Terry Jones and Preemptive Capitulation
Years ago, I picked up a tattered but serviceable edition of the great Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Published in 1910, the twenty-eight-volume monument to human curiosity about the “arts, sciences, literature and general information” is a testament to scholarly industry. Compared to the mealy-mouthed reference works that clutter library shelves today, which typically compete to outdo one another in the exhibition of moral relativism, the Eleventh Edition (the common shorthand by which the work is known) is also a testament to a neglected virtue: robust cultural confidence. For a Westerner, it is refreshing to dip into its unembarrassed pages and savor its masculine prose. Volume I, for example (“A” to “Androphagi”), contains a most illuminating article about that once-far-away mountain fastness, Afghanistan. After a few pages about the history, climate, and geography of this Asiatic byway, the writer introduces us to the people, “handsome and athletic” but treacherous.
The Afghans, inured to bloodshed from childhood, are familiar with death, and audacious in attack, but easily discouraged by failure; excessively turbulent and unsubmissive to law or discipline; apparently frank and affable in manner, especially when they hope to gain some object, but capable of the grossest brutality when that hope ceases. They are unscrupulous in perjury, treacherous, vain and insatiable, passionate in vindictiveness, which they will satisfy at the cost of their own lives and in the most cruel manner.
That’s in 1910. Does any of that need to be emended?
I have been thinking about Afghanistan again because of the riots that broke out this weekend. So far about a dozen people, including U.N. and NATO personnel, have been killed and scores injured. Why? Because Terry Jones, the Florida “pastor” who made headlines last September when he threatened to burn copies of the Koran, finally made good on his promise on March 20th, when he presided over a “trial” and burning of the Koran.
The incident went largely unreported here, but Afghan President Hamid Karzai got wind of the stunt and denounced it. Officials in neighboring Pakistan denounced it, too, sending a letter to the head of Interpol demanding that Jones be arrested for his “violent crime.” Then the natives got restless and started smashing up whatever there is to smash up in Afghanistan, which turns out to be mostly other human beings, buildings and other emblems of modern civilization being in short supply in that wretched country.
Well, once the rampage started, Westerners were quick to comment. From Tweedledee to Tweedledum — from Harry Reid (D. Nev.) to Lindsey Graham (R., sort of, SC.) — American lawmakers fell over themselves to condemn Jones and insist that his pyromanic exhibitions be “investigated.” “I wish we could find a way to hold people accountable,” said Graham. “Free speech is a great idea, but we’re in a war.”
The journalist Joe Klein, writing in Time (yes, it’s still publishing), wants to hold Terry Jones “accountable,” too, big time. “Jones’s act was murderous as any suicide bomber’s,” Klein wrote, “If there is a hell, he’s just guaranteed himself an afterlifetime membership.”
And then there is General David Petraeus, who, together with NATO Ambassador Mark Sedwill, condemned Jones’s bonfire of the vanities — “hateful, intolerant, extremely disrespectful” — and “any disrespect to the Holy Quran and the Muslim faith.”
What’s wrong with this picture? Let me count the ways.
First, let’s look at the imputation of causal glue that links the events: A. “Terry Jones presides over ‘trial’ and burning of Koran” and B. “Muslim Afghans go on murderous rampage.” The press reports typically tell us that Jones’s action “sparked” or “led to” the rampages, suggesting, without quite asserting, a causal link between “A” and “B.” But think about it. Some Danish cartoonists draw some caricatures of Mohammed. Months later, Muslims riot, torch Danish embassies, and murder several score of innocent people. Did the cartoons “lead to” or “spark” the murderous rampages? In other words, was there a sufficient moral connection between the activity of the cartoonists and the actions of the homicidal Muslims to blame the cartoonists?
Go back a few years. Osama bin Laden didn’t like it that there was an American presence in Saudi Arabia. On September 11, 2001, nineteen Muslim fanatics working for bin Laden destroyed the World Trade Center, damaged the Pentagon, and killed some 3000 innocent people. Wahhabi Muslims thought it provocative, outrageous, and intolerable that the United States was in Saudi Arabia and other parts of the Muslim world. It was our presence there that sparked, led to, etc. 9/11. Were we therefore responsible for 9/11? Some thought so.
I believe, on the contrary, that the responsibility for 9/11 lies with those who planned and carried it out. As Jonathan Rauch memorably put it in the aftermath of 9/11, the root cause of terrorism is terrorists.
There is a therapeutic technique in clinical psychology called “flooding” which is used to treat irrational phobias. The idea is to overwhelm the subject with the feared object until he eventually gets over his phobia. As I recall, well before this form of therapy was named, Bertrand Russell was cured as a child of his fear of the water by being held submerged upside down in a fountain at Pembroke Lodge by a footman until he stopped struggling. Russell reported that he never feared the water again. Perhaps we should cheer Rev. Jones and encourage others to do likewise with the Koran until the Afghans and their like get over their homicidal tantrums.
John is right. I will even go further – I consider Terry Jones a hero. Yes, I said that; Jones points to the Kuran as THE real source of evil. I am hoping that thanks to Jones people will start READING that Murder Book and see the truth for themselves. That would not be necessary had our pathetic and buffoon leaders not lied to us – best example is that war hero Petraeus, for whom that prototype of Mein Kampf is … Holy. Holy Cow, indeed.
Bingo!! We shouldn’t have a ‘Burn the Koran Day’, we should have ‘Burn the Koran Every Day’. Draw Mohammed Every Day. Denounce Shariah Every Day. Condemn Muslim barbarism every day.
Where are some smart politicians looking to raise their profile? I if were a politician, I’d be out there denouncing the Muslim mob. Denouncing the Muslim Imams, whose hate filled preaching instigated the mob. I’d denounce Karzai and file a sense of Congress to denounce Karzai’s role in the mob violence.
I’d point out how Muslims just last week bombed worshipers and a Sufi shrine murdering Muslims. Burning the Koran is a crime against God. Burning people is a Muslim offering to God?
We need to point out how absolutely screwed up Muslim morality is. It’s an anti-morality.
I’m not sure “therapeutic” solutions are the best but, as they say, “It couldn’t hurt.” I’m NOT in favor of “burn the Koran every day” etc. OTOH, there is no doubt that giving in to insane demands is tantamount to, well, giving in; giving UP!
That said, I worked part time at a Mall store during the height of the black on black gang wars of the early 90s. (Some of you may have seen the HBO movie, “Gang Wars; Banging in Little Rock.”)
The Malls were overrun with rival gangs parading down the causeways, “flying their colors” and wrecking havocs on shoppers. Often, the lid would blow and the air would be filled with Pepper Spray, Mace or just loud air horns. The gangs would square off just because one of them “dissed” another. Or dozens of them would flood a store and stip the shelves just because a clerk made a careless comment to one of them. Every few weeks, a body would be discovered within blocks of the Mall.
Two problems; first, there were too many gang members to arrest. Second, there was always the looming threat of “racism” charges against the cops, store proprietors or Mall owners. The resultant inactivity had the Mall “cops” (Security firm employees) running for cover when a group of 15 year olds strolled their way AND Arkansas’ largest Mall very nearly bankrupt.
If that hits home, relax, it gets worse. Little Rock’s Mayor (Dailey) actually MET with the gangs and tried to bargain “jobs for peace.” The local newspaper reported that these 15 year old gang members sat in City Hall and demanded, “Better not be no minimum wage thang!” (Sic) &btw, this same assault on malls threatened to shut down the State Fair and spilled over into HS football games, roller rinks etc.
I can’t recall what straw broke the camel’s back. (May have been the HBO movie.) But nearly overnight, cops started patroling the Mall(s), hordes of police – some even on horses – swamped the fairgrounds, extra patrol cars were placed on the street and TV ads were run in neverending succession – letting the gangs know that the game was UP! Within a year, LR was no longer one of the “gang capitols of the US.”
See what I’m getting at? I don’t advocate burning anything or drawing pictures of anyone’s icons. (I’d like to get MY hands on the guy who smeared a Holy Cross with feces and called it art! Maybe that’s just me.) But the point is, LR, AR decided to quit genuflecting to mob mentality === and it WORKED!
A Parable! (True story, but a parable nonetheless.)
Applause to whomever grew a pair there in Little Rock and did the right thing.
However, it won’t “work” with Muslims. This not a gang of adolescent wannabes.
It is an implacable enemy who will die rather than give up. They count among their number countless engineers and scientists who are well educated, and many of them work in our telecommunications and defense industries.
Ponder that for a moment.
We are at war, and only one side will win. And contrary to what some would like to believe, we are NOT in a strong position. They have infiltrated the highest levels of our government and defense department, and they are ONE BILLION STRONG.
Bravado works great on The Movie Channel.
It’s not a good idea in real life. We should never kowtow, but neither should we act foolishly. That self-important idiot in Florida got people killed, and it was complete predictable, in fact, PREDICTED, that deaths of innocents would be the result.
I have a hard time with killing innocent people just to make a point.
No – the self-important idiot did NOT get people killed. The muslims got people killed.
Agreed, lolly. I am sooo looking forward to the earlier commenter’s upgrade to Mark VI. The current version’s reasoning simulation keeps falling back to a 6-year old’s, “Mom, it’s not my fault. My little brother made me hit him. He made a face at me!” excuse-making mode.
They count among their number countless engineers and scientists who are well educated, and many of them work in our telecommunications and defense industries.
You are correct, and let me tell you how that happened. Our politically correct universities admitted great numbers of them as students, gave them scholarships and grants and stipends, and when they graduated, worked to get them H1 visas so that they could remain and get jobs in our industries, and they did all this in the name of “lifting up the third world”. And look what we’ve gotten in return: an educated, elitist class of Islamists who hate our ways and are determined to destroy us, while at every turn they take advantage of our freedoms and wealth. Forget the illiterate mob in Muslim countries; they’re just cannon fodder for the elitists to whip into a frenzy when needed.
