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Jaicee said:

As I scan this thread and review this unfolding story, I notice that there are two things here: words and deeds. Macron's statements on Islam are words. They were offered in response to a beheading. That's a deed. You can't help but notice which seems to offend so many Muslims the world over more.

Maybe I'm getting it wrong, but what this situation looks like to me is a bunch of Muslims all over the world marching and protesting in defense of a terrorist. I can only hope I'm misunderstanding.

Precisely so, this is why I'm strongly against any argument or position that asserts that violence is a legitimate and acceptable answer to rhetoric, words, or expressed ideas. It sets an extremely dangerous precedent.

This is how our very own mass-murdering Anders Breivik functioned; he saw ideas, heard words and rhetoric, and deemed it acceptable, and even necessary, to murder the ones sharing and developing these ideas and words based on a heartfelt desire to promote a safer and better society. He himself was equally convinced that he was in actual fact the hero, based on his own unique, dogmatic schism.

Words are words, murder is murder, whether commited by the state or an individual, a sect, or a secular body with judicial weight. Blasphemy is an archaic notion that belongs in history books; not as guiding principles on whose heads deserve to remain attached to their torso.