My thoughts on the Charlie Hebdo tragedy, tossed to the void.
Let's say that you had a next door neighbor whom you had on good authority to be a homicidal maniac. He has threatened his family, say, and you hear he has posted nonsensical rants on a foreign web site in a language you don't understand that if he ever sees a person riding a bicycle on the sidewalk past his house, he would take out an assault rifle and kill that person. For whatever reason, the police can't trace his IP address well enough to connect him to the rants, and the threats to his family were vague enough that they couldn't intervene, and he is free to live next door to you.
Do you ride your bicycle on the sidewalk in front of his house? What if someone else in the neighborhood decided that this usurpation of freedom was beyond their tolerance, and they rode their bike on the sidewalk past his house, thumbing their nose at him, and your next door neighbor, as promised, bolted out of the house with an assault rifle and shot and killed them? Since this would finally gave the police the ability to arrest and haul off your next door neighbor, isn't your other neighbor a hero?
In that situation, I personally wouldn't ride my bike on the sidewalk past my next door neighbor's house. I rarely ride a bike, and when I do, it's of no consequence to ride in the street for a few feet to avoid the sidewalk in front of his house. Does that make me a coward? I suppose, but I'm not sure. Of course the other neighbor certainly is a hero. He or she gave his or her life so that the rest of us in the neighborhood could be free. But should he or she have done that? What if he or she had a spouse and kids who needed his or her income, and now they are destitute?
These are all difficult questions. The Charlie Hebdo case has important parallels with this admittedly low-value hypothetical. The Hebdo cartoonists did not have to depict the prophet Mohammed, but they felt compelled to do so to protect the idea of intellectual freedom in the light of an irrational and monstrously violence-inducing taboo. They suffered the ultimate consequence, one they knew was very real, and of course are heroes to all of us who value freedom. However, I can't say that I would do the same. If I were a satirical cartoonist, I could imagine that it would be easy to make a cogent point about intellectual freedom in regard to Islam without depicting Mohammed. Cartoonists do it every day, and are not being cowardly for it, in my opinion. Still, the victims of the Hebdo tragedy are heroes nonetheless, because they allowed the authorities to remove these particular terrorists from the face of the Earth, they strengthened the rest of our resolves and they brought widespread attention to their ideals. Of course, none of that makes them any less dead, or their loved ones any less bereft.
Thomas Jefferson said, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." It was relatively easy for him to say in 1787. The revolution he advocated had already been prosecuted successfully by others, he was filthy rich, and his chances of being in personal danger had passed. That doesn't make it any less true, but it does make it less brave. Today, it is regular folks. some with a bravery I will never understand, that must live Jefferson's truth, and this brand of Islamic extremists are the worst kind of tyrants - tyrants without borders. As in 1787, the only effective countermeasure is the willingness of those who stand for freedom to spill their blood. This is a duty to which I hope I am not called, nor for which I would volunteer, but if called, I hope I will serve.