Message lost in the Medium again?
The completely unbalanced and horrific reactions of a group of individuals has resulted in the deaths of innocent lives on both sides of a debate, again; one that should be argued in a more appropriate venue, of course.
The public response in France is appropriate and those that would exact harm on their opposition should take note of the people participating in the marches around the world and the unanimous rejection of fanatic violent and life threatening responses on either side. This is no way to communicate one’s needs.
I hate to sound like another American spouting the virtues of our great society, but the concept of peaceful protest and freedom of speech is what allows our people to communicate their gripes and suggest solutions. Yes there are those that are hateful and press rude and obnoxious messages. But what we, the non-violent, must communicate is the premise that "sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me. Thus the ability to call one's opponents' names, while possibly hurtful and inappropriate, is the essence of free speech and there should be no restrictions placed, in my opinion, other than the concept of yelling “fire” in an otherwise safe movie theatre.
In France free speech has limits and those limits represent a legal argument against hateful and hurtful publishing; potentially giving terrorists rational or justification for their actions. Call me names, let’s argue the issues at hand, but we do it without physically hurting each other. We are all G_d’s children and if I am certain of one thing, he doesn’t want us killing each other, when we could be speaking to each other
For me, whatever the message is that these terrorists are trying to tell me, it is lost in the medium. Something my wife has counseled me on, over the years. What do they want? How can we teach them to communicate in a more rational and pragmatic way? Why is it they feel violence is the solution? How can we show them otherwise. Silly me; Why can’t we all just be friends?
Not a lecture, just a thought.
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9 年Well said; a picture tells a thousand stories, or so we hope. Nice post Steve.
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9 年I have never commented on LI posts... But I found the image of the two young boys - one Arab one Jewish - very toucing. This is how our future should look like.