Should Terry Jones Have Burned That Koran?

Ed Morrissey notes it's not his fault, and James Joyner says so too.

But Joyner says something I disagree with:

Should Jones have burned the Koran? No. But not because doing so might incite some evil people halfway around the world to commit atrocities against innocents. Rather, he shouldn’t have done it was needlessly hurtful without adding any value to the debate. Indeed, aside from generating publicity for himself, he’s likely generated sympathy for Islam and disdain for churches of his ilk.

That's exactly backwards. He shouldn't have burned it only because it would inflame lunatics to kill people, and we don't want to make things more difficult on our troops.

But as for "the debate"? What debate? The debate over whether or not I have to bow down to a primitive, alien religion and honor its symbols?

The proper thing is to burn ten Korans for each casualty inflicted by Muslim murderers. Now, I wouldn't do that, because I am, in fact, deferring to the "murderers' veto" and I don't want to cause my fellow Americans any more difficulty than needed in Afghanistan.

But minus that? Minus that, I'd have a Koran on my barbecue this weekend.

The principle of politeness goes out the window when those who seek "respect" and "tolerance" are murdering people to get it. They're not seeking respect; they're seeking obedience through terror.

I don't wish to offend moderate Muslims (and, contra some commenters claims -- of course they exist; but unfortunately there aren't enough of them to make a dominant, social-rules-establishing-and-enforcing majority), but I also need to establish that there is no alien religion's claim of blasphemy over me.

I think Joyner is trying to set up a paradigm where he doesn't encourage such rude (and yet useful) displays but claims it's for reasons other than terroristic cowing.

I guess that's an attempt to not incentivize the killers, even while also attempting to mollify them.

Trouble is, it's false, and everyone knows it. The only reason this isn't done more frequently is precisely because of the excitable murder-cultists. They know it, we know it.

Of course, if they stopped butchering people, I'd also have no reason to burn the Koran, because why would I wish to upset nice people? I wouldn't, of course.

But given they live and breathe terror and mayhem -- philosophically, their fetishes should be destroyed, to demonstrate their lack of power.

But we don't do that precisely because they're killers and animals.

By the Way: I do think Terry Jones is a self-aggrandizing jerk. I think he did this for attention/approval. He dismissed that his approval would come at someone else's expense.

posted by Ace at 12:21 PM

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