Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
As you may have seen by now, Gen. David Petraeus says that a plan to burn copies of the Quran on the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks will likely undermine the nation's ability to fight the war on terror.
Gen. David Petraeus said he is outraged by the pastor's decision to burn the Quran, which, he said, could "endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort here.""It puts our soldiers in jeopardy very likely," he told ABC News Tuesday. "And I think, in fact, images from such activity could very well be used by extremists here and around the world."
Former Vice Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Jack Keane, an adviser to Petraeus, called it "outrageous" and "insulting to Muslims."
"It's also insulting to our soldiers in terms of what they stand for and what their commitment is to this country and to the Muslims in this country," Keane told ABC News.
As if deliberately to prove his point, there is an uprising in Afghanistan over this very issue:
A Florida pastor's plan to burn Qurans at his church on Sept. 11 ignited protests for a second day by hundreds of Afghans, who burned U.S. flags and shouted "Death to America," prompting the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan to say that the preacher could be increasing the threat to his troops.The crowd in downtown Kabul reached nearly 500 today, with Afghan protesters chanting "Long live Islam" and "Long live the Quran," and burning an effigy of Terry Jones, senior pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, who is planning the event.
The protesters were well aware of the pastor's inflammatory comments, such as "Islam is an evil religion," because they have spread via the Internet. Jones has also authored a book, "Islam Is of the Devil."
The protesters' anger wasn't limited to Jones, however. Chants of "Death to America" echoed through the crowd and U.S. flags were set ablaze alongside the effigy of Jones.
Exactly what the military needs at a time when winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan people is of such vital importance. The pastor remains defiant:
But late today, Jones vowed he would go ahead with the Quran burning, even knowing the concerns of Petraeus and Keane for the safety of U.S. troops."Of course we care. It'd be tragical if because of this one person died. But at the same time, we do not feel responsible for that," Jones said in an interview with ABC News.
"What we are doing is long overdue," he said. "We are revealing the violence of Islam that is much, much deeper than we'd like to admit."
Here's the thing: They have the right to burn the Qurans if they choose. If they buy them, they own them, and they have every right to burn them in protest, just as people have the right to burn a flag. But the next time these idiots wrap themselves in the flag and ramp up their faux-patriotic fervor, remind them of how little they care about the lives of our troops.
Politics
Comments
If I lived close, I'd sponsor a bible burning to coincide with this idiot's bonfire.
Posted by: MikeMa | September 8, 2010 11:05 AM
These people are doing exactly what the terrorists want them to do. Extremists love this stuff and just eat it up because they use it to try to convince moderate Muslims to become more extreme. It also feeds into their persecution complexes and makes them look like martyrs. They have played their game well and seem to winning when Christian findies are doing exactly what the terrorists want them to do.
Posted by: catgirl | September 8, 2010 11:10 AM
This clown is just ginning up a controversy to make money. He will NOT follow through on this as the city has denied him a permit to have an open burn, furthermore, He has already complained that he has had pressure put on him by his insurance company and the mortgage holder on his church.
He is trying to milk this for all the money in donations to his church that he can.
Whatch, he will cancel at the last moment with some lame excuse about how "God told him not to."
Posted by: Chilidog | September 8, 2010 11:15 AM
There are none so blind as those who will not see. Pastor Jones' world of darkness is driving him to madness.
Posted by: momkat | September 8, 2010 11:18 AM
These people are definitely morons, and most likely hypocrites also. However, while their actions are careless, I think it is worth noting that the responsibility for any deaths resulting from a Muslim backlash rests entirely on those who did the killing. Violence is not a necessary or rational response for blasphemy so it is important that we not blame them personally for violence that results.
Posted by: ethanol | September 8, 2010 11:22 AM
Phred Phelps is thriving in Florida.
Posted by: Bob Carroll | September 8, 2010 11:23 AM
That is unfair. They care alot about the lives of the troops. They have a magnet on the back of their cars to prove it.
Posted by: carlsonjok | September 8, 2010 11:29 AM
@1 If I lived close, I'd sponsor a bible burning to coincide with this idiot's bonfire.
I would hold a Quran reading or a bible reading. Only way to fight ignorance is with knowledge.
Posted by: Mr Ed | September 8, 2010 11:31 AM
@ethanol,
Violence may not be rational but I would lay blame right at the feet of this idiot. He earned it whether he pulls the trigger or not. He lit the fuse.
Posted by: MikeMa | September 8, 2010 11:32 AM
Blaming the Florida church people for any violence that results from this is the same as telling battered wives that if they would just stop provoking their violent husbands, they wouldn't get beaten up.
This is about freedom of expression, and whether the rest of us are willing to frame this situation so that the bullies seem like the victims.
Yes, these people in Florida are idiots. No question. Stupid jerk-off little weasels just crying for attention.
However, the PRINCIPLE involved is not a stupid jerk-off little principle. It's a huge one, one that affects us all, and one that Islam MUST acknowledge: You can't murder people just for SAYING something that offends your touchy 7th Century principles.
As I've said elsewhere, Islam is either going to enter the 21st Century, or it's going to drag the rest of us back to the 7th. At some point, we're going to face one or more atomic weapons getting into their hands, and we're going to realize we should have pushed back hard on this and issues like it -- because we literally can't live with Islam as it is.
The answer isn't to contract ourselves down to where we don't live up to our own principles, it's to expand those principles and expect everyone in the world to live by them.
Posted by: Hank Fox | September 8, 2010 11:37 AM
I don't think burning Bibles would be an appropriate response, as I doubt these fundies have much concern for the actual content of the Bible.
Posted by: Emily | September 8, 2010 11:38 AM
Sure it's in bad taste. But why the heck do we have to continually walk on eggshells because of some wackjobs in the world?
If you "lay the blame" on this idiot, Surely you lay the blame on the cartoonist as well??? no???
Posted by: Meech | September 8, 2010 11:40 AM
I can't help but compare this in my mind to the Draw Muhammed Day protest, which had a similar effect of enraging Muslims. The former probably also endangered troops, for similar reasons. But the difference in my mind is what the goal of the protest was: Drawing Muhammed is a protest in favor of free speech, burning a Quran is just a protest against Islam. I'm sure many Muslims are just as insulted by both of these acts and don't see the difference, though. Making it worse is how many Islamophobes latched onto Draw Muhammed Day just to show their bigotry.
So if something like Draw Muhammed Day happens again, the lesson we have to take here is that it's of the utmost importance to be clear with why we're doing it. Drawing Muhammed is staking a flag in the ground of free speech, a core American value, and telling the world that we will not cede this territory. Burning a Quran does no such thing, and in fact gives off the impression that we don't even care about freedom of religion, another core American value.
Or in other words: I will defend to the death your right to practice Islam, but I will fight to the death attempts to make me practice it.
Posted by: infophile | September 8, 2010 11:43 AM
MikeMa #1 beat me to it. Throw in some copies of Dianetics, the Book of Mor(m)on, the Torah, maybe even some Bhagavad Gitas and Niebelungenlieds, etc., etc. just for "balance" shits and giggles.
Posted by: bcoppola | September 8, 2010 11:43 AM
I'm more concerned by the rabid Muslims that would condemn these people to death for expressing their view of such a horrid, backwards book than the church for having the courage to stand up for what they believe in. They're simply burning books to send a message, much like an atheist would disrespect the Eucharist by breaking it and dismissing it as a mere cracker.
Posted by: Canny | September 8, 2010 11:44 AM
This reminds me of the "Ground Zero mosque" controversy: "Of course they have the right to do it but should they?"
I don't like the idea of endangering the troops either - especially when it seems stupid and unnecessary like this. But I certainly don't want to do away with the Bill of Rights for some vague notion of security.
Are these two things related and, if so, do they demand the same response? Or have I got it all twisted in my head?
Posted by: Skepticat | September 8, 2010 11:45 AM
The pastor's motto:
"I may not agree with what you say, but I'll let some other guy die in Afghanistan for your right to say it."
Posted by: Ashley Moore | September 8, 2010 11:46 AM
I heard in the Finnish news that he has already stated that he will keep praying, and if he gets a message from god to not do this, he won't do it. (NATO and the Pope have also condemned his plan.)
No, violence isn't a good or correct way to respond to blasphemy, but deliberately fueling violence isn't any less wrong. Should this go through it will only act as a recruiting video for militant muslims.
Posted by: Kirsi | September 8, 2010 11:47 AM
I wonder what everyone's favorite randomly ejaculating Godless liberal thinks of all this. And how many of those who cheered him on 2 years ago are now condemning said pastor.
Posted by: Just Sayin' | September 8, 2010 11:49 AM
It's just payback: the terrorists have been great recruiters for the fundies, after all. The name of the game is "both ends against the middle:" the extremists have more in common with each other than they do with those of us who want to live and let live.
Posted by: D. C. Sessions | September 8, 2010 11:50 AM
@Canny,
It is a cracker.
@bcoppola,
I don't mind burning religious texts of any stripe although I prefer recycling. The bible, in this case, stands out as a purveyor (or source) of the same level of violence the FL fools see in the Koran.
Once the fire is going though, you can toss in anything and it will burn. Pastor Jones should be careful.
Posted by: MikeMa | September 8, 2010 11:51 AM
CNN's Anderson Cooper had this preacher on last night. I'm uneasy with the backlash being thrown at this group including Mr. Cooper almost begging him not to do it, that's not hyperbole, Cooper groveled and pleaded where the next logical step was to get on his knees.
Obviously I hope this pastor doesn't do it for all the obvious reasons, e.g., its harms our foreign policy position and it risks blood and treasure. However I also think we should champion his right to express his and his church's position, not just modestly note his right to do this form of protest. Therefore I would hope if he presented a plan to do this burning in a manner that is safe and would be allowed if it wasn't books, but instead something like trash, that Americans would lobby for the relevant governing bodies to grant them a permit.
Many of us who supported the development of 51Park into a Muslim community center made the argument that the protection of our rights must be fought at the margins of that fight, that there's no real defense of principle being argued when its about our own rights or that of our preferred group; instead the real test is to defend the rights of those we or the majority oppose.
This is a litmus test and I believe we're failing in spite of the fact we have a perfect case study with the Cordoba Center that I think is almost perfectly analogous and instructive in this case.
I do have a related position on this matter that is not favorable to the book burner wanna-bees. That's my repeated lobbying in this for forum for far broader standing and jury rights to sue in the civil courts when someone lies in the public square, along with a much looser standard of what is slander and libel. In this case I support Muslims being able to sue this guy and his group's ass off for making claims about Islam they can not corroborate, e.g., "Islam's god is Satan".
Posted by: Michael Heath | September 8, 2010 11:52 AM
@ 1
I live about two hours away from Gainesville. I plan to be there with a few Wholly Babbles to spark if they indeed go through with it. I need a cameraman/woman if anyone else is in the area? ...
Posted by: Fifth Dentist | September 8, 2010 11:54 AM
I think it's a bit disengenous to compare this to the Muslim community center a few blocks away from Ground Zero for two reasons:
1) Wingnuts are mad that this Muslim community center will simply exist. The people who want to use the center aren't doing it to offend or protest a specific group. It's not like they're burning Bibles or peeing on the WTC site, or praising the 9/11 terrorists.
2) We actually realize that these people have a right to burn the Koran or any other books they choose (as long as they do it in a safe manner that doesn't present a fire hazard to the community). Many people think that Muslims don't or shouldn't even have the right to build their community center.
Of course these wingnuts have the right to burn the Koran, but by doing so they are doing exactly what the terrorists want them to do. They are feeding directly into the goals of the people they hate the most by fanning the fire of hate (quite literally). Yes, they are allowed to do it by they shouldn't, in the same way that you're allowed to fart in a crowded elevator but you shouldn't. It is counter-productive to their (supposed) goal of stopping terrorism.
Posted by: catgirl | September 8, 2010 11:56 AM
It might be a little hard for people living under 7th century conditions, and burning their religious book isn't going to bring ther conditions to match the 21st century in the "West".
Posted by: Kirsi | September 8, 2010 11:58 AM
And would you support the issuance of a subpoena for both "Satan" and "Islam's god" to testify? And what if said individuals invoked their fifth amendment right against self-incrimination? And what if I told you that I have a recorded confession from Satan Himself stating that he is, in fact, the Islamic god?
So many questions, so little time.
Posted by: Just Sayin' | September 8, 2010 12:00 PM
It should be noted that burning copies of the Hebrew or Christian Bibles by a Muslim would be considered a sinful act as both books are incorporated in Islamic belief. For instance, Yeshua of Nazareth is considered one of the prophets by Islamic teachings.