The upshot is this: if Terry Jones hadn’t burned that Koran, the Islamist elitists would still have found an excuse to whip up a mob. It’s what they do, in furtherance of their perverted idea of serving God (and gaining power).
Mark, (Boy am I going to regret this!) I wasn’t insinuating that a “gang of adolescent wannabes” is the same as muslims. (You DID get the word “parable” didn’t you?) Look, it’s obvious we are on differnt sides of this issue. That’s fine. But the “gang” I was talking about was every bit of 500 kids who were terrorizing nearly 1/2 million people! So all you are talking here is arithmatic. Terror is terror!
In FACT, some of these “adolescents” DID die rather than “give up.” (Guess you also missed the “dead bodies close to the mall” comment also.) And they, too, were “infiltrated” into LR’s society. One even went home for a gun when I wouldn’t let him cut in line at Safeway. Luckily I left before he got back. (The manager didn’t call the cops when he came in waving the gun; said he “didn’t want to get involved.” Get it?)
Moreover, you made an error. They (muslims) aren’t “infiltrated,” they are “integrated” into our society. (Gov’t, industry ET.Al.) Presumably by the very trust we have that, at best, they are the “good” muslims and at worst, they will kill us LAST!
But you missed the greater point. I shouldn’t have to segue into how social giveaways in LBJ’s ‘Great Society’ devolved into the worst kind of unintended consequences. It was all about appeasement. Teh muslim situation is all about appeasement.
These people wouldn’t try our honor on if we, like, SHOWED any honor! If we at least condemned them for killing their allies over a book as much as we condemn the guy who burned the book – never mind he was a kook. (On that, we agree.)
AS for your last statement? Sorry, pal. People die. Some on the battlefield, others in the crossfire. It happens, has happened and will happen again. Asking them nicely to not hurt us might do what was suggested earlier – get us killed last. (I’m done.)
the only thing i disagree with is them being 1 billion strong as there are many who profess to be muslim only because they fear death. these people are held in slavery in the name of religion.
leciat,
Good point. We need to separate the slaves from their masters. Work on their women and those who left the ME to get away from barbaric oppression. MOst of the Mullahs, the Imams, and especially the Ayatollahs, should be targeted for assassination. That will give these zealot male bullies something other than virgins to be concerned about and that should narrow it down a bit. We have the resources to deal with this problem and we should deal with it.
First, no observant Mohammedan is innocent. He believes (because Allah says so in the Koran) that his duty is to subjugate or kill every infidel on the planet. Second, Mohammedanism is a bunch of mumbo-jumbo wrapped around 7th Century Arab culture — which makes a pack of hyenas look like Renaissance Florence. Third, General Petreaus is pathetic. Imagine Patton asking that movies making fun of, or criticizing, Hitler not be released because it might make the Germans mad. The US commander at Bastogne answers the German demand for surrender with “Nuts”. How could this be? How intolerant. How insensitive. Fourth, Christian Europeans have no obligation to respect Mohammedanism or Arab culture. Rather, we have an obligation to not respect them, because they’re not repectable, but barbaric and idiotic. If we can’t allow freedom of speech because it might interfere with our troops fighting for our freedom of speech, what are they fighting for again?
Ghostbuster, you win a cigar from me. One does not change the rules for morons, you change the morons and insist they follow the rules.
Racism is a catch-all defense which really means, “Let me do whatever I want, subvert civilization, move in with you and then complain, build a shanty town, break immigration laws and commit fraud and get paid for it”.
I am in favor of burning the Koran every day, by everybody we can get to do it. Or at least burn the Koran every day until all violent reactions to burning the Koran finally stop. Islam deserves no respect as a religion until they are willing to extend that same respect to others. Part of that basic respect is respecting free speech, even insultng free speech. You can condemn it, and boycott it, and try to defund it, and demonstrate against it, but once you cross the line with violence, you cross the line of civilization, and civilizations respect.
US leftist artists and atheists could do a valuable service here by coming out with some art that is blasphemous to Muslims. They do it to Christians almost every day, and it is called “courageous, and innovative” when in reality it has gotten so common that it is starting to get boring and banal. Why not start finally insulting a religion where any insults really are “courageous and innovative”.
Once we are able to burn the Koran, without prevoking any violent reactions, then shift to demeaning Mohammed cartoons, and portrayals in South Park. Christians, and other mainstream religions, have put up with demeaning speech like that for years, without reacting with violence. Until Islam learns to do the same, they are actually proving Terry Jones case that they are in fact a violent, barbarous, gutter religion, and that they deserve to be insulted and attacked. Once they are able to take insults like a man, like Christians and other mainstream religions do today, then and only then will they deserve to not be insulted.
Of course the problem with this course of action is that for now it will get the radical muslims even more pissed off that they already are. But that is a price I think is worth paying for long term benefits. Over the long run, once they see their violence has no effect, other than getting the violence perpetrators killed or arrested, then the Muslim world may finally learn a valuable lesson about tolerance and free speech, and the futility of violence. With our present appeasement approach, they are learning an opposite lesson, that violence pays.
Very well written article. We do need to hold politicians and yes, generals accountable for the foolish things they say. Lindsey Graham does seem to have some problems with the First Amendment, having been a prominent backer of McCain Feingold. My hope is that he gets replaced in the primary.
Lindsey Graham is the foremost argument for repeal of the 17th Amendment.
We in the civilized world are concerned not to be “as bad as they are.” Wrong.
We should aspire to be worse.
For example when Palestinians hold a congratulatory rally honoring the slaughterers of the Israeli family (Fogel, I think) and pronouncing them heroes, it is important to make clear that this is intolerable. You drop gasoline on the throng, and a lighted match. “Celebrate all you like, but there is a hefty price to be paid.”
I shall be interested to note how this plays. Cf, the British Governor’s response to suttee. “Your custom to burn the widow, our custom is to hang you.” Westerners shrink with horror at the thought of violence. Foolishness;
you still find many soft-hearts who condemn the bombing of Hiroshima.
Sorry; I prefer living with whatever guilt is involved, to having my a** shot off during an invasion of Japan.
In the night of March 11, 2011: Rabbi Udi Fogel (36) and his wife Ruth Fogel (35) along with three of their children Yoav, 11, Elad, 4, and 3-month-old Hadas were stabbed to death by Muslim terrorists in their home in Itamar, in northern Samaria.
The response to suttee was not from the British Government, but from a single English man who was witness to the custom, fortunately with his outrage had the authority that would be recognised / respected by the actors on the scene. His moral courage to counter the crowd was paramount – along with of course the knowledge that the British soldiers would obey orders that countered “cultural behaviours”.
Picked up the Eleventh from a public library for $25, s very fair bargain indeed. Remarks on Maine’s Prohibition Law: “But the law labours under the disadvantage of all law not vigorously sustained by general public sentiment, and is grossly violated.”
It took the United States 14 years to assimilate this wisdom by experience, from which “fools learn no other way.”
We may yet come to understand the sagacity of the Eleventh on Afghanistan, but we will never again be able to say it before a wide public.
Call me suspicious but when Karzai goes public on this issue, I have to wonder who put him up to it?
Presently he lives quite comfortable at the expense of the west’s handouts. So what reason does he have to rock the boat?
So I think to myself, what is there to be gained in this deception? What agenda would be promoted from this maneuver?
Who is the one to most likely be the receiver of…..what benefit?
There’s no mystery here. He’s engaging in “pre-emptive capitulation”, also known as, “If I grove enough, maybe they won’t kill me.”
He also knows full well that Obama isn’t going to do anything to hurt him, so he has no reason at all to refrain from groveling before the terrorists in his country.
Thank you for this excellent article! (And congratulations on owning an Eleventh. It couldn’t be in any better hands than those belonging to a person of your scholarship.)
Petraeus has many sterling qualities, but he continues to be a big disappointment, for he has taken the king’s money and he is, very clearly, the king’s man (as are far too many of our general officers these days).
IMO, we are going to need some real people to stand up to the plate here before too long. It is pieces like this that keep hope alive for many of us that leaders of the caliber that will be needed do in fact exist and will come forward. Or as the wonderful opening quote from the film, “Winston Churchill, Walking with Destiny” has it:
“Precisely at the time where one king arises to pillage our possessions
and destroy us, another shall arise to protect and save us . . .
This is an important lesson for future generations.”
— Nachmanides
13th century Rabbi, physician and biblical commentator
Can you imagine what would happen if a Muslim burned a copy of The Holy Bible? Or suppose they burned the American flag or an effigy of one of our Presidents. Why, we’d be really pissed or something; people would be talking about it for almost an hour.
Graham lost his mind years ago.
Indeed! We’ll go after Terry Jones when they stop burning our flag, burning our presidents in effigy, and celebrating terrorist attacks.
Frankly, I don’t care what Fundamentalist Muslims think of us. There is nothing we could do to appease them short of submitting to their warped view of the world. And then, even if we were to do that, there would be battles amongst those fundamentalists over which is the true Islam.
We learned this lesson centuries ago. It is time the world of Islam learned it as well. It’s for their own self preservation as much as ours.
no, we will go after terry jones when they quit their barbaric treatment of women and ignorant infidels
We’re not in a war, we won that right away. We’re now an occupying force, which is running the defeated nation. Think of Germany and Japan in 1946. We’re in a conflict of cultures, and they are winning.
Our military strength doesn’t matter much, but our cultural weaknesses do. Half of all Americans have been raised to hate their own country, and have been taught that anything American is inferior to whatever another nation or culture has. No one can even step up today and say that our culture us superior to tribalism. And the islamic terrorists know exactly how to exploit our weaknesses. They position themselves as the victims, and the leftist half of America supports them for that reason alone.
