Posted on 04/13/2011 4:45:40 AM PDT by Kaslin
"Since American liberals don't have the guts to say it, allow me: The Rev. Terry Jones hasn't done anything wrong. Nothing."
So writes my friend and conservative radio host Michael Graham in the Boston Herald. And on this, I think Michael's nuts.
Graham is referring to Jones, the pastor of a tiny fringe church in Florida, who held a Monty Pythonesque "trial" for the Koran and, to the surprise of no one, found the book guilty and then set it on fire. While the stunt got blessedly little attention in the United States, foreign media picked it up, and some radical clerics overseas used the incident to foment murderous pogroms against Westerners.
Various politicians, led by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), responded by demanding that Jones be held "accountable." "Free speech is a great idea," Graham insisted, "but we're in a war." He went on to claim: "During World War II, you had limits on what you could do if it inspired the enemy."
Huh?
Sure, wartime censorship is an American pastime. During World War I, under President Woodrow Wilson, we not only shuttered newspapers, we unleashed goon squads on dissidents and imprisoned critics of the war. During World War II, FDR was somewhat less heavy-handed. Still, the people being censored weren't those demonizing the "Kaiser's Huns" or the Nazis or the Japanese. It's never been a crime to say bad things about the enemy.
Even if the senator's arguments are a hot mess, he has a point. We're in a different kind of war fought in an age in which news travels the world, uncensored and often distorted, with the speed of a mouse click. And in that context, there's simply no way to spin Jones' idiotic stunt as anything other than morally ugly and tactically unhelpful.
If, as we are so often told, the Muslim world is enduring a civil war between the crazies and the moderates, what good comes from Koran-burning? It offends "good" and "bad" Muslims alike. Moderate Muslims who seek to yank their societies out of the Dark Ages surely winced at Jones' stunt, and jihadists undoubtedly celebrated their propaganda windfall.
The fame-hungry pastor prattles about how torching the Koran is an act of resistance to the "Islamification" of America. Come on. Yes, the left has an infuriating double standard by which devout Muslims are delicate flowers who must be defended from American "Islamophobia" and wildly overhyped "anti-Muslim backlash," while far less illiberal and bigoted (by liberal standards) devout American Christians are to be feared, mocked and opposed. But that's a product of the internal inanities of multiculturalism and political correctness, not the creeping Islamification of America.
Michael Graham is correct when he says that Jones isn't culpable for murder -- the guilt falls squarely on those with blood on their hands.
But he and others also say there's nothing wrong with burning the Koran. This represents an astonishing evolution in the right's attitude toward free speech that has been unfolding for the last decade or so. Traditionally, the conservative argument about free expression went like this: "Yes, you have the right to say (or do) X, but that doesn't mean you should say it, and it doesn't mean I can't criticize it."
Burning the Bible, "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" or, yes, the Koran, is a shameful and brutish act. And failure to criticize it can sometimes be legitimately, or at least predictably, interpreted as an endorsement.
That said, conservatives have been admirably consistent in their new free-speech absolutism. In 2007, Dinesh D'Souza claimed in "The Enemy at Home" that liberals were to blame for 9/11 because their cultural licentiousness aroused Muslim hatreds. Conservatives rejected the thesis almost unanimously on the grounds that blaming our freedoms for Muslim terror is absurd and dangerous.
The analysis is still correct. But that doesn't mean there's "nothing wrong" with indefensible speech -- on the left or the right.
So, we have an individual who's already fighting against the illegitimate claims of a tyrannical gub'mnt filled to the brim with tyrants and now Jonah wants to toss our traditions into the pot as well.
Doesn't work that way Jonah ~ you know that ~ when the tyrants get loose, after they kill all the Jews they kill the rest of us as well.
Not worth the risk.
Think I'l light up a smuggled Cuban cigar with the front piece of one of those drugstore book shelf paperback holy books while I'm at it.
Burning a Koran is not "free speech," and it's also not wrong. It's disposing of trash.
Jonah Goldberg turned left some time ago. The fact that he is tacitly supporting Lindsey Graham and Muslim extremists is no surprise.
Is it wrong to burn the Koran? No, because it is a book inspired by Satan.
Welllll, Jonah I don't recall you writing any columns or criticizing the military when it burned hundreds of Bibles in Afganistan. So, by your own words this can be interpreted as an endorsment. Thus, you condemn burning a koran but endorse the burning of Bibles. Why should we take a word you say seriously?
It offends “good” and “bad” Muslims alike.
This is built on the fallacy that there are “good”
moslims, struggling to “reform” their murderous
brothers, reformers who repudiate the horrid acts
their kin.
I have yet to see it.
Funny how the word “desecration” never makes it into discussions of the Holy Bible, the American flag, crucifixes, etc.
Jonah is a RINO wuss.
This is where he drifted off course and ran aground. Rarely will you see moderates speak out against the crazies. They are afraid of them. Since it is OK to lie to non-belivers, you must be concerned about what their true position is. If the moderates are to be trusted they need to help direct the ship toward calmer seas. Have you seen that happen? I haven't.
Maybe I'm out of step, but it sure seems like most of the Big Name Conservatives are actively supporting the people who want to destroy this country.
“Jonah you jackass...”
Something that has been missing since 9/11 and before is leadership on issues such as this from the Oval Office. There has been a real need for top US officials to inform Muslims both in the US and elsewhere, and in the UN, that they cannot dictate how Americans and other free peoples exercise their rights under Western forms of government, and that they cannot demand that Americans follow Muslim beliefs about what is and is not permitted.
Pastor Jones had a right to do what he did. It was a political statement and that is the form of free speech, or free expression absolutely guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. No one has to approve of such actions, but Goldberg and others are far too exercised and self-righteous about it. They are one step away from political censorship.
The Koran preaches death to non-believers and praises killers who die for Allah. Jones had every right to burn it.
Jonah will make a good dhimmi. His girls won’t mind wearing the hijab too much.
koran should be drizzled with bacon grease before burning!
Pastor Jones (who I never really liked) gathered thousands of THE ENEMY in One Place ... where were the drones and the Bombers????
just askin’
Pity, his "Liberal Fascism" book was so informative, too.
Jonah is full of it.
We just responded wrong.
People have a right to burn Korans. They don’t have a right to riot.
We should burn a Koran, then slaughter the rioters.
Then we alternate the process with Mohammed cartoons until we run out of rioters.
I once took an old tattered copy of the Koran and fed it to a pig.
Went out the next day, pig dropped his load, and low and behold I had myself a brand new copy of the Koran.
Perhaps Jonah would be open to the idea that if Muslims can kill over the burning of the Koran, those who love Old Glory can do the same when someone burns it?
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