Posted by: SLC | September 8, 2010 12:00 PM
I know a way to piss off muslims far more than burning their favorite book: occupy their countries, make war on them, kill civilians, invade their homes, topple their governments, and pay contractors to do the dirty work of corporate interests inside their countries.
Posted by: Rose Colored Glasses | September 8, 2010 12:02 PM
Hank Fox, #10: Blaming the Florida church people for any violence that results from this is the same as telling battered wives that if they would just stop provoking their violent husbands, they wouldn't get beaten up.
Yeah, that's a good analogy because we all know that battered wives go out of their way to deliberately provoke their husbands.
And that Quran burning Floridans are caught in an abusive relationship with rioting Muslims because the threat of escalating violence doesn't allow them to leave that relationship.
All in all, this analogy helps in understanding the situation completely.
Posted by: Chiroptera | September 8, 2010 12:03 PM
The point has already been made by others (and I’m very glad to see that). But this really sent up a red flag for me.
Are we then also guilty of being unpatriotically cavalier about the lives of our troops for the widespread support of Everybody Draw Muhammad Day among the readers of this blog? Ed has posted cartoons depicting Muhammad, even knowing that it could harm our efforts in the Middle East. Is he then partly responsible for the death of Theo Van Gogh? Where is the line on acceptable blasphemy?
I think there are good reasons to criticize Jones’ protest. But I don’t the angering Muslims or, harmful to our mission, are among them.
Posted by: Abby Normal | September 8, 2010 12:03 PM
ethanol, #5: However, while their actions are careless, I think it is worth noting that the responsibility for any deaths resulting from a Muslim backlash rests entirely on those who did the killing.
On the other hand, it is perfectly fair to hold people responsible for being jerks regardless of whether there is any backlash. They may have every right to express their feelings in this manner, but this sure shows that they are jerks.
Posted by: Chiroptera | September 8, 2010 12:11 PM
They have the right to burn the Qurans if they choose.
Not within city limits without a burn permit - which they have been explicitly denied.
Fifth Dentist @ # 23: I plan to be there with a few Wholly Babbles to spark ...
Please touch base with those of us in Gainesville who are trying to organize events elsewhere and near DWOC (which latest word has it police will prevent) before doing anything so provocative. We're going to a lot of trouble here to prevent escalation of the insanity, and an out-of-towner making things worse would not be appreciated!
(Start by searching for "Protest Against the Bigotry of the Dove World Outreach Center" on Facebook, or phone the Civic Media Center at 352-373-0010.)
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | September 8, 2010 12:16 PM
Just Sayin', #19: I wonder what everyone's favorite randomly ejaculating Godless liberal thinks of all this. And how many of those who cheered him on 2 years ago are now condemning said pastor.
Well, PZ Myer's stunt didn't put any other people in danger, and certainly didn't damage any war effort let alone one that he may have supported.
Although, I do admit, the analogy here is, on it's face, is a better one than the one Hank Fox tried.
Posted by: Chiroptera | September 8, 2010 12:20 PM
He received death threats over it, as did members of his family.
Posted by: Just Sayin' | September 8, 2010 12:25 PM
The only difference I see between this and Draw Muhammad Day is intent. The effects of both would, I think, be the same or similar, but that doesn't make them equal. DMD's intent can basically be boiled down to "Hey! Fuck you. Freedom of speech is an important human right that we agree on. No one can claim any idea as privileged and exempt from criticism with the threat of violence." These yokels are basically saying "Hey! Fuck you. You suck and your god is a whore." Granted there were people with the latter intent that latched on to DMD.
Quite frankly, while the first is based on a position I genuinely hold and much more intellectually rigorous, I don't have much of a problem with the second. Other than the fact that it's childish and I would say the same thing to these assholes as well, which would provoke a similar emotional reaction as the muslims in Afghanistan.
Posted by: Brad | September 8, 2010 12:30 PM
Just Sayin' opined :
For one, I am.Because it is not the same thing.Are you seriously comparing throwing a cracker in the trash, that Catholics want to tell us is the transmogrified flesh of some presumed holy person, to burning some religion's holy text and declaring said religion to be of the devil, like Pastor Jones is trying to do ? Jones is a hating islamophobic bigot who thinks his holy book is true while any other holy book is of the devil's making, which makes the man a crazy lunatic.He is trying to incite hatred and violence, and is as a byproduct giving radical Muslims an excuse to retaliate with violence and hatred of their own.These things are most decidedly not the same.
Posted by: Rorschach | September 8, 2010 12:31 PM
Just Sayin', #34: He received death threats over it, as did members of his family.
Do you really don't see the difference, or is saving your false equivalence really that important to you?
Posted by: Chiroptera | September 8, 2010 12:34 PM
Chiroptera #33: "Well, PZ Myer's stunt didn't put any other people in danger ..."
And that would be because Christianity is no longer allowed to react to such imagined slights by rioting, killing, burning, pronouncing death threats on people, etc.
Whereas Islam IS, apparently, still allowed to react in this way, and will find plenty of people, even in the U.S., willing to defend the principle that it has some supposed right to be so thin-skinned and violent, over the principle of everybody else's freedom of expression.
In fact, there was plenty of protest against PZ Myers, including verbal assaults against atheists in general. The reason those protests weren't violent is because nobody here would put up with it. You don't kill people because somebody tosses your holy cracker on top of yesterday's coffee grounds.
If the reactions HAD been violent, it would still be the case that no reasonable person could have blamed it on PZ.
People are not rabid dogs, or hurricanes, with no control over what they do. Yes, we're capable of violent reactions, but the civilized world depends on us refraining from that violence unless stirred by an EQUALLY VIOLENT provocation.
Which means: You're allowed to defend yourself with physical violence only against a physically violent attack.
But you're not allowed to bring physical violence into a situation where the provocation was nothing more than words, or tipping over your trash can, or even deliberately and provocatively burning a privately-owned copy of one of your favorite books.
.
.
(Besides which, what PZ did wasn't a "stunt." It was the making of an important point.)
Posted by: Hank Fox | September 8, 2010 12:55 PM
Chiroptera, PZ Myers was responding to a case where the Catholic authorities wanted the university administration to punish a student for taking one of their crackers out of the church. He didn't do just to show how much he hates Catholicism; he did it to show how much he was opposed to their claim that other authorities should be enforcing their silly blasphemy laws for them. It's much in line with the Draw Muhammad protests - the objection is to the claim that everyone should pay some worship to others' religion. Myers doesn't go around burning Bibles, despite his contemptuous opinion of it.
In this case, burning the Q'ran is about nothing more than hating others for their religion. There's no other principle being claimed. That makes the pastor a jackass bigot and we are obligated to point it out.
Posted by: Scott Hanley | September 8, 2010 12:57 PM
catgirl responds to my prior post:
If I was disingenuous it was inadvertent. I was really looking forward to Ed's perspective on this since I hold my own position somewhat humbly while striving for consistency such as my unabashed support for the Park51 development. I'm underwhelmed with Ed's analysis and hope he continues to post on this topic at a deeper level, perhaps he needs some time to digest this issue, I certainly did.
cagtgirl @ 24:
I reject your entire framing. I certainly think it's weak of Park51 obstructionists to point to the lack of religious freedom in Saudi Arabia as an argument America should lower our own standards. Same goes here, I could give a shit what wingnuts think about Park51 when formulating my own standards for supporting Park51 and this church's right to burn Qur'an.
Catgirl @ 24:
But the most influential voices like Sarah Palin and David Gergen also noted this Park51 developers' rights while still trying to manuever them into not going through with he development. I found that position hypocritical and on the side against the defense of their rights and still do. In addition just because those who think they have no right to develop that location exist in no way threatens my analogy. We are either champions of rights even when we disagree or not - I see no possibility for fence-sitting. Hoping that the local government can figure out a way to stop this effort where a politically correct rally would have been approved argues we are hypocrites in support our rights.
catgirl @ 24:
I distinctly separated my hope they'd decide not to go through with it from my hope we'd champion their right to do it. From my perspective most people do not authentically champion their right to burn Qu'rans.
catgirl - you've increased my confidence in my original position.
Posted by: Michael Heath | September 8, 2010 1:06 PM
On the subject of Crackergate, I file that in the same drawer as Draw Muhammed Day. The impetus behind it was the outrage from Christians that their rituals weren't being perfectly respected in exactly the proscribed manner.
(For those unfamiliar with the initial event, a youth took a communion wafer at church but didn't immediately consume it, as he'd intended to bring it back to show a friend who was interested in Catholicism. Instead of being able to do so, a woman attempted to physically restrain him from going back to his seat without eating it. This caused him to run out of the church, which many Catholics took to be akin to kidnapping Jesus, and thus they sent him death threats over it.)
PZ's protest was to make the point that no one should be forced to show respect for a cracker, no matter how much Catholics may revere it. He tailored the form of his desecration specifically to denigrate its value, by throwing it in the trash (along with a Quran and The God Delusion) after impaling it with a nail. The message was that it's just a cracker (and a couple books), and symbols aren't worth making death threats over. In fact, the fact that people are talking about it two years later reinforces that point: There's something seriously wrong when throwing out a cracker is still being talked about two years later.
The problem with that, at least in retrospect, is that the point he was trying to make was too subtle. Many anti-theists even didn't get it, and most Catholics just saw it as an unprovoked attack on their religion. Many people we see talked about here and sometimes commenting here have a problem with conflating symbols with the actual thing they're symbolizing. As much as one might try to make the point that they're just attacking the symbol, many people will never get it. (Of course, PZ attacks Catholicism with words all the time, but it was attacking a symbol for it that got him more death threats than anything else, and that's the real problem.)
So, let's sum up the three events being discussed and compared here:
Crackergate: Defacing a symbol to protest the insanity over symbols, interpreted as an attack on the religion as a whole
Draw Muhammed Day: Drawing a symbol to protest the insanity over people drawing that symbol, also interpreted as an attack on the religion as a whole
Burning Qurans: Destroying a symbol with the explicit intent of attacking a religion as a whole
While I believe that all should be illegal (as long as the burning is done safely), I do believe there's a difference in whether these activities are worthwhile. The first two try to make a point by mocking the demands made by a religion on others, and they're specifically targeted at those they offend. If you're offended by a cracker being thrown out or a stick-figure being named Muhammed, then you're the one who needs to hear the message. The third activity, on the other hand, doesn't have a point to make, and is attacking all Muslims over the actions of a minority. It offends moderates who themselves condemn the terrorism of other Muslims, and it doesn't even make a point about what they're doing wrong.
Posted by: infophile | September 8, 2010 1:06 PM
You've all made some good points, but I'd like to throw in my two cents.
"Of course we care. It'd be tragical if because of this one person died. But at the same time, we do not feel responsible for that,"
I'm reasonably confident that there is no such word.
Posted by: Captain Mike | September 8, 2010 1:16 PM
Scott Hanley #39: " ... burning the Q'ran is about nothing more than hating others for their religion. There's no other principle being claimed."
Actually, there is a principle being claimed. Aside from all the sectarian crap and the silliness of "Islam is of the Devil," the pastor has said one thing worth paying attention to: The reaction of extreme physical violence, death threats, murder, etc., to small perceived slights, is not something the civilized world can tolerate.
This guy threatening to burn Korans – and note that the violent reaction is already ramping up in certain Islamic communities, even though he hasn't even done it yet – is the distasteful equivalent of the neighbor's dog crapping repeatedly in your yard.
You hate it, it's stupid, it needs to stop ... but you still don't get to go over and, for instance, shoot him 8 times, cut his throat so deep you almost decapitate him, and then attach a 5-page note to his body by stabbing a knife through the note and into his chest.
In the civilized world, you don't even get to threaten that. And if you do, it's not the guy with the dog who's at fault. It's YOU.
Posted by: Hank Fox | September 8, 2010 1:18 PM
Hank Fox, #38: And that would be because Christianity is no longer allowed to react to such imagined slights by rioting, killing, burning, pronouncing death threats on people, etc.
Do you think this contradicts my objection to Just Sayin's analogy? Or are you using my comment as a segue to make a different point?
Posted by: Chiroptera | September 8, 2010 1:18 PM
infophile - but surely, using your logic, you could say that burning the Quran is attacking the belief that books should be revered and that we should be intimidated by threats of violence over the matter.
Posted by: Canny | September 8, 2010 1:20 PM
I am really confused by this. Two weeks ago we were all upset about the Park 51 project and many people stated that even though the people involved did indeed have the right to build their mosque there that they shouldn't because it was insensitive. Oh how we all howled at the injustice of it all.
