Posted on 04/03/2011 9:02:11 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Terry Jones burned a Koran, and an Afghan mob killed at least seven UN personnel. Connected? Surely, but that hardly makes Jones responsible for murder, he told ABC News in a Nightline interview last night:
CLICK ON THE ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO OF TERRY JONES' STATEMENT
Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who oversaw the burning of a Koran last month, said he did not feel responsible for the violent protest at a United Nations compound in Afghanistan today that left at least 11 dead. Instead, he said the violence proved his point.
“We wanted to raise awareness of this dangerous religion and dangerous element,” Jones said. “I think [today's attack] proves that there is a radical element of Islam.”
As for the 11 dead, which included seven U.N. staffers and guards, Jones told “Nightline” anchor Bill Weir, “We do not feel responsible, no.”
Interestingly, I had a conversation about this with a family member yesterday. While I agreed that Jones was a publicity hound looking for attention, that doesn’t make him responsible for murder. The only people responsible for murders are those who commit them, and those who specifically incite them to kill. Any other position eventually wipes out free speech, free religious practice, and freedom altogether. If we held others responsible for the acts of every nutcase whose violent reactions may or may not have connections to something they did or said, we would have no speech at all — a point we made repeatedly during the Left’s Loughner frenzy, which they conveniently forgot during the Madison protests.
James Joyner warns today about acknowledging the “murderer’s veto”:
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.
But Jones is not the slightest bit culpable for the actions of others. Yes, he was warned that violence might ensue. But we’re not responsible for the evil, illegal actions others might take in response to our freely expressing our thoughts. Even if they’re ill-informed, half baked, bigoted thoughts. If we allow the possible reaction of the most dogmatic, evil people who might hear the message to govern our expression, we don’t have freedom at all. It’s worse than a heckler’s veto; it’s a murderer’s veto.
The responsibility for these murders lie with the people who committed them, just as with the murders and violence following the publication of the editorial cartoons in Denmark a few years ago.
CLICK ON THE ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO OF TERRY JONES' STATEMENT
I really get a sick feeling reading some of these posts. A lot of people have seriously lost touch with reality. They are actually crucifying a US citizen for exercising his right of free speech to criticize a murderous and violent religion. And at the same time, they are making excuses for the lowest and most vile acts that could be committed against innocent bystanders in the name of “Allah”.
No excuses have ever been necessary for these people to kill innocents. Why would this be an exception? Today, you will stand up for the right of Muslims to behead people because they’re “offended”. Tomorrow, they will be coming for you because you refuse to kneel before and profess belief in their “god”. You are the same people who called Jesus in a jar of urine “art.”
Tomorrow, it will be illegal and punishable by beheading for YOUR pastor to deny and preach against a false and murderous religion or to criticize the murder of wives and children.
No one in this country has ever been beheaded for not professing to be a Christian. You can bet the Muslims won’t be giving you an option.
anton wrote:
Systematic desensitization or adverse repetition therapy actually works. After the 500th public Koran burning, these nutz will not get so excited.
Let’s get started right away.
I’m with you. Did you know that one Koran will nicely cook a pork steak to perfection on the grill?
I’m a Christian who has endured watching Bibles burned, Jesus in jars of urine, Jesus’ name used as profanity and my Lord ridiculed in every way imaginable. I still believe in and trust in Him, even though I haven’t beheaded one person in my long life.
Of course, it is not his fault. Anyone subscribing to that BS is simply allowing themselves to be held hostage by Islam’s violence. Wait until SIlam is at their doorstep making demands. They’ll be pissed but will fold like a coward.
P.S. There is more on FR that could incite them well beyond anything burning a Koran can do, so should be simply close shop to avoid giving them a flimsy excuse for their violence? Of course not.
"I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"? Voltaire
Liberals seem to have forgotten... odd. Must have something to do with who's ox is being gored...
Last year or the year before, we put a Koran in the out house at the farm where we off road. A lot of pages ended up down the hole, but for my part, it just felt too dirty to touch the pages to wipe my arse. So I just tossed a few pages in the hole and turned them yellow from above.
These gutter snipes and their pedophile prophet need a lesson in free expression.
anton wrote: “These gutter snipes and their pedophile prophet need a lesson in free expression.”
It seems that some of our Congressmen and the mainstream media need a refresher course too, especially Linda Graham.
