Cav's Place

Many have already pointed this out, some expressing and explaining it far better than I ever could, but I must also add my voice and state that, if we are to remember and learn one thing in the wake of the Paris attack, that lesson must come from the sacrifice of Ahmed Merabet, the Muslim police officer who died defending others’ right to ridicule his religion, his culture, his heritage, from those who wished to make them pay with their lives for it while claiming to share them.
If the world is to pick one martyr of free speech from those tragic moments, it must be this man, even more than the targets of the attack themselves. If we are to remember one lesson from that tragic day, it must be this: We all have the right to free thought and free speech, and to freedom of expression in general, and one only truly stands for those rights while protecting others who say that which they disagree with from those who wish to silence them. After all, everyone can fight for the right to express that which they agree with, but the true test is whether you’re able to still firmly support these principles when they are used in ways that inconvenience, bother or even downright infuriate you.

When thoughts and speech and other forms of expression turn to deeds, or to laws and regulations, entirely different rules apply, but as long as they do not… Well, there was that saying, usually, and wrongly, attributed to Voltaire: “I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” It’s something we must all keep reminding ourselves of, even those of us who are fighting for these freedoms, or at least like to think of ourselves as doing so.