January 8th, 2015
On the subject of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, Ezra Klein has taken a perfectly Voxian position–which is to say, come out with something so transparently foolish that there are only two possible explanations for it, and the more likely one is that he’s simply trolling for clicks. It’s the op-ed version of search-engine optimization. I wonder when the rest of the world is going to catch on and start treating Klein, Yglesias, et al accordingly.
We are at one of those rare moments suffused with such moral clarity that there’s no daylight between the Washington Free Beacon and the New Yorker. Seriously, take quick a taste test. Is this the Free Beacon or the New Yorker:
A religion is not just a set of texts but the living beliefs and practices of its adherents. Islam today includes a substantial minority of believers who countenance, if they don’t actually carry out, a degree of violence in the application of their convictions that is currently unique. Charlie Hebdo had been nondenominational in its satire, sticking its finger into the sensitivities of Jews and Christians, too—but only Muslims responded with threats and acts of terrorism. For some believers, the violence serves a will to absolute power in the name of God, which is a form of totalitarianism called Islamism—politics as religion, religion as politics. “Allahu Akbar!” the killers shouted in the street outside Charlie Hebdo. They, at any rate, know what they’re about.
So Vox.com had to find an angle to drive some traffic.
It’s going to be awesome when they eventually go public.
SkinsFanPG January 8, 2015 at 7:41 am
Klein’s piece reads like it was written by a high-schooler. It was not a crime. It was an act of war. One of the terrorists responsible had previously served time for an act of supporting terrorism. And that is what happens when you treat terrorism like crime, you put them in jail for 18 months and they go right back to terrorism.