Burn a Koran, Find an Anti-Constitutionalist

In case you haven’t yet heard, a Florida pastor finally followed through with his plan to burn a Koran last week. Had this event happened, say, twenty years ago, I doubt it would’ve made the evening news. But since we cannot escape the relentless 24/7 news cycle and the fact that everyone with electricity can tune in to our news broadcasts, events are pretty much reported instantly around the world.
Thanks to this worldwide dissemination of “news” (I put that in quotes because so much of what passes for news these days is opinion, not raw information), pastor Terry Jones’ action led to riots and murders in Afghanistan, among other reactions.

I’m not here to condone his action in burning a book. Would I have done it? No, I have better things to do, like wash Fido, my imaginary dog. I’m also not an attention-whore. I would, however, like to point out that he merely exercised his Constitutional First Amendment right to express himself, and in so doing, he pointed out several things.

1. He is well within his rights to burn a Koran.

2. Barbarians half a world away didn’t like it.

3. Said barbarians felt the need to demonstrate their displeasure by killing a few innocent people.

4. One of our own generals highlighted that it placed our fighting forces in greater danger, as if somehow they were safe to begin with.

5. Last but not least, he managed to discover anti-Constitutionalists within the halls of Congress.

In a most graceless, unChristian way, Pastor Jones did the nation a favor by pointing out hypocrisy and double standards, both abroad and, sadly, here at home.

Several bloggers noted them also this weekend. Ace posed this question to the Moron Horde, Should Terry Jones Have Burned That Koran? Be sure and click on over to read the comments.

Dr. Sanity had a great post that probed the question further with her post, The Last Roundup. Also a good read, enjoy.

Terry Jones managed to raise our awareness of the difference in cultures, poking even more holes in the misguided theory of multiculturalism, whereby all cultures are even, except for Western culture, as a result of the codified insanity of postmodern “thought.”

Christians have had to endure the desecration of religious icons for years without complaint. Piss Christ, a sculpture of Mary made out of elephant dung, and many other alleged works of “art” have insulted the sensibilities of Christians. Noticeably absent from these displays is any violent protests or murders of innocents on the part of the offended. Naturally, this doesn’t make the news.

Even more insanity is shown by those who blame Jones’ action for the deaths of others instead of those who actually did the killing. It’s almost as if those murderous Afghans were mind-numbed robots, or something. There's also this little unreported item,

Tonight, the governor of Balkh province (of which Mazar-i-Sharif is the capital) is telling the international media that the men who sacked the UN compound were Taliban infiltrators. That’s rubbish. Local clerics drove around the city with megaphones yesterday, calling residents to protest the actions of a small group of attention-seeking, bigoted Americans. Then, during today’s protest, someone announced that not just one, but hundreds of Korans had been burned in America. A throng of enraged men rushed the gates of the UN compound, determined to draw blood. Had the attackers been gunmen, they would likely have been killed before they could breach the compound.

What struck me was the eagerness of Harry Reid and Lindsey Graham to condemn Jones. His actions were not reprehensible by any means: what he did was perfectly legal. What is reprehensible is the outright refusal of some of our elected officials to recognize that Jones is protected by our Constitution. The fact that they would consider any form of Congressional action, be it an official condemnation, as Graham suggests, or holding hearings, as Reid suggests, should strike each and every American as the affront to our nation that it is. It should also cause us to wonder if these two lawyers know anything about American law and the founding principles upon which it rests.

Even worse is the idea that we’ve somehow managed to elect people into high office who took a sacred oath to protect and defend our Constitution, and are failing to do so.

What we should have heard out of these two on the Sunday talk shows is a full-throated defense of American law and a sound rejection of any efforts to condemn Jones. The fact that we didn’t is far more offensive than a barbecued book.