CNN is going bonkers covering the Florida pastor who wants to burn a Koran. While they admit that he has the constitutional right to do it, the general concensus among the talking heads is that someone, somewhere, needs to find a way to make him stop. A Florida prosecutor who was just interviewed suggested some “disturbing the peace” laws that could net the pastor a year or so in jail the moment he strikes a match.
In the US, it’s legal to burn a flag, dunk a crucifix in a jar of urine (“it’s art!”), or stand outside a military funeral and shout insane drivel about “God hates fags.” Anti-blasphemy laws are blessedly in the dim past, and are universally understood – at least by the sane and non-stupid – to be unConstitutional and anti-American. However, any “legal remedy” to prevent this guy from burning a Koran would be a de facto anti-blasphemy law… an anti-blasphemy law directed *squarely* at setting Islam apart as more worthy of protection than any other religion.
This would seem to be *exactly* the sort of thing the ACLU would be up front and center about. They’ve come to the defense of the free speech rights of *Nazis,* so defending some goofy pastor holding a weenie roast would seem to be a no-brainer.
I come down on this issue exactly the way I do on the issue of the Ground Zero Moque:
1) They have the right to do it with their legally purchased property
2) They are being assholes and intentionally provacative.
By any rational measure, the level of insult posed by the Ground Zero moque is vastly higher than that posed by the Koran-b-que, for the simple fact that the Koran burning will be a matter of a few minutes, some smoke, and then it’s done, while the moque will be a festering point of anger for years to come. But while the burning of the Koran has people afraid that it will lead to riots, deaths and dismemberment around the world… is there really a similar worry about the moque? The closest I’ve heard to anything like that is a bunch of construction workers who have refused to work on it.
And so, today the FBI showed up at the Florida church on some mystery mission. The Presidents mouthpiece has spoken out against it. The President himself has spoken out against it. All for some low-end backwoods preacher who wants to burn a few books. I’m stunned.
Now, book-burning gives me a serious uncomfortableness. But I can honestly say that if someone decided to have a “Mein Kampf” or “Communist Manifesto” burning, I’d have a hard time ginning up any real outrage. Since the Koran is IMO a vile political screed along the lines of “Mein Kampf” and “Communist Manifesto,” I’m again stuck having a hard time really giving a damn. Were the pastor to burn copies of “On The Origin Of Species” or “Rocket Propulsion Elements” or “The Probability Broach,” I’d be much more annoyed… but still, hardly likely to go on a blood-soaked self-destructive rampage.
So I say… burn the damn thing and get it over with. The American legal system should care at exactly the same level they cared about about this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLK1Xpc7SMQ
If idiots around the world want to riot over this… fine. People in the US riot over the results of basketball and football games. Does the US government come out and say that the games should be halted? No. At most, they send in the riot troops and bust some heads. This should be the model for Koran burnings.
In the end, if the public burning of Korans is allowed in the West the same that the burning of flags or other “holy” books is, the result will be a net positive. Yes, some will go on a rampage. Fine. They’ll get gunned down in the streets. Then burn another Koran; more will go on a rampage, and they’ll get gunned down. In the end, a Koran burning will ellicit an Islam-wide expression of “meh,” because the less stable elements will have selected themselves out of the gene pool, leaving their betters to prosper in a wiser, more rational world.
Besides: burning a Koran is hardly a new or novel idea. There are several Koran-b-ques on Youtube. So why hasn’t the Muslim world gone ape before now? Why is *this* particular Koran-burning so important? Is it another media-driven “scandal?” I suspect that’s the case.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DFZbr5bWrI&skipcontrinter=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJx7y9iKsbU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wz6nV9WULqA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZIUo2yAWz0&skipcontrinter=1
(And even videos of shooting the Koran: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLzN7IxdhrA&feature=related)
And, yes, the videos of Koran burnings are every bit as inane and banal as you might expect. It’s a hollow, empty gesture, meant merely to annoy one side and fill the other with meaningless mirth… pretty much like all political theater, I suppose. Is it worth killing for? Nope. Is it worth twisting American law to prevent? Hell no!
