During and in the aftermath of the horrific targeted assassinations in Paris, ignorance and/or hysteria and/or hypocrisy have resulted in the grotesque exploitations and exaggerations of the reality, partially due to a sensationalism exploiting media which fails to inform and thereby educate, and thereby, by neglect and/or deliberate greed and corruption does damage to the pillars of any robust, participative democracy.

A scholarly, humanist, rationalist and balanced approach, which is what would be expected from of the highest ethical and professional standards of the media, as well as from politicians and law enforcement authorities, would not have allowed even a scintilla of allegations to be published which in any way suggest that the criminal assassins were anything but criminal assassins and that the publisher of the incendiary, provocative cartoons defiling the highest icon of the Islamic religion were somehow exercising “freedom of speech”.

The criminal assassins not only carried out odiously violent killings which have been soundly condemned by Moslems worldwide, but they have also violated the teachings of the Koran and furthermore, have also assassinated a Moslem French law enforcement officer.

These assassins do not represent genuine Moslems worldwide, just as much as mass killing racist right wing assassins such as  Brevik in Norway, and McVeigh in the U.S. represented genuine Christians religion worshipers worldwide, and just as much as the Israeli power structures in their violent and fundamentalist right-wing extremist abusive oppressions and homicidal attacks on Palestinians represent decent the Judaic religion practitioners worldwide.

The almost financially and certainly morally bankrupt publisher of Charlie Hebdo, by no stretch of the imagination was engaged in being some kind of practitioner of “freedom of speech”.    The smut producing cartoon publication was well aware of the potential serious consequences of their perverted objective of degrading disgustingly the highest icon of the Moslem religion, Prophet Muhammad.  They also were not “equal opportunity” defilers of the highest religious icons, as they did not defile the highest icon of Christians, Jesus,  or of the highest icon of Jews, Moses.   It seems quite clear that these extremist right wing publishers were stooping opportunistically in exploiting the racist Islamophobic sentiment in Paris for financial gain.

The mainstream media in the U.S. as well as in France has abysmally failed to inform their respective followers that there indeed exist limits to that vast expanse of “freedom of speech” . These normally are ethical, common sense, and in many societies legal limits which characterize generally but not exclusively,  sophisticated, balanced, civilized modern democratic society.

In the U.S. particularly it is exasperating to observe how the under informed, under educated, and/or extremists right wing ideologically motivated  repeating of that mantra that “freedom of speech” has no limits and continues relentlessly, since this is a brazen falsehood as clearly documented by the 1942 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Chaplinsky vs. the state of New Hampshire.

In case it is of interest to the readers of this article, the writer of it, while being the son of survivors of the Nazi genocide against Jews, inter alia, and while having been brought up in Catholic and Lutheran schools in Brazil, has since his adolescence embraced a “belief” system which is exclusively based on humanity, namely on secular humanist rationalist and naturalist principles.  This in no way implies a lack of respect for those who have chosen or were born into a system  of “beliefs” which are based on the supra natural.  It also in no way imaginable allows this writer to denigrate the highest icons of people’s belief systems, since their right to their beliefs are sacred to them and furthermore are safeguarded by our Constitution which not only protects the freedom of religion but as well as the freedom from religion.

So, to sum up, the two facts above are document infra,

The first is that the strict interpretation of the Qur’an forbids the crime of killing, hence of terrorism, so that any insinuation that the Paris killers were acting in genuine accordance with Qu’ranic teachings is preposterous.

The second is that the strict interpretation of the United States Constitution clearly states that there is a limit to the practice of “free speech” by exempting from the First Amendment protection, the kind of incendiary language which the extreme right-wing publishers recklessly and irresponsibly expound in that near bankruptcy tabloid  Charlie.

The first statement therefore, is documented by the Qur’an in 6:15 which establishes the following.

Terrorism is above all murder. Murder is strictly forbidden in the Qur’an. Qur’an 6:151 says, “and do not kill a soul that God has made sacrosanct, save lawfully.” (i.e. murder is forbidden but the death penalty imposed by the state for a crime is permitted). 5:53 says, “… whoso kills a soul, unless it be for murder or for wreaking corruption in the land, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind; and he who saves a life, it shall be as if he had given life to all mankind.”

The second statement  therefore, is documented by the 1942 Supreme Court decision in Chaplinsky vs. state of New Hampshire which establishes the following.

The Court, in a unanimous decision, established that ” Writing the decision for the Court, Justice Frank Murphy advanced a “two-tier theory” of the First Amendment. Certain “well-defined and narrowly limited” categories of speech fall outside the bounds of constitutional protection. (emphasis added).    Thus, “the lewd and obscene, the profane, the slanderous,” and (in this case) insulting or “fighting” words neither contributed to the expression of ideas nor possessed any “social value” in the search for truth.^[2]

Murphy further wrote:

There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or “fighting” words those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.

So, this is the Argentum Post’s contribution to the establishment of sobering facts which the mainstream media in the United States and in other major nations largely and conspicuously fails to address.  Germany is actually an exception to this rule.  The mere display of the Swastikas or the mere publication of hateful Neo-Nazi literature is legally forbidden.  ironically, this kind of smutty grotesque literature which circulates in underground circles of a tiny minority of decadent die-hard hate filled racists is smuggled in from the U.S., apparently mostly originating in states such as Alabama and Mississippi who  still harbor remnants of those who would aspire to return to the era of slavery.