Quite frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn if someone wants to burn a book, any book. If a person’s paid for a book, he can do what he likes with it.

I am not going to join the chorus proclaiming Pastor Terry Jones a try-hard loser. I don’t know anything about the man. I suspect he is more sought by the media than seeking the media.

What I do think is that his burning of the Koran was a reasonable act of protest.

This is a book which inspires murder, torture, the mistreatment of women and minorities.

It is a book which, read through the lens of the example of Muhammed, a serial rapist, torturer, murderer and child molester, means misery for hundreds of millions of human beings.

It is the book of a religious group whose default emotional setting is inflamed.

It is the book of a group of people who thinking burning a book (their book – burning other books is OK)  justifies burning and beheading people who look like, or may have once have been in the same country as, the people who burnt the book.

So go ahead and burn it. The trouble is not with the burning, but with the cringing.

General Petreaus described the Koran burning as ”hateful, extremely disrespectful and enormously intolerant”.

No it wasn’t.

He then went on to say that the fury this had aroused was an understandable passion.

No it isn’t.

Burning a nasty, racist, violent book is a legitimate act of protest. Burning and beheading people who had nothing to do with it is murderous brutality.

Jones was right. The reaction to his little protest proves there is something to protest about.

Kow-towing to bullies does not work. They need to be told stop it and grow up.

Forgiving bullies does not work, unless they have first shown that they have changed and will bully no longer.

Otherwise making excuses for inexcusable behaviour merits the warning JP Donleavy gave about forgiveness in general (no link, but from the Unexpurgated Code):

“Forgiveness. Be careful, those getting this then do the unforgivable. Which is frequently a lot worse than the first lousy thing they did to you.”

Now a couple of quotes from a woman who runs a small business in the rural US:

Ann – I am not a political activist.  I am the owner of three small businesses who looked around two and a half years ago and said, “Oh, HELL no.”  Politicians make me ill.  I can never and will never be a politician.  For the last two to three years I have been focusing heavily on explaining and exposing Marxism, Islam and the fraud that is Obama.  But that is triple-redundant, isn’t it?

iOTW – What is your take on what is known as the Ground Zero Mosque?
 
Ann – They can build a mosque at Ground Zero when we can build a Catholic Cathedral Basilica over the top of the Kaaba in Mecca.  You know what?  Check that.  They still couldn’t build a mosque at Ground Zero, because Ground Zero is the sacred burial space of 3000 people that THEY MURDERED.  No mosque at Ground Zero E.V.E.R.
 
iOTW – Islam uses the constitution to their advantage. How do we do battle with Islam without trampling the constitution?
 
Ann – Declare war against the Caliphate, just like we did against the Third Reich.  Same bloody thing.  And I’m not kidding.
 
iOTW- What do you think of General Petraeus and his assertion that inciting Islam puts our soldiers in harm’s way?
 
Ann – I have an offer for General Petraeus.  I’ll GIVE him one of my balls.  Then I’d still have two, and he would have one.  He is a politicking coward who cares only about his pension and cashing in on his rank after he retires.  The suicidal, defeatist Rules of Engagement he oversees are the unequivocal proof of that.  He should resign in disgrace – yesterday, and then present himself to each and every family of our war dead and BEG their forgiveness for failing in his duty as their son or daughter’s commanding officer.

Here’s a bit more, complete with Koran with bacon bookmarks:

You may disagree with some of what she says, or the way she says it.

Freedom of speech, and safety to speak what we believe, is a great privilege. To lose it is to lose civilisation.