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Being a more than a bit of a First Amendment absolutist is kind of a hard burden to bear. It means that you have to stand up for some of the worst people in the country and their right to say any damned fool and hurtful thing they want to. The Phelps family of Westboro Baptist Church are a great example of when believing that your right to speak out really rubs one raw.
It is too bad that there will always be copycats who have to one up the lunacy. Which is where the despicable and mustached bit of scum known as Terry Jones comes in; if that name sounds a little familiar it because Jones was the World, no excuse me, Galaxy class asshole who was going to torch a pile of Qur’an’s on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
He had his fifteen minutes of fame, all of which was tied up with the morons who were (and still are) trying to prevent the building of the Park51 Islamic Community Center. He was talked down by some folks from the Muslim Community.
It got him a lot of attention including a comment from Right wing favorite Gen. David Petraeus, who weighed in saying it would be detrimental to our effort in Afghanistan, and that this “Pastor” should not do it.
Well it seems that the taste of fame was too much to resist for a poor excuse for a god botherer. Pastor Jones actually held a trail for the Qu’ran and found it guilty of “crimes against humanity” for terrorism, rape and murder. Who knew an inanimate object could get its act together to do all of that?
He then put up several punishments on line so people could vote. There was shredding, drowning, burning and facing a firing squad. Being old fashioned his voters chose to burn the Qu’ran, they must have also thought it was a witch.
You know it is not often that I agree with Gen. Petraeus, but this is one of those times, this was never going to help an occupying army that is combating an insurgency for over a decade. And you know what? He was right.
Today, after Friday prayers three Afghan Imam’s preached against the burning of their holy book and their followers went and took it out on the United Nations mission in Kabul. Seven foreigners were killed at the UN compound.
It is unfortunate that Afghan Imam’s took the step of firing up their people and worse that the people there killed UN staffers. But let’s flip this around. What if someone in held a trial for King James Bible and they then desecrated it? What do you think the reaction in this country would be? Do you think that Evangelicals would be up in arms? Might they in fact go and attack folks of that group?
To me this is all ridiculous; I am not a believer in deities so it is hard to get spun up about this stuff. At the same time, I think there is real problem for any small minority to be singled out in our nation. This vilification of a religion for that acts of a few of its members is unacceptable.
Should we believer that all Christians are intolerant assholes because of the Phelps family and Terry Jones? Sure they have a protected right to be some of the worst dicks in the galaxy, and there is not a lot we can do about it, but is it correct to paint all of their co-religionists with the same brush? That is what they do and it is only our forbearance and the fact that Christians are the majority in this nation that keeps it from happening.
Terry Jones is a bigoted, intolerant fool who now in a very real sense has some blood on his hands. He did not have to go out of his way to antagonize Muslims. He was warned of what might happen and yet he went ahead in order grasp a little bit of fame. Well all he has earned is infamy.
All that I can hope is that many other of his co-religionists will use their free speech rights to tell him exactly how fatally moronic his actions are and disavow him totally.
What is on your minds tonight Firedogs? The floor is yours.
21 Comments
Terry Jones is directly responsible for the deaths today. He should be shunned by all decent people and never be allowed to preach again.
Agreed. Again. Bill.
Words are words. People are people and as such we can choose to let them effect us or not. Terry Jones is a confused critter at best. Pretty much convinced Phelps is just evil or at best that he won’t recognize any notion of ‘worldly’ or that of the ‘greater’ good. He’s right and everybody else is wrong, that ‘good can only come from his god’ and so on, not from this world. Too pessimistic at least, I’d say. The last SCOTUS decision on this will bring us new examples of such ‘free speech’ and they’ll have consequences. But luckily, words like any double-edged sword can be used the other way ~-”_”-~
Mr.Twain, ” Never be allowed to preach again,”? Never allowed by what or whom? Armed mobs ala those who attacked the Mormons or the state or federal governments? Since about the time of Nero governments have been quite active not allowing people to preach ideas or theologies they didn`t like. Back when I was younger and stupider than I am even now I attended an anti-war rally. One of the speakers said the reason American pacifists couldn`t get their act together was that everybody seemed to want to express their own ideas rather than following their leaders in action and thought. What always worried me was how easy it was for the majority to agree with him. The last I heard he was a tenured professor at a progressive liberal arts college. I have always been a salmon swimming upstream against the current. The numbers who desire to feed me to the grizzlies are legion. They fully believe they have the right to allow or disallow me to piss them off.
Zenostoa
What I find most amusing is Terry Jones is probably one of those same idiots (morans)who’d insist “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” The disconnect and pretzels people twist themselves into to justify their intolerance never ceases to amaze me.
I agree, needless killing is immoral.
Whatever evils our free speech laws may allow to occur, they prevent repeats of far greater evils which have been recorded in Western history.
Also, I don’t see a way to improve the free speech law without losing the principle of it. And the principle is what protects it and makes it workable.
“Religious Intolerance” my *ss. The first step in opposing it is calling it what it is. “Religious Hatred”.
markfromireland
12 people were killed. Only 7 count.
The title could just as easily be “When Free Speech Gets People Killed.”
US Muslims had basically no reaction to Jones. Good.
I support Muslims’ right to burn the Bible or, say, build a mosque near Ground Zero or anywhere else they want.