It’s time we stood up and said that the islamic intolerance is unacceptable. If we don’t use our military victory and occupation to force and then foster acceptable behavior, then what is the point? Instead, they threaten us, and we jump through their hoops. They have us burning our own Bibles, while defending their Koran.
It’s time to draw a line in the sand, and let them know that the world will not tolerate their intolerance and terrorism anymore.
The author exhibits the very craven cowardice that he unctuously condemns
by feeling obligated to call Terry Jones a ‘pathetic buffoon’. Jones did
what none of the alleged leadership of the West could ever summon the strength to do-make very clear that Islam is a vile, ignorant and failed philosophy, worthy only of Western society’s contempt and disgust,and he applied the appropriate destruction to the container of its’ degenerate
views.
The only course for the West with Islam is separation-we must get out of the lands where it has held sway for centuries and we must also eject(in whatever manner it requires) any adherents of it from our own lands.
Agreed! It ticks me off when Muslim apologists make a half-hearted attempt to condemn the latest Muslim atrocity by qualifying their remarks with the ubiquitous “but…,” and the author is doing the same thing here! Everything the pastor did was legally and morally ok, period. He burned some paper at his church and didn’t hurt anybody. No need to introduce moral relevance by standing up for his right to do so while at the same time denouncing him as a buffoon or publicity-seeker.
Excellent post.
Since when is burning a book the same as or worse than killing another human being? Petraeus’ condemnation of book burning shows how evil the ideology of multiculturalism is. The hidden fact in the multicultural ideology is that cultural practices are deemed more important than human lives. Petraeus should have been condemning the murderers of the UN people; instead he condemns the man who burned a book.
In 1989, when the fatwa was issued against Salman Rushdie, voices from the right (Kingsley Amis,among others) to the left (Harold Pinter,among others), were raised in his defense. At the independent bookstore in a small university town where I worked in those days, large numbers of our mostly leftish clientele would buy a copy of THE SATANIC VERSES not so much to read it, I believe, as to demonstrate their opposition to terrorism and their support of free speech . When Penguin Publishers suffered repeatedly from violence and/or the threat thereof, multiple publishers united to issue the book in a generic non-traceable paperback. The owner of the store, than whom no more Pavlovian a progressive you could find, continued to order and display the book. Less than 20 years later, that same owner was making jokes about the Islamist riots in Nigeria (more than 200 people killed) that resulted from the Miss World Pageant being held there. Or rather, by a female Nigerian reporter’s comments about how attractive Muhammad would find the contestants. “They got more than they bargained for,” the Progressive Owner said, referring to the pageant sponsors (who had only held the pageant in Nigeria after repeated pleas from the Nigerian authorities). And a few years after that, a publisher’s sales rep for Yale University Press, responding to my remarks about Yale’s cravenness in removing the illustrations from their book about the Muhammad cartoons, said that the Press had “a beautiful new office building . Shame if anything happened to it.” And now Graham ( I don’t think Senator, Representative, or Mister is called for) demonstrates the same amount of courage and self-interest as the Hollywood moguls who removed Jewish names from film credits so as not to lose the Nazi Germany market or all those Petainists who thought they could save France by being as collaborating as possible. Buy the man a Vichy Water.
There is a confusion here. It would be arrogance not confidence not to recognize the merits of non-western civilizations with a history of achievement and now rapidly conquering modernity such as India and China.
Where our nerve has failed is in our unwillingness to declare the utter cultural inferiority of the Muslims not just to us but to the Chinese and the Indians.
More pertinent is the vast inferiority of the bastard “Wild Ass of a Man” Arab/Muslim culture to the legitimate Jewish culture; which inferiority is well-known and deeply felt by members of the under-card. This inferiority complex plus sibling rivalry explains a lot of the violence and stupidity we see.
“Yea,we’re such primitive cretinous barbarians that we can be emotionally manipulated like children…and when we heard that this redneck nobody preacher had burned one of our precious korans.well,we just reverted to being the reptile brained predators that we are and just did what comes naturally…we killed a bunch of innocent 3d party civilians”
Islamist muslims are offended by the non-Islamic west and everything in it. They’re trying to get us to surrender out of guilt for offending them.
Found on the Internet:
“Many Islamists, from Senators Reid and Graham, through innumerable commenters on the Internet, to the editors of the UK’s Guardian, claim that Pastor Jones is responsible for the deaths of people killed by Islamic barbarians who think that everyone must respect the documents that are holy to them personally.
Let us see where that logic leads.
Freedom of speech is not a document, but it is a doctrine that is every bit as holy to the people who believe in it as the Koran is to the barbarians. Those who now attack freedom of speech, by the very logic of responsibility they have espoused, become responsible for whatever consequences follow their attack.
I call them all Islamists because they are on the wrong side. The issue is not subtle. What you should fight for is very clear. You are not above it in any way.
The Koran is central to an utterly alien civilization. Its lovers expect us all to bow to it and they will kill if we do not cower before their stricture. Freedom of speech is central to ours. To the Islamists, from Reid to the Guardian, this civilization is not your personal property to betray, so when you work to see that freedom of speech gives way before the Koran, you are just traitors.
“
rgilbarco, That is a terrific quote, would you happen to have a link to where you found it?
Yes, Zilla, I found it right here.
By that logic Newsweek is guilty of murdering the 15 Afghans when they went nuts over the fake koran-flushing story.
In fact the issue IS a subtle one. Poke bears with pointed sticks, rub the bellies of wild cats – there are consequences beyond morality and law and it is called reality. Wild animals are not fascists. When some are in close proximity we cage them or kill them. We do not sue them. You cannot sue reality. Flap your wings and make a wish. It doesn’t really do anything – not even if you frame the wish legally.
“Should be able to.” or “I can.”, is not an argument – what follows is. It exists and will intrude itself whether you will it or no.
I am not in favor of doing anything to Jones but the idea that he is a hero or brave is ridiculous. Jones is a clown. He should do this in the middle east so his own death can be the exclamation point of his academic argument and not that of others.
You want to extend the first amendment out to Pakistan or Tunisia and your values too? Guess what – you can’t.
Where do you get the idea that anyone is trying to? Pastor Jones did not burn a bible in those countries. His speech was local and made to clowns like you.
Mr. May,
You are implicitly assuming that Muslims have no more moral agency than a bear or tiger. You assume that, goaded by some stimulus they do not like, they will respond with violence, like a predatory animal. They are not animals, they are human beings. The rioters who killed the UN people and their Gurkha guards were religious fanatics goaded by their imam in his sermon on Friday to attack non-Muslims over the news of a burning Qur’an. If it had been false news, like Newsweek’s idiotic story about a Qur’an being flushed down a toilet, they still would have killed after such a sermon. What those Muslims did might well be described as a pogrom. But they are the responsible parties, since as human beings they can be presumed to possess moral agency.
Muslims constantly burn Bibles. They frequently kill Christians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims of a different sect (Shi’a in Sunni countries, Sunnis in Shi’a ones), and anybody else they can get their hands on. In Iran the other day several Bahai were condemned, basically for being Bahai. Several Christians are up next to the same kangaroo court. Think of these killings and burnings of churches (as we recently saw in Egypt and Pakistan) as being like lynchings in the Jim Crow South, intended to keep uppity kufrs in their place. We do not massacre Muslims in reaction to these evil deeds. We did not massacre Muslims in reaction to 9/11. Time for Muslims to learn that the reaction proper to affronts like Qur’an burnings is not violence. To accede to Muslim threats that we must restrain what we say, think, or do lest they be offended and turn to violence is to surrender our freedoms to extortion.
Muslims are perfectly capable of excercising moral control of their passions if they want to. We must encourage them to want to do so. If that means meeting their violence with counter violence on our part, so be it.
Radical Islam has shrewdly recognized that our “elites” have completely lost confidence in the cultural legacy of the West. I seriously doubt if Muslims are really all that worked up about some wing-nut burning a Koran in his backyard. However they recognize that they can inflate this obscure event into a massive ethnic insult that will not only galvanize their followers but also expose Western leaders as blundering appeasers. Graham, Reid and their ilk are ,in effect,saying that “We are willing to sacrifice our most cherished institutions to protect your feelings.”
The world-wide revolution in communications has made it possible for the most isolated event to be instantly translated to the world stage. We have to grow up and recognize that there will always be imbeciles like Rev. Jones around who will use this new technology for their own self-serving purposes. Radical Islam is using these events to impose a slow-motion form of censorship on any sort of discourse about their faith. Every capitulation made by our so-called elites in the interests of “avoiding hurt feelings” brings us closer to the moment when even thinking the “wrong thoughts” about Islam will be punishable as a crime. Muslim leaders recognize “diversity” has become a weapon that can be used against an ennnervated West that is too demoralized to defend its own culture.
There is no such thing as “Radical Islam”.
There is only Islam.
There are faithful Muslims and unfaithful Muslims.
The faithful ones are our enemies.
The unfaithful ones will be some day.
If people will die as a result of an action then that action should not be done without a damn good reason. It is not enough to say that people should not react a certain way or that I have a moral right to do a thing that enrages people; you cannot exert free speech issues across borders and cultures. Where we should have taken a stand is when South Park allowed itself to be bullied by violence into self-censorship – that was here, in the U.S. and that is where we should’ve drawn battle lines.
There is also reality and we can restrain ourselves without necessarily encouraging people to kill others for what we view as trivial reasons.
There are times to give such lessons and times not to. We should do what it is we do in the normal course of our lives and not push envelopes just for the sake of it when lives are at stake; you can’t cry ‘fire’ in a theater for fun because of the reality that people panic. You can make all the arguments you want that people shouldn’t panic – they do. Making an academic argument in which others die is not fair, no matter how much that academic argument should be allowed.
