politically incorrect speech as that of Charlie Hebdo?
    I dunno. I think that finding a negative side to every positive sign, and then being outraged by one’s own negative verdict, is counterproductive. To use a gardening analogy, if you cut down every shoot as soon as it pops out of the ground because it’s not tall enough you’re never going to have a garden.
    I’d rather see French people take to the streets to voice solidarity with Charlie Hebdo — yes, I know, it’s after the massacre — than stay home. I’m certainly not going to knock them for at least taking a stand, even for one night, and even if their stand doesn’t live up to the slash-and-burn standards of some keyboard warriors’ fantasy lives, as opposed to their actual lives.
    I’m not referring to you, btw.

  4. “So, you’re gonna piish the pics, Kate?”

    She already has, numerous times over the years, including this highly provocative one today.

  5. While I am glad the French media in Quebec are publishing the cartoons have to wonder if it is because the victims are French – solidarity and all that. And I hope this really is the French 9/11 wakeup but I will believe it when I see it.
    And to return to the story about John Cruickshank the publisher of the Toronto Star, why do Stephen Harper and (ahem) myself and Cruickshank think so differently even though we went to the same high school and had most of the same teachers albeit years apart? I wonder if it is because of Harper’s father who was so interested in military history and because of my father who was in Bomber Command in the RAF. We don’t believe in appeasement. Don’t know of Cruickshank’s background…

  6. “Why not see the public displays as a positive instead?”
    Because for all their bluster and posturing and tough guy talk (e.g., Fearless Leader: “Don’t throw a pencil, throw a hand-grenade. They kill one of yours, you kill 20 of theirs. They burn your house, you burn their frigging village”; The Phantom: “We are Canadians. We are the most dangerous people on Earth. Killers and tyrants the world over tremble at the word of our coming”, etc.), folks congregating here literally do nothing but complain about stuff. To each other. And then more or less agree about how right they all are, and how wrong everyone else is.
    Parisians holding a public vigil? Not good enough, because where are all the Muslims in headscarves (as though lack of visible headscarves = proof that no Muslims are present = proof that they’re all actually cheering for the terrorists)?
    People displaying “Je suis Charles” signs in symbolic solidarity? Not good enough, because why choose to respond to intolerance and aggression with unity and defiance, when one ought to respond with intolerance and aggression of their own?
    Political cartoonists paying homage to Charles Hebdo’s staunch and enduring defense of free speech, even literally at gunpoint? Not good enough, because they’re not sufficiently provocative and antagonistic for one’s liking.
    Think about the typical lifecycle of an SDA posting: Kate or someone else uploads some piece of linked content, maybe accompanied by a pithy/snarky line or two, and then within minutes commenters are feeding on it like chum. And everyone agrees that it’s liberals, or enviro-wackos, or “Justin Turdeau”, or Muslims, or Obama, or “Tony Blair’s/David Cameron’s Britain”, or the media, or someone or something else that’s ruining their lives. There’s never any real friction, never any real debate over ideas — just one big, self-indulgent echo-chamber, endlessly regurgitating and whinging over the same dozen or so bête-noires, to the point where each category of gripe even has its own common short-hand title (“More Pavilions at Folkfest”, “Your Moral and Intellectual Superiors”, etc.). And that’s it — complain, complain, complain, followed by zero meaningful action out there in the real world.
    And then on to the next SDA posting.

  7. The reason that the comments here often turn into a rolling brawl has to do with the fact that the “conservative” tent contains a very broad range of opinions, from extreme libertarian to socially conservative and faith-based. Progressives like yourself, in comparison, tend to hold the same prescribed opinions on just about everything under the sun, while congratulating themselves – always – on their putative broad-mindedness.
    I’m proud of the differences of opinion among SDA readers and commenters. It’s a sign of vigour.
    As for you, just from reading a few of your recent comments I could probably make a pretty accurate guess as to what your opinion is on any given topic.
    I’m only about 80% sure that you’re from central Canada or east of that, and that you’re a federal Liberal supporter, but I’m close to 100% sure that you hold all the usual prescribed, politically correct opinions on every matter of import.

