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"Where Books Are Burned, In The End People Will Burn." - Heinrich Heine
It seems the circus, led by the hateful loonies of Dove Outreach, will proceed apace. Dr. Muqtedar Khan counsels his fellow-Muslims, when they see images of the Quran burning, to "recognize this provocation for what it is," to "let Terry Jones enjoy the monopoly on barbarity," to remember the teachings of the Quran: "Forgive them and overlook their misdeeds, for Allah loves those who are kind." In another era, he suggests, Nazi book-burning taught us all we need to know.
"The connection is not too difficult to discern. Books are repositories of histories, of identities, of values. They are the soul of civilization. A society must abandon basic decencies in order to muster the immoral courage to burn books as a celebratory act. Once it starts burning the souls of civilization, human souls will not be left behind."
132 Comments so far
Show Allhttp://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,716409,00.html
SJRyan,
Well, isn't that interesting. He got booted out of Germany.
"The pastor and his wife apparently regarded themselves as having been appointed by God, meaning opposition was a crime against the Lord."
"Former members have spoken of his hate-filled sermons and insistence on "blind obedience."
Sounds remarkably like another Fuehrer from 65 years ago and a lite version we have in Canada.
Like Der Fuehrer I'd have to say his days are numbered. Let's hope the damage he causes in the meantime is minimal.
We have to support the good preachers efforts, they're part of the Bill of Rights. I support building a mosque near Ground Zero, and I support this kooks right to burn whatever he feels a need to, in order to make his statement. It is our right to ignore him, which we should be doing more of.
Its symptomatic, if you ask me, of this guys illness, that he would find the pages of a book to have more meaning than the words. Of course, you can't burn words. Ideas are made of sturdy stuff.
I don't agree. Other countries have laws against hate crimes - crimes against the public good. Burning the Qur’an is a hate crime. Respecting minority rights is American. Respecting "super" minority rights, the free speech rights of one hate filled extremist, is for US to decide. "We" decide what type of country "We" want to live in. "We" need hate crimes legislation in this country to protect minorities as well as to protect US from minorities. Jones is a wannabe somebody who is inciting violence. Jones should be prosecuted. Let him burn his books then send him to Guantánamo to preach his gospel there.
maybe he needs to be kicked in the ass a few times. send him and his right wing aholes a message. This asshole was also protesting against the mayor of the gainesville who is gay. he is a nasty clown to say the least.
matt
Well, its an interesting topic for discussion, which I'm going to have to leave cuz of work: what are the limits to free expression? If you can't burn a Koran, can you burn a flag? We support flag burning because we know the ideals behind the flag aren't in any actual danger. The words of the Koran have 1.6 billion folks who hold them precious. Hence, burn away, the Koran is not going anywhere.
I think Heine's words are about wisdom, not legislation. Free speech may allow such actions, but when books are burned, it's more than paper that is inflamed.
The answer to each of the above questions is "No, of course not." Criminal law (prosecuting people) for their symbolic acts (such as burning flags, or books, or cartoons) is barred by the freedom of speech protection of the First Amendment. The federal courts have already decided these issues, on closely analogous facts, several times.
This pious charlatan in Florida has the same right to burn Korans at a rally that the Klan has to burn a cross at a rally. No brainer.
Bill from Saginaw
Pretty much every country in the world, including America will prosecute someone for words.
If you publish child porn, say in comics form, you can be freaking sure you will be prosecuted for you words. If you advocate that someone be killed, or if you shout fire in a crowded place, you will be prosecuted.
So, the issue of prosecution for words isn't the issue.
The issue is how free you want to allow speech to be, what types of words you want to consider unacceptable. Now, I tend to lean towards as much freedom as possible.
No. Not a very big difference, considering you are deliberately twisting what I said.
THIS is what I said:
"If you publish child porn, say in comics form, you can be freaking sure you will be prosecuted for you words."
