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NerdyKeith's avatar

Do you think there should be limits to freedom of expression?

Asked by NerdyKeith (5489points) April 10th, 2016

In 2015, Pope Francis implied he was defending the Charlie Hebdo murders.

Just to quickly recap what Charlie Hebdo is and when these murders took place. In January of 2015, two brothers forced their way into the offices of the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Armed with assault rifles and other weapons, they killed 11 people and injured 11 others in the building. After leaving, they killed a police officer outside the building. The gunmen identified themselves as belonging to the Islamist terrorist group Al-Qaeda.

Shortly after this attack, Pope Francis claimed freedom of expression has its limits. He illustrated this by using a hypothetical scenario of if his own mother was offended he’d punch the offender. Of course the Vatican did some damage control after Francis’ statement to the media by claiming that this does not justify the murders.

Personally, I support free expression as a human right. Violence can never be justified on the bases of one finding the way a person expresses themselves as objectionable. One really needs to take satire with a grain of salt. It is an artistic means of disagreeing with something or voicing an opinion with the use of humor. A lot of cartoonists like this regard themselves a equal opportunity offenders, in order to attempt to bring us all to the same level

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