Now here we are all saying that even though this minister is absolutely in the right to burn whatever books he may own(subject to local fire code) he shouldn't because it is insensitive and we all howl at the injustice of it all.
This nutjob can burn any books he damn well pleases and if it offends anyone they are perfectly welcome to burn the Bible or anything else in retaliation. But, if it is going to put our troops in harms way then it is way more of an argument for getting our troops OUT of Iraq and Afghanistan than anything else. They don't want us there, we shouldn't be there, and I for one am no longer willing to give up my rights, or the rights of my fellow citizens in capitulation to the sensitivities of violent fanatics.
Oh, and if I were in Florida this week I would start by lighting a pile of Bibles on fire and then piss on them too.
And god help the motherfucker who tries to stop me.
Posted by: Eric Houg | September 8, 2010 1:22 PM
Eric, heh. I'd be there with a video camera. In fact, as I've said several times elsewhere, I'd love to see how this pastor and his flock might react to an equally large bonfire of Bibles right across the street. I'll bet the hypocritical howling would be deafening.
Posted by: Hank Fox | September 8, 2010 1:29 PM
No, it's because Americans (and the citizens of many other countries) are not allowed to react to imagined slights by rioting, killing, etc.
Any person in the USA who regards their religion as an excuse for violence and acts upon that conviction will face both social opprobrium and legal consequences.
I am sure that most Muslims came to this country for precisely that reason: they do not want to be persecuted for being Sunni, Shia, or Sufi, or to live in a theocracy, any more than does your average Methodist. Any who do will and should be disabused of that notion and dealt with - just as Christians who bomb abortion clinics or plot to murder police are.
Religious believers tend to be violent ("act that way" as Hank Fox puts it) in places where religion gets mixed up with other grievances like poverty, foreign occupation (see RoseColoredGlasses#28), and general social and political dysfunction.
Hell, all it takes here to get some of our fundies grabbin' their guns in the name of Jesus is a recession and a Democratic president.
Posted by: bcoppola | September 8, 2010 1:31 PM
bcoppola, if you're going to enclose something in quotes and attribute it to Hank Fox, I'd like it to be something I actually said.
Posted by: Hank Fox | September 8, 2010 1:39 PM
Although they have the right to, burning books is never the way to go. Make origami pigs out of the pages, have a paper airplane contest or rearrange the text. They should do something fun and creative with the books. Burning books is too Hitlery for my taste.
Posted by: Holytape | September 8, 2010 1:42 PM
That can indeed be the case, but that isn't the case here. Burning books, desecrating crackers, or drawing Muhammed doesn't exist in a vacuum. If you burn a book while saying "People should not make death threats over the destruction of mere paper and ink!" then I'd be on your side. If you burn a book while saying "Islam is of the devil!" then I'll think you're a nutjob, but still defend your right to do it.
In this case, I suspect Jones himself conflates attacking the book with attacking Islam, and he intends this as primarily an attack against all Muslims. However, as Hank Fox brought up, he does have one valid point mixed in with all of his idiocy and bigotry, that the civilized world should not accept death threats and violence in response to free speech. And so I will soundly condemn anyone who does such against Jones, even if I also condemn the rest of his motives.
Posted by: infophile | September 8, 2010 1:44 PM
This idiot pastor is nowhere near as dangerous to our troops as the mainstream media who choose to hype up this incident as "news." (If burning the Koran was the problem, why is there an uprising BEFORE the burning?) Seriously, folks, why does one lunatic with a church of less than a hundred people even get noticed by Petraeus or the Muslim world? Because our wonderful corporate media CHOSE to pretend he was "news," instead of ignoring him like they ignore thousands of raving street-loonies every fucking day. I'm sure he's not the only person ever to burn the Koran in America -- he's just the only one (so far) the media chose to ordain a "celebrity."
Our troops aren't in danger because one bigot burns some books in his backyard. They're in danger because our entire national media establishment treat this bigot like a relevant political player. It's that national attention that makes America look bad. Petraeus should be directing his anger at the media, not just the bigot. We should ALL be attacking the media over this.
Posted by: Raging Bee | September 8, 2010 1:44 PM
Raging Bee @52. Yeah, let's remove freedom of the press from the Constitutuion so the violent religious fanatics aren't offended.
Yes, anything that offends anyone should simply not be reported on.
Fucking moron.
Posted by: Eric Houg | September 8, 2010 1:52 PM
Eric,
Complete strawman. Raging Bee said nothing about removing freedom of the press.
Posted by: Sadie Morrison | September 8, 2010 2:04 PM
Yeah, because in Eric Houg's world, criticism of your judgement = denial of your rights. Fucking overgrown baby.
Posted by: Raging Bee | September 8, 2010 2:07 PM
Raging Bee - great point.
Posted by: Michael Heath | September 8, 2010 2:10 PM
"While I believe that all should be illegal (as long as the burning is done safely), I do believe there's a difference in whether these activities are worthwhile. "
I gather from the context that you mean "...all should be legal..."
Posted by: ThatOtherGuy | September 8, 2010 2:16 PM
The only reason American troops are in danger in Afghanistan is because aging warmongers have sent them there. Those are the people who are responsible for any deaths.
Posted by: tomh | September 8, 2010 2:19 PM
Here's a little background on this bigot:
http://www.salon.com/news/religion/index.html?story=/news/feature/2010/09/08/quran_burning_pastor_german_church_open2010
Apparently he's been bashing Islam LONG before 9/11. Oh, and his previous congregation in Cologne have shrunk from ~1000 to less than 60, and even that small remnant want nothing more to do with the scumbag. And they're changing their church's name.
And the media are pretending this guy is worth national coverage? At least Paris Hilton was better looking. And more considerate.
Posted by: Raging bee | September 8, 2010 2:24 PM
I'd like to point out something Christopher Hitchens said in Hitch-22. Islam-the-religion is not the same thing as Muslim-the-person. Attacking Islam -- which is a belief system -- is not the same thing as attacking Muslims.
I think of religion as software that runs on the human brain. (Which, considering Windows Me, can produce less than ideal results.)
Thus, when this pastor says "Islam is of the Devil," he's making a statement distinctly separate (whether he himself intends it or not) from the statement "Muslims are of the Devil."
Some part of what's going on in the world right now is user-community feedback that essentially insists the Islamic world needs to release Islam 2.0 (just as Christianity has had numerous updates and releases), and stop running the too-buggy 7th Century original version.
The part of it that crashes and causes some users to riot, burn and kill following certain inputs ... that's GOT to be fixed.
Posted by: Hank Fox | September 8, 2010 2:29 PM
Eric Houg, #46: Now here we are all saying that even though this minister is absolutely in the right to burn whatever books he may own(subject to local fire code) he shouldn't because it is insensitive and we all howl at the injustice of it all.
What "we" are you talking about? Jesus, is there really a correlation between Islamophobia and lack of reading comprehension skills?
Posted by: Chiroptera | September 8, 2010 2:30 PM
Hank Fox, #60: Thus, when this pastor says "Islam is of the Devil," he's making a statement distinctly separate (whether he himself intends it or not) from the statement "Muslims are of the Devil."
That may be true for this particular pastor, I don't know. But I do know that there are large segments both among the Christain evangelicals and among the bigoted extreme right where this would not be the case. Among those people, the two statements are equivalent, "love the sinner, hate the sin" notwithstanding.
Posted by: Chiroptera | September 8, 2010 2:35 PM
For everybody who's trying to make the distinction between crackers/Draw Mohammed and this Koran burning - as soon as violence was threatened by anybody, this became a free speech issue. Sure, the pastor is a jackass in his original reasoning, but now I feel that he *has* to burn it. It's unfortunate that this may put our troops in harm's way, but that's what they signed up for, to protect the freedom of Americans and to defend the Constitution. Violence is never the appropriate response to speech, and we cannot let people try to frighten us out of our rights.
PZ Myers did the exact same thing - people got all up in arms when their beloved symbols were threatened, so he desecrated them (including the Koran). It is very interesting to watch people here bend over backwards to criticize the pastor while supporting PZ Myers. At this point, I think that anyone who agrees with Crackergate should be burning a Koran in solidarity with the bigot pastor.
Posted by: Brian | September 8, 2010 2:39 PM
Burnin the Koran (Quran, Couran, whatever*) is different than the Park 51 project. Park 51 was never intended to offend anyone, whereas the Koran burning is a deliberate effort to insult. Park 51's opponents said it wasn't "wise" because they personally would feel offended, whereas the pastor's opponents say it isn't wise because it will increase terrorism and threaten the troops. "You'll offend me" and "You'll put troops' lives at risk" are two very different levels of un-wisdom.
That means the pastor is indeed much more legitimately criticized than the builders of Park 51, and there need be no apology for criticizing him.
However the pastor does indeed have the right to burn copies of the Koran, and--to all those conservatives out there, I'll publicly defend his freedom to do it. But that doesn't mean I would refrain from calling him an idiot. And it doesn't mean I would refrain from pointing out to cheering conservatives that they're endangering, rather than supporting, the troops.
Posted by: James Hanley | September 8, 2010 2:46 PM
Brian #63: "... as soon as violence was threatened by anybody, this became a free speech issue. Sure, the pastor is a jackass in his original reasoning, but now I feel that he *has* to burn it."
Brian, I'm glad someone else saw that. I'd hesitated to include it in any of my online comments.
Posted by: Hank Fox | September 8, 2010 2:49 PM
I mentioned earlier that there are some good reasons to object to Jones’ protest. I should probably mention a couple. Approaching the issue from a place of ignorance while claiming a mantle of authority would top my list. Jones admits that most of what he knows about Islam he learned from YouTube and that he’s never actually spoken to, much less interviewed, a Muslim. Yet he has the audacity to write a book on the subject and grab for a leading role in opposing it. We should all point and laugh at him for that.
Second, perhaps because he is ignorant of the facts, his protest lays the blame for 9/11 entirely on Islam. It’s a simplistic view that ignores the dozens of political, military, and economic factors at play. It is a protest designed to encourage the idea that the conflict is the result of a holy war between Christianity and Islam. It is a badly flawed frame that falls well short addressing the reality of the situation. For his failure to acknowledge this as anything but a religious conflict we should all shake our heads.
This is where the comparison to Crackergate and Draw Muhammad Day break down. Those were protests aimed at specific attempts to impose religious prohibitions on everyone. Resisting and calling to light those attempts is proper. However 9/11 was not an attempt to force anyone to live by Islam. Al-Qeada’s demand was for the US to withdraw its military and corporate influences from the Mid-East. So I do condemn Jones’ protest, but because it is ignorant, ill-conceived, and poorly targeted, not because it is unpatriotic, provocative, or endangers our troops.
Posted by: Abby Normal | September 8, 2010 2:50 PM
Brian, #63: At this point, I think that anyone who agrees with Crackergate should be burning a Koran in solidarity with the bigot pastor.
If PZ's intent was to declare all Catholics as the enemy of him and all that he stands for, you might have a point.
If that church's intent was merely to show that it is silly, even reprehensible, to get worked up over the symbolic burning of symbol held in esteem, you'd have a point.
If, on the other hand, if PZ's intent was to demonstrate his right to not hold another person's symbols in esteem while the Florida church's intent is to demonstrate that the Christian West and the Muslim hordes are irreconcilable enemies, then the two aren't really the same.
-
It is very interesting to watch people here bend over backwards to criticize the pastor while supporting PZ Myers.
I dunno if it takes too much bending backwards seeing how the two are very distinct events.
Posted by: Chiroptera | September 8, 2010 2:55 PM
The original version of this post has been held for moderation, probably because of the number of links. Hence, in this version, I link only to the source comment (by someone else). The original links are in italics, and the added dates are based on the URLs.
According to this commentator, the witch doctor is notorious scam artist:
Posted by: blf | September 8, 2010 3:01 PM
@Hank Fox #49:
I quoted from your post #38 in which you quoted Chiroptera and apparently responded to him. I apologize if I misread or misunderstood.
Posted by: bcoppola | September 8, 2010 3:07 PM
Yes, this is a conflicting question, and I hadn't even thought of the paralells to crackergate.
For me the bottom line is that this guy should have the right to do this. Is it immoral? Yeah. If people want to protest it, should we allow them? Yeah. As long as the state is in no way complicit.
The best thing the US government and military can do is to get into damage control mode. We have a propaganda machine. Let's crank it up and spread videos on youtube that show American Christians and American Muslims living together and singing kumbayah. It would ultimately hurt Americans far more than Muslims for us to crack down on this kind of behaviour, and it looks bad to be grovelling in front of this clown and begging him not to do it.