Since you appear to have a problem with reading comprehension, I repeat COMICS FORM. No REAL children involved.
rfloh -
Right. It's not about prosecuting people for words. It's the context in which the words are uttered. The guy with his finger, a bannana, or a Baretta in his pocket who tells the bank teller "Your money or your life" is not engaged in a protected exercise of First Amendment free speech. His speech is merely helping facilitate the commission of an attempted armed robbery. The words are evidence of a crime in progress.
If there really is a smell of smoke and a glimmer of fire in a crowded theatre, the person who shouts out the alarm will win a gold medal for good citizenship, not a criminal citation. By the same token, the jerk who falsely shouts "Fire!" in a crowded theatre as some sort of sick prank, causing a dangerous stampede of patrons towards the exits, will quickly find that the First Amendment is no defense for such reckless speech/behavior which immediately endangers others.
As September 11th approaches in the current atmosphere of anti-Muslim, anti-foreigner bigotry, it would be well to remember the ruling of the US Supreme Court over sixty years ago in the case of Terminiello v City of Chicago. We do not have to reinvent the wheel here.
Terminiello was a firey, provocative public speaker - the Glen Beck of another era, with other boogeymen to villify. He was firing up his audience of supporters inside an auditorium while an angry crowd of counter protestors assembled outside, with the cops sandwiched in the middle trying to keep some semblance of order. The more Terminiello ranted from the podium, the more boisterous and angry the crowds became.
Solution? The Chicago police chose to arrest Terminiello and shut off the microphone. Wrong choice, the United States Supreme Court later ultimately ruled.
The proper role of the forces for law and order was to control the crowd behavior, not silence the speaker of mere words, no matter how offensive those words might be to some, or even to most, of the people within earshot. Criminally prosecuting the rabble rouser would legitimize a "heckler's veto" over freedom of expression. That is not how the values of the First Amendment balance out, even on a real tough set of facts.
Folks can burn books in Florida and crowds can chant and foam at the mouth in the streets of News York this weekend all they want to, for all the same reasons that the Nazis with swastikas were able to march through the streets of a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in Skokie, Illinois. This nation and its Bill of Rights have been there and done that before.
About all that really changes is the political slant of those whipping up the hatred, and the identity of the group or groups that's the target of the hate.
Bill from Saginaw
I totally see it the same way, SJRyan. It is a hate crime.
One thing about people like Jones. Their hate makes them physically ugly. Just look at his face. The visage is disgusting.
It's problematic -- but the only solution or response to hate speech is not passing a law against it (a law which would eventually be used arbitrarily against anyone who syas unpopular things).
So what other responses are possible?
Counter-protests.
Ignoring it (including the media).
Boycotts.
Education campaigns.
We can probably think of others, but all of those depend on the people and culture, which always underlies any law passed since law is only the codification of the culture's norms.
And that's the problem: this is not that much of an outlier, but an expression of the huge amount of bigotry, and the political propaganda or condoning such attitudes, from 'leaders' which drives it. This burning is just a symptom of a far more serious underlying disease -- and it's that disease which must be cured. Surpressing the cough does not cure pneumonia.
"We" need hate crime legislation. Remember Matthew Wayne Shepard or James Byrd, Jr. The left cried for hate crimes legislation. You can not have your cake and eat it too. To protect the rights of Terry Jones the right fought hate crimes legislation. It's the flip-side of the same coin.
Study how other countries more civilized than "We" handle hate speak. Germany and Canada prosecute. "We" need hate crime legislation to protect the rights of minorities but in the process "We" as individuals give up some rights to live in a civilized society.
"Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." Mathew 7:15
Terry Jones is a false prophet and little more than a ravenous wolf preying on the dimwitted. I wonder what is the average IQ of the 50 people in his flock.
There are ALREADY hate speech laws. And they have existed for some time.
Yes, in the USA: the Matthew Shepard Act, for one, which tacked on gender, gender identity, gender orientation, and disability, onto existing FEDERAL hate crimes laws that have existed since 1969.
Care to at least learn up the basic issues surrounding free speech, before you start screaming about the horrors of making words criminal?
