Je Suis Charlie – My (Quick) Take.

For the record, my view on Islam and multiculturalism are given in this earlier post.

I'm an atheist, thank God, attempting to live a life defined by reason and humanism. My morality comes solely from man qua man, necessitating self-responsibility for one’s actions and peaceful co-existence with one’s fellows and fellowesses. Voluntarism.

But the reportage I have read, as with social media, regarding this latest act of terrorism in France, applicable to free speech, only, largely misses the point. My position can be simply stated.

1.      The free speech issues deriving from this have nothing to do with Islam, offence-making or umbrage-taking per se.

2.      The question is regards the role of the state to police non-violent offence-making or umbrage-taking.

3.      The question then becomes how are offence-making and umbrage-taking defined, and by whom?

4.      Worse, the question becomes once you’ve set society along this totalitarian route of the censor state - totalitarian because we are now dealing with issues which are correctly stated as otherwise being ‘thought-crimes’ -  where do you stop defining offence-making and umbrage-taking, and who gets that choice/power? With the corollary question of is containment of the state even possible once this function is voted to it by a democratic mob?

Plainly - read my blog - I don’t believe the state can have this role if it is to be the free society that I believe is all of our birth rights. That’s irrefutable on definitions alone.

Just as there is no ‘in-between’ regarding capitalism versus command economies, so there can be no free society where the state is powerful enough to hold this function.

Note I publish this post voluntarily choosing not to publish an image of the fabled Mohammed-man , or any of the contentious cartoons, though following the logic of my argument, and thus my principles, I would (metaphorically, possibly in actuality) die fighting for my right to do so without the intervention of the censoring state.

My next post may well, however, cause offence. Working title: Retrieving the Corpse of Roger Sutton from the Cross of Shesus. Next week …