It is not fair to mix pure rhetoric which is what a book burning is, and the negative reality another has to deal with – how would you like it if a friend wouldn’t loan you money for a month’s rent on the grounds of principle? One mans principles is another man’s reality and survival – one should be very careful when mixing the two and exercise on the spot judgment rather than sweeping generalizations.
We don’t need overarching rules that have to be decided in one fell swoop of an argument when priciple butts up against reality. We can use this thing called discretion and judgment without compromising the basis of our civilization. It’s all fine and good to make informal Supreme Court type decisions if you want to put YOUR neck on the line but there is simply no reason for us to choose this as a battlefield.
Jone CAN burn a Koran and people WILL die as a result; why act as if not burning a book is as harmful as a life extinguished especially when no one is physically preventing us from burning books which is a thing we can all live without – this is not a Constitutional crisis.
This is a good reason why the West should practice quarantines of crazy cultures that literally can not reason; just stay away from them and keep them away from us. How rotten would the world be if not one Westerner was in Afghanistan and not one muslim allowed into the U.S.? We keep doing such things because we feel we SHOULD be allowed to and without regard to the actual harm. Sometimes it’s best to cut your losses and fight a fight that’s worth fighting instead of playing referee to two sides that are certifiable maniacs and pretending the future of free speech is at stake.
We know what is right and what is wrong and that should be enough. We are not stubborn children who are not happy until we see our personal expressions of free speech exercised to the nth degree and with signed documents on all sides – let knowing be enough until something actually important is at stake that will actually matter. If a guy’s sitting up in a tree mumbling to himself then let it be until you need the tree to build a house and not just to prove he shouldn’t be sitting in a tree mumbling to himself.
Mr. May,
I like all your posts. Thank you for saying what needs to be said. Now we just need to start ACTING on them before it’s too late. Because regardless if the progressives and other dhimmis want to admit it, we are eventually going to reach a point of no return with the radical muslims. Maybe we’re already there.
Mr May, the problem with your thesis is that you think that if you are nice enough, sensible enough, discrete enough (‘discrection is the better part of valour’) – the enemy will surely leave you alone.
Unfortunately, all the enemy will do is find a new reason to target you (and others), and all your discretion will eventually be for naught.
One beats power with power – not by thinking one can reason, avoid or evade their way out.
I don’t think anything of the kind. I am in favor of quarantine and giant sticks.
This was America 50 years ago.
Giving the finger at the zoo to a lion in a cage is senseless. The lion will turn and savage its partner or a zoo handler at feeding time if you poke it with a stick through the bars of the cage enough times. Is this an exercise in Jeffersonian precepts? Or is it just being a dumb moron?
Jones is giving Islam the finger from a safe distance and towards what purpose. Is the world a better place because it is known he can burn a book?
Mr. May,
Do you really believe that there is any such thing as a ‘safe distance’ anymore?
When we drop bombs people die too, very often innocents. In that case, we are indisputably responsible. It is an unfortunate consequence of war. Pastor Jones did nothing that killed anyone. But what he did was an act that is part of this war that we are involved in, and it is an important part of it. In this case the dead innocents were not killed by Pastor Jones at all. They were killed by our enemies, the supposed “victims” of his harmless act.
If you will recall, criticizing Mohammed gets people killed too. Then we are also to refrain from criticizing Mohammed? If you happen to live in a land where Mohammedans rule, a lot more things will get you killed. If you happen to be a non Moslem in an Islamic land, it is worse yet.
We can either speak, or we cannot. We are at war, and we have a right to discuss what it is that we are at war with. Not only do we have that right (still), it is a critically important need. We cannot possibly win without being clear about who our enemy is (and we have not been clear about it, to date). We cannot possible achieve clarity about who is our enemy if we cannot say and do things that offend our easily offended enemy. Pastor Jones is making a statement, by burning a Koran, that a large number of us support, that it is Islam itself that is our enemy, yet you give us mealy mouthed prescriptions that we must follow because if we do not we will offend that enemy?
I am truly tired of pretending that people who defend our enemy or who blame those on our side for what the enemy has actually done are in any way on our side. We are not conquered yet, after all, so it is incorrect that you are dhimmis. You are Islamists.
You, James May, are an Islamist. You are not more concerned with justice than me. A peaceful world is not more important to you than it is to me. You are not a better thinker than I am. It is just that … you are an Islamist.
A person has the right to bang a window down on their head if they want to – the question is, why would they want to?
Or, in your case, why did you?
By your reasoning, you’re banging the window down on your head. Why do you?
Perhaps you are not an Islamist, Mr. May, but you advocate a mealy mouthed approach in an opaque comment (as the comment I am responding to is opaque). The time for opacity is over. The enemy worships Allah, not God. All Pastor Jones has done is make a statement to that effect. We have been afraid to name the enemy, but he has done it.
If you can’t stop equivocating about it, I will go back to assuming that you are an Islamist. Anyone trying to put respect for our enemy’s taboos ahead of freedom of speech and plain speaking is an Islamist.
Mr. May, do you also blame the women who are raped when they wear sexy clothes, go into a bar alone, smile? After all these are all actions that might have consequences so they should be discrete, no?
Where do you draw the line? Would you have all women wear a burqa, be chaperoned by a male family member?
It is only actors that should be blamed for violence, not victims. The whole culture of the “West” is that individuals are paramount in their rights and responsibilities. If I choose to burn a Koran that in no way requires you to kill.
You seem to have some idea that everyone should be able to do whatever they want and yet you claim to defend the idea of democracy.
What does it matter if a woman should be able to wear a mini-skirt at midnight in an alley in Timbuktu if she gets raped? Is this a thought experiment? Were people who used chaperones a century ago stupid idiots who couldn’t see the marvelous freedoms women have in the U.S. who are raped in their thousands each year because they have the right to stare into the sun?
If you believe in such things use your sister to advance the cause of democracy.
Jones had a hand in those people’s deaths because his act was a pointless one not because he didn’t have the right to do it. We are talking about exercising self control and not about whether I should have the right to bunk with a convicted murderer with no consequences.
You have the right to walk over an active lava tube in Hawaii; please do so now. Later, we’ll sue the lava.
I am doing my part by dropping leaflets over Afghanistan with our Constitution written down. The irate muslims will soon come to their senses and then your sister can go let them bounce her up and down on a blanket while wearing a garter belt and nylons with no consequences.
Doing something that is part of normal life is to be defended, not stupid exhibitions of book burnings that have no point since it is already legal.
If this happened as a result of a TV show or book that was read rather than burned, I would defend it. I do not defend dressing up like Uncle Sam with a Star of David t-shirt on and touring Egypt and then bitching about the savages.
can I own a puppy, mr non sequitur?
Here – he says it well:
http://patterico.com/2011/04/04/don%e2%80%99t-burn-the-bible-or-this-kitten-gets-it/
Among ordinary people with whom I periodically associate, I’ve never met any who use this “preemptive capitulation” the way leftist media types and statist politicians use it. Universally, they say, “F*** Muslims!” I have the clear idea they mean it. I know I do. Among the socialists with whom I am forced to rub elbows at Bloomington, Indiana (home of Indiana University) few of those preemptive capitulaltionists echo the thinking of us ordinary folks.
On The Eleventh: Aldous Huxley, the productive and intellectual British writer who emigrated to America, used to carry one or two volumes with him when he traveled. I expect he read the entire set through several times.
Tex Expatriate — This is off-topic, but I live in Bloomington also.
It is a CRIME what the ivory-tower socialists have done to this town — they are totally anti-business, while the number of soup-kitchens, homeless shelters and tattoo parlors escalate. Perhaps they think that the latter are viable entrepreneurial concerns and fits their sustainable business model… (Despise their group-think buzz words!)
We are repeatedly told that we don’t want to offend the ‘moderate Muslims’.
I’m a Christian. Christians murder from time to time, but let’s pretend there is a big groundswell of Christians murdering everybody else, in a roughly organized way. The main denominations hedge, justify, and prevaricate. It goes on for a while.
What would Christians do? Well, I would first contact my denomination and object. I’d ask my local church to withdraw from the denomination, and if they didn’t, I’d resign my membership and quit going. If Christian organizations in general did not try to self-police, I’d go as public as possible in renouncing Christian murderers and their supporters. I’d take any action I could think of to restore Christianity. I would be outraged.
And that’s just me, there would be millions of other Christians doing the same, finding creative ways to police Christianity into something acceptable. Of course they’d be reluctant, but as Christians, ‘peace’ and ‘love’ mean more than habit and lifestyle.
So the reality of the years since 9/11 convinces me that a) moderate Muslims don’t really exist as we define them; b) most Muslims are at most mildly embarrassed by their murdering coreligionists, and aren’t uncomfortable enough with it to do anything about it; c) Muslims are too intimidated by their own version of PC, by their governments, by the sicko jihadis, by whatever – which says for all their vaunted love of Islam, they will allow Islam to be shamed and perverted before they will take risk and speak up, teach their children, or stop financially supporting jihad and insanity.
Trouble with your strategy, jode, is that if your fellow Christians had begun acting like radical Islamists, they would declare you a heretic the first time you complained to your denomination. At best, you’d end up fugitive like Salman Rushdie. At worst, you’d get your head chopped off.
No, Bugs, at best I would have to do what I do anyway: recognize that I have to be prepared at all times to kill evil people, and do so.
Maybe. But on my head be it; I’d shout to the heavens anyway. Let ‘em take 12 inches off my height if they could find me, but by God I’d speak the truth about my co-religionists and the shame they’d brought upon us, and speak it loud. And I would not be alone; you’d have an ARMY of Ayaan Hirsi Alis.
What I would NOT do–what I hope I would NEVER by-God do–is bleat about how having a problem with these alternate-universe terrorists is just veiled “Christianophobia.” Or condemn their actions with one side of my mouth, and then undercut myself by saying “of course, these people wouldn’t be so angry if the West hadn’t hurt Christians’ feelings by [blah blah blah].”