Now, on the other side, an interesting paralel to this might be found in public obscenity laws. You are not allowed to run around town naked because it might adversely impact other people. Likewise with having sex in public. You aren't hurting anyone, but you are subjecting society, and particularly children with ideas that might traumatize them and their parents. Burning a Quran in public and putting it online when you know it's going to cause backlash against our troops is similar. Technically, you aren't hurting anyone, but you are breaking taboos in a way that will adversely affect society.
Which brings us to why burning Qurans legally OK but public nudity is not. And at risk of running into a totally unrelated stream of consciousness on why we have certain taboos, I'll shut up now.
Posted by: Tamakazura | September 8, 2010 3:09 PM
Rorsach wrote:
"For one, I am.Because it is not the same thing.Are you seriously comparing throwing a cracker in the trash, that Catholics want to tell us is the transmogrified flesh of some presumed holy person, to burning some religion's holy text and declaring said religion to be of the devil, like Pastor Jones is trying to do ?"
How soon people forget. For good measure, Myers also ripped some pages from the Quran and threw them in the garbage.
I'm not sure why Myers gets to rip up a Quran and toss some pages in the garbage and that's cool, but some nutjob in Florid burning a Quran is suddenly beyond the pale.
The only reason Myers' actions didn't result in the same sort of reaction in the Muslim world is that crackergate was never reported as widely as Rev. Jones actions.
Posted by: Brian Carnell | September 8, 2010 3:12 PM
Burn a Bible on Christmas page:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=157201057625370&ref=mf
Posted by: Fifth Dentist | September 8, 2010 3:20 PM
Jones certainly has a legal right to burn any book that he is legally in possession of. That he's also being an idiot over this is also his right (one of those "unenumerated rights" reserved to the people).
The lack of a burning permit is a more interesting situation that I don't think has been addressed properly. What reason was given for denying the permit? The denial--as a government action--must be for a purely secular reason. Where I live--California--I could see reasons, like the risk of wild fire during some times of the year, why *any* burn permit would be denied, but why was this one denied?
For the really interesting issue here...given what we know about the radical Islamic reaction to even the mention of burning the Koran, does this action rise to level level of "giving aid and comfort to the enemy"? In short, *could* Jones be charged with treason? (Note that I'm not in any way saying he *should* be, just *could* he be so charged?)
--W. H. Heydt
Old Used Programmer
Posted by: W. H. Heydt | September 8, 2010 3:29 PM
It's funny, even before this post was scheduled to go up this morning I'd already begun to have second thoughts about it. I wrote a second post, which will go up tomorrow morning, addressing my own doubts before I ever looked at the comments here, and those doubts happen to coincide with many of the criticisms made above. All fair points. Anyway, look out for a whole new post on the subject tomorrow.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | September 8, 2010 3:30 PM
...as soon as violence was threatened by anybody, this became a free speech issue.
Pure fucking bullshit: first, free speech was NEVER an issue, because no one questions his right to burn books; and second, exercising voluntary restraint (a.k.a. tact, sound judgement, maturity) is not denial of free speech.
Sure, the pastor is a jackass in his original reasoning, but now I feel that he *has* to burn it.
So someone "has" to do something stupid because of the actions of others? That's not "free speech," that's compulsory speech. Or, at best, babyish, stupid and inflexible.
It's unfortunate that this may put our troops in harm's way, but that's what they signed up for, to protect the freedom of Americans and to defend the Constitution.
They signed up to be betrayed and endangered by the stupid grandstanding of their own people? That's easy to say if you're not one of them. You're starting to sound every bit as dumb and irresponsible as this pastor. Is one guy's ignorant insulting bonfire really more important to you than the safety or success of our troops abroad? And how does provoking a backlash against our own soldiers "protect the freedom of Americans and to defend the Constitution?"
PZ Myers did the exact same thing - people got all up in arms when their beloved symbols were threatened, so he desecrated them (including the Koran).
No threats of violence were involved with that incident, and no mission of the US military would have been burdened in any way by PZ's actions. Your comparison is invalid, and you're insulting PZ by comparing him to this bigoted loon.
Violence is never the appropriate response to speech, and we cannot let people try to frighten us out of our rights.
No one is "trying to frighten us out of our rights," dumbass; Petraeus is trying to tell ONE LONE FUCKING BIGOT that his particular ignorant, needlessly offensive actions may have real consequences for people under his command. Thats' a perfectly reasonable request from someone with his responsibilities, and it was made with no threat of force attached. Exercising tact is not giving up your rights -- except to people who never learned how to behave tactfully, of course.
Seriously, does anyone here really think that refraining from burning a book is a huge sacrifice of anything? Compared to what others have sacrificed for our war-efforts, this act of restraint is no sacrifice at all. Grow the fuck up, people, and stop letting the most infantile asshats dictate what's right!
Posted by: Raging Bee | September 8, 2010 3:30 PM
Brian Carnell, #71: The only reason Myers' actions didn't result in the same sort of reaction in the Muslim world is that crackergate was never reported as widely as Rev. Jones actions.
And why was that? Maybe because PZ Myers' actions can't be construed as evidence that the West sees Muslims as a unique and dire threat and therefore is itself a threat to Muslims.
The difference in report should be sign that the two incidents are different.
Posted by: Chiroptera | September 8, 2010 3:40 PM
Brian Carnell, #71: The only reason Myers' actions didn't result in the same sort of reaction in the Muslim world is that crackergate was never reported as widely as Rev. Jones actions.
And why was that? Maybe because PZ Myers' actions can't be construed as one more piece of evidence that the West sees Muslims as a unique and dire threat and therefore is itself a threat to Muslims.
The difference in reporting should be sign that the two incidents might be different in some way.
Posted by: Chiroptera | September 8, 2010 3:42 PM
As has already been pointed out, PZ and others received death threats over it. Stop lying.
Because calling people to "grow the fuck up", and WRITING IN ALL CAPS is so...grown up, isn't it? There goes another irony meter!
Posted by: Just Sayin' | September 8, 2010 3:45 PM
Really? Were the threats against PZ backed up by any action, anything comparable to what we've already seen in Afghanistan? So far, I've seen ZERO evidence that PZ is under anything remotely like the danger Gen. Petraeus is dealing with.
Posted by: Raging Bee | September 8, 2010 3:49 PM
Raging Bee,
I'm forced by my own prior comments on the Park 51 issue to disagree with you. In that case I said efforts to persuade people that they shouldn't exercise their rights were efforts to effectively deny those rights.* I know you weren't addressing me, but your comment put it into perfect perspective for me. I have to stand by my former claim, and say that efforts to persuade this pastor not to exercise his rights is an effort to effectively deny his rights.
I have little doubt you'll vigorously disagree, and that's fair. Just please don't make the error of thinking that your interpretation of the issue is so obviously correct that the alternative is "pure fucking bullshit." That's a demonization, not an argument.
_________________________________
*I refer only to public and orchestrated efforts by those whose only interest in the case is pushing a particular political line. I don't think there's anything wrong with a friend or acquaintance of the pastor saying, "Are you really sure this is the right thing to do?"
Posted by: James Hanley | September 8, 2010 3:52 PM
Or his church's insurance company.
It does seem easier in this venue to criticize the majority (xian fundies in this case) over the minority (muslims building park51) when in reality the same rules should. I find the pastor's book burning reprehensible partly because of the burning of books and in spite of my earlier rant about burning bibles in counter protest. To my mind there is nothing wrong and a lot potentially good with a community center in lower Manhattan. There is nothing good with the pastor's actions.
Posted by: MikeMa | September 8, 2010 4:06 PM
The difference in reporting should be sign that the two incidents might be different in some way.
The difference in reporting is not a "sign" that the two incidents are different; it IS the difference. The Koran-burning is dangerous only because our national media are hyping it up and pandering to the masses' taste for mindless drama (and, of course, that rising tide of real anti-Muslim bigotry). Without the national coverage, it would be nothing more than one more pointless gesture by an addled fool, the kind of thing addled fools do all the time, all over the planet. If the national corporate media had not chosen to pretend this was "news," then chances are neither Petraeus nor the Muslim world would have even heard of it.
And let's face it: there's no reason to treat this as national news in the first place. This is just one pastor of a single tiny church, nowhere near any location of any significance, with no connection to any national figure, and a bonfire on his church's grounds probably breaks no laws and has no potential effect on anyone worth mentioning even in a local paper. Our "news" media are, quite literally, creating their own story out of a nonentity's non-event.
Posted by: Raging Bee | September 8, 2010 4:07 PM
Chiroptera wrote:
"And why was that? Maybe because PZ Myers' actions can't be construed as evidence that the West sees Muslims as a unique and dire threat and therefore is itself a threat to Muslims.
The difference in report should be sign that the two incidents are different."
The other day I read about an incident in Afghanistan where as U.S. trainer had to apologize because he accidentally allowed a copy of the Koran to fall to ehg round during an inspection. The sort of hair splitting above a) wouldn't matter one iota to the fanatics in Afghanistan who would riot over these sorts of issues and b) is silly hair splitting -- essentially, the argument here seems to be it was okay for Myers to desecrate a Quran but it is wrong of Jones to desecreate/destroy a Quran because we agree with Myers and we disagree with Jones.
Personally, I'm ambivalent about both cases, but the people who would make threats, riot and kill over either action are the real problem, not Myers or Jones.
Posted by: Brian Carnell | September 8, 2010 4:15 PM
Goalpost-moving aside, the incident which prompted all this was all about threats of violence. The student who took the cracker had someone attempt to physically restrain him in church, and the only reason he gave it back was that he was afraid for his life. Now, if you don't mind... *picks up the goalposts and places them back where you'd initially put them* Goal.
Posted by: infophile | September 8, 2010 4:24 PM
Hanley: your comparison to park 51 is invalid, because the two situations are totally different: asking a group of people not to use land they've already paid good money for is asking for an actual painful sacrifice; asking one guy not to have a bonfire on a particular date is no sacrifice at all. Furthermore, Gen. Petraeus is making no actual attempts to interfere with the pastor's physical or financial ability to do what he wants within the law. That idiot can criticize Islam any other way he wants -- and would probably get a better response if he found a more mature way to do it.
Besides, is anyone really expecting this guy to give up any rights? Of course not. Petraeus is only trying to tell this moron that his actions will have consequences. Why is that wrong? Since when did "freedom of speech" mean "never having to give a shit about the consequences of what you say?"
This pastor deserves to be criticized, shamed and humiliated for his stupid, pointless, uncaring actions. And the media deserve to be attacked for their complicity in manufacturing this controversy around someone who simply is not newsworthy. Holding people accountable for their actions is not a violation of their rights.
Posted by: Raging Bee | September 8, 2010 4:25 PM
James Hanley, how do you feel about the people who counter protest the Phelps clan? Do you think all counter protests are effectively attempting to deny the protestors’ rights? If not, can you explain the distinction?
Posted by: Abby Normal | September 8, 2010 4:39 PM
infophile: the comparison to PZ's defilement-of-the-cracker is invalid for another reason: PZ's actions endangered only PZ (if anyone), while the (media hype of the) Florida Koran-roast endangers people who had no part in it, and also endangers real US interests elsewhere in the world.* This is why we have good reason to condone one insulting gesture while condemning the other. They're really not the same thing.
______________________
* Yes, those interests are real and legitimate whether or not we agree with the original invasions. And of course, none of this would be a rpoblem if we hadn't invaded either country in the first place.
Posted by: Raging bee | September 8, 2010 4:39 PM
If any book should be burnt it should be the bible since it is universally known and recorded in the footnotes of study bibles and in the annals of history that the "EUROPEAN CHRISTIANS" used genesis chapter9 verse #25(Noah's curse on Canaan)as an excuse to "enslave" the "African people" which brought about the African holocaust and before that the "Amerindian Holocaust".UNESCO'S HISTORY SERIES "GENERAL HISTORY OF AFRICA" VOLUME #3 PAGES 721-722 HARD COVER,speaks to the issue of genesis chapter 9 verse #25 and shows that two Islamic scholars refuted this passage, one Islamic scholar did so by quoting a verse from the same Quran which Terry Jones wants to burn this Quran text is supported by the whole of Ezekeil chapter 18 and shows that it came from the Jews.This information should have been brought out at the talks on slavery which isreal and america walked out of in september 2001,these talks ended september 8th/2001.
My interest in this is that true history shows that the "European Christians lost the crucades in the east and Colombus was working for them in the west.AMERINDIAN HOLOCAUST.
Posted by: AMERINDIAN MESSIAH | September 8, 2010 4:45 PM
So, Raging Bee, an action that members of a religion will see as desecration against their faith are to be condoned if the action receives little attention or receives attention that doesn't result in threats of violence, and condemned if the action gets a lot of media attention that leads to threats of violence?
