Posted on 04/04/2011 10:53:56 AM PDT by Crush
Many of us in the U.S., regardless of our faith, viewed with despair the Quran-burning pastor’s actions —we knew innocents would likely die. President Barack Obama and others have spoken about the pastor, in the fall when he first threatened the burning and recently after he carried through with it.
There is however a lapse in US leadership regarding appropriate responses to the burning. The lapse creates a dangerous window that should concern all Americans.
The Bill of Rights addresses the issue of faith and free expression in Amendment I:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
President Barack Obama first spoke in September about the pastor with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, former aide to a Democrat in the White House. Obama said, “This country has been built on the notions of religious freedom and religious tolerance…”
Obama rightly said the preacher’s burning of the Quran would be a “destructive act” and “a recruitment bonanza for al Qaeda.” The leader of the free world also said, “We are a government of laws and we have to abide by those laws…”
Others at the pinnacle of the American body politic weighed in. In September, 2010, after the first threats to burn the holy book were made, Stephanopoulos interviewed Stephen G. Breyer, associate justice in the US Supreme Court.
Stephanopoulos wrote: “But Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer told me on ‘GMA’ that he's not prepared to conclude that -- in the internet age -- the First Amendment condones Koran burning…’Holmes said it doesn’t mean ...
(Excerpt) Read more at theusreport.com ...
If I were president here’s the rules:
You kill a Christian, we burn a koran in his honor.
Burning books only shows one’s ignorance.
beheading a person because a book was burned is pathological.
With respect to the soldiers overseas-in fact due to that respect, I think it is high time we deal with this enemy- MUSLIMS all MUSLIMS to be clear. Blow the lid of this PC BS, pound them all into the ground and tell the “peaceful” muslims living here to start playing by the rules.
I am not an ignorant or bigoted person in life-although I am sure someone will take exception with that claim based on my above statements. However, I readily admit I do not trust a single muslim as caring for me or our way of life while I am suppose to walk on eggshells for them.
Innocents will die FOR SURE no matter what anyone does or does not do because it is what Islam, the Koran, the Hadith and Mohammed the madblood thirsty prophet teaches their followers to do!
ISLAM = worships and serves Satan the god of death. Death and the sword is what Islam is at it's core. Nothing more, nothing less. This is why you NEVER have and NEVER will hear so-called "moderate" Muslims denounce the blood shead by those promoting Islam, because that is the CORE of their demonic "religious" cult.
Murdering people because someone else burned a book on the other side of the world is the definition of barbarism.
He had the right to burn the book...regardless of whether I like it or you like or the people in Afghanistan like it.
Here's my take:
Kill a Christian and we turn Mecca into a Wal-Mart parking lot.
No, it should be "You kill a Christian, we bomb the nearest mosque".
Can we recall Breyer? He was alright with flag and Bible burning in the internet age. And the analogy to yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded theater isn’t valid. If there weren’t a fire, it’s a false assertion only meant to panic people into a stampede - is that the case here? Protecting the burning or destruction of symbols, including our own, as exercise of freedom of speech and freedom of religion, has already been established. How many times have we already been lectured on that? And how many times have we been lectured on having to defend objectionable speech even more so than speech we agree with, since objectionable speech is precisely the kind that was meant to be protected by the amendment? What happened to that repeated to the point of being cliche assertion from our military, ‘I may not agree with what you’re saying, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it’? Sometimes I wonder what country I’m living in now.
Exactly, where did this twisted logic circle begin and why?
They can behead an infant but we must defend their faith and not apply the action broadly.
Yet this guy burns their evil text and we are once again seeing leaders with their lips quivering and their pants wetting trying to pacify the enemy. No matter what they do to the West we ask for them to forgive us and people wonder why they are taking over?
Does anyone really believe these a**holes would be at home watching AfghaniIdol on TV instead of murdering people if not for this one pastor? They would find another reason. They kill, that’s what they do.
You are allowed by the Constitution to be ignorant and you have a Constitutional right to express your ignorance as well as expressing your views, political, religious and otherwise without fear of government reprisals or prohibitions.
FUBO & FAD
What I feel isn't despair. It's anger. Not at the pastor who did the burning (although it was supremely stupid), but that people are focusing on his wrongdoing instead of putting the blame for the violence where it belongs - squarely on the shoulders of the Muslim extremists.
It is disappointing that our military leadership publicly wrings their hands over a citizen performing the legal action of burning a book. It is wimpiness. How does the song go? “a little less talk and a lot more action” and there are numerous actions that don’t consist of starting a new war.
Muslim behavior has not changed because of the Koran burning. It caused nothing. The Muslims have been raping, pillaging and murdering since the first Muham’N’eggs.
I was unaware that anyone had concluded that the 1st Amendment 'condones' the burning of the koran. And what does 'the internet age' have to do with whether or not a certain action by the government is constitutional?
The simple fact that the 1st Amendment does not permit the government to outlaw a certain practice does not mean that the government must 'condone' the practice. All the government must do is tolerate the practice.
If Steven Breyer really did say what The Snufflaufugus claims he said, then he is even less intelligent and less qualified to be on the U.S. supreme court than I previously thought.
How do you feel about boiling a Koran in pig fat?
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