One of the reasons the Florida and US press did their best to ignore him this second time around (he’d threatened to burn a Koran back in September but decided not to, once he got enough of an ego-charge out of having the attention of the world focused on his pathetically evil ass) is to try and avoid what just happened. But I suspect that it’s probably too late: Various mischief-minded Afghani insurgents no doubt are following his every action via the Web, and just as they feed off of his actions, he will feed off of theirs.
Even European Muslims seem to have had no reaction. As a matter of fact, Muslims worldwide seem to have had no reaction, except for Muslims in Stone Age Afghanistan.
Terry Jones, in America, has EVERY RIGHT to do what he did. In fact, I wholeheartedly support his right to do that. I don’t agree with it, but that’s the beauty of civil rights in general; they don’t rely on an approval process. And thank god!
The deaths are an unfortunate outgrowth, but were perpetrated by murderous thugs hiding behind religious outrage. We can’t let foreign asshole murderers determine our behavior.
Fuck them! But appreciate our rights, what little of them we have left.
I do appreciate his right to be a complete and total jackass merely to feed his size 27 ego in a size 2 soul. He has the right to do it and I have the right to say that he has ethics that fall somewhere between the stuff you scrape out of a fish filter and smegma.
That he was warned that there would be negative consequences and he went ahead with his bigoted and hateful desecration of another religions holy text shows that he is a person that only cares about himself and is a complete and utter shame to anyone that calls themselves a Christian. To me all holy books are just books, but I have enough common courtesy not to deal with them at all.
Terry Jones is more than a disgrace to Chritianity, he is a disgrace to basic humanity. He diminishes us all by his antics with no thought to the consequence but more attention for the little boy inside him that didn’t get enough hugs.
And I will use my Free Speech rights to keep talking shit about this poor excuse for a man as long as he wants to keep being an asshole.
“Terry Jones . . . did not have to go out of his way to antagonize Muslims. He was warned of what might happen and yet he went ahead.”
“That he was warned that there would be negative consequences and he went ahead.”
Terry Jones was threatened with retaliation by crazy Muslims if he burned a book and then he did it, and now he’s being blamed for his adversaries’ committing murders. So, following that line of reasoning, Dr. George Tiller was threatened with retaliation by crazy Christians for doing his work and now must be blamed for his own murder because, like Jones, “he was warned that there would be negative consequences” if he did something the crazy religionists didn’t like.
My atheism allows me to be intolerant of all the zealots, whatever their stripes. Sorry, the only culpable party to a murder is the one who struck the death blow, whether it’s the crazy Muslims or the crazy Christians or the crazy anybodies.
Major difference there Hoss. I am an atheist too, but here is the difference, Tiller did not desecrate their holy books, in fact their holy books were his.
Tiller did not hold a trial of the main holy text of the Christianist asshole that killed him.
Jones did all of these things.
Oh, and why do you think you have to be a atheist to be intolerant of zealots? Many religious folks are intolerant of zealots.
I just read an AP story by Amir Shah, dated today, about more demonstrations in (Stone Age, my term) Afghanistan:
“The Quran was burned March 20, but many Afghans only found out about it when Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the desecration four days later.”
President Karzai condemned Pastor Jones’ act from the standpoint of what? President Karzai, invoking his authority as what, condemned Pastor Jones. President Karzai, condemned Pastor Jones, on the basis of what?
Pastor Jones burned a Koran which, presumably, he owned. In Stone Age Afghanistan, Stone Age Muslims, destroyed the property of others and killed people. The people who owned the property and the people killed had no known association with Pastor Jones, nor was any needed.
Mr. Jones was informed in advance that taking such an action would help the recruitment efforts of the enemy.
Mr. Jones knowingly took the action, purposely aiding the enemy to reward his own ego.
Mr. Jones is a traitor.
My Dear Geraldo, I loved your coverage of Katrina and the big General. Who or what did Jones Betray? The fanatics, like all American Government agents I call all who do not grovel before our tanks fanatics, would have found some other reason to prove that the Taliban is alive and well even though every American tax payer has spent about 1000 a year for the last decade to kill them. Did he betray Obama who himself betrayed us by waging un-declared war? Is it possible to betray a betrayer? People in power have been informing me in advance for years how my actions will destroy the country, when in reality my Quixotic blatherings have only made them order another martina at their favorite K Street watering hole. For all his panderings at least Terry Jones followed the law; not ursurp it like the Traitor in Chief.
Zenostoa
In this case, religion is the motivation because the intolerance goes both ways. That’s the very nature of the Big 3 Abrahamic religions: convert or die; convert or burn in hell for eternity; if your mother’s not one of the chosen, then neither are you, so tough luck, buddy.
But, I digress.
Only the actions and reactions by the individuals are relevant. Jones burned one religion’s holy book. Dr. Tiller in performing his lawful work committed several religions’ worst sin. Adding other examples to clarify my position: Theo Van Gogh produced articles and films criticizing religion, and the Danish cartoonists lampooned a god. The actions by Jones, Dr. Tiller, Van Gogh, and the Danish cartoonists all elicited death threats from people motivated by religion. Jones’ action was no more provocative than the actions of the others. “That he was warned that there would be negative consequences and he went ahead” is true for all of them, but you hold only Jones accountable. According to your diary, Jones is unequivocally accountable for the response to his actions; therefore, Dr. Tiller, Van Gogh, and the Danish cartoonists are also accountable for the responses to their actions. That is where we apparently disagree; I believe none of them are. Regardless of the perceived provocation, as I said before, the only culpable party to a murder is the one who struck the death blow.