In Jode’s scenario, if the situation moved some jackleg Muslim cleric to burn a Bible in Pakistan, I wouldn’t be mad at him. I wouldn’t like it much, but I’d know why he thought he was doing it, and my anger would be WHOLLY focussed on those Christians who made it seem like a good idea.
Mr. Kimball, you have disappointed me. At least you’re not alone in that.
Many persons have exhorted us to “condemn both the Koran burning and the murders.” Can no one else see how this is the purest moral equivalence? Besides, you don’t condemn murders; you avenge them, hopefully by bringing the murderers to justice, but if that’s impractical, by whatever other means are available.
Everyone who comments on this matter hastens to tell us how deplorable Terry Jones’s act was, and how self-serving he must be. I disagree strongly. Pastor Jones — I hasten to add that I don’t know the man and live nowhere near him – has more courage in his right pinky than any of his detractors. Smearing the blood of those murdered in Afghanistan on his hands is the plainest imaginable demonstration of cowardice: “Don’t do anything that might get them mad; they might hurt us!”
Time was, real Americans understood the proper response to vermin. It would seem that there are few Americans of that sort in our “chattering class.” I’d thought Mr. Kimball was one. I wish I’d been right about that, but it appears not.
Francis, I usually agree with your posts and do again. Why, WHY! must nearly everyone who comments on this issue take a shot at Terry Jones? A buffoon he may be, I don’t know him either, but he is not pathetic. Pathetic are Reid, Graham and Petreaus. Did our leaders in WWII fear that burning a copy of Mien Kampf would anger Hitler? Leaders they claim to be? Hardly, sniveling cowards is what they are. We have the most powerful military in the world and we can’t avenge rioting barbarians. I wholeheartedly agree that Terry Jones “has more courage in his right pinky than any of his detractors.” Only I would amend that to “all of his detractors combined.”
One thing the Mslims have, however, is a passion for their beliefs, evil as they are. So far it seems the only American who will demonstrate an equal passion for our Constitution and our way of life is Pastor Terry Jones. A pathetic buffoon? I don’t think so!
Pastor Terry Jones an American hero whose countrymen don’t have the guts to stand with him!
“Terry Jones is a pathetic, publicity-seeking buffoon.”
I agree with every thing you’ve written here except the unproven ad hominem against Rev. Jones. The Reverend is pushing back against Islam and he is doing it more effectively than you and your fellow ‘knights of the ink pot’. And I applaud him for it. If there are any buffoons in your article, they are Senator Graham and the left wing hack Mr. Klein.
here is a novel idea
have the rev jones burn another koran then unleash the cruise missiles on the rabble rousers who apparte from the dirt
seems the rev has a way of bringing these vermin out from the shadows might as well exploit it
doesn’t Interpol have diplomatic immunity now?
I would say it’s interesting that Pakistan went so far as to pass a resolution in their shariah parliament demanding Pastor Jones’ arrest for a “violent crime”… http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Pakistani-Minister-calls-on-Interpol-and-the-Pope-to-condemn-Florida-Koran-burning-21178.html
What if Interpol arrests Pastor Jones in Dearborn during Jones’ planned protest? shariah law is being defended right now by the State, in public..
If Julian Assange can be hauled off to another country based on nothing (you all know it) so could Pastor Jones… All bets are off going forward.. for everybody..
They (Interpol) may have diplomatic immunity, however they’re not ten feet tall and bulletproof.
Last May it was “Every Body .draw Muhammed Day”
IT is time for me and my fellow atheists to burn the Kora-and Bible and Torag and Upanishads, etc.
Just to defend FREEDOM O SPEECH.
X = number of UN employees.
Y = number of UN employees Muzziees eliminated per torched Koran.
Then X/Y = Number of burned Korans neeed to eliminate the UN.
Win-Win, Great, inexpensive suggestion to rid us all of the UN!
I’m taking this opportunity to insist again that the only answer to this Islamist/Muslim terrorism is the strict containment of these savages inside their own territories. Their meeting places here in America should be considered as incubators for new generations of sleeping terrorists.
Why do we Americans pussy-foot around this issue? If we don’t act forcefully we will not be in any position at all to defend our freedoms.
Our present policies are actually a slow surrender to this same Islamic savagery being re-enacted over and over again right before our eyes. . These Islamists throughout Asia and Africa must be judged by their actions….only by their actions.
Obama’s Cairo address would be laughable if it weren’t so tragically naive, out of place, and dangerously inappropriate. We’ve simply got to get away from our “do-goodism”.
Right on target, Charlie. I always recall that famous Party slogan in my then Communist Motherland: “There is no freedom for the enemies of freedom.” That was the official, in-your-face irony, of course, but you get the drift. But we need to educate the public, otherwise they will believe that Islam is like Christianity or Judaism. Jones was the first semi-public figure who told the truth about the root of the Crime Against Humanity. For Kimball to call Jones names is simply obscene pandering to the ruling elites – “please like me, please.”
All this happened in a supposedly secure and protected area, knock knock, Jones did us a favor. When something as trivial as Jones’s antics sets off a reaction like that, get out, hopefully not Viet Nam style.
Wonder how the democracy jihad is doing in Egypt and Libya these days?
what does ‘not Vietnam-style’ mean? Get out, and then carpet-bomb them indefinitely? This is just a question. But if that is what you advocate, shouldn’t you be able to admit it?
Were you born an idiot? What a stupid thing to say and conclusion to reach.
I notice that you don’t answer the question: what does ‘not-Vietnam style’ mean? Your silence speaks volumes.
Roger – There is a gaping hole in your list of things Muslims find offensive: it is anything non-Muslim. That is why wherever there are Muslims, there will be problems. That is why so much of the world is consumed with Muslim problems. As for burning the Koran, have you ever looked into that monstrous piece of anti-Semitic, anti-Christian drivel? Jews are monkeys and the trees and rocks will reveal their whereabouts. That ranks right up there with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Petraeus, instead of kow-towing to the corrupt and venal Karzai, should remove him and replace him with some strong pro-American secularist. Enough of this cr**p of making Afghanistan safe for Sharia and a hot-bed of infantile rage on the part of infantile morons; and enought of this nation-building. In the end, you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. More than ever, ISLAM is an acronym for, Idiotic Slayings, Lacerations And Mutilations. Muslims seem to suffer from a perpetual case of SIDS: Satanic Ideology Death Syndrome.
As for the toadies, Graham and Reid, it’s too bad they don’t llike the first amendment, but it’s in the Constitution, and they don’t like what’s in the Constitution, let me suggest a convention of the states to re-write it, and while it’s being re-written, we can put the Federal government in a state of suspended animation.
Insanity,Slavery,Laceration, Mutilation. fify. (Too bad we can’t spell rabid with those letters).
I spent over a year in Bagram, Afghanistan and got to know some Afghans well enough to attest to the accuracy of references about Afghanistan’s people published in Britannica’s Eleventh edition. As a whole Afghans are indeed an affable and quite personable lot. But these people are also very backward and any objective person that has spent time there would have to say that Islam has only made their backwardness a lot worse. I never had conversations on the subject of religion with any of the ones I knew. But fellow expats told me that the ‘locals,’ as we called them, believed that praying to Allah five times a day and asking for this or that was the only thing that kept catastrophe at bay. I was told that they were not very amenable to the idea that there was no evidence that Allah was even interested in improving their lives. I am referring to the basic belief system of the average, subsistence farmer; I’m not sure if this applies to members of the more sophisticated class of Afghans, a few of whom I also got to know. In sum, I have to say that nation-building will never work in Afghanistan.
Stop apologizing for Muslims and call them what they are, primitives, ignorant, backward, uncivilized, and simply pathetic. The entire middle east needs to be cordoned off with a 50′ wall with guard towers every 1/2 mile. Anyone attempting to leave should be shot. And screw you pathetic weak willed Lefties who feel for these barbarians.
Air lift them all to Antartica. They’ll never get off that rock and the climate might cool their hot little heads!
Both Reid and Graham reputedly are attorneys. That they show no grasp of the United States Constitution makes me want to see credentials.
If Reid and Graham want to curtail the United States Constitution’s First Amendment to protect American lives, let me suggest where to start. Outlaw the Islamic religion on American soil and shutter all the demon dens known as mosques tomorrow. Of course, I wouldn’t agree with that course of action, either, but the fascistic Joe Kleins who wouldn’t bat an eye if anti-Koran burning laws were enacted would scream to the top of their lungs if their religious allies were curtailed.
There is one upside to this whole episode. It has ended the very last of the conservative support for the Afghan campaign. We went into that fetid cesspool to take out al-Qaeda. We largely have done so. We need to tell Karzai, an evil and treacherous SOB, that we are about to leave and if al-Qaeda returns we will use nukes and turn that Stone Age garbage heap into a glass garbage heat.
Oh, one problem with this column. People need to stop being PC and drawing some sort of not-quite moral equivalency between Pastor Jones and barbarous Islamic murderers. Frankly, while I could care less about Jones, he has exposed the rank stupidity of thinking you can deal with these animals in any way other than violence.
And if someone sets off a bomb in the US and kills Americans because they are enraged with Terry Jones? Is he not then a threat to national security?
Should not Homeland Security pay him a very serious visit?
No, we hunt down the treasonous b*st*rds who set off the bomb, hang them, and bury them in a pig skin. Any questions, dhimmi?
He’s not a dhimmi. He’s an Islamist. We haven’t been conquered last I heard.
No. At that point, you do have to curtail some First Amendment protections by shuttering mosques, rounding up Islamic religious and political leaders, and using forceful measures to extract information from them. Then expulsion of every Moslem man, woman and child from these shores must start.
