I disagree completely with the Pope on this issue. One mighty roar in a principled defense of individual rights would send these cowardly rats scurrying back into their dark little holes.
Nothing occurs in a vacuum. Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons were a response to the words and deeds of radical Islam. Cartoonists point out contradictions, hypocrisy, unreasonable threats, and the unjustifiable brutality of actions. That is the point of satire. That is all that Charlie Hebdo was doing. It was providing a needed service in its effort to enlighten the unaware public to the unreasonableness of the Islamic radicals. Charlie Hebdo was fulfilling an essential function of a free press!
Note that no one was forced to purchase the Charlie Hebdo magazine. The right to freedom of speech and press includes the right to not listen. To exercise this right one merely does not purchase an issue of the magazine. No physical force is initiated. No rights are violated.
The essential political principle of a civilized society is the prohibition on the initiation of physical force because that is the only way to violate anyone’s rights. Radical Islam is the exact opposite of this principle, and it is therefore entirely accurate to call its proponents savages. Mohammad used physical force, conquest, and intimidation to spread Islam. People did not convert to Islam by choice. They converted because their only option in the 7th Century was death. Radical Islam today is turning the clock back 14 Centuries. They are advocates of a primitive religious tyranny.
How could the Islamists peacefully stop the blasphemous cartoons? Simply by following a civilized principle: Live and let live. Stop using force and intimidation to convert non-believers to Islam. Stop committing atrocities in the name of their religion. Persuasion not force is the civilized way to spread an idea-or a religion. If the Islamists simply did this, Charlie Hebdo wouldn’t have any material for their cartoons.
http://www.breitbart.com/news/pope-on-charlie-hebdo-there-are-limits-to-free-expression/
Religious Terrorism vs. Free Speech, by Leonard Peikoff | 1989
Dr Peikoff laid out all of the applicable principles 25 years ago
“No Substitute for Victory”: The Defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism
This is THE strategy that would eliminate Islamic Terrorism from the world within one year