The Charlie Hebdo attack is a much more powerful symbol. 4 of the victims were in the top ten of French language satire. It's extremely obvious the only target was freedom of speech. That's why this attack gets even more attention than random public transport bombings in western countries. That's also why this is an important subject for debate. Some people just plainly don't understand the value of freedom of speech. That is a major problem and without this event most other people would not be aware of that. With the mixed reactions it becomes increasingly obvious that political correctness is a disease that needs to be dealt with.
I think that the "great" thing about this event is that the issue of freedom of speech overshadows everything else. Whereas when random people die the only way to make an interesting story for the media is via fear mongering. In this case, the widespread support is all about freedom. It's not an overreaction.
Yes, agreed, I like the aspect of 'freedom of speech' that can be connected to this, but there's still a lot of room for fear-mongering and populist rhetoric at least in the coverage of my country. This grants terrorists a much more impactful weapon than the real physical threat should merit. My usage of the term overreaction was referring to terrorism as a whole and not specifically this incident, but with half of Europe being on high alert and flooding the streets with armed personnel it is heading towards it.
What is the proper reaction? Forget stepping over the line, we're no where close to it. Can't screen, can't profile. Any potential solution is categorized as over-reactive and nothing ends up being done.
Mourn and then let it slide, relativize without trivializing. There have been like 250 deaths to terrorism in Europe in the past ten years, there is no significant threat. The fear-mongering is entirely disproportionate and the attention politicians and media give to terrorism is the only reason it is worthwhile for terrorists.
