Free Republic

"I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say it." That maxim of Voltaire was among those most invoked by the marching millions in Sunday's mammoth "Je Suis Charlie" rally in Paris. This week, in the spirit of Voltaire, French authorities arrested and charged Cameroonian comedian Dieudonne M'Bala M'Bala, and 54 others, with "hate speech." Yes, Monsieur Voltaire, there are limits to free speech in France. Dieudonne's crime? He tweeted, "I am Charlie Coulibaly," the last name of the killer of four innocent Jews in that kosher market. A...

How far should a tolerant society tolerate intolerance? It’s a difficult issue, one without any entirely satisfactory answer. And it’s a current issue in the days after 40 world leaders and the U.S. ambassador to France marched together in Paris against the jihadist Muslim murderers who targeted the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. English-speaking peoples, to use Winston Churchill’s phrase, have been dealing with this problem off and on for 300 years. In the late 17th century, most of continental Europe had established state churches and prohibited or disfavored other worship. England had an established church but also tolerated other...

If free expression is a fundamental right, why does it not apply to mocking a faith? We heathens can leave the theological debate to others. But Pope Francis, the bishop of Rome and world leader of the Roman Catholic Church, has some ideas about laws governing the secular world. We expect Francis to defend the dignity of faith, to bring clarity to the Catholic position. Yet instead, the pope, while en route to the Philippines, offered a number of comments about freedom of expression, which ranged from the unclear to the contradictory. More than simply saying that poking fun at...

So a priest, an imam and a rabbi walk into a bar. The bartender says, “What’s this? A joke?” Yes, and it’s funny, so accustomed are we to religious humor and wit that pokes fun at humanity and the powerful who govern it. Though humor is in the eye of the beholder, its historic purpose is to induce us to Think Again. Truth-telling with laughter — whether by medieval court jesters, cartoonists, humorists such as Mark Twain, Charlie Chaplin impersonating Hitler in “The Great Dictator,” comedy troupes such as Monty Python or sitcom actors such as Archie Bunker — pushes...

The photos of 40 of the world's government leaders marching arm-in-arm along a Paris boulevard on Sunday with the president of the United States not among them was a provocative image that has fomented much debate. The march was, of course, in direct response to the murderous attacks on workers at the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo by a pair of brothers named Kouachi, and on shoppers at a Paris kosher supermarket by one of the brothers' comrades. The debate has been about whether President Obama should have been at the march. The march was billed as a defense of...

Oxford University Press Bans Use Of Pig, Sausage Or Pork-Related Words To Avoid Offending Muslims 14 Jan 2015 The Oxford University Press has warned its writers not to mention pigs, sausages or pork-related words in children's books, in an apparent bid to avoid offending Jews and Muslims. The existence of the publisher's guidelines emerged after a radio discussion on free speech in the wake of the Paris attacks. Speaking on Radio 4's Today programme, presenter Jim Naughtie said: "I've got a letter here that was sent out by OUP to an author doing something for young people. "Among the things...

Author Salman Rushdie, who lived for years under a death threat after his 1988 book “The Satanic Verses” drew the wrath of Iranian religious leaders, is defending the absolute right of free speech. Rushdie made the comments Wednesday at the University of Vermont after being asked about last week’s attack by Islamic extremists on the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo that killed 12. …

.....I was not outraged when President Obama directed the Justice Department to end the pretense of “defending” the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). I feel the same way about the president’s decision not to join dozens of world leaders in Paris last Sunday to march in favor of free speech and against Islamic-supremacist terror.... ...it is better to know where policymakers really stand... The show of international solidarity in the immediate aftermath of last week’s jihadist atrocities was very moving. But let’s not kid ourselves: It was rife with hypocrisy.... Prior to last week, these preening progressives could reliably be...

Much is being made of President Obama’s failure to attend the Paris unity march yesterday. Apparently Eric Holder was sent but he was nowhere to be found when 40 world leaders locked arms in a show of unity against Muslim terrorism. This isn’t even a matter of Obama leading from behind, it’s a matter of him not showing up. On the other hand, wasn’t the Paris unity march sort of odd? Where was the unity march with world leaders when the US was attacked on 911? Where was it when London was attacked? Where was it when Australia was attacked...

Oath Keeper Patch: Wordlessly making a statement supporting freedom, individualism, free speech, and anti-establishment views Almost cut my hair It happened just the other day It was getting kind of long I could have said it was in my way But I didn’t and I wonder why I feel like letting my freak flag fly I feel like I owe it to someone I’m not giving in an inch to fear Cause I promised myself this year I feel like I owe it to someone David Crosby (CSN&Y)—Almost Cut My Hair Many readers won’t remember this, but before liberals became...

Tyler DurdenJanuary 11, 2015

in the case of an entertainment company releasing a movie criticizing a dictator, Obama is perfectly comfortable telling that entertainment company what it should and shouldn't do. But in the case of a news company printing editorial content criticizing Islam, Obama suddenly has no opinion whatsoever on the matter. ... Obama's preference that news organizations not publish any material that might offend Muslims was also evident in his September 2012 address to the United Nations where he said, "The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam." So which is it? Does the future belong Charlie...

Thursday on Fox News Radio’s “John Gibson Show,” investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson explained she is suing the Department of Justice to get discovery, which she said hopefully will start with the names of the agents or third-party contractors sometimes hired for “certain dark projects,” who hacked her computer and planted a fiber optics cable at her house.

The three Muslim gunmen who killed 12 journalists in Paris targeted not just those people and their satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, but a core ideal and human right of the West––the right to free speech in the public square defined by tolerance for different opinions. That’s why the killers, after they had called out the names of their individual victims before they shot them, bragged as they made their escape that they had “killed” Charlie Hebdo.

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PARIS (AP) — As if to prove that pens are mightier than swords, cartoonists around the world reacted to the cold-bloodied assassination of their colleagues at French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo as only they can: with powerful drawings worth thousands of words. Defiant, angry, poignant, irreverent and sobering, their drawings united cartoonists in grief, tried to make sense of the nonsensical, and sent a shared message: We must not, will not and should not be silenced. Some drawings touched such a nerve they made one want to both laugh and cry..........

Charlie Hebdo, the French publication that was the victim of a horrific terrorist attack Wednesday, is no stranger to courting controversy and even danger with its no-holds-barred satire. Formerly known as Hara-Kiri, the paper first gained national notoriety in 1970 with a headline mocking the death of former President Charles de Gaulle—“Tragic dance at Colombey [de Gaulle’s home] - one dead”—that led to it being shut down by the government. Undeterred, the paper quickly reconstituted under its current name and has been taking shots at sacred cows ever since. In the last decade or so, Hebdo has been needling the...

SNIPPET: "Things apparently did not go smoothly at last week's Chicago conference on "Islam and Muslims in America," which was sponsored by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC). President Obama's special envoy to the OIC, Rashad Hussain, had been scheduled to address the event, held at the American Islamic College. But after news reports highlighted his participation, Hussain reportedly withdrew at the last minute, citing a "scheduling conflict." This earned him an angry rebuke from websites like this (which the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report asserts is "an arm of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.")" Read more at: http://www.investigativeproject.org/blog/2010/10/rashad-hussain-reportedly-yanked-from-oic-chicago

If you recall, back in May, William Baer was arrested after voicing opposition to a school board meeting about a controversial book by Jodi Picoult titled Nineteen Minutes, a story about a school shooting that contained pornographic content. It was also required reading for ninth graders. Now a New Hampshire 4th Circuit Court of Appeals judge has blasted the school board for "silencing" him and arresting him, which was a violation of Mr. Baer's free speech.