The attack in Paris raises in my opinion some fundamental questions:
Are there limits to freedom of speech?
How should and where is the line that a democracy should defend itself?
Where is the line that individual rights should yield for the rights of the many?
To the first question the line, or boarder of freedom of speech is that line when the speech calls for the destruction of one ideology and replacing it with another.
Freedom of speech does not mean Carte balance with no limits what so ever. The line is where one harms another.
The democracy’s defense should be when the boundaries to the answer to the first question are breached. Further more it should be made clear to all those attacking the democracies and those living within it. That Freedom of speech is NOT a license to murder democracy.
The third question is the most complex of all, because it had practical and daily implications on each and every one of us. Is profiling a curtailment of our inalienable basic rights. Clearly the answer is yes. But what if you are part of and ethnic and age group that indicates statistically you may be a terrorist, are the inalienable basic rights of that individual, worth more than the rights of 300 other people boarding the same flight’ worth any less. The answer to that is clearly NO!
Furthermore there is a practical aspect does it make sense to make a cursory scan of every one from the 5 year old to the 80 year old grand ma. Or should limited resources be focused on deeper questioning of those belonging to risky profiles? To me the answer is clear-cut.
Regarding the responses to the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo’ with all the might embedded in: “The Pen is Mightier than the sword” first penned in 1839 by the playwright Edward Bulwer-Lytton in Cardinal Richelieu. One must realize that the other side is already at the stage of physical violence and force, so it is crystal clear that the answer of the pen via freedom of speech is clearly lacking.
Even if we accept President Obama’s determination that Isis isn’t Islamic, one can say that Isis represents evil and tramples those God given inalienable basic rights that democracy has sworn to defend. And if one does not accept Isis as evil’ one can surly say that it is a competing ideology out to destroy the democratic ideology and ideals.
And must be blind not to see that appeasement that failed in the 1930’s is failing now and sporadic bombing of Isis are a sign of lack of will and determination more than anything else.
The west must wake up and realize. That not all the world works according to its ideals and principals. Not only do the democracies have a right to defend themselves they have a duty to do so. And turning Political correctness into something axiomatic, will be the downfall of the West.