This thread points out a glaring problem on the left. The left feels the need to defend to the death the immaterial. Esoteric matters compared to the larger issues of our time. "We" feel the need to defend Qur’an burners, illegal immigrants and mosque builders as perceived matters of principle. At the same time "We" have lost our perspective on the bigger picture and our right to privacy, habeas corpus, Posse Comitatus, civil liberties, etc. It is a formula for losing elections - always being seen taking positions against majority opinion.
"We" need to step back and take an objective look at free speech. "Mein Kampf" is not available in Germany. Germany has free speech with restrictions concerning the common good and incitement of violence. Maybe Germany knows something from firsthand experience that "We" have yet to learn?
SJ -
The left should defend to the death the immaterial and the esoteric, as well as the right to privacy, habeas corpus, keeping the military out of and subordinate to the civilian democratic political process, and the core values of the Bill of Rights. I really don't see a glaring problem with progressives missing the big picture forest to hug instead a few immediately endangered trees, as you suggest.
False choice. Do both. In my opinion, most folks on the left, including regulars on CD's thread, also did bitch a lot, very publicly, about warrantless electronic surveillance, torture, mass detention of suspected terrorists at Girmo and CIA black sites without access to lawyers or courts, and the growing influence of the military in domestic law enforcement and the Pentagon brass in domestic partisan politics.
Burning the Koran to rally the Christian soldiers, shaking down Hispanic looking people for their green cards, or opposing construction of an Islamic community center is not really an immaterial or esoteric matter for those vulnerable to being caught on the receiving end of the demagoguery. For a middle class WASP like me, "a formula for losing elections - always being seen taking positions against majority opinion", is just not how I focus or frame the issue. It is, indeed, very much a perceived matter of principle.
Sometimes the Bill of Rights should protect the mainstream majority from a powerfully connected minority - such as the danger the Citizens United corporate free speech case creates. Other times, the Bill of Rights should protect the minority from majoritarian excess - such as the huge, bipartisan Congressional majorities that keep voting to criminalize flag burning (despite the Supreme Court's rulings) because such jingoistic posturing will play well to over 51% of the voters back home on Main Street.
This is not a "glaring problem" of the left as I see it. It is a matter of principle we all should be proud of. It is also a pragmatic exercise in two-party political survival now that one of the two major national parties has become virulently and hopelessly neofascist, and the other appears too timid to stand up for the rule of law consistently.
Bill from Saginaw
America has hate crimes laws too.
It also has inciting violence laws.
They are much more restricted than you probably prefer, but they exist.
And if you want them made more powerful, more restrictive of speech, you are going to have to amend the constitution.
(Deleted - inserted in the wrong place.)
You can bet this so-called preacher doesn't support the right to burn the flag as a form of protest, and I wonder how he'd feel about Muslims burning the Bible (which, of course, they wouldn't do).
Exactly, NMLib!!! I'll bet he's as hypocritical as these people come. They always are.
Burning a country's flag is almost always in protest of that country's barbaric behavior, and isn't meant to promote uncivil behavior or animosity between people. Burning bibles and qurans is usually not associated with their promoting barbaric behavior, as is the case with Jones. Rather, burning bibles and qurans is usually associated with protests against those using such books to justify their barbaric behavior, which is NOT the case with Jones either. The writings of the quran did not promote what occured on 911. Indeed, 911 is still an unsolved crime, and the response to it was a still continuing massive act of Barbarism--The War OF Terror. Rather, Jones seeks to spark animosity and uncivil behavior amongst people, which is a promotion of Barbarism no different from promoting the aims of Nazis or KKK, for promoting supremacy is also promoting Barbarism as a fundamental tenet of civility is equality between peoples since inequality can only result from some form of exploitation. (Sharing when one has more than one needs promotes civility whereas hoarding promotes envy, which is an uncivil emotion. Other disparities also promote uncivil outcomes, which is why sharing is such an important act enshrined in most philosophies as one of the highest acts possible.)