Under this test, Draw Muhammad Day should have been condemned.
Moreover, if Catholics had threatened to riot and kill over wafer-gate, then you would have condemned Myers?
Giving violent fanatics a veto over otherwise legal acts doesn't make much sense. What's next -- will we condemn abortion doctors for *inciting* abortion doctor killers?
Posted by: Brian Carnell | September 8, 2010 4:51 PM
Here's another question for the people who want to blame the Muslims for responding to this latest provocation: Do you really think that burning a Koran is the only thing we're doing that might provoke Muslims to violence? Do you really think our military invasion of two Muslim countries isn't contributing to anyone's anger?
Posted by: Raging Bee | September 8, 2010 4:56 PM
Brian Carnell, #83: ...is silly hair splitting -- essentially, the argument here seems to be it was okay for Myers to desecrate a Quran but it is wrong of Jones to desecreate/destroy a Quran because we agree with Myers and we disagree with Jones.
You see it as hair splitting, I see it as the essential point. Now if you feel that Myers was in the wrong but this particular pastor is correct in his opinions, then you are free to criticize the way Myers expressed his wrong opinion while supporting the church's method of expressing theirs.
Posted by: Chiroptera | September 8, 2010 4:58 PM
Wow, Brian, I must have hit a nerve there. I've rarely seen so many lame analogies in one comment.
Posted by: Raging Bee | September 8, 2010 4:58 PM
Raging Bee #85:
That's a good point. But even if you can't construe this as active denial of the right of free speech, making the statement "If you do this, American soldiers will die" (by a government official, it should be noted) does put it in the same emotional league for the targeted person.
FSM knows we've been whipsawed with Support the Troops rhetoric so much in the past 10 years that taking any action which can be said to harm the troops will be seen, by some people, as the equivalent of treason.
That's not an overt government threat to free speech, but it's not nothing, either.
Posted by: Hank Fox | September 8, 2010 5:10 PM
By the way, Raging Bee, you're being kind of a dick.
You have some good arguments, and they can stand on their own without the personal attacks.
I think you'd be more effective if you were a bit cooler in your approach to your fellow commenters.
Posted by: Hank Fox | September 8, 2010 5:15 PM
Hank Fox, #94: By the way, Raging Bee, you're being kind of a dick.
Some would construe this as an attempt to suppress Bee's free speech rights.
Just sayin'.
Posted by: Chiroptera | September 8, 2010 5:21 PM
Hank: you still haven't explained why it's wrong for a responsible official to try to inform a clearly ignorant person about the potential consequences of his intended actions. Petraeus knows what he's talking about, he's the one who has to deal with the aftermath of all this, and he clearly already has evidence on his side. It is, in fact, part of his job to educate the public about the situation our soldiers are in.
If he needed civilians to, say, contribute food and medicine to save the lives of locals on occupied turf, we'd expect him to say so. So now he says he needs civilians to show a little restraint on our end, so he won't have quite as much violence on his end. What's wrong with that?
Besides, he's not asking for ALL criticism of Islam to stop. He's only asking us not to engage in one particular form of provocation. Is this really such an outrageous request?
Posted by: Raging bee | September 8, 2010 5:35 PM
The pastor is an idiot, and I've never been in favor of burning any books, even that dreadful Twilight schlock. *shudder* However, as others have pointed out, extremists don't need a reason or a particular anti-Islamic event to rally people to their cause: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-august-25-2010/tennessee-no-evil.
And, I think particularly considering that many of us will be participating in Blasphemy Day in a couple of weeks, I think it's kind of silly to cast the pastor as being the cause of terrorist violence.
I think James Hanley @80 is right on the money-- Nat Hentoff, I think, argued effectively the same thing in Free Speech for Me-- But Not for Thee: trying to bully people into being "sensitive" is effectively just another attempt, no matter how well-intentioned, to silence a minority and deprive them of their speech rights. I'm pretty sure that's NOT what Ed had in mind here-- I think he's pointing out where this guy is likely, according to his own conservative, religious rhetoric, hurting his own cause. Pointing out the cognitive dissonance is our inalienable right, and some might say our duty. But it is worth stating that an overreaction to an statement is not actually the first speaker's fault, even if his statement is itself an overreaction.
Posted by: Heather | September 8, 2010 5:39 PM
Hank: you've already admitted my points are good and can stand on their own. How much more effective can I be on this thread?
Posted by: Raging Bee | September 8, 2010 5:43 PM
Wel brunin da holy qur'aan,iz nt da bst solution 2 solve yo shit n pastor i bet u r very angry dat islam iz spreadin so fast,accept da fact,n 1 day u gna pay
Posted by: Amira | September 8, 2010 6:13 PM
Amira, #99:
This comment would have been more effective if the name was linked to the website of a California dentist.
Posted by: Chiroptera | September 8, 2010 6:17 PM
Chiroptera #95: "Some would construe this as an attempt to suppress Bee's free speech rights."
Heh. Well, but I wasn't threatening to push his/her head in the toilet.
Posted by: Hank Fox | September 8, 2010 6:26 PM
Living not too awful far from the location it has been in the news, a lot.
My thoughts are that as long as the Korans are legally his he can do as he likes with them. Property rights and all that. If they were stolen it would be different.
The state and locality can specify how he might burn them. If the area had an extended dry spell all outside burning might be prohibited. It has been raining quite a bit so no burning ban. They can specify he burn them in a barrel and a set distance away from fuel sources. This is far safer fire-wise than setting alight a pile in a grassy field.
There may be air pollution concerns. But if others may burn things he should be able to burn what he wants within reason. If someone could show how ash or smoke from burning Korans was more hazardous than other materials allowed to be burned you might have grounds to stop them.
Seeing as that the guy is doing this as a Christian protesting Islam the Muslims are free to burn Bibles in retaliation.
Yes, this is going to piss off some Muslims. Some of them may use this as an excuse to act violently. Seems to me those prone to such acts will always be able to find some provocation to justify their acts. Lacking any real provocation they will make stuff up. It works for Limbaugh and Beck. How can we expect more from Muslim society than we do for our own.
For me, this shakes out pretty much how the whole flag burning issue does. Which brings up the question of how is one supposed to dispose of a Koran what is worn or stained beyond further use? Based on previous protests, I take it flushing it page-by-page down a toilet isn't the preferred method. Maybe some knowledgeable Muslim will chime in and enlighten us.
Posted by: Art | September 8, 2010 6:45 PM
Here's a hilarious "ad" promoting this event: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdtFk_V6A4M&feature=player_embedded
H/T Andrew Sullivan's blog
Posted by: Michael Heath | September 8, 2010 7:20 PM
muslims get mad and offended over every little thing. Sure, it's moronic to burn korans, but hey it's only a book. (and not a very good one). muslims keep proving that they are backwards, barbaric, and easily provoked by their ACTIONS. Yeah, I know they aren't all like that, but I never see any stamding up for free speech or denouncing their coreligionists violence.........
the genera
Might be right, but he needed to keep his mouth shut.
Posted by: Staceyjw | September 8, 2010 8:57 PM
Yo Jones, i'm really happy for you and i'mma letcha finish, but Savonarola had one of the best book burnings of all time!
Posted by: andrew | September 8, 2010 9:27 PM
Raging Bee, @85--When the owners of said property are offered an exchange for property of equal value, they are not in fact making an "actual painful sacrifice." My analogy stands.
MikeMa @81--Yes, or the insurance company!
Abby Normal @ 86--Way to hit right on the point I've been pondering since I wrote earlier today. I've been pondering where I would draw the line, and I can't give a good answer. The best I can say is that if your goal is to prevent someone from exercising their rights, it's wrong. Counter-protesting the Phelps claim is fine, if you're not trying to limit their own rights, but just exercising your own. That's just like saying this pastor is an idiot for burning Korans. But at what point does someone "just protesting" (i.e., "stating their own view") transition into "attempting to prevent another from exercising their rights"? I can't think of a general rule that would be satisfactory. I suppose I'll have to adopt Potter Stewart's approach to pornography. I can't define it, but I (think I) know it when I see it.
In part the issue is muddied for me because I honestly believe the criticism of the pastor is more just than the criticism of the Cordoba House, but I hold as a bedrock principle that where rights are, or may be, involved, you can't base your decision on whether you think someone's right or wrong on the political issue.
Posted by: James Hanley | September 8, 2010 9:32 PM
As someone who lives less than 45 minutes from this church I find it hard to believe that such ignorant people can exist in such an educated place. I propose that these people are no better than the cells of terrorists that inflitrated our country and commit/committed crimes against America. They are no better than the people they claim to hate. Of course this is typical behavior that is seen throughout the country - extreme religious fanatics who hide behind a religious book to justify their ignorance and prejudices. It is obvious that these people have the right to do as they want under the first amendment, however at this point it seems that it could also be equated to screaming FIRE in a croweded building. Their complete disregard for the soldiers who could lose their lives, people in their own community and the general stirring of violence is deplorable. It's really too bad that ignorance isn't painful.
Posted by: Jeanette M | September 8, 2010 9:34 PM
Boy, talk about being of two minds on an issue...
1. I agree with Raging Bee (a major shock in and of itself) who said "Since when did "freedom of speech" mean "never having to give a shit about the consequences of what you say?""
Indeed, anyone who says that freedom of speech is absolute is just a fucking liar. Try distributing kiddie porn under the "protection" of the First Amendment and see how far it will get you. Answer: Only as far as the nearest maximum security prison for sex offenders for the next 20 years or so. Even if you had nothing to do with the original "acts".
2. I also agree that the pastor has a complete right to be a dick. And that the parallels being drawn between this "action" and PZ's Crackergate are unmistakable.
I've defended PZ in the past, and continue to do so, because the principle was clear. Symbols are not people. If you demand complete respect for everyone's symbols, you're left in a world where the right to express yourself doesn't exist. Indeed, you're left in a world where you can't even decide which parts of a bacon cheeseburger are edible or not (Jews: no bacon, no cheese; Muslims: no bacon; Hindi: neither beef nor bacon; most Christians: eat the whole thing.)
But there also is the issue of not being able to yell "fire" in a crowded theater. Crackergate exposed no immediate risk to anyone. This action -- admittedly mostly due to the over-the-top reporting of it -- now seems almost guaranteed to incite violence (however wrong and regrettable) in a way that neither Crackergate nor Draw Mohammed Day did.
Do you censor yourself because of that? I guess this goes back to my "just because you can, doesn't mean you should" position regarding Park51. And I think the issue at stake here is not the same; the pastor is deliberately equating the Koran and Muslims with evil. PZ was equating all religious symbols with meaninglessness - as was Draw Mohammed Day. So, different (at least to my mind while admitting I'm still trying to figure out how the ethical atheist should respond to such a thing).
I'm still working through this. But I guess it's still "just because you can, doesn't mean you should."
The only thing I can say for sure about this kerfuffle is that anyone who claims moral absolutism is a complete and total "moran".
Posted by: Kevin | September 8, 2010 10:09 PM
James Hanley
Nonsense. The key word is "persuade." If the pastor were persuaded to not go through with the book-burning, that would ultimately be his own choice. Denying his right to do so would have the same result, but there the pastor would have had no choice in the matter. There's no violation of freedom of expression in trying to convince someone that what they're planning on doing or saying is a bad idea, just as there's no contradiction in championing this nutjob's right to burn a Qur'an while trying to convince him that he shouldn't.
By the way, I was solidly behind Draw Mohammad Day.
As Ed and Michael Heath have suggested, this is a story that lends itself to second thoughts. My own reaction to this situation has shifted a bit already, largely do to Raging Bee's posting on this thread.
Posted by: Michael Hoaglin | September 8, 2010 10:22 PM
When the owners of said property are offered an exchange for property of equal value, they are not in fact making an "actual painful sacrifice." My analogy stands.
Bullshit: the owners have to sell the property, buy new property, go through all the trouble and expense of moving, start the whole getting-permission-to-build thing all the fuck over again (thus giving the bigots another opportunity to harass and obstruct), etc. ad exhaustiam. So yes, it's still an actual painful sacrifice, and your analogy still fails.
Posted by: Raging Bee | September 8, 2010 10:43 PM
I've had a very busy day dealing with trolls at my place, attempting to move a dryer from the cellar to the first floor up a too steep & narrow flight of stairs (bad idea all the way around) trying to catch up with the dozens of photo requests from the last month--so I don't got time to read the nonsense that has undoubtedly been amped up considrably since the few that I did read earlier.
