He's a PREACHER. He's not used to people pointing out his obviously nonsensical lies, so he had to come up with a new lie to explain why he lied the first time.
That, and he's a baptist, which means he's got a nasty case of jihad envy, but he's also a coward who's deeply afraid of being on the RECEIVING end of the violence he wishes he could inflict on everyone who isn't white and male like him. So he was NEVER going to burn the books in the first place.
Those "billion"[1] people? Crazy. It's a book of fairy tales for particularly boring children. Dude wants to burn The Brothers Grimm, nobody gives a shit, but mention the magic words that fuel THEIR particular overactive-yet-unoriginal imaginations?
This guy? Crazy because he thinks HIS book of fairy tales for particularly stupid children is MORE magical and that he's making some kind of a meaningful magical point.
He's stupid for thinking burning books has magical meaning and/or for making a violent racist death threat. He says it's the first.
People who object to him torching his own property are stupid for objecting either on the grounds of magic, which is stupid, or on the grounds of accepting the Westboro Baptist Church as an actual frightening entity.
[1]: I put "billion" in quotes because the vast majority of Muslims in the world worry about "burning Qurans" only inasmuch as "burning object associated with minority" is historically most often A DEATH THREAT from the bigoted, insane, violent Christian majority.
I find it insulting not because I believe that the book has magical powers, but because I have a strong feeling that this guy is only burning the books because he can't burn people.
You're not wrong about those two basic things. Muslims who would kill people over burning their holy book are stupid. But not poking the hornet's nest is a good idea, no matter how much smarter you are than the hornets.
But that's the thing: He's already poked the hornet's nest. He's drawn a huge amount of attention to himself and caused a great deal of controversy. Sure, he hasn't gone through with the act, but he's done more than enough to make his hateful views and intentions clear.
Dude, if you think standing near the nest with a stick is bad, wait till you see what happens when you shove it in there. Never think it can't get worse.
Yeah, which is why you should never be an abortion doctor, or gay, either. Because those wacky Christians are CRAAAAZY and they will KILL YOU so it's totally stupid to be homosexual. You should closet yourself and pray you pass so maybe the BILLION Christians on the planet will let you live.
There's a pretty sizable difference between being an abortion doctor and, say, doing an abortion in a van outside an extremist christian church. And there is a big difference between protesting extremist Islam and burning their holy book in an internationally publicized display.
It's not like this guy is just trying to do his thing (like your average abortion doctor or homosexual). He's intentionally antagonizing. the difference is staggering.
Yeah, because some dude says "Imma burn me my own book on my own property!" and that's EXACTLY the same as running into a mosque full of armed men chanting "death to the infidel" and doing it.
Free hint: the Christians in question *really do* believe that the gays and abortionists are doing it *specfically to offend them and their magic invisible friend*, and consider the existence of a clinic or a bar to be EXACTLY the same as a public announcement of intent to piss on the baby jesus.
Exactly? Maybe not. Doing it with as much international publicity as possible on Eid? I'd say it's a very clear and intentional attempt to piss off as many Muslims as possible. Why is that excusable behavior, again?
But of course I hate Muslims. It stands to reason that since I think burning their holy book is a bad idea, I hate them. Why didn't I see that amazing turn of logic coming?
Notably, dude didn't have ANY international publicity until you gave it to 'em.
And I said you were AFRAID of Muslims, and that your statements about him definitely getting killed by a billion people who are irrational and will fuck you up for making them unhappy is a pretty fucking twisted sentiment that says one whole hell of a lot about you.
I'm not afraid of Muslims, but I'll gladly cop to being afraid of extremists. And the exact extremists that he was trying to harrass are the ones that have killed for less in the past. Am I afraid of Americans abroad or at home getting killed because this guy is bring an asshole? yeah, I'm afraid of that. I'm even comfy with being afraid of it.
How about people who are against it because a) he's directly provoking a huge group of people who have been known to kill anyone who looks at them funny and b) because burning another group's religious book is insulting. I don't have to share their beliefs to know that respecting them is the right thing to do.
a) Ah, right, the "we're cowards and we like to pretend all Muslims are scary violent savages." defense.
b) Burning a book is exactly as insulting as you let it be. By treating this moron as if what he's doing matters or affects you, you're giving him power over you that he didn't have before. Which is FUCKING STUPID.
a) or the learning from history defense. No matter how ignorant you want to think muslim extremists are (and I agree that extremists of any faith are really stupid) the fact remains that there's a lot (a lot) of moderate Muslims who are not wild fanatics, but if we prod them and poke them enough, they certainly could go that way. Imagine if I started a weekly bible burning telethon in this country? You don't think i'd drive some Christians to violence? Yeah, it would be ignorant superstitious violence for the most part, but that doesn't really change the end result, which is dead people.
b) You are not wrong. But you saying that doesn't make it any less offensive to the people who consider that book sacred. That might be a silly belief, but it doesn't mean you can pretend it doesn't exist.
To say nothing of the fact that I would even be able to get behind the idea if I thought, even for a second, that he was doing this because he wanted to show the world that there is nothing magical about a mass produced book, that paper is just paper, and that his disrespecting the Qur'an doesn't do anything to diminish their faith.
But he's not. he's doing it because he wants to anger Muslims. Because he hates and fears them. And he clearly doesn't believe the above lesson, because if you and I were burning the bible, he'd probably be at the head of the mob there to lynch us.
I'm not saying that either side makes sense. But you can't dismiss them either. Sure, he *shouldn't* care enough about their book to burn it and they *shouldn't* care enough about the burning to do anything rash, but since neither of those things is the case, the only really smart thing to do is to urge him not to burn holy books and to urge Muslims not to react if he does. (and since he's one guy and there are a billion Muslims in the world, I know where I'm starting my campaign).
the fact remains that there's a lot (a lot) of moderate Muslims who are not wild fanatics, but if we prod them and poke them enough, they certainly could go that way.
You really don't see why this statement is racist[1], do you.
Imagine if I started a weekly bible burning telethon in this country? You don't think i'd drive some Christians to violence?
None who weren't already violent and unstable, no.
[1]: blah blah blah Islam is not a race blah blah, whatever. Black, white, asian, arab, indian, and all the rest aren't "races", either.
It's not racist. it's not even bigoted. It's a fact. if he were prodding a different religion or an ethnic group, it'd have been about them instead. Extremism doesn't spring out of nowhere, it springs out of perceived (whether real or not) intolerance. If you think that weekly bible burnings wouldn't cause Christians who have never hurt anyone to hurt people, you're being astonishingly naive, which is not a trait you usually posses, so I'm going to assume you're just being argumentative.
Nobody spontaneously blows up a building or kills a doctor or murder tourists. They are worked up to it by seeing and experiencing things that make them feel as if that is a reasonable course of action. It may *not* be reasonable and I'll say it's not anytime. but why give that mindset ammo when you don't have to? Especially when your ammo is based on something as lame as religious intolerance and ignorance.
He didn't cave to death threats, he caved because he thought his threats to insult a billion people had resulted in him being the great hero who got the Ground Zero Mosque[0] moved. And he retracted his retraction when he thought he might have been dudded by those horrible muslims.
Having the president go on national TV to personally call him an idiot may have been an influence as well.
Oh, and it's not necessarily anti-Islam feeling (alone) feeding this bottom-feeder. He was planning to burn the Talmud as well. He's an equal-opportunity bigot.
[0] being, as is