Yet, at another level we can clearly see how Jones promotes the US Empire's Barbarism, for its acts are basically no different from his as its aim isn't to promote civility but to attain domination over the whole of the planet and humanity.
Do you suppose that the Right Reverend Pastor Jones sees the irony in naming a group that spews hatred and burns books the "Dove Outreach" church?
I've yet to discover any large socio-cultural group that was actually civil enough to be called a civilization. What has existed throughout history are various degrees of barbarisms attempting (usually) to become civil. And since these attempts predate the advent of books, books cannot be the "soul of civilization." Rather, people creating and living in civil relations with their neighbors and the environment would constitute the "soul" of a state of being beyond barbarism that might be termed civilization. And while some percentage of their polities might be civil, it's a very large mistake to describe any nation-state or their current state of culture as being civilized. One need only look at the self-proclaimed leading nation-state to determine it's a bloody and rather primitive Barbaric Empire lightyears away from becoming civilized.
So, it's quite correct to call Terry Jones a Barbarian and a promoter of Barbarism. But if we really want to have civilized nation-states, then people like Terry Jones cannot be allowed to promote Barbarism and ought to be removed to an institution that will protect society from their barbarity but allows the person to rehabiltate, become civil, and rejoin society. Yes, I do understand that to strive for such a goal the great majority of politicos, their allies and other promoters of barbarity and barbarism must be removed from society along with a very large percentage of the public, which is an admission that we are a long way from becoming civilized and must cease describing the arrangements of polities past and present with the euphamism civilization because they are/were nothing of the sort. Becoming civilized isn't easy; humanity's been trying for millenia and has failed so far. And the pressing problems confronting humanity now and in the future will make the metamorphosus from barbarity to civility even harder to realize.
Yes, civilization is one person at a time.
I like that.
As opposed to being arrested for a Hate Crime, he would be arrested for promoting Barbarism, or anti-civil behavior, which is essentially the same thing, but framed in an altogether different manner. Such a crminal statute would also negate Nazi, KKK and other such promoters of Barbarism from marches and any other form of activity as they are correctly seen as threats to civilized behavior, not as some minority point-of-view meriting Constitutional protection. AIPAC, for example, would be similarly outlawed as it promotes the continued barbaric treatment of Palestinians. Such a law would also have the outcome of making protests against acts of barbarity--WAR, for example--the highest form of expression possible and no longer possible of being persecuted by the state as it is now.
Beyond The Enlightenment--Strive to be Civilized
One more thing before I go:
The crime here is not that this guy is burning a book. Its that the rest of us have agreed to stand around and watch. This guy deserves to be ignored. Why isn't he? What is going on with our media that this is a story, and I mean, at all? As long as we all agree to give these misfits their 15 minutes of fame, they'll be wiggling out of the wormwood in never-ending supply. No wonder nothing ever gets done in this country. The big top has started and we're stuck in the freakshow tent staring at the bearded lady.
"This guy deserves to be ignored. Why isn't he?"
This is what I've been saying since this turd surfaced on the mainstream news media. He's a backwoods hick with a "congregation" of maybe a dozen like-minded hateful backwoods hicks. The question is why the US news media has chosen to blow this up way out of proportion, making sure that Muslims worldwide are informed of this "major news story". They know full well that Muslims are very sensitive about affronts to their religion, and they have gone way out of their way to make sure they know about this hateful bastard.
The media itself is causing such a huge brouhaha. He is a nobody, a nothing, just like me! Why all the acclaim? Why is the media doing this? What is behind the media need to shout this story 24/7 to the exclusion of real news?
I'm a nobody backwoods hick myself. I'm planning on burning a big old pile of bibles on 9/11. Can I get a little media coverage, please? I'm absolutely certain if I could get the same coverage I'd offend a whole lot of fundamentalist Christians, evangelical Christians, many of whom would like to physically punish me. I would be doing this out of pure hate, just like the good pastor in Gainesville. Why can't I, an insignificant hateful nobody, get the same coverage as that insignificant hateful nobody?