I will say this: I hope that it's a windy, rainy day and the goodly rev has a hard time getting the fire lit and so he douses the pile of Qurans with charcoal starter and inadvertently immolates himself along with the books. It would be sweet, sweet justice. I listened to that asshole for all of three seconds of his rant on NPR before I decided that however he dies it's a plus for humanity.
Posted by: democommie | September 8, 2010 11:18 PM
James Hanley:
I think filing dishonest lawsuits, as I judge was done to the Park51 project, is deserving of some small punishment. Tying up government resources to promote one's personal agenda through deception is not acceptable. The problem is proving dishonest intent.
Otherwise I've got no problems with legally protecting all of the protests and counter-protests mentioned in this thread. I protect them specifically so I can point out, in whatever terms I want, what incredibly thick-skulled, short-sighted, narrow-minded, wrong-headed, and counter-productive, most of their actions are. I get to say what they're doing makes the world a less enjoyable place to live and we're all a little worse off thanks to them. Way to go you global scale douchebags.
James Hanley, let me ask you this. Let’s say you are Supreme Grand Pu-bah of the Entire World, whose whim and word is law, would you shut down the Cordoba House protests? The Qur'an burning? People yelling "Death to America," or burning the flag? Having the power, how would you justify using it?
Posted by: Abby Normal | September 8, 2010 11:38 PM
Ah, reality. Unfortunately the muslims don't just have a great party and burn the christian versions of the bible. What was the point of burning the korans?
Posted by: MadScientist | September 9, 2010 1:57 AM
Michael Hoaglin @109,--"Persuade" was a poorly chosen word on my part. I should have used "pressure" or even "intimidate," which are much closer to what I really meant to imply.
Raging Bee--The analogy doesn't totally fail at all. There's a cost, sure, but it's not necessarily a tremendously painful cost.
1. You're simply wrong about them having to sell their current property and buy new property, as what was offered was a land swap, which would mean they wouldn't have to look for a buyer or go search out new property. (I agree with their refusal to accept the deal, so don't infer that I think they should have--I'm only responding to your inaccurate assertion.)
2. They'll have to move temporarily while they tear this building down and erect a new one, anyway. So your argument that they'd have to move, while technically true, is substantively meaningless.
3. As to going through the permit process again, I think the level of difficulty would be less than normal, particularly so if it was the City itself that arranged the swap. At this point the permitting boards would have a very hard time denying them permits. The normal legal grounds by which they could deny a permit would come under intensely close scrutiny, both legally and politically. The members of that board likely to not want that close public scrutiny of their actions, nor do they want to put up a big banner saying, "Please sue us!" I think it is certain that it would not be a normal permitting process. That, unlike the other points, is an unprovable claim, of course. But then, so is the counter-argument.
When your argument rests on one unprovable claim, one demonstrably false claim, and one true but substantively meaningless claim, it's a bit over the top to be calling someone else's argument "bullshit." (Lately we've managed to have at least a modicum of civility between us. Can we please keep it that way?)
Abby Normal--I agree with your point about filing frivolous lawsuits. There is the sometimes difficult technical matter of determining whether a lawsuit is truly frivolous, but assuming we can satisfactorily resolve that problem, I'd be all for punishing those who do.
As to being given that absolute power, I feel rather like Gandalf when Frodo offered him the ring. Don't tempt me! But I would not block any of the things you've mentioned.
As some have pointed out on this blog, nobody is truly a free speech absolutist, unless they would allow kiddie porn and eliminate all libel and slander laws. I wouldn't do either of those things, and I think certain--minimal--time/place/manner restrictions are legitimate (no sound trucks blasting your ideology at 2 a.m. in my neighborhood please; and no drawn and quartered fetuses at my daughter's elementary school). But other than that, I'm about as close to a free speech absolutist as you can find. So I really have no qualms in saying I would allow all your examples.
What I would be tempted to do, probably unwisely, is go out to those protests and try to get the fools to listen to me as I try to persuade (not pressure or intimidate!) them to be less intolerant.
On the other hand, if you actually could give me that ring of power, Mr. Frodo, I'd probably be absolutely corrupted and would shut down all dissent. It's not what I'd intend to do, of course. I'd intend, and promise, to use absolute power only for good. But only a fool trust me.
Posted by: James Hanley | September 9, 2010 2:15 AM
As I have said many times go to this church and give them arabic bibles they will see the squigley writing and assume its a quran . It will be great to see them explain why they burned the bible.
Posted by: mr. bill | September 9, 2010 2:27 AM
Abby Normal, I'd like to follow up on your post. You asked, "Having the power, how would you justify using it?" There's an interesting coincidence, as just this morning I was working on a chapter for an American Gov't book, where I was struggling with that question of how to justify power.
Max Weber defined government as having "successfully claimed a monopoly on the legitimate use of force." But what makes government's use of force legitimate? Their mere claim can't do it. There must be a key in the phrase "successfully claimed," but what makes a claim to the legitimate use of force successful? If submission to that force is all it takes, then slave owners' use of force over slaves must be considered legitimate. I'm not willing to accept that outcome.
Generally, we seek government to protect us from the force of others, so that would, I think, be the key factor. But that really only works if the total force employed unjustly in a society is less with government than without it. But just because a government can legitimately use force doesn't mean that all of its uses of force are legitimate or just--obviously government can use force unjustly, as we regularly see on this blog.
Given government's propensity to use force unjustly, and especially given the horrifyingly bloody track record of government (over 250 million people killed by the governments that controlled the territory they lived in, exclusive of battle deaths, including collateral fatalities, just in the 20th century (a href="http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM">See here), I have a hard time saying with any certainty that government power can be justified.
We tend to believe the toll would be worse without government, but we don't really have solid evidence of that. Many of the examples people use come from civil war zones, where instead of a simple lack of government we actually have multiple competitors for the claim of government battling each other and killing citizens. This was the case for Thomas Hobbes, for example, who wrote the classic justification of government as a response to violent anarchy. But it wasn't in fact all citizens against all citizens, but organized faction against organized faction, that did most of the killing. Without solid empirical evidence, I think our belief that government is legitimate--that it actually reduces the toll of violence--is largely a matter of faith. It may be true, but we can't really prove it.
Which doesn't mean I think we could manage to eliminate government, even if we wanted to. The power vacuum would just lure more organized factions fighting to fill it. So the best we can manage is limited--non-absolute--government. But even that doesn't provide a logic of actual justification of force.
Sorry to go on at length, but having spent hours today grappling with how to write about that very issue, it was rather striking to be asked about it. In direct answer to your question, I don't know if I could justify using such power.
Posted by: James Hanley | September 9, 2010 2:35 AM
Mr. Fish has already said everything that needs to be said about this.
Troops are being killed in Afghanistan not because some idiots are burning books but because some idiots are refusing to withdraw them from the country.
@James Hanley:
"Which doesn't mean I think we could manage to eliminate government, even if we wanted to."
Over the last year or so, I've come to the conclusion that eliminating the government won't be necessary. With spiraling debt and a systemic crisis of state capitalism, the government and the capitalists are going to eliminate themselves. My one hope is that they'll at least have the foresight to realize that the end is coming and the sense to destroy the nukes before it does.
"The power vacuum would just lure more organized factions fighting to fill it."
I tend to doubt this. People certainly do this in the context of the state, because the state subsidizes the costs of doing so. Without a functional state apparatus (corporate partners to collect tax via withholdings, prisons to lock up dissidents, etc.), trying to seize power would be unacceptably costly. Which is why anarchism is important even if the state is going to implode: when it does, it'll be up to us to destroy the infrastructure of coercion as quickly as possible before someone tries to co-opt it.
If you look at the U.S.'s failed attempt to take control of Iraq, it becomes clear that 1) imposing coercion in a power vacuum is so horrendously expensive that it can only be attempted by an established state actor and that it'll destroy anyone who tries it and 2) such attempts will (while unfortunately hurting the populace in the meantime) be eventually unsuccessful since current technology allows countermeasures available to resisters (like IEDs) to be constructed at a much cheaper cost than the equipment and trained personnel that they're used against.
Posted by: Miko | September 9, 2010 5:16 AM
I'm no fan of book burning, but I'm 100% against letting fear of violence dictate how we express ourselves. This is my biggest splitting point with a lot of modern leftists, who want us to quietly walk on eggshells around Islamic sensibilities. Do you guys really think that people shooting at US troops are going to stop if people aren't burning Qu'rans?
Posted by: DA | September 9, 2010 5:52 AM
DA @ 118:
I've heard no one make this claim. Instead I have heard Generals Petraeus and Odeneiro along with SECDEF Gates make the point that this book-burning will serve as a useful recruitment tool for groups like al Qaeda similar to how the pictures of prisoner treatment out of abu Ghraib sent young Arab Muslims flocking to al Qaeda to fight us in Iraq.
The other argument these gentlemen and other experts made is that video of this event will negatively impact how non-radical Muslims perceive the U.S.
Please note my points above in no way argue or even hint at a policy prescription; I only note them to reveal the real issues rather than your strawman of them.
Posted by: Michael Heath | September 9, 2010 6:46 AM
DA, #118: I'm no fan of book burning, but I'm 100% against letting fear of violence dictate how we express ourselves.
Me, I'm a big fan of book burning. I see it as a pretty good way of expressing yourself. But if what you are expressing is, "Hey, look at me, I'm an ignorant bigot!" then I don't think you can complain too loudly what other people say about you.
Posted by: Chiroptera | September 9, 2010 6:59 AM
I wonder if there could be an "ecumenical" book burning where all of the major religious fantasies' texts could be burned simultaneously while having a bar-b-q of lamb, goat, beef, pork, chicken and the like. Win-Win!!
Well, sure, the Very Reverend Fuckhead Frothing Fundie has the RIGHT to burn other people's holy books, but it's VERY insensitive of him to do so. Who the fuck is he kidding? This is nothing but a grandstand play for him and his sack of shit followers.
Posted by: democommie | September 9, 2010 7:24 AM
DA, #118:
One other thing:
This is my biggest splitting point with a lot of modern leftists, who want us to quietly walk on eggshells around Islamic sensibilities.
I'm not sure who these leftists are that you are talking about, but I'm now seeing a lot of people saying we should quietly walk in eggshells around religious sensibilities.
Last night, as I was logging off of my Yahoo account, I read an article that could be potentially disturbing, at least to me.
Enough big "establishment" names are calling for this church to desist from its "protest" that the analogy to Park51 is, in my opinion, a bit closer. Also, it's the reasons that people are giving why the church should not go through with its Quran burning stunt. No one is saying, "because it makes you look like the ignorant bigots that you are." Instead, one common reason is that religious beliefs are automatically deserving some kind of deference.
I dunno, that's a bit disturbing to me. Suddenly I'm not as anti-Quran burning as I was.
Posted by: Chiroptera | September 9, 2010 7:26 AM
119: Muslims who were already not "extremists" won't turn into such because one yahoo burns a few Qu'rans. The extremists will need little encouragement.
120: That has zero to do with me. People can call these guys crazy bigots; perhaps they are. I'm against telling them they shouldn't do it because we don't won't to piss off the Muslims. It's part of a wide and disturbing pattern of intellectual cowardice that demands that we bow to the sensibilities of barbarians still living in 7th century Arabia.
122: Yes, it's part of a larger pattern of allowing ALL religions to evade accountability; however, the left in America and in Europe often makes it sound like any criticism of Islam is tanatmount to racism and imperialism, which is nonsense, and dangerous to boot. People who are rightly against letting Christians bully and dictate to us suddenly lose a lot of spine when Muslims do the same.
As to all references to bigotry; again, maybe, but honestly, how many Muslim countries ban the bible outright? How many actually mandate the death penalty for apostasy?Religious bigotry is a hallmark of Islam in a way that no other religion even comes close to matching.
Posted by: DA | September 9, 2010 7:56 AM
DA, #123: That has zero to do with me.
You made a very general statement without much nuance that explains how you would treat different cases differently. Since your general statement would seem to apply to this particular case (and you commented on a thread devoted to this particular case), then, yes, it does have more than zero to do with you.
-
I'm against telling them they shouldn't do it because we don't won't to piss off the Muslims.
Did you read the original post? That leftist Petraeus is saying that they shouldn't do it because it's increasing the danger US troops are facing. That may be incorrect, it may not be relevant to what that church should or should not do, but your framing it as "not wanting to piss off Muslims" is disingenuous.
Meanwhile, I am saying they shouldn't do it because they are only acting like bigots. You may disagree that they are bigots, you may disagree that bigots shouldn't be called out for what they are, but, again, you should address the points actually being made, not some made up "patterns" that the right wing echo chamber keeps blabbering about.
