Je Suis Charlie

[No footnotes this week. This post started as a journal entry of sorts, and I decided to make it my first official content of 2015 on a whim and because this is too imporant to pass up, as is my unofficial policy regarding acts of terror and other current events. The footnotes were omitted due to time constraints, and the fact that (ironically) this is too serious for my usual style.]
You should know what’s happened by now. If you don’t the BBC has good coverage. My thoughts, as an amateur cartoonist and political person, below the cut:

• Bad move on the terrorists’ part. This gives the magazine a higher profile; also puts the people’s sympathy with the magazine.
• Freedom of speech does not include license to engage in violence for political purposes—at most protest, not terrorism, not assassination
• Why is the BBC covering this story so obsessively? Slow news day? Journalistic solidarity?
• One lesson? I could get shot for cartooning. Presidents get shot, politicians get shot, soldiers and police officers get shot.  People want to stop satire. Therefore, satire is important. Satire is powerful.
• Anyway, cartoonists are naturally perverse types; it's in our nature. Asking a cartoonist not to make fun of something is like asking an iceberg to warm up a bit.
• In closing, remember what happened to William Tweed. Remember Franklin and the severed serpent. Remember what happened in America, Poland, East Germany, Tunisia, Libya, France. In the long run, those who oppose free speech lose, simply because free speech overwhelms them and incorporates them. Just another booth in the marketplace of ideas, and ignore that the salesman is quite vocally calling to tear the place down. These terrorists don’t represent Islam any more than Pat Robertson represents Christianity or Benjamin Netanyahu represents Judaism. This too shall pass. And five or ten years from now, it will have passed into that vague memory of (depending on political persuasions and views of Islam) Weird Shit That Happened or Reasons Muslims Should Not be Trusted. But otherwise it will likely be forgotten; Charlie-Hebdo has come back from worse than this.