Here’s why I support burning a Koran. First, you should note I don’t say THE Koran. That’s an important distinction. Along with most other liberals, I am totally opposed to burning and banning books with the intent of stamping out ideas. If there were only a few Korans in existence I would be fighting to get as many copies made as humanly possible. In most cases those days are long past...in the current age of the Internet, web pages, Wikipedia, tweets, etc. it’s close to impossible to “stamp out” some written idea, even if that were the intent.

That said, I think it’s a truly wonderful thing to sometimes burn a copy of the US Constitution, a US flag, a Bible and especially, a Koran. Freedoms are not worth a fart in the wind unless they are USED...with NO exercise, they wither and atrophy as surely as any muscle. I am totally in support of making hamburger out of ALL “sacred cows”. (Doing that literally, in India, would go a ways toward ending hunger, but that’s another story.)

There are plenty of yahoos who would get very angry at anyone burning a Bible, a Constitution, and especially a flag. For several reasons it is still unlikely (though possible) that anyone would be killed for these actions. With the Koran, it’s a different story. Whole swarms of moronic murderers float about in various parts of the world, just waiting for some excuse to engage in their bloodthirsty hobbie. She got herself raped, cool, now we can stone her to death. Someone burned one of our books or dared draw a depiction of our Prophet, cool, now we get to kill a lot of people. Mostly with impunity. Mostly with zero condemnation from hundreds of “respectful” leaders with narry a spine among them.

If I remember, not long ago Facebook had a “draw Muhammad day”. It seemed that many people understood that precisely BECAUSE there were the nutwads out there would resort to killing people in response, it was a good thing to do. Burning a Koran is not different..it is the same principle. Suddenly because it’s more about religion, even the atheists think we should be “more respectful” of the feelings of moronic murderers!? Capitulation in the face of insanity is not an effective defense. Only an unbreachable wall of intolerance for such insanity can hope to stop its march across our planet. It took centuries for most of the Christians to evolve enough to stop murdering those who would not bow before them. We don’t have masses of those anymore, only an occasional Scott Roeder. Why should we give more centuries of blood and slaughter to Islam before putting a stop to it?

TRB