Why wait till they set off a bomb? If there’s some pre-emption that I support it’s deporting every muslim from our country. That they will bomb us is not an “if” it’s a “when.”
What you all suggest is all very well. But to do it, you would need (at a minimum) a Declaration of War, and more likely a Constitutional Amendment, since there will be no nation to declare war against. If you didn’t get any of that when 9/11 happened, I doubt you’d ever get it, and certainly you wouldn’t get it on a preemptive basis.
If the legislation enacted in the aftermath of 9/11 has empowered DHS to pay Pastor Jones a “serious visit,” to quote you, it has empowered it and other federal agencies to shutter mosques, put Muslims in concentration camps, and to use enhanced interrogation techniques to extract information from CAIR and other like groups, right? No need for a declaration of war or constitutional amendment if the feds can give Jones a “serious visit” already. Go where the real action is. Go into the mosques and round up the real problems here.
“…the root cause of terrorism is terrorists.” Wrong. The root cause of Mohammedan atrocites is Islam and their hate-book, the Koran. Time to end all immigration of Moslems and pull all of our troops from every Mideast s***hole. If they insist on continued aggression, then that’s why we have nukes in our arsenal.
There has been a case in the UK in recent months, concerning a cafe in Stockport (close to Manchester, in north-west England), the bacon-scented aromas from which allegedly offended passing Muslims. Nearly six months ago, a court ruling supported the local council in demanding that the extractor fan, from which the supposedly offending odours emanated, be sealed.
On the 30th of March, Beverley Akciecek and her Turkish husband won their appeal against the ruling of the lower court.
Now, a good friend of mine, back in the Nineties, was a Hindu and a rock-solid vegetarian, but she admitted to me that, while she would never in a month of Sundays eat bacon, she really liked the smell of bacon as it was being cooked. My friend was born in London, but her parents were both Punjabi. The Punjab is the ancestral origin of a high proportion of British Muslims, too.
So, I am a bit puzzled. A member of a vegetarian culture might be expected to be more offended by the cooking smells arising from bacon than a member of a sect with no objection to the consumption of meat per se. Did the Muslim objectors to the extractor fan genuinely object because their olfactory nerves were perturbed by an aroma to which, logically, they were quite unfamiliar, or did they learn to identify the distinctive smell of frying bacon and then object?
I think I know.
It was the neighbor who objected and said his “muslim friends” stopped visiting him because of it.
Point One – the ordor was only for a short period in the morning (breakfast).
Point Two – the owner (and cook) is muslim (a Turk).
Point Three – the extractor fan was a replacement not a new addition to the kitchen.
Whole thing blown out of proportion and the neighbor thought he had a slam dunk by mentioning muslims because they are the new super-sitizens in that country and everybody knows it.
“The desecration of any holy text, including the Koran, is an act of extreme intolerance and bigotry,” Obama said in a White House statement released Saturday evening.
From now on anyone can call Obama a spineless intolerant hypocritical bigot.
Obama , the Commander-in-Chief of the United States Armed forces, is apparently only concerned about Korans but thinks it is OK to burn Bibles or doesn’t care.
Because in Afghanistan in 2009, US Military personnel threw away, and ultimately burned, confiscated Bibles that were printed in the two most common Afghan languages amid concern they would be used to try to convert Afghans.
Or is it OK because Christians don’t riot in the streets and kill people when this happens?
The most disgusting part of this article was the reference to Gen. Betrayus as a “war hero”. Gen. Patton and Phil Sheridan must be spinning in their graves at this disgrace to the U.S. Army trying to appease the enemy.
Aren’t these the same bunch in Afganistan who a few years ago blew up a 1,000 year old Buddah? How can they expect us to respect their religion when they respect nobody else’s religion, culture, etc. Furthermore, you have to wonder if the same people (here) decrying the burning of the Koran would have celebrated it if it had been a bible wrapped in an American flag?
Sounds like there is a valuable lesson to be learnt here…
Angry people seems to be on the winning side in our culture, because our behavior in the face of conflict is too reasonable, as we assume it must be some mistake or other problem that *we* can rectify because we arrogantly think we’re so strong that we can control the situation with sanity and moral superiority.
Someone who dares to attack you is doing what they do because they can and you let them and they know it, otherwise, they’d not try.
Don’t back down, don’t assume it’s a mistake, it’s always deliberate, they are not your friend and never will be.
Don’t forgive, demand compensation and extra for the hassle. (and then some)
Don’t be reasonable with unreasonable people. (which anyone who picks on you is).
Don’t let proven bastards escape your clutches, because they only find the next victim.
Christianity’s pompous and vain but cowardly presenting of the cheeks to enemies(and then being surprised when one get’s it’s lower cheeks kicked hard!) is a malaise at the heart of Western society and the one prime reason why Christianity no longer is respected by anyone, not even by it’s own Archbishops and other assorted priests (see Rowan Williams for example who supports Sharia!)
If you were a Christian you might know that “turning the other cheek” is not meant for the benefit of the other person but for the Christian to not get down in the mud by responding in kind. There is something to be said for that and abiding by better instincts.
Terry Jones and his followers are wrong, despite their rights under the constitution. I have a family member in Afghanistan and if anything happens to him I will probably want to hunt down everyone I know to be responsible. But I feel it is the Muslim freaks killing people that are the one’s responsible for what they do, not some publicity hound that has what I believe to be the wrong idea of Christianity. And I don’t smear every Christian for the wrongs of the minority, just like every Muslim is not Osama. Or every Jew is not….fill in the blank.
Turn the other cheek, okay, but don’t get smite twice.
“If you were a Christian you might know that “turning the other cheek” is not meant for the benefit of the other person but for the Christian to not get down in the mud by responding in kind. There is something to be said for that and abiding by better instincts.”
Re-read what I wrote, because this is exactly what the West’s problem is.
Arrogantly thinking that one is the better person with the better instincts who does not ‘get into the mud’.
If you carry your nose that high, don’t be surprised if you fall face first into the muddy quagmire eventually.
“Masculine” prose? What does that make the Gramscian mire we’re slogging through today, “feminine” prose? Better because more accurate: “Muscular” prose. Think Sarah Palin. Her prose is metaphorically alive and true to nature and human nature and neither masculine nor feminine.
I did an interview (face for radio) on Russia Today T.V. on the subject of Reid, Graham and the burning of the Koran.
The people rioting and murdering were for the most part just rank and file citizens, not warriors. That is what makes the idea of punishing free speech that much more of a non-starter.
If you punish this free speech, then do you punish it when riots erupt over some other benign act?
You can see the interview at The Political Commentator here
Mike
The Political Commentator
“We are at war” Graham… Now he declares it! Why didn’t Graham & company capitulate on the evening of 9/11 by refraining from singing hymns on the capital steps – which may have offended the Muslims? (they ought to have been drafting declarations of war against several offensive countries, to have them ready in hand)
Let “Johnny” hold his breath ’til he DIES.
Dr. Shalit
Personally, I much prefer the Terry Jones of Monty Python fame. He, at least, has the good taste not to adorn his face with mutton chops.
blah.blah.blah….all you all do it talk.
Here is what needs to happen.
1. Every mosque in America is shut and destroyed…burned, bullddozed, turned into a parking lot, playground, pig sty…SHUT.THEM.DOWN.
2. All ISALMIC organizations are banned – assets seized (to recoup war costs).
3. All isalmic leaders are rounded up and deported..to..Johnston Island. All others are invited to depart back to wherever their religion tells them to go…
4. Any and all contact with ISALMIC countries is banned.
5. Military seizes the oil fields and shuts the sea lanes to only oil shipments to the west, china, russia.
6. Any islamic violence any in the world against non-islamic folk is responded to by destroying major islamic religious sites and cities. Target number one MECCA.
After the dipshits, learn to grow up and join the 21st century, we relent. if not the Ency. Brit..one day will note in a minor footnote the passing of a crazed facist poli – quasi religious ideology.
in the immortal words of Professor Terguson – “Good Answer, good answer, i like the way you think, i’m going to be watching you…”
“Terry Jones is a pathetic, publicity-seeking buffoon.”
Perhaps someone of the stature of Harris or Dawkins or Hitchens can burn a Koran. Come to think of it, why aren’t atheists burning Korans? Or exercising their speciality: smearing excrement on holy works or dunking holy works in urine? Are they cowards? Stupid? Squeamish?
Jones may be a buffoon–more likely he is fundamentalism’s Dawkins: uncompromisingly hostile to his enemies. I don’t know the man, but his act (or actually, that of his acquaintance), wasn’t pathetic or buffoonish. We are in a religious war and I don’t see the moral problem burning Mein Kampf, Das Capital, Dianetics, or Korans, were we are war with their believers. And we are.
Dawkins? He doesn’t have the balls.
“The desecration of any holy text, including the Koran, is an act of extreme intolerance and bigotry,” Obama said in a White House statement released Saturday evening.
He did?! There’s a buffoon. It’s within his power to end subsidies to “artists” who have desecrated Christian icons. He’s been in office two years. How often has he ended the bigotry and intolerance from the branch of government of which he is its head whose employees he supervises? Gales of riotous laughter. Can Commandante Zero say anything without beclowning himself?
Was there this much ado about the last time Afghans rioted over mistreatment of the Koran? Of course, it was Michael Isikoff who set off that melee when he falsely reported that a Koran had been flushed down a toilet at Guantanamo. In those days it was all about Bush administration torture policies, and Isikoff was piling on.
Isikoff is a journalist, so it goes without saying that he’s enlightened. Not like Terry Jones. Today, Isikoff’s colleagues would like to hold Terry Jones “accountable” but back then they fell all over themselves defending Isikoff.
We should leave Afganistan pronto and keep our powder dry. The sane world will be fighting these crazies soon enough.