-
...the left in America and in Europe often makes it sound like any criticism of Islam is tanatmount to racism and imperialism....
You should actually read what real leftists are saying instead of just accepting what the right wing echo chamber is repeating. What "leftists" are saying is that among most right wing evangelical circles, criticism of Islam is just sectarian chauvinism, and among other extremist circles criticism of Islam is a cover for racism against certain ethnic groups and/or a cover of the uglier form of nationalism
Seeing how most on the left routinely criticize Islam, this characterization of "the left" is another example of your disingenuousness.
Posted by: Chiroptera | September 9, 2010 8:18 AM
This is irrelevant, unless you think that women who do go out of their way to deliberately provoke their husbands deserve to be beaten.
Posted by: MartinM | September 9, 2010 8:19 AM
I listened to the Imam last night and read the Pastor's words. Remarkable how different they sound. One reasonable, accommodating, serious and one a raving islamophobic lunatic. Both are covered by the first amendment but couldn't sound more different.
Palin was commenting too. Her opinion is that the burning is anti-American. Exactly opposite as usual. Signe Wilkerson had a perfect editorial cartoon up on the subject. I will print it and post at the office later to see how long it stays up.
I may repost this on Ed's new blog entry for Thursday if appropriate.
Posted by: MikeMa | September 9, 2010 8:22 AM
MartinM, #125: This is irrelevant, unless you think that women who do go out of their way to deliberately provoke their husbands deserve to be beaten.
No, it effectively showed the flaw in his analogy even though I don't believe that at all. On the other hand, your discussion about a side remark about a flawed analogy is irrelevant.
But by all means, if you really think that we should derail the thread on an irrelevant discussion of an idiotic analogy, continue to argue the point.
Posted by: Chiroptera | September 9, 2010 8:25 AM
RE: 'Tragical'*
Midsummer's Night Dream: Act V scene I
THESEUS:"...Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.
‘A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus
And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth.’
Merry and tragical! tedious and brief!
That is hot ice and wondrous strange snow.
How shall we find the concord of this discord?"
not to mention:
"The Tragical History of Dr Faustus" - C Marlowe &
"The Tragical History of King Richard III" - W Shakespeare.
Dingo
----
* Having the form or qualities of a dramatic form 'tragedy', tragic
Posted by: DingoJack | September 9, 2010 8:34 AM
DJ, Tragical, well done!
Posted by: MikeMa | September 9, 2010 8:37 AM
Sorry mine @128 is directed to Capt. Mike waay back @42
Nuh uh. :) - Dingo
Posted by: DingoJack | September 9, 2010 8:42 AM
"You made a very general statement without much nuance that explains how you would treat different cases differently."
I said that I'd treat different cases differently? Where?
"Did you read the original post?"
The one where he makes one point, that it's a bad idea because people who already despise us might do so a little more? Yes. Yes, I did.
"but your framing it as "not wanting to piss off Muslims" is disingenuous."
I'd be hard-pressed to read it any other way.
"You may disagree that they are bigots"
I don't.
"you may disagree that bigots shouldn't be called out for what they are"
Yes, that's EXACTLY my position. I'm part of the Anti-Bigot Defmation League.[/sarcasm]
"You should actually read what real leftists are saying instead of just accepting what the right wing echo chamber is repeating."
I am a leftist. I wonder why you'd just assume I spend a bunch of time in the "right wing echo chamber". Oh, right, I disagree with you, I must be some brainwashed dittohead.
"What "leftists" are saying is that among most right wing evangelical circles, criticism of Islam is just sectarian chauvinism, and among other extremist circles criticism of Islam is a cover for racism against certain ethnic groups and/or a cover of the uglier form of nationalism"
I agree with you. On all of that.
BUT
I also think a lot of the modern left is still so wracked with the ghosts of the 19th century, especially in academia and poscolonialist circles, that it has a weird protectionist attitude towards Islam. I'm not imagning this, nor am I getting it from the "right wing echo chamber". Much of the left seems terrified of any actual critique of Islam, and many people are terrified of pissing off the Muslims, here and in Europe. I observed this back when I was a Muslim, which is one of many reasons I'm not anymore.
Posted by: DA | September 9, 2010 8:42 AM
DA @ 123 attempting to rebut my reporting the military's concern this Qu'ran burning will be a useful recruiting tool just like al Qaeda was:
Well, the empirical evidence for the argument I reported is well-established, i.e., the biggest magnet for al Qaeda to recruit new members into Iraq was the distribution of pictures at abu Ghraib. No one is arguing an equivalency relative to impact or volume, instead our functional experts are reporting this burning will create a marginally worse situation and yes, it will convince some fence-sitters or even those are aren't fence-sitters to join the side of their religion if they perceive [wrongly] that the U.S. is at war with Islam. Your point also avoids dealing with the fact it will negatively impact our reputation in a way that will cause negative results (less apt to immigrate here, we lose some soft power in diplomatic endeavors, etc.). So your rebuttal appears perfectly impotent given given both past validated experience and your relying on a false restriction of alternatives when in fact we have a continuum of expected results, by degree, if this burning happens.
Your failure here and my noting it in no way has me promoting we stop this burning, I'm merely noting how your point defectively avoids a confidently held assertion by experts based on past results.
Posted by: Michael Heath | September 9, 2010 8:55 AM
"As I've said elsewhere, Islam is either going to enter the 21st Century, or it's going to drag the rest of us back to the 7th. At some point, we're going to face one or more atomic weapons getting into their hands, and we're going to realize we should have pushed back hard on this and issues like it -- because we literally can't live with Islam as it is."
"They" have had their hands on nukes since some time in the 1990's - I forget the exact date when Pakistan detonated their first nuke.
And I don;t think you understand the meaning of "literally" since demonstrably we are living with "Islam as it is".
Posted by: Ian Gould | September 9, 2010 9:17 AM
"I can't help but compare this in my mind to the Draw Muhammed Day protest, which had a similar effect of enraging Muslims."
Really?
Can you show us some evidence of all these allegedly outraged Muslims?
Posted by: Ian Gould | September 9, 2010 9:21 AM
I was looking for the L'Osservatore Romano article about this. The Vatican sure has a crappy web page. Welcome to the 12th century crappy Vatican web page. What is it with kooks and web pages. Didn't they used to be good painters and architects and artifact forgers back in the day? I guess it's all kooks nowadays. /rant
Posted by: 386sx | September 9, 2010 9:22 AM
Is it just me, or does anyone else see a big difference between Terry Jones's planned "Burn A Koran Day" and the panic-mongering against Park51?
Here's the big difference I see:
Even if the mass media were not paying any attention at all to the anti-Park51 crowd, their activities would still be harmful. They would still be able to organize fairly large rallies, thanks to sympathetic coverage from right wing journals like Front Page magazine. They would still be pressuring the New York City government to deny Park51's permit, and might even have been more successful without so much publicity. Alas, there was a less-publicized but more-successful anti-Muslim crusade around here a few years ago, against Debbie Almontaser and the Khalil Gibran International Academy.
On the other hand, the only reason why Terry Jones's planned "Burn A Koran Day" event is a significant threat to anyone is because the mass media have been paying so much attention to it. Terry Jones's group is apparently a bunch of isolated nuts, without much if any support from a larger right wing network. (Even a militia group calling itself "Right Wing Extreme" backed out of supporting them.) And, unlike the anti-Park51 panic-mongering, the Qur'an-burning event is not an attempt to interfere directly with the rights of Muslims. It is a purely symbolic act. General Petraeus says it's a threat to U.S. troops. But it's a threat to U.S. troops only because Muslims overseas are hearing about it, via the mass media. Of course, Terry Jones is one of many Christian preachers spreading nonsense about Islam, but the only intrinsically important story here is the nonsense being spread by all too many Christian preachers, not Terry Jones's Qur'an-burning event per se.
So it angers me that the the Qur'an-burning event is getting so much mass media attention, given that the mass media are ignoring much more significant things like the growing political influence of the "New Apostolic Reformation."
Posted by: Diane Vera | September 9, 2010 9:25 AM
DA wrote:
"120: That has zero to do with me. People can call these guys crazy bigots; perhaps they are. I'm against telling them they shouldn't do it because we don't won't to piss off the Muslims. It's part of a wide and disturbing pattern of intellectual cowardice that demands that we bow to the sensibilities of barbarians still living in 7th century Arabia."
Absolutely. You know this was one of the arguments deployed against Salman Rushdie when The Satanic Verses was published -- that, yes, Rushdie had the right to write such a book, but that he shouldn't have because it was a deliberate insult to Islam that could and did lead to a number of horrific acts of violence by Muslim fanatics.
Roald Dahl called Rushdie "a dangerous opportunist." Jimmy Carter called the book "a direct insult to those millions of Muslims whose sacred beliefs have been violated."
Posted by: Brian Carnell | September 9, 2010 9:26 AM
Many of us who supported the development of 51Park into a "Muslim community center made the argument that the protection of our rights must be fought at the margins of that fight, that there's no real defense of principle being argued when its about our own rights or that of our preferred group; instead the real test is to defend the rights of those we or the majority oppose.
This is a litmus test and I believe we're failing in spite of the fact we have a perfect case study with the Cordoba Center that I think is almost perfectly analogous and instructive in this case."
Has anyone proposed banning the burning though?
Just as its perfectly consistent to support the right of muslims to build the Park 51 centre even if you think it's unwise, it's perfectly consistent to defend the Florida Church's right to be ignorant fuckwits.
Posted by: Ian Gould | September 9, 2010 9:29 AM
"The pastor is an idiot, and I've never been in favor of burning any books, even that dreadful Twilight schlock."
Actually I think an international burn Twilight day would be a near=perfect response to Burn a Koran Day.
Posted by: Ian Gould | September 9, 2010 9:38 AM
Diane Vera @ 136:
I disagree we can lay so much blame on the 'mass media'. If the Park51 issue hadn't garnered a significant majority of Americans promoting that we restrict prohibit rights to Muslims, than the book-burning story wouldn't resonate like it is and will if followed through. Instead it could have been framed as a mere handful of kooks if there was no Park51 controversy.
Now I still hope that framing this story as a few kooks doing something nutty which is not representative of American sentiments is the spin put on this, especially since I think it's mostly true, but the reality is that Muslims are conflating the two stories and I think justifiably so. The current reality is that Americans in general unfortunately hold a fierce antipathy towards Muslims as revealed by the Park51 controversy where the book burning amplifies and illuminates this antipathy. Certainly this event's resonance is defectively disproportional, but it is an arguable expression of the rage and opposition we see in the Park51 opposition.
Therefore I'd argue that as a country we deserve the blowback from this burning because we collectively as a country fail to adhere to our self-proclaimed principals as evidenced in our collective objection to the Park51 controversy. That failure in our character and abandonment of our principles is a far bigger root cause rather than the media's coverage of the Qu'ran burning, though I too object to how they're framing it by not continually noting it's a nothing church where nearly all American leaders reject their argument.
It would be interesting to get a survey broken down by demographic, especially religious denomination, to understand how much populist support there is for this church's beliefs. Not just for burning the Qu'ran which I doubt is collectively high, but also calculate the number who believe Muslims worship Satan or Islam isn't a real religion or object to the Qu'ran's promotion of violence while avoiding the same from the Bible. My guess is that grass roots apathy for Islam and vilifying them to a standard we wouldn't use for Christianity is far more prominent than it was and reveals that a post-Bush GOP run by or at least enabling Christianism will result in an increase in hatred towards Muslims - i.e., this could be a beginning of a whole new paradigm which contains far more expressions of hatred.
Posted by: Michael Heath | September 9, 2010 9:48 AM
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Posted by: Video shooter | September 9, 2010 10:31 AM
I wrote:
Ian Gould responds:
I answered that previously. First there are those hoping this church is prevented from doing so regarding local laws about fire. My argument is that we should be promoting their right to use this form of protest equal to another group's right to protest. I.e., we're hypocritical if we seek a way to prevent this burning from occurring by seeking technical prohibitions we'd object to if used to stop a protest we support.
I found those who argued the Park51 developers had a right to build but shouldn't to be disingenuously and hypocritically on the side against our principles, e.g., Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich. I'm concerned we do the same in this case. I don't want this church to go through their burning, but on the other hand I don't want myself to be a part of a movement applying pressure to prevent them for doing so. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be communicating arguments why they shouldn't, we should; but we certainly shouldn't be creating political capital that stops them on a technicality that wouldn't be applied to a politically popular movement.
I'm hoping they decide not to go through with it on their own volition. I'm hoping they don't go through with it because they are legally prevented from doing so if, and it's a big if, others would have been allowed to do so.
