( CNN ) A brutal attack Wednesday on the offices of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo -- famous for its blistering cartoons -- left 12 people dead . In the aftermath of such cowardice , we in free Western societies have to ask ourselves : What kind of world are we going to live in ? And will we allow these intolerant radical Islamic bullies to decide for us what we can read and what we ca n't ? As an editorial cartoonist working in a small Southern town in America , it might have been easy for me to feel insulated from attacks thousands of miles away . But we live in a global society , and this attack hit me on a very personal level . I was fortunate enough this past fall to travel to Paris , and also to a little town called St.-Just-le-Martel in the countryside , where locals throw an annual bash celebrating France 's long love affair with the art of cartooning , illustration and caricature . It 's a wonderful event , and it 's clear that the French love their cartoonists and their art . They crowd in by the hundreds to meet the artists and to maybe get their caricatures drawn . It was there that I met one of the victims in Wednesday 's attack , cartoonist Georges Wolinski . From what I gathered , he was something of a rock star in France . Like all the artists there , he was funny , pleasant and gracious with his time , and his death , along with 11 others , is beyond appalling . The reality is that this is not just an attack on Charlie Hebdo , but an attack on all of us who hold dear freedom of expression , no matter where we live . Charlie Hebdo is irreverent , anti-religious and occasionally vulgar . The writers and cartoonists routinely anger many of its readers . Back in 2007 , for example , it reprinted the Prophet Mohammed cartoons that were first published in a Danish newspaper , illustrations that had outraged the Muslim community . And in 2011 , Charlie Hebdo `` invited '' Mohammed to be guest editor and showcased a caricature of him on the cover . Since then , it has been reported that several of the editors and cartoonists have lived under the constant threat of death . Yet for every cartoonist I have ever met , the occupation is more than a job : It is a lifelong obsession . And while I have never considered this obsession that I share to be a life-threatening career , it is hard to escape the fact that this is now the world we live in , one where hooded gunmen kill journalists and cartoonists in cold blood because they are angered by printed words and drawings . So , how do we respond ? It would be much easier -- and safer -- to simply shut up , put the pen down and walk away . The editors and cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo certainly could have done that at the first sign of trouble . Stephane Charbonnier , the editorial director and one of the cartoonists , for example , was under special high-profile protection , according to The Daily Telegraph , which quoted the publication 's attorney as saying , `` The threats were constant . It was frightening . '' Yet Charbonnier persisted , refusing to give in to fear . And in the end it cost him his life . Opinion : Cartoonists , killed for their art , and humanity . How that can be so is bewildering . We should be focusing on issues like beating hunger and poverty . Yet despite the remarkable technological advances of Western civilization , we find ourselves engaged in a clash with extremists stuck in the seventh century , bent on oppressing women and imposing suffocating religious views on the rest of the globe . Our freedoms are at risk , plain and simple , and we must all decide how we will respond . For my part , I will go back to my drawing board and try to make sense of this ridiculous , senseless and vicious assault on my friends and colleagues an ocean away . Under constant threat of death , Charbonnier was quoted in the French newspaper Le Monde as saying , `` I would rather die standing than live on my knees . '' That seems like a good place to start .
Rick McKee : 10 mai 2012 Our freedoms are at risk , plain and simple , he says .