To me, saying that when some one burns a Koran, they are responsible for murderous stupidity of Islam is the equivalent of saying a man can’t be held accountable for the rape a woman because she dressed to sexually. He just couldn’t, “help himself.” Pure, unadulterated BS. Those A-holes that murdered people are the murders. They had the choice to peacefully protest, or even, “confront,” the one doing the burning or reason with him. Instead they chose to riot, and murder. Since people seem to think we are the police of the world, can we take No one attacked them. They got violent because some one disagrees with an idea they hold dear. them in for murder or at least get restraining orders against them?
The idea that Pamela Anderson should have the moral right to climb to the top of the Great Pyramid stark naked with no negative consequences is a good one at its heart but you see there is this thing called reality.
Good luck legislating it from half a world away. You can serves writs to tornadoes and I hope the next book burning Jones does is in Kandahar so a more direct cause and effect can be observed and written down by men in lab coats.
I don’t think the ‘volunteers’ liked the last one. Doing a thing to prove it can be done should not involve people snatched out of their beds and stuffed into a cannon that shoots them across the Snake River. Democracy is meant to control the excesses of men within our own borders, not promote millions marching into movie theaters and crying ‘fire’ to prove a point.
Our Constitution is a serious document, not a high-wire circus act where men stick out their tongues and cry, “Betcha can’t stop me and if you could you shouldn’t be able to. Nyaah nyaah!”
Democracy in action is not a passion play where we burn a flag of a different nation each night followed by a beheading of that countries most famous iconic historical figure. Should we be able to? Of course. Why the hell would anyone want to do that and then start spitting at those who goes nuts, especially when we already know they’re nuts? Lets save our fights for those that matter and not to back up religious fanatics who claim their star riding alien is the best one. I thought America was a country against the idea of religious wars? We are meant to respect freedom of worship not to respect religions’ freedom to involve ourselves in religious feuds that get people killed.
Legally Jones is on solid ground but morally he is hardly a shining beacon on a hill.
and the killers have a whole world of hostages at their disposal, mr. may
Here’s the thing called reality. Pamela Anderson isn’t traipsing around Egypt naked. Of course, the Muslim savages in that nation likely would rape her to death if she did and the Quislings in the United States would apologize to the barbarians. And if that scenario didn’t play out, it likely would be that Anderson didn’t have the legal right to do so anyhow. Pastor Terry Jones had every legal right to do as he wanted. Karzai and his America enablers encouraged the bloodbath in Afghanistan, not Jones, and basically conferred a de facto right of murder on the Islamic monsters.
No, the United States doesn’t engage in religious wars. But it is time to acknowledge Islam isn’t an actual religion but an ideology, a demented, sick perversion of humanity along the lines of communism and fascism. You don’t appease these types. Frankly, we owe Pastor Jones a huge debt of gratitude. He has shown us the futility of dealing with these monsters, particularly the Afghan variety, in anything other than the most violent, high casualty body count way imaginable. If we cannot do so, we need to leave Afghanistan and have a national holiday in honor of Jones. And perhaps launch a few nukes into that region each year when it is celebrated.
From “The Shawshank Redemption” — “Get busy living or get busy dying”….
By forfeiting our adherence to Freedom of Speech, cowering in fear of possible Muslim barbarisms, then we are busy dying.
We are killing ourselves by a thousand cuts until the West has lost all of its vigor.
TERRY JONES, ISLAM AND THE BOOK OF DEADLY RAGE
Terry Jones didn’t kill a single soul when he burnt his copy of the Koran-which was his right to do under our laws however irresponsible, senseless and wrong. But what he burnt was an insidious book written by an evil, violent, vainglorious man who fanatically believed he had the ultimate revelation of God’s truth to man, and was in an absolute rage against unbelievers who dared to resist him. And that rage has been on full display for 1400 years of Moslem conquest, brutality and war; and now in acts of terror against our land, and in the murderous, anti-US riots engulfing war torn Afghanistan. The real issue isn’t Terry Jones and his deliberate provocations-let him burn his Korans and put Mohammad on trial to his heart’s content as that is his right. The real issue is totalitarian Islam and its existential threat to Western Civilization. For the deadly rage of Moslems includes us all whether we’re leftist appeasers of Islam, rational critics of the faith, or its crazy book burning foes.
If “the root cause of terrorism is terrorists” then one must conclude that guns are the cause of people being killed in a shooting. The NRA has a big problem with your logic and so do I.
This brave women does it right, complete with bacon bookmarks. Bravo!
http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/american_studies/koran_burning_page_by_evi.php
I particularly liked it when a beeping noise went off in her head and she set a page on fire with her extremely dilated eyes.
Usually I associate book burnings with stupid Nazi morons and not bacon wielding freedom fighters.
The two suicide bombers in Pakistan didn’t need Koran burning nor cartoons to slaughter 41 people and injure over 60 at a Sufi shrine in the Punjab .
The Sufi, one of many Islamic cults, is not extreme enough apparently to avoid the curse.
This will go viral, and it should:
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2011/04/manifesto-of-evil-totalitarian.html
The media couldn’t wait to tell every Muslim on the planet that a Koran was burned, they incited the violence. they stirred up the hornets nest hoping that someone would be stung. When will the media report that Bibles are burned every day in the Middle East? Never. Because no violence will result for them to report on. The media is fanning the flames of the Islamist war against us,
on purpose.
If I download a copy of the Koran and then erase it, isn’t that the same as burning it? What if I put it on a jumpstick drive and burn the jumpstick? Ooh, the possibilities!
But Hamid Karsi didn’t tell Everyone in Afganistan that you did. So I guess the violence was his fault. The insanity of these people can’t be tolerated. They are just bullies who act out. The should be confinee to their rooms. Jones is making the point that if Christians put up with insults from Musilms, then they should be ready for the same. It time for Muslims to man up and behave themselves. It’s not going to be an easy
Mr. Kimball, I utterly disagree with your snarky, sneering reference to Mr. Jones as a “pathetic, publicity-seeking buffoon.” He knew up front, in advance, the cost of poking at the murderous Mohammedanist vermin. Yet, he went ahead anyway. Now there is a price on his head, his congregation has dwindled to only a couple of dozen people, and he’s slowly going bankrupt. His comments have shown that he’s a thoughtful man who sees creeping dhimmitude as a mortal threat to Western civilisation. I doubt that I’d care for him personally, but his courage is to be commended, not mocked in a craven fashion.
I’m disappointed in you, Mr. Kimball. Suck it up and be a man about fully supporting brave men, as opposed to giving with one hand and taking away with the other hand.
“You see the difference.” This assumes that the obvious to some is the obvious to all. It should have been a question because what is obvious is that there are many, a disturbing number in fact, who do not; Lindsey Graham, Harry Reid, General David Petraeus and Barack HUSSEIN Obama whose Muslim Envoy, Rashad Hussain, says the solution to Islamic violence is to spread Islam, are good examples.
The ultimate goal of Islamists, everywhere, is a world Caliphate where Islam is not the dominant “religion” but the only one. So Obama’s solution to Muslim violence of every stripe is to aid and abet the spread of Islam! Does this reaction to the burning of a Qur’an in Florida not evoke just a little suspicion as to Obama’s ultimate motive?
When Hannity announced yesterday that he was to interview Terry Jones on his show, I thought, Why is he giving publicity to this loon?
But I liked Terry Jones. His deep rumbling voice sounded very confident about Western civilization. And he sadly noted that though he’d hoped nothing would come of the Koran burning, the untoward reaction might make others realize the violence inherent in much of Islam/prove his point.
Hannity sounded Lindsey Graham-like in defense and I was reminded once again, that anyone the media condemns as a clown should be given a second look.
“As I said above, Terry Jones is a pathetic buffoon.”
How do you know this? Have you spoken with him? I don’t have an opinion myself, but when I have heard him interviewed in the media he comes across as articulate, logical and informed. What if he is right? What if Islam is an evil religion by virtue of its doctrine as set forth in the Koran? It certainly would not be the first evil religion in human history.
Why is it never asked what prompted the Koran-burning?
Could it be that it resulted from the killing of Christians by Muslims?
If so, why is this never mentioned in the media, which has but an inkling of causality.
Rog,
Gosh, that’s what we need more of, eh?
Unapologetic masculinism, that will work well in the world of the web.
Let us just boldly say we represent the REAL penis power of the earth and have done with it.
Yes, friends, let us return to those thrilling days of yesteryear when the white academic represented real manhood and the weak willed Negro and stealthy Jew were quickly cataloged as the degenerates they were.
Lets roll back those tedious revisions like equality for women, suffrage for all creeds and colors, etc.
Infidel, have you not been warned? Your blaspheming Islamophobic diatribe shall not go unpunished!
Nor will Allah’s Holy Law of Sharia ignore the unremitting provocations your own cowardly Progressives have merely feigned to confess as “Gitmo”, with its similarly profane Tribunals! [pbuh]
Warning, Infidel, cease your sickly pretenses and submit immediately as true dhimmis: Sharia’s requirements will not confuse your politically correct “bending over backwards” with Allah’s own holy dictate that you must bend over forward! [pbuh]
Oh, an Islamist barbarian talks about the desert djinn that he worships.
Btw, Ozzy, it would appear that your
“corrupt ways”overused penis fixations “have finally made you blind!” – Idiot Wind, Bob DylanRoger: See Ann Barnhardt’s remarks on Lindsay Graham. Guaranteed to please. Must be seen to be believed.
http://tinyurl.com/3dqynjd
It is completely irrelevant to these inhuman hate filled murderers that their victims were INNOCENTS who had absolutely NOTHING whatsoever to do with burning the Koran. They wanted and craved innocent infidel blood.