Read Heinlein's "Revolt in 2100." In an afterword, Heinlein discusses the rise of "Reverend Skudder" Very much like some of the stuff that is going on here.
Freedom of Speech and Opinion are protected by the First Amendment. Until recently, that meant freedom to say what you want, wear your ignorance on your sleeve, voice your opinions, whatever they might be. Your opponents have the same right.
A few years ago when "Political Correctness" was the buzz word, we were taught that we had to always watch what they said or wrote, to make sure that nothing was said that, in any way could hurt another's feelings, or disparage any of their sacred cows.
I wrote on this then. Since then, it seems to be imbibed with mother's milk. Think about this for a minute. Everybody has likes and dislikes. This ranges from wallpaper to prejudices against races or lifestyles. We have passed laws to criminalize these opinions. That does not eliminate the opinion, it just forces the person to bottle up his feelings or his rage, which possibly could be defused by his ranting and raving. In short, we have reinvented "Thoughtcrime."
Back when we still had functioning families, much of this stuff was headed off by mom or dad. If you did something stupid, mom or dad said, "How do you think that made them feel?" Or "How would you like it if somebody did that to you?" You learned that perhaps it was better to be polite and not offend without reason rather than blatting out whatever you felt, no matter who it hurt.
I have often wondered if some of these mass killings by some guy might not be because he is filled with rage and frustration he cannot vent. When it becomes too much, he "goes postal." Ask any reputable shrink and he'll probably confirm this.
Perhaps, if people could get this ugliness out of their system by ranting, there might be a bit less violence in the world. Now, even the person reacting to one of these "hate crimes" has to watch what he says and does, lest he, himself, be hauled in for the same "crime."
I've spent most of my adult life working for peace, for empathy and compassion. I long for the day when we rediscover diplomacy, which is working out problems around a table or in a forum rather than dictating at the point of a gun, or an H-Bomb.
All life is a matter of give and take. We don't have to like what some of these nut jobs say, but it sure beats them sitting in their bedroom brooding for a year, then going out and blowing up a building, or spraying a shopping mall with automatic weapons fire.
Trashing a mosque or a synagogue is not freedom of speech, it is criminal vandalism. There are plenty of laws against that. Hanging someone from a tree is not freedom of speech, it is murder. Plenty of laws against that, too.
This used to be a nation of Freedom of Speech and Opinion. Anyone could say or write what he liked. The opposition could ignore, or rebut the person. If he was sufficiently obnoxious, he might be shunned by every thinking person and would fade into history.
Now they get lost of press, sometimes gain a following, and the game goes on.
Our Constitution and Bill of Rights were written by people who knew what words mean. They were, for the most part, well educated. They studied history and tried to set up a government that would be proof against a takeover, that would protect the rights of man. It was not perfect, America was not perfect, but for much of my seventy-odd years, we tried to do our best. We tried to live up to the Constitution. We were taught the Constitution in school; we tried to model our behavior on it.
Sadly, today those precious documents are looked on, as an important person once said, "as just a god damned piece of paper." Empathy and compassion are just things to be taken advantage of as weaknesses. Greed, the bottom line and absolute power are the only things worshiped today by most of our public officials and the Oligarchy that controls it. If we don't find a way to take it back, then we are truly lost.
Count me among those who think that nobody who burns a precious symbol deserves my attention. Or the medias. As you said, they want publicity, so don't give it to them. Burning precious symbols is done mainly just to be hurtful. So, don't do it, and if some other attention-hound does, ignore them. Thats the easiest way to put out the 'fire' that drives their attention-seeking behavior.
For all I know, there are valid reasons to be worried about Sharia Law in the U.S. But you'd never know it now, it can't get past the publicity dogs. In like manner, I think the flag-burners during the Vietnam War cost their cause more than it helped it. After burning a precious symbol like that, reasoned discussion becomes impossible. We may forgive such people for feeling passionate, but we may also never recover the valid reasons behind their passion. Incendiary flag-burning drove the patriotic right crazy; it shut off discussions, about the U.S. role in foreign wars, for example, that the U.S. needed to have. And it may have led to hardened attitudes that propelled people like Reagan and Bush II into office, and the goose-stepping into Central America and the Middle East that resulted.
