paging Stalin and Mao https://twitter.com/EmmanuelMacron/status/1322609769795014657

What's going on in France is tragic, and complex. The position that the government is taking will only compound the the tragedy, much like the US post 9/11.

The cartoons are effectively hate speech, and France does impose limits on speech. What's interesting (for lack of a better word) is that hate speech is usually curbed to protect the group targeted by the speech... /

In the case of the cartoons, the hate speech is being defended (and, in fact, encouraged) because the society feels victimized by members of the targeted group.

It's a paradoxical position. The gov't doesn't want to seem conciliatory to terror, and so touts the value of the (valueless, and obviously dangerous) cartoons, while painting the whole Muslim population of France with a broad brush and putting repressive policies into place. /

We know how this ends. Meanwhile, "secularism" is becoming more and more meaningless. This year, Jewish witnesses of the 2015 attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris were required to testify on Yom Kippur. Because secularism. One suspects that the courts are closed on Christmas.

That, too. Though all the Deist stuff gets confusing.