The Ground Zero Mosque controversy has shown that American citizens still understand the difference between “can” and “should.” The Park51 project sponsors have every right to build their “community center” in the ghostly shadows of the World Trade Center – people of good will and taste argue that they ought not.
The same sensible cohort of citizens is undoubtedly even more dismayed by the plans of the pastor of a trivially small Florida parish to burn a copy of the Koran in commemoration of the 9/11 attacks nine years ago. It is, as General David Petraeus has said, an act that could put our war aims at risk and jeopardize the lives of American soldiers. AG Eric Holder has weighed in to denounce the plans, as has Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, who said that the act would be disgraceful and disrespectful. The perpetually outraged set are, predictably, outraged at this expression of libertine free speech.
People may differ over whether the construction of an Islamic worship center near Ground Zero is a triumphal gesture and calculated affront. No such room exists for difference over the proposed Koran burning, it is intentionally provocative, and dangerous.
And dangerous.
For my own part, place me squarely in the group of those who believe this provocation is deeply stupid and counter-productive. Yet I can’t help noticing that when Andres Serrano photographed a crucifix in urine, he was sponsored by the US taxpayer in his work, and was much lauded by the art world for his bravery. And when Chris Ofili hung a dung-besmeared and pornography-spackled painting of the Holy Virgin Mary in the Brooklyn Museum, Hillary Clinton – while admitting that the work was offensive – vociferously shouted down an attempt by New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani to withdraw funding from the museum, while the New York Civil Liberties union rallied in favor of the display.
This act is sensational headline news not merely because a sacred religious item will be profaned. We have become resignedly accustomed to the profane. It is sensational because who will be outraged. Not Christians generally, not Catholics particularly, who have largely given up on violent protest and death threats. It is sensational because we know that people will die for this petulant and stupid act of constitutionally protected free speech.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which aggressively involves itself in the protection of our 1st Amendment rights nearly everywhere, has been conspicuously silent on the issue of Floridian Koran burning.
Perhaps, as IowaHawk’s David Burge tweeted, they could engage themselves if the pastor wrapped the book in an American flag before he burned it.
Hard to improve on your comments, Lex. Only thing I might add is to say you missed the Chicago art museum (don’t remember which one) who hung a portrait of then Black Mayor Harold Washington with an integral part of the artist’s exhibit being an American flag painted on the floor–a very LARGE flag–such that if one wanted to stand before the portrait to view it, one had to walk/stand on the American flag to do so.
Cute.
Hmmm; I have a copy of the Koran on my hard drive. If I delete that file, will that draw down the wrath of the Perpetual Rage Brigade?
My recommendation is that Pastor Terry Jones capitulate and announce plans to burn the Bible and the Torah instead. Then sit back and wait for the roaring crescendo of dissent, which I am sure will be heard on every TV and radio station across this land. Meanwhile across the pond the palestinians and angry brown men in AfPak will be jubilant, thus removing our boys from harm’s way.
and then toss a cartoon of two of mohammed on top of the pyre just for equality’s sake.
Stupid: yes
Dangerous: oh, hell yes
But it’s their RIGHT to make stupid and dangerous statements if they want to.
Can’t call it a good idea, though.
Agree, agree, agree and agree.
Darned, I am so repetitous.
Even I, a Buddhist Agnostic (if there be such an animal), think the burning of any book, including the Koran, a bad idea.
Though I doubt that even Mr. Jones would advocate beheading or blowing up Muslims as a “tit-for-tat”.
RonF/
I’m surprised you didn’t comment on the Washington portrait bit. Do you remember it and the assoc. controversy–or which art gallery/museum in which it was displayed?
Virgil, if your post was for RonS: I do not remember a Washington portrait controversy.
Regards,
Nope, was for Chicagoland-based RonF–he’d just commented on another thread and thought he might stop by here.
One of my best friends is still a member of the ACLU (a leftover from his Harvard days and a family tradition), though even he is now pretty much done with them.
I would admit that the ACLU over the years has performed some good deeds. I would say the same thing, under some duress, about Unions and Academic Tenure, though today all three should be abolished as they do far more harm than good.
Can’t we all just get along?
No?
OK, then, maybe it’s better to just get on with the fight and get it over with out in the open.
“I prefer a stand up fight to all this sneakin’ around.”
After what happened to Saddam’s vaunted military, I kinda doubt you’ll see anyone stupid enough to volunteer for a stand-up fight with the US Army anytime in the foreseeable future.
All the more reason to get on with it. We need to drive the point home that it’s just as dangerous to try to fight from the shadows as it is out in the daylight.
A “fair” fight is only insisted upon by the guy who thinks he’s gonna lose the other kind.
Lex … You put the case against this stupid and dangerous act very succinctly. This is what I fear most for our country — that angry rightist radicals will be inspired by angry leftist radicals to exacerbate what is already a unstable situation. The pastor of this church should retreat and ‘reboot’. I am no particular friend to the Religion of Perpetual Outrage, and I will debate them toe to toe any time, about their primitive and vengeful attitudes toward women. But this is no way to accomplish change and greater understanding. And it could, and probably will, endanger our American soldiers in the Mid-East.
If I were the pastor here, I would surely hate to have *that* on my conscience.
Marianne
Debate is only potentially productive between peoples who are willing to contemplate changing their positions.