"Count me among those who think that nobody who burns a precious symbol deserves my attention."
Exactly my point. Thank you.
"But when one of us wants to burn Bibles or flags as a form of protest, we *want* publicity too, ubrew. That's the whole point of it. There are many of us who would consider flag-burning, in particular, a noble thing that illustrates righteous indignation at a country's policies."
A right to want that publicity, is to NOT a right to get, regardless of how noble and righteous your position is.
"Therefore, we can't take the prima facie position, without being hypocritical, that the guy should be allowed to burn Korans but shouldn't get any publicity."
Actually, we can. We can refuse to give publicity to things that we disagree with. The right to free speech, is NOT, is NEVER, the right to have an audience. The right to free speech, is NOT, is never, the right to have others broadcast your speech for you. Yes, I'm aware of the problems with this, as it leads to media ignoring certain viewpoints; but the alternative, that everyone be given a platform to broadcast their viewpoints is completely and entirely unworkable.
If anyone wants an audience, including leftists, then they have to earn that audience.
I think it's unrealistic to expect the US media to ignore him, when he so very clearly will get attention from Islamic media. I'm sure he arranged that part early on too. In fact, he may have had help in doing that from neoconservatives seeking to start a new war by stirring up a hornets' nest ...
The Tea Party has been turned into a legitimate third party complete with candidates which, by the reports I heard this morning, will be elected. It all boils down to the MSM. I don't know how you change that. So-called progressives like Maddow give all these people major voices. It's not just one little segment. It can be a whole show. I would dare say Huffington Post can be lumped in here. The loonies get front-page headlines 24/7. Peace, good works, kindness -- zero (or on a back page somewhere).
this is why investigation of 9/11 is still relevant...
assholes still feel justified acting upon the version we were handed way back then, even as the evidence was being removed by future cancer victims...
come to think of it, assholes are acting, daily, upon a number of lies we've been handed down through the ages...
Let him burn all the Qurans he wants. Under our laws he has a right to do so. But, I hope, most of us will view him has a bigot and a ignoramus. The best response is to simply ignore such people who seem to take pleasure in insulting others, whether that be their religion, country, race or whatever.
One cannot, after all, respond to all stupidities. However, this nobody pastor should not be compared to those vast numbers who oppose building the "Ground Zero Mosque." That type of thinking is a real threat to whatever freedoms we have left.
obviously he feels completely insignificant, and this is his way of becoming "important"
I agree that Jones has a right to be as big a flaming idiot as he wants. But he does not have a right to create a fire hazard which is implied by the local fire department refusing to give him a burn permit as related in other accounts of this story. He also has to put up with criticism and protest of his actions. Personally, if I lived nearby, I'd show up with the biggest CO2 extinguisher I could carry and the moment he puts match to paper, give him a good fogging.
I'm always amazed how folks like Jones can't remember what their Savior said about judging others, self-righteous hypocrites and those who would use His name.
Tim Minchin said it all in one tweet
“American Christians who want to burn copies of the Koran are fucking eejits. That said, any violent reaction by Muslims is more wrong.”
-Tim Minichin
http://coyotesings.wordpress.com/
Terry Jones in no novice when it comes to extremism:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,716409,00.html
The Nazis burned books, gassed Jews and communists and pushed the world into war. Is the pastor emulating them?
I am going to burn my copy of Monty Python's "The Life of Brian" as a protest against Terry Jones.
This typical ingorant American Hate-fest brought to you by Sarah Palin, the Queen Douchbag of the Teabag, and Newt Gingrich, the most moral thrice divorced adulterer in the USA
I am glad that the rest of the country can now experience how dangerous some of these right wing organizations have become.
But this is not new, this ugly bigoted behavior has been around since the mid 90s and growing in numbers.