God’s Biblical Laws are eternal. No man or any religion can change G-D’s Holy Laws! God commanded:
YOU SHALL NOT MURDER
A 2003 fatwa ruled the Bible suitable for use by Muslims when cleaning after defecation.
http://www.meforum.org/2867/jihad-ethiopia-christ…
Bible, Psalm 119:120 My flesh trembles for fear of You, and I am afraid of Your judgments.
Who will dare to treat our Mighty God – Creator of the Universe, with such filth and evil?
Waldemar, re: “John is right. I will even go further – I consider Terry Jones a hero.” I do also, Waldemar… our leftist cultural elites fall all over themselves to deface and degrade the Bible (anyone remember Robert Mapplethorpe and his obscene depictions of the Bible?), yet hasten to reassure Muslims that the “Holy Koran” will be respected by all – even at the cost of our most basic liberties. The next time we torch some Korans, we should have a pig roast over the coals. Throw another Koran on the fire, Rev. Jones.
Where was Gen. David Petraeus when the military ordered Chaplains to confiscate Bibles and burn them?
If he would have spoken out then, with the same words that he used about the burning of the Koran, then he would have more credibility.
Did Gen. David Petraeus ever speak out against the Saudi policy of having police confiscate and destroy Bibles?
I have conducted an investigation;
I have interviewed thousands of witnesses;
The results were submitted for judgement by a jury of their peers;
Harry Reid and Lindsey Graham have been found Guilty of Felony Stupidity, and other purposes!
They are to be put to death by listening to the looping of the recorded works of Lady Gaga, interspersed with the collected thoughts of Bill Maher…yes, I realize that might not fill any time, so I’ll throw in Charley Sheen too – and Heidi Fleiss….
what do you mean that their ‘crime’ is not a capital crime?
More people have died due to the stupidity of Senators than at the hands of criminals; so, therefore, it is entirely appropriate.
Oh, Hell!
All…Right!
You win!
We’ll put them both in the stocks up in Salem.
What do you mean that’s disrespectful of a National Monument?
What the Hell do you think what they do every day on Capitol Hill is?
I am not backing what Terry Jones did by burning the koran, but it is just a book. The muslims say the koran was written by GOD not man. The only thing I know is that God did write the TEN COMMANDMENTS to give to Moses, which the muslims say they believe in the Torah and Moses, but have a hard time following the COMMANDMENTS. The book Jones burned came off a printing press!
Harry Reid and Lindsy Graham are pathetic excuses for Americans, who would not know what America stands for even if they tripped over the our Constitution. They are both political cowards that send our troops into harms way and have them foght with one hand tied. Now General Patreas, he is a piece of work, General Patton would have walk over to Patreas and p-ssed on Patreas leg!
Excellent piece. I covered much of the same ground last fall, in “What Would Jesus Do with a Qur’an? Actually, He Might Burn It” (http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/131223.html) and “The Qur’an and the Fig Tree” (http://hnn.us/articles/131769.html). As I note in the first article, in 2009 the US military burned thousands of Dari and Pashtu translations of the Bible in Afghanistan, after a Christian service member ordered them from a missionary organization (presumably–the military has never released the full story). In any event, rather than shipping them back whence they had come, the base commander (Bagram) ordered them burned. Yet not one chaplain, much less any Christian, killed anyone or demanded retribution. Too many Muslims are violent, spoiled children and we should treat them accordingly.
A long quote from one of my articles on this topic:
“I wonder if General Petraeus’ reaction would have been the same, however, had he been in command in Afghanistan last year when the U.S. military ordered the burning of Bibles. Yes, in May, 2009, American “military personnel threw away, and ultimately burned [emphasis added], confiscated Bibles that were printed in the two most common Afghan languages amid concern they would be used to try to convert Afghans….” It seems that a few soldiers or airmen at Bagram Airbase, about 30 miles north of Kabul, had managed to procure some unspecfied number of Dari and Pashto Bibles from a church in the U.S. and rather than sending them back whence they’d come, the command at Bagram was allegedly “worried the church would turn around and send them to another organization in Afghanistan—giving the impression that they had been distributed by the U.S. government.”
So, according to the spokesman, Lt. Col. Mark Wright, scores of Christian Holy Scriptures were put to the flames—because “troops at posts in war zones are required to burn their trash.”
Most Americans have probably never heard of this (although Rush did mention it on his radio show today) . Please note: I am not saying that because our military burned Bibles, Reverend Jones should, tu quoque, be allowed to do the same to Qur’ans with impunity. What I am saying is that the wildly-disparate responses by our own government officials to the issue of burning Christian and Islamic holy books is emblematic of an official policy privileging Islam and Muslims that is tantamount to one of dhimmitude—the historical status of subservient Christians and Jews under Islamic rule. First, why was the burning of Bibles by our own forces not more widely reported? (This morning I asked Suhail Khan, a moderate and conservative Muslim who was a guest on the Denny Schaffer show in Atlanta, his opinion of the Bagram Bible bonfire; he admitted to complete ignorance of it.) Could it be the predominant media narrative that sees Christians as oppressors and Muslims as victims, forever and ever, amen? Second, what explains the lack of labeling Bible burning by our own military forces (the ranks of which are overwhemingly Christian) “idiotic” or “disrespectful—other than the aformentioned dhimmi mentality which is pervasive among not just the government but, it increasingly seems, military? Third, does it not occur to our Attorney General, Secretary of State and commander of forces in Afghanistan that Islamic “extremists” will seize on any slight pretext as a rationale for violent demonstrations against Americans and Christians? By the logic of Holder, Clinton and, sad to say, Petraeus, the West should allow its beliefs to be held hostage to the perceptions of Muslims. That way lies civilizational decline and impotence. Reverend Jones, as boorish and unappealing as he is, comes off as a veritable Charles Martel next to the Obama Administration’s dhimmis.
Even the Vatican, perhaps burned by the reaction to Pope Benedict XVI’s 2006 Regensburg speech calling out Islam for its violence, is running scared. The church’s Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue issued a statement that “deplorable acts of violence…cannot be counteracted by burning another religion’s sacred book.” However, violence certainly can be caused just by the mere threat to burn a certain sacred book. (Again, note that the few Christians—like myself—who knew about the 2009 Bible bonfire in Afghanistan did not indulge in “deplorable acts of violence.” ) But the leadership of the world’s largest Christian denomination betrays an even more disquieting misapprehension (perhaps willful) of Islamic teachings, in adducing John Paul II’s 1999 address to the Pakistani ambassador that “recourse to violence in the name of religious belief is a perversion of the very teachings of the major religions.” Even the great former pope seems to have had a major blind spot when it comes to Islam—for the Qur’an is rife with teachings that lionize violence against non-Muslims.”
#66 Charles Martel,
You are absolutely correct. You write: Where was Gen. David Petraeus when the military ordered Chaplains to confiscate Bibles and burn them?
The U.S. military perpetrated a huge, hostile, EVIL attack against G-D’s Word, the Bible and against G-D Himself. It was also a very vicious attack on Judaism and Christianity.
What are the real reasons the U.S. is fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya. It certainly has NOTHING whatsoever to do with justice, freedom and human rights. The hate-filled act of burning precious Bibles is a very powerful proof that the war has nothing to do with those cherished values!
We should not be surprised when severe persecution of Jews and Christians begins in this country.
To #70 Occidental Jihadist
Thank you for your comment on the satanic Bible burning. However, I don’t see it as dhimmitude. It is HATE for G-D and G-D’s Holy Laws contained in those precious Bibles.
The U.S. military went out of their way to make a statement to the entire Muslim world that America had absolutely no respect whatsoever for G-D and the Bible.
Terry Jones should be afforded the protections necessary for his well-being. If a rabid Muzzie gets to him I hold Barry Obama personally responsible.
Roger Kimball will be happy to know that the savagery of the Afghans was much abated from 1910 to 1929, which is the earliest copyright of my edition of the Britannica. Here we learn only that they have “fine figures, aquiline profiles,[and] fair complexions” There is however the slightly alarming comment that the “vendetta, in many forms, is a rule of life. . . . They are able to endure great privation, and are sober and stern, [but look out] and may often become cruel.”
Perhaps more in the spirit of the 11th edition is this characterization of the the indigenous peoples of the Malay Peninsula:
“In ordinary circumstances, the Malay is not treacherous. . . The Malays are indolent, pleasure-loving, improvident, fond of bright clothing, of comfort, of ease, and dislike toil exceedingly. They have no idea of the value of money, and little notion of honesty where money is concerned. They borrow rather than earn money. . . . They are addicted to gambling and formerly were much given to fighting, but their courage, on the whole is not high by European standards. There follows a very droll description of ” acts of homicidal mania called “amuck” (amok). . .” which I will spare my readers. Another amusing observation, in the same edition, concerns the aboriginal peoples of the Cape, in South Africa, who are described as intelligent, but lacking the “steadfastness of purpose” of the European.
In general, though, my edition represents a more scientifically oriented and a more tolerant ethnology than does Roger’s.
Before Terry Jones burned his Qu’ran, he was warned that it could be used by our enemies to stir up anti-U.S. sentiment and endanger lives. He did it anyway. Though he did not directly cause the violence that ensued (the extremist imams and their rabble are directly responsible) he provided the imams which their material and occasion. Pointing out Jones’s share of responsibility in the murders is not the same as arguing that our Saudi bases “caused” the 9/11 attacks. The U.S. maintaining foreign military outposts is not comparable to an ignorant egoist burning a Qu’ran. Remember Aristotle’s distinctions among material, formal, efficient, and final causes. Understanding this tragic fiasco is not a matter of sympathies or political leanings; it’s a matter of clear and precise reasoning.
And on the topic of reasoning, this question for Mr. Kimball: Should the reasonable expectation of privacy receive the same uncompromising protection as freedom of speech, even during war? If so, does he object to the secret surveillance of telephone calls and emails authorized during the Bush administration, and which I assume continues under the Obama administration?