Yes it might be disgusting, but it still amazes me how people are appalled when this type of thing happens, like it should never happen here. We're supposedly fighting a barbaric opponent in the Middle East, when means their way of fighting doesn't follow the rules of war that most people generally accept.

Given that these extremists feel that the west is inflicting this violence on them, the situation works both ways. If your country is actively involved in war directly or indirectly it's going to be a target and in warfare rules usually don't apply.

I just think points like these at least partially shift some of the blame towards 12 people who may not have been upstanding citizens, but in no way deserve to be dead. Their cartoons were crass, offensive, and lacked taste. But in the modern world we are allowed to create things that are crass and offensive.
That's why it becomes a question of free speech. If their art was of great value I think the discourse would be very different indeed, but the way it is complicates matters. The fact is as much as I think Islam is getting far too much hatred for the acts of a minority, is that society has modernised and left a lot of its followers behind.

I actually agree with all of this. If it appeared like my point was saying otherwise, I just didn't express myself fully. I think the war is the root of the problem and I am ashamed to be part of a country that has done so much damage to the Middle East. However that doesn't justify this behavior at all, this type of retribution is seriously flawed. The fact is this event has wide reaching implications about the way this world works and the morality of our nations.

It does shift part of the blame towards them, at least the three cartoonists. It's meant to. I'm not saying they wanted to die, but they must have known the risks. Why not draw pictures of drunk Irishmen or Messi or Hitler or something? If you poke the hornets' nest, given that there is a sign warning you not to, don't be surprised if you get stung.

I jsut personally think the emphasis is too much on what happened and not why. Nobody, and I mean nobody, has said that they at least partially brought this upon themselves. It's not even being considered. Chula's analogy is very apt: why would you do that, knowing what you know? There are other ways to express yourself that don't involve insulting the religion of a people who have a section of their population/adherents mentally tilted towards bloody retribution. We're back to the lion's head again.

And still nothing about the police killed. People are adept here at ignoring certain parts of posts and focussing on others...

What he said. You should really redefine what you consider racism.
Racism is too big and important an issue for the opposition against it to discredit itself by inflationary use of the word.

See I think this is absolutely disgusting. It shouldn't matter in the slightest what they did, they shouldn't have been executed in the street. We are free to do and say what we want within the limits of the law, we shouldn't have to censor ourselves because of fear of being shot.

Whilst we are generally agreeing, you need to take different perspectives into consideration. Firstly it's no good applying western morality to the people's of the Middle East and then using it to condemn them. These savages by our standards have a very different morality code and are fully used to executions in public that they deem to be justifiable.

We're in 2015 and it still amazes me when so-called educated people cite that democracy needs to be installed in the Middle East. Given the fact that half of Europe is not aware of what democracy actually is, I find it a complete waste of time for the Middle East. They have their own doctrine and should be allowed to operate it as they see fit and as long as we the west continually involve ourselves in their affairs, then we really shouldn't complain about how they react.

Yeah, one again you're right. Although public executions may be normal in these countries, I still don't think that makes it okay. While it's not their faultt hat they were conditioned that way, killing people in the streets is just so obviously immoral to me.

First of all I am only parroting others who are calling it racist. I don't live in France or understand how the word applies there. I also don't fully understand how badly affected the French Muslim population is by the cartoons.

If enough folks from over there define them as racist then I will take their word for it.

Of course it is. There's not a single person here who is saying it isn't.

Muslims are not a race. It's actually not that complicated.