Man, the e-mail will not stop coming in. Let me make one general point that seems lost on a few readers. I never said the government should ban this nut from burning Korans. Indeed, my position on this is pretty much identical to my position on the Ground Zero mosque: there’s a right to do it, but that doesn’t make it a good or smart idea. I am not giving Muslim extremists a “heckler’s veto,” as one reader puts it. But I fail to see why the inevitable propaganda victory this would hand our enemies can’t be a factor in my opinion.
Anyway, here’s another reader’s take:
“The Danish cartoons struck me as legitimate political commentary. Burning Korans isn’t political commentary, it’s an ugly, bigoted, temper-tantrum”
Really? Maybe. But, should an American General really be coming out and telling Americans how they should be using their 1st amendment rights?
Where is the general when the NY Times is publishing secret intelligence info? It seems to me that in all reality, that is something the General should really be focusing on, not on how you or I or some idiot in Florida expresses himself.
The very fact that we are having this discussion again shows that Islam is given greater respect and honor in America than any other religion. As your other emailer pointed out, when the left was burning flags, telling our soldiers to kill their officers, or advocating going AWOL, there was generally silence about such speech. But offend a muslim? Suddenly you have General Patreus and Jonah Goldberg instructing Americans on how we should not do it.
Is it necessarily a good idea to burn the Korans? I wouldn’t do it, but I also would not burn the Torah, the Bible, or the U.S. Flag. I could care less if others do it though, and think it is telling that everyone – including high ranking U.S. Army generals – feel the need to vocally tell us not to do it in this one singular instance. It’s ok for the federal gov’t to fund insults to Christianity but wrong for private citizens to insult islam? If that does not tell you that we are on the road to institutionalizing islam in America, I don’t know what will.