I like your creative use of the Koran. Someone should write a book; “101 Creative Uses for the Koran (besides using it as an excuse to murder people who disagree with you)”
Anyone who blames an American who burns literature that’s offensive to him for the actions of a bunch of murdering, marauding savages has a screw loose somewhere.
I’ve had to watch my flag burned, my Lord’s picture desecrated in every conceivable way, my faith branded a mental condition by American media, my beliefs held up to ridicule on a national scale, my fellow citizens murdered and the soldiers of my country killed in ways that can only be described as cowardly! I sure haven’t heard any of those “peaceful”, “good” muslims saying one single word in the defense of MY religion and beliefs’ Neither have any of the so-called “Americans” that are elected to run this country.
So much for upholding our Constitution.
The Supreme court recently gave the right to free expression to people who want to denigrate our troops by saying God wants them dead. Yet, some Congressmen want to take it away from those who would deplore murder by burning a book that condones it.
Pray for America. The inmates are running the assylum.
Lighten up.Just cracking a joke.Didn’t mean to insult bugs that way.This guy did stir them up like a hornets nest.Didn’t bother him that innocent people were killed.He knows they’re not playing with a full deck and sounds like he’s antagonizing them for publicity.It’s bad enough our troops half to walk on eggshells and fight a PC war.
Koran - The other white meat.
Re-read your post and hadn’t realized you were maybe being sarcastic yourself.If you were,I apologize.
That he was right to do it is proven by the wogs' reaction.
If Christians had rioted over Piss Christ, would that have made Andres Serrano a murderer? Or would it instead have made the point that Christians are savages? But Christians didn't go on a killing rampage, so all Serrano accomplished was to prove himself an ass.
I suppose your point makes sense if you grant that Mooselimbs are legally subhuman. After all, killer bees are subhuman. As is Tilly the 12-ton killing killer whale, who is now back in the show at Sea World instead of on death row. Acts by subhuman critters are not in the same class as acts by humans.
Let’s put it this way — Terry Jone’ burning the Koran was stupid, irresponsible, and repugnant, but it IS NOT his fault that there are a significant number of Muslim men who are not only ready but eager to riot and kill in response to insults to Islam.
The majority of Muslims don’t do this, so why do these heartless Afghanis kill people who have absolutely nothing to do with what Jones did? Is it because they are like hornets in a hive?
If we deny that the muslim killings are not Jones’ fault, then we are basically denying the humanity of Muslims. We take it as a given in this country that not only are all men created equal, but that each individual is responsible for his own actions. Each man and woman is a captain of his or her own self.
To say that Muslims have no choice in the matter, that they must act like animals, is to say that they are animals (or in your example, insects).
If you tease a bear and he kills you, your stupidity is to blame. If you tease a man and he kills you, THE MURDERER IS TO BLAME. The Muslim is neither a bear nor a bee. He is HUMAN.
So, I repeat, burning the Koran is reprehensible. And I could live with a local law that banned Koran-burning (and flag-burning, Bible-burning, Torah-burning, etc.) because I think communities should be able to set standards of decency. But that hardly settles things. It’s easy to condemn Koran-burning. What about those Danish cartoons of Mohammed (that Yale University won’t even reproduce in a book on the controversy)? What about highbrow novels like The Satanic Verses? When Pope Benedict XVI delivered his Regensburg address in 2006, he suggested that Islam had a link to violence. In response, many Muslims rioted. It’d be funny if it weren’t so sad.
When Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer was asked in an interview about Koran-burning, he brought up former Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’s famous comment that the First Amendment “doesn’t mean you can shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. . . . Why? Because people will be trampled to death. And what is the crowded theater today? What is the being trampled to death?”
There are a number of grave problems with the crowded-theater cliché.
First, you can — even must — yell “fire” in a crowded theater. It just has to be the truth.
But more to the point, fires are not human beings. Fire has no choice but to burn because that is what fire does. Humans have choices. Yet in this formulation (from which Breyer has somewhat retreated), Muslims are akin to soulless, unthinking flames.
Taken seriously, this comparison suggests rational people have every reason to fear Muslims in much the same way they fear fire!
There are complex issues here. But the simple truth is the Islamist extremists who behead and riot DO HAVE A CHOICE.
They WANT to murder. What they want, what they are itching to have is AN EXCUSE, and they’ll find one no matter what.
Wow.Guess I really did poke a bees nest.lol.It really doesn’t take much to whip them in a frenzy.Would be funny if they weren’t slaughtering innocent people people while politicians cower instead of bombing them back to the stone age every time they pull this like we ought to be doing instead.
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