  8. …endlessly regurgitating and whinging over the same dozen or so bête-noires, to the point where each category of gripe even has its own common short-hand title (“More Pavilions at Folkfest”, “Your Moral and Intellectual Superiors”, etc.). And that’s it — complain, complain, complain, followed by zero meaningful action out there in the real world.
    And then on to the next SDA posting.
    Yeah, endlessly cutting off the tail of the snake. But it’s a long windy trail to find the head…

  9. Did anyone print these unpixillated cartoons?
    Did anyone openly criticise Islamism?
    Did anyone refrain from calling these thugs “lone wolves” or assume they were mentally ill?
    Then no one is Charlie.
    Once again, the West has set itself up for another attack and another opportunity to kiss the @$$ of an emotionally retarded, backwards seventh century culture.

  10. “The Gazette, along with every other major Canadian English language paper that I know of, lacked the cojones to do so.”
    The National Post printed them.

  12. Dearest Foucault. So instead of your constant bitching and complaining that the subjects are too dark for your sensitive soul, why don’t you put your opinion on the table so we can pump a little sunshine up your ass ? But leave room for answers as to why some might disagree with your highly valued opinions. In your case it’s complain, complain,complain followed by zero meaningful action out here in the real world. And then on to the next SDA posting, leaving behind none of your expertise on how the subject problem should be resolved. Your opinion counts, but tsk tsk tsk, you should really cut back on that constant whinging.

  13. Foucault said: “…folks congregating here literally do nothing but complain about stuff.”
    Yeah, so you know what I do all day? No, you don’t.
    Have you noticed we have a Conservative Party running this country after 70 years of Liberals flushing it down the toilet? You think that happened by accident?
    WE did that. I did that. Kate did it. We did it by TALKING about it and exposing what Liberals do.
    Would you prefer we all pick up pitchforks and go burn down some mosques? Do you think we even WOULD do that? Unlikely. That’s what liberals do.
    Seriously, go look in a mirror and then slap yourself hard. That was from me.

  14. BY the way….
    You stated “Why not see the public displays as a positive instead?”
    Please explain what you mean by that. I would see it as a positive if the crowd all held cartoon drawings of Mohammed. And you see it as ???

  15. Did anyone print these unpixilated cartoons?

    The National Post did a while back, and the NY Post, and more than a few others that I can’t remember at the moment. Ezra, obviously, in the Western Standard. Lots of very well-known, high-traffic bloggers (Instapundit, Kate, and hundreds of others), some of whom have more readers than many newspapers, have published them, and continue to publish them. CBC TV actually showed one of them onscreen, unpixilated (I think it was on Power and Politics).
    Yesterday Warren Kinsella (of all people) published a metric buttload of the most offensive Charlie Hebdo cover pages at his website.
    Moving…up, Le Monde, the paper of the establishment” and “the preferred daily of French intellectuals, civil servants, (and) academics, particularly those in the higher echelon”, has undertaken to help Charlie Hebdo publish one million copies of their next issue.
    From the above (second) link, here’s the joint statement from Radio France, Le Monde, and France Television:

    “Faced with horror, the groups Radio France, Le Monde and France Televisions announce that Charlie Hedbo will be made available and its team will bring together all necessary means to ensure that Charlie Hebdo continues to live.”

    “The three groups invite the French media to mobilise this morning and come together to protect the principles of independence and freedom of thought and expression: guarantors of our democracy.”

    As I get older – and I’m not that old – I like to look for positives, and for positive signs. A lot of the people who find the little “I am Charlie Hebdo” placards trite or disgusting — and I would include Mark Steyn — don’t seem to understand that the people holding up the little placards at the vigils in France aren’t actually claiming for a second to be as brave or as provocative as Charlie Hebdo.
    I don’t think it’s the point anyway. If black protesters in 1955 had held up placards saying “I am Rosa Parks”, I don’t think supporters of the civil rights movement would attack them for being presumptuous; I think they’d see it (correctly) as a simple expression of support and solidarity that should be taken for what it’s worth; not everyone who wielded the (hypothetical) sign would be facing water cannons the next day, or putting themselves in a situation where they were being beat up by southern cops, but they’d still be saying with their placard-gesture “I’m on her side”.
    That’s how I view that…damned Charlie Hedbo slogan, as a signal to others, and to the world. In light of the West’s incredibly strong proscriptions against insulting the “exotic other”, I think that the French expressions of support for their compatriots who so baldly offended the most offendable (pbuh) is a sign of (slight) positive change.
    Baby steps, and all that.