If you have not heard of organised gang stalking , google it, and learn. These organized murdering torture freaks are well paid to create vigilante havoc,hate.
And though you will not believe , it is rich high brow right wing republican Christians that pay these private armys of torture freaks to to their dirty work.
Get rid off unwanted people , for no reason, or because their gay, pro choice leaders, or political opponents.
They use slander, lies, rumors and gossip, to destroy peoples reputations. Then common folk in the community , who work in business that service your car, home, anywhere you would expect fair service for payment sabotage your property, to make you think you are having bad luck.
The real story is not the Terry Jones of America, it is the rich right wing elite that control the hate and the rhetoric, and the people who do their dirty work.
Thank you Mr. Jones, if you get arrested , please feel free to tell us who paid you to spew hate, and how many organizations are there across this country that support hate and organized gang stalking.You dont want to harbor terrorists, do you, there is a new sheriff in town , and he is a liberal progressive democrat, he will have no problem throwing home grown right wing terrorists in jail.
You might get sent away for torture if you dont talk.
Yup, I guess we still need to do that, we will not tolerate home grown terrorists either.
IT would be interesting to see the effects of a counter demonstration across the street, with a group of nuts burning some bibles. I'll bet the hypocrisy would fly, along with some heads.
Writing what we are.
Both the bible and Quran are great records of human religious feelings and thinkings, and are also records of the pathways to barbarity, control and cruelty that we too often follow. These human authored compilations record only too well the many atrocities that humans may commit in the name of God, while they are still following the dark impulses that drive human behaviour.
If the Quran is worthy of being burned as a means to incite those dark impulses, then equally so is the Bible. Burning them means we are still following to the letter the dark savagery recorded therein, and that we still witness every day around the world.
Our souls cannot be cleaned by burning words on paper. We are only kept sane by consideration, control of feeling and moral restraint and social constraint, and expression of positive feelings, that must be relearned continuously as we live, whether or not there exist holy books to let us know of the sins of our past, there are laws and restraints in the present.
Burning is also outright denial. To be complete in our denial we might as well also burn that great book of scientific discovery, the Origin of the Species. Writing and literature are part of what we are. Burning books denies our self understanding.
What I love about the First Amendment, is that it offers all Americans the right to prove, once and for all, what complete, utter, blithering idiots they really are, for all of us to see.
If Terry Jones is burning holy books on TV, I'm bringing popcorn. Its the American way. Its how we inform ourselves of the complete absurdity of some of our fellow Americans. It's how we weed out the guys that really shouldn't be allowed to operate heavy machinery from the rest of us.
Every country needs a first amendment, not least many countries in the Middle East. Were I an Egyptian, for example, I hope I would join many of my Muslim brethren in hating that imminently hateable dictator. But I would hope for free speech rights, the better to wean out that small fraction of those brethren that really had no plan for Egypt, other than to replace Mubarak with Mubarak Part Two.
That's the real reason for the First Amendment. The fact is: we should all be celebrating Terry Jones right to prove, on national television, what an **s he is. The First Amendment is all about 'forewarned is forearmed'. God Bless the founders.
This is a very provocative thread. The US Constitution and the Bill of Rights were written by our founding fathers and not revealed by God. Our founding fathers may not have gotten it all right. The Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times. The US is only a bit more than two hundred years old. We need to consider the possibility that the Constitution and Bill of Rights are fallible documents and keep an open mind to how other more mature countries handle similar issues.
Terry Jones has rights and so do Moslems in this country and around the world who will be offended by the burning of their sacred text. The exercise of Jones' free speech rights comes at a cost. The unrest caused may result in property damage and loss of life around the world. It will certainly increase anti-American sentiment. You and I will be less safe traveling abroad. Our troops stationed overseas will be less safe. Fires of Moslem bashers will be stoked here at home. Does Jones have the right to extract this cost from the American people?
Jones would be prosecuted in Canada and Germany. I do not know about other civilized countries. IMHO Jones should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and then deported back to Germany where they could try him again. Jones gives Christians and Americans a bad name.