Are you willing to consider changing your values, Marianne, provided your opponent offers you a persuasive argument for the tenets of their ideology? Or do you honestly think they are any less committed to their perception of “what is right” than you are?
If not, then any ‘debate’ is just kabuki.
See “antithesis.”
Stupid and Dangerous sum it up pretty well, Lex. HOWEVER. . . .although I worry about the backlash against our troops in the region, I keep seeing in my mind’s eye all those American Flags that ‘those people’ keep burning in their own protests. . . .usually about every day, it seems. I find that more offensive than the burning of any book. And I am surely getting really really peeved that anytime someone thinks that we might offend the Muslims (see the Mohammed cartoon fiasco or the Salman Rushdie fatwa) that we must ALWAYS protect THEIR feelings, because THEY MIGHT REACT WITH VIOLENCE AGAINST THE REST OF US. That last, capitalized, phrase should be the telling one. If rage, or the capability of causing mayhem, is the primary determinent of our policy decisions, then Islam has already won, and it’s only a matter of time until the World Caliphate is a reality. Stupid and Dangerous, yes. But sometimes we have to risk the stupidity in order to take a stand and put a stop to something even more dangerous.
BTW, I will point out that the most recent statement by the Imam just this morning pointedly and very deliberately referred to the GZ Mosque as Cordoba House again and NOT Park 51 as he had before his trip to the Middle East. This as he said, in the very same interview, that he was being very observant of the feelings of the Ground Zero families. I guess it’s not really important for him to dress it up any more for public consumption. Just more In Your Face moderate Islam?
Zipper
Zipper – I am with you on the idea that we (meaning the non-Muslim) must always be so careful about the iddy-biddy feewings of those poor sensitive souls – they are so peaceful all over the world, after all.
I don’t agree with this Koran-burning thing. It’s wrong, inflammatory and people will die because of it. Bad enough our warriors are in harm’s way from these kinds of people all day everyday, we don’t need to give them any more reason to kill them than they already do.
Perhaps an equally if not even better example (mainly because it is almost a “done deal” by the Parks Service) of American Dhimmitude, of being “cowed” by Muslims, is the Muslim/Islamic-inspired design of the Flt 93 Memorial in Pa. Read the comments section in Lucianne today first, then click on original article. Actual deign is in the shape of a Crescent with a minaret-like crescent-topped tower that acts as a sundial in which the 5 times/day for Muslim prayer are struck by the towers shadow–with the entire complex oriented EXACTLY towards Mecca. Sickening. (I signed the protest petition over 2 yrs ago at blog “And Rightly So!,”btw) Go to:
http://www.lucianne.com/thread/?artnum=563381
I think I shall be ill. We are such simple-minded idiots that sometimes I think maybe it IS time for massive change to this country. Hopefully, I’m old enough to be dead of natural causes before it becomes totally unrecognizable as the country I once served.
When in doubt I consult that great philosopher, Dr. Frankenstein’s creature: “Fire bad.”
or was that Ben Franklin? either way.
I’m surprised that there has only been passing mention of ground zero in the Pentagon. Most people don’t know that when they rebuilt the damaged section, they put a memorial and a non-denominational chapel at the exact spot that the plane hit. I have attended Protestant services there, and I know that there are also Catholic, Jewish and Muslim services there at times. Of course, that is not the plan for the “cultural center” in New York, regardless of what the Imam says.
Greetings:
Too bad our general and flag officers didn’t think to ask the lefties and draft dodgers to stop flying those Commie rag-flags during the Viet Nam war lest they encourage our enemies and those of our allies and put our troops in danger. I’m quite sure that they would have, patriotic-in-a different-way Americans that they were, responded with total acquiescence.
General Patraeus, regardless of his other accomplishments, has spoken A Bridge Too Far. That speech would have been appropriate to his subordinates to alert and prepare his troops, but he has no business “warning” civilian citizens how to exercise their rights. It seems to me to be more of that “force protection” mythology that is an outgrowth of Colin Powell’s “Great Theory of War”. If you want to force protect, leave them in their barracks in America. Except maybe for Fort Hood, Texas.
Back during my thankfully limited days in the Federal bureaucracy, a personnelist spent a delightful evening with me explaining the, then popular, idea of “progressive discipline” and how each subsequent behavioral failure by an employee should result in a greater degree of punishment. I think it’s time to share that concept with our muslim brothers and sisters. On a practical level. You burn our flag, we burn your book. Get used to it.
While I think the burning stunt in FL is just that, a stunt; I can not agree with the position that somehow this is going to inflame the worldwide Muslim community to new acts of violence.
Adherants to the ROP have been attack Americans for decades. No burning of Korans predicated the bombing of the USS Cole, our embassies in Africa, Kohbar Towers, WTC I, WTC II, or any of the other assorted acts of depraved inhumanity that the wretched excuses for human beings that bow to Mecca have committed over all the years of my adult life. They need no excuse, and the only action of ours that drives them to commit these acts is the fact that we dare to draw breath. Our very existence, coupled with the dictates of their “holy” book, compels them to subjugate or kill us. No other options are available to the devout.
Heck, and if they aren’t sufficiently riled up, the MSM will gladly create incidents out of whole cloth (flushing Korans ring a bell?) anyway, so what difference, exactly, will this one act make?