  16. “Seriously, go look in a mirror and then slap yourself hard. That was from me.”

    Bwah ha ha ha.

  17. “CBC has just trotted out a spokesthingy, head of journalistic standards to explain in a sanctimonious tone why they are superiour to other media showing the offending cartoon”
    That’s the irony, and only further exposes the state broadcaster’s hypocrisy. Last month, not only did they do stories on Sony Pictures’ decision not to release “The Interview” but they solicited public criticism of Sony, inviting Canadians to send email, contact them on facebook, tweet them, encouraging us to chime in, with the vow to read those criticisms on air, most of which criticized Sony for not standing up for free speech and free expression. Many times I would see a news anchor passing it to a reporter in studio who was standing in front of a big screen TV, readng negative comment after comment.
    And claims by Sony that the safety of their employees had to be taken in to account in their attempts to defend their decision was met with derision CBC. They still read (and continued to invite!) on air criticisms from avergae Canadians condemnning Sony’s decision.
    But notice that’s not the case now. When it comes to the CBC’s decision to self-censor, the segment is reduced to one CBC employee interviewing another, who is brought on to “explain” the network’s decision, attempting to rationalize it and with the news anchor who is conducting the sham-of-an interview choosing this time NOT to solicit Canadians’ feedback on their decision, in spite of it being in essence no different than that which was made by Sony. No email put up on screen, no facebook or twitter in which to contact them is put on the screen, asking what you think of CBC’s own cowardly decision. No, this time, we should all keep our opinions to ourselves. Hypocrites!

  19. Sent to my local newspaper. Just trying to ‘act locally, to get people thinking globally’.
    ____________________________________________________________________________
    Dear Editor;
    Having read your editorial of excerpts of newspapers decrying the vile attack on the staff of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, I can only conclude they are crocodile tears, meant to appease their readers while being devoid of principle. They deplore the attack on freedom of the press, yet refuse to exercise the very freedom they claim to defend. The only way to refute the twisted ideology of Islamists is to re-publish that which ‘provoked’ their murderous act. Yet most mainstream media, from the CBC to the New York Times mask their cowardice with mumble-mouth words. The ‘Guardian’ talks about not allowing a “forced loss of nerve” yet won’t reproduce any of the cartoons created by the Charlie Hebdo paper. The scores of admittedly brilliant cartoons depicting the ‘pen against the gun’ have no more impact than ‘Je suis, Charlie’ scribbled on a piece of paper or a flash-in-the-pan hashtag. Terrorism claims another major victory.

  20. I’m with EBD. I won’t elaborate, EBD was more eloquent than I could be.
    Think about this – politicians are masters of reading the mood of the people. Holding up Je Suis Charlie signs shows a mood. Maybe it doesn’t show as much as we all would like, but it lets those in power know mood. Politicians will see opportunity in that mood.
    Hopefully some ellected official will harness it to do something really effective. We can talk about kicking Islamists in the balls (metaphorically) but will end up (rightfully) in jail if we personally take that action. Waking up the polititians is necessary for meaningful action. Je Suis Charlie is a step towards that.
    BTW, I would define meaningful action as…
    1. Immediate cessation of immigration from Muslim countries – of ANY sort. Including uniting families.
    2. Immediate economic sanctions against Muslim countries.
    3. Robust, bold statements in the UN, designed to make the issues clear. Which would lead to…
    4. Withdrawal from the UN.

  21. I’m afraid I have to disagree.
    Though there have been a few brave publications, people are largely cowards and comfortable in that cowardice (SEE: CBC, Coward Broadcasting Corporation, appeaser, Islamist). I fear this will be another hashtag moment. Unless France develops the anti-Islamist feeling the Germans recently have, I don’t have a lot of confidence that anyone has gotten the painfully obvious message.

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