Posted by: Michael Heath | September 9, 2010 10:33 AM
There is a very easy way to cure the idiot. Just parachute him into the middle of Iran (preferably dressed in pigskin and holding a dead dog). He is free to burn all the Korans he wishes. I think his god will suddenly yell in his ear to "Get the hell out". It will be a miracle!
Posted by: Jerry 10003 | September 9, 2010 10:41 AM
"But the next time these idiots wrap themselves in the flag and ramp up their faux-patriotic fervor, remind them of how little they care about the lives of our troops."
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that this is the first bit of media exposure that Terry Jones and his cult followers have ever had, so I wouldn't be hand-wringing about any potential "hypocricy" from "these idiots" nobodies anytime soon.
Posted by: Josh | September 9, 2010 11:04 AM
James Hanley, will you now retract your statement that protesting Pastor Jones’ Qur’an burning event is an attempt to deny his rights?
Max Weber’s definition sucks. Government does not hold a monopoly. Individuals may legitimately, in both the ethical and legal sense, use force in a number of situations. The most obvious example is self defense. By extension, third party self defense is also acceptable, that is I am justified using violence when it is necessary to defend others. Likewise one is permitted to forcibly restrain someone who is a danger to themselves or others, or as part of a citizen’s arrest. In the US the government is an extension of the people. Its legitimate use of force is an extension of our individual right to use force.
Legitimate government derives its power not by people surrendering to it, as the slaves did to the folks with guns and whips. It derives it power from a mandate of the people. It authority is legitimate not because we accept it but because we demand it and are a part of it. We realize that individuals are often not the best judge of what is right, especially when it conflicts with their own self interest. So we create a neutral third party responsible for safeguarding all our rights and call it a government. Its legitimate use of force is a necessary in order to execute that mandated responsibility.
As you say, that doesn’t mean that all use of government force is justified. It will at times exceed its authority. But as you also point out, anarchy is unsustainable. A group will always form and seize power. Thus government in one form or another is unavoidable. A group arising out of anarchy will have whatever authority it can hold. Its existence will be tied to its ability to exert control, which invariably leads to abuse of the governed. There is invariably a division between the rulers and the governed. It answers only to itself.
Democracy is not all that different except that we are all part of the ruling group. Every time we vote we are part of the government. We erase the distinction between rulers and ruled. Democracy is anarchy where everyone is part of the biggest stick club. It power is justified only in so far as our individual power is justified.
Posted by: Abby Normal | September 9, 2010 11:06 AM
Abby,
No, I won't retract my claim. I will only qualify it to say it depends on what they are saying in their protest. If the protest is, "you're a dolt for burning books and being an intolerant bigot," it's legitimate. If the protest is, "you shouldn't exercise your right to burn books because I don't like the exercise of that right" then it's not legitimate.
As to Weber and legitimate force. Both political and legal theory treat your use of self-defense as legitimate only because your acting for the state when it has no chance to get there in time. That's why self-defense must occur precisely at the moment of threat, neither before (an effort pre-empt the threat) or after (in retaliation). In fact crimes like rape and battery are dealt with in the criminal justice system, rather than simply being left to the civil courts, because in fact they're treated as a crime against the state, not just against the individual. So, no, as a general rule, you don't have a legitimate right to use force, except when you must do the state's job for it, and then only until such time as an agent of the state appears to take over from you, and with no more force than minimally necessary.
I won't ask you to agree with or like that political and legal theory (I'm not too keen on it myself), but it is pretty standard.
As to the source of the government's force receiving the stamp of legitimacy, there is an obvious problem with the "mandate of the people," argument. We all agree that the will of the majority is in itself not sufficient evidence of the legitimacy of an action, but that's all a mandate of the people is. There's a reason Thomas Hobbes specified unanimity--a covenant of every man with every man (or to update it and avoid his obvious gender problem, every person). That, of course, is an impossible goal, but it's impossibility does not logically create legitimacy for a bare majority.
And I'm very sympathetic to your final line, but of course our own power/force is justified only in very limited extents. If you limit government's legitimate use of force to that rule, then you must abandon redistribution of wealth coerced taxes, because no individual can legitimately coerce those things. I think the logic of that argument creates a much more dramatically limited government than you probably prefer (unless your much more radically libertarian than I ever realized before!).
Note that I'm not arguing for the abolition of government. I'm not normally in the habit of advocating impossibilities. It appears we're in agreement in that government is inevitable, and that even if some of its force can be legitimated it can still use force illegitimately. All I'm saying is that I don't think any of our standard justifications for government power really stand up to a vigorous analysis. So I pose this more as a potentially irresolvable intellectual problem, and a challenge to our understanding of government.
Posted by: James Hanley | September 9, 2010 11:47 AM
DA, #131: "You made a very general statement without much nuance that explains how you would treat different cases differently."
I said that I'd treat different cases differently? Where?
You didn't say that you'd treat the cases differently. I suggested that maybe because you simply left out nuances that would indicate that different cases should be treated in a different manner. I was actually given you the benefit of the doubt that if you took more time and gave it more thought you might have had a more nuanced approach to the issue. I apologize for over estimating you.
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"but your framing it as "not wanting to piss off Muslims" is disingenuous."
I'd be hard-pressed to read it any other way.
In the previous quote, I admit my phrasing was awkward. Here, though, you demonstrate a definite reading comprehension problem.
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I am a leftist.
Right. That's why you made a categorical statement about "the left" that isn't even true about most leftists.
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I also think a lot of the modern left is still so wracked with the ghosts of the 19th century...
Oh, now it's not "the left." Now it's "a lot of the modern left." What's a lot? All of them? A vast majority? A small majority? 100? Some guy who spoke at a rally somewhere?
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...that it has a weird protectionist attitude towards Islam.
Right. Pointing out that some people oppose Islam mostly because they are bigots is a "weird protectionist attitude towards Islam." Pointing out that Muslims as a whole have a wide range of different beliefs and attitudes is a "weird protectionist attitude towards Islam." Pointing out teh obvious consequences of certain ill-considered actions and suggesting alternatives that might better facilitate desired policy goals is a "weird protectionist attitude towards Islam."
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Much of the left seems terrified of any actual critique of Islam, and many people are terrified of pissing off the Muslims, here and in Europe.
Yeah. That's enough for a "leftist" to mischaracterize some monolithic "left" despite that many, many more leftists routinely criticize the aspects of Islamic society that deserve criticism.
Posted by: Chiroptera | September 9, 2010 12:12 PM
James, I think we could have an interesting discussion on the legitimate basis and roll of government. But I'd like to hold off for the moment in order to focus on what is and is not a legitimate objection to Jones' protest. When I look at your examples I note two significant differences. The first objector, deemed acceptable, stated specifically why they didn't like his protest and did not explicitly say Jones shouldn't go through with it. The second objector offered no rationale for their objection and did say he shouldn't do it. Let me know if I missed something.
Assuming I correctly identified the salient properties, let’s mix them up to see if we can identify one or the other as the deciding factor on legitimacy.
"You shouldn't exercise your right to burn books because it marks you a dolt and an intolerant bigot."
"I don't like the exercise of that right."
Are either of these attempts to deny Jones his right to free expression?
Posted by: Abby Normal | September 9, 2010 12:52 PM
If the Park51 issue hadn't garnered a significant majority of Americans promoting that we restrict prohibit rights to Muslims, than the book-burning story wouldn't resonate like it is and will if followed through.
Non-sequitur. As Diane said, Jones is still an isolated lunatic, and there's still no reason to treat him any different from any other isolated lunatic. The Jones story resonates because the media chose to make it resonate. They could just as easily (and more justifiably) have chosen a different story to resonate. Like, oh I dunno, those floods in Pakistan and what the US is doing in response to them?
Now I still hope that framing this story as a few kooks doing something nutty which is not representative of American sentiments is the spin put on this...
The only way to frame the story that way, is by dropping and ignoring it. That's how we normally treat isolated lunatics.
...but the reality is that Muslims are conflating the two stories and I think justifiably so.
They're conflating the two stories because our national media establishment are treating them the same. If they consider Jones "representative" of anyone but himself, it's because they see our national "news" media making him so.
I don't want this church to go through their burning, but on the other hand I don't want myself to be a part of a movement applying pressure to prevent them for doing so.
How about a movement applying pressure on the media to stop covering this nonentity's non-event? That, at least, won't infringe in anyone's rights, since no one has a right not to be ignored, and the people have a right to honest coverage of relevant events.
Posted by: Raging Bee | September 9, 2010 2:06 PM
Abby,
I'm afraid I'm going to have to retreat to the "I don't know just where the line is drawn claim" for several reasons. One, I think it's perhaps an impossibly hard call to make an explicitly clear general rule that will lead to definitive distinctions in all imaginable cases. Second, I haven't thought about the issue deeply enough to have great certainty on my claims (although I am not objecting to your push to get me to think more deeply about it--I think that's how intelligent discussion should go). Third, and most problematically, I'm currently distracted with a ridiculous political battle at work that I can't avoid (which had me awake almost all night figuring out how to win without making my bosses furiously pissed at me).
If I think of something intelligent to say, while this issue rolls around in my subconscious, I'll give you a better, more reasoned response. All I can really say for now is that your mixing up of the arguments--shifting the "you shouldn't exercise your right" from the "I don't like it" to the "Because you look foolish" position--it an interesting challenge, and an excellent way to press on the seams of the principle I laid down. I like what you did--I'm just not capable of working through it at the moment. If my political battle is resolved today (as I hope), perhaps I can focus better tomorrow.
Posted by: James Hanley | September 9, 2010 2:08 PM
147: Okay, you caught me, I'm really a right wing bigoted Christian uber-zionist who hates Muslims. Everybody whose experiences and views differs from yours, and who switches from a more general statement to a more specific one to clarify something they said earlier, is basically a nazi in disguise. I thought I was a leftist but you know me better than I know myself. Happy now? BTW, my reading comprehension must have been off last night because of the translation work I was being payed to do. You should write my employer and let them know my reading skills are so bad, the proof being I understoof something in a way you didn't.
Any adults want to talk? I know most of the commetors here aren't just pedantic children.
Posted by: DA | September 9, 2010 9:19 PM
DA, #151: Everybody whose experiences and views differs from yours, and who switches from a more general statement to a more specific one to clarify something they said earlier, is basically a nazi in disguise.
I was mostly pointing out that your original "general statement" failed even as a "general statement." A general statement works as a general statement if it characterizes a group as a whole even while there may be exceptions to the rule, or if it is an important plank for the movement even if opposed by some. Your general statement was neither.
The correct response would not have been to provide a more specific statement to clarify. The correct response would have been to admit that you were in error originally, and that your general statement did not have anything to do with the movement you were criticizing, that you were actually only talking about particular individuals who just happened to be a part of the movement you were criticizing.
Even your "clarification" still implied that somehow "the left" was unique in having appeasers of Islam among its ranks, or that somehow the left somehow has a special duty to maintain some sort of ideological purity among its adherents.
If that isn't what you meant, then you could have written your passage better. Like leaving out the words "the left" or "leftist" altogether.
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I thought I was a leftist but you know me better than I know myself.
Well, I know that you seem to have some point you want to make about leftists. I'm not sure at the moment whether it's not true or whether you are just not able to express it clearly.
Posted by: Chiroptera | September 10, 2010 8:23 AM
Abby Normal asked me:
"I don't like the exercise of that right."
Are either of these attempts to deny Jones his right to free expression?
I think probably neither of these is (necessarily) an attempt to deny Jones his rights. The first statement is more of a personal recommendation. The essential meaning of it is "you shouldn't mark yourself as a dolt and bigot," which in general is good advice.
The second statement is a statement of fact, a reference to one's own inner feelings, and--standing alone--makes no reference to what the other person ought or ought not do. I think anyone who tried to claim they've never felt this way would be lying. Who can honestly say they like all exercises of rights? I frequently see billboards for strip clubs when I'm driving, and as the father of three daughters, that bugs me a lot. I don't like those businesses exercising their right to advertise. But saying that doesn't mean I would advocate that they not exercise their rights, much less that I would advocate legal restrictions on that right. I know people who despise guns, but support 2nd Amdt. rights. And how many of us have listened to some moron talk about politics and think to ourselves, "Gee, I wish that person wouldn't exercise their right to vote (or even speak)," without seriously meaning that they should in fact voluntarily give up the exercise of that right.
I think, like so many things, it comes down to intent, and intent is often internal and not explicitly expressed. So we end up trying to infer it, and of course that means we won't always be right.
Posted by: James Hanley | September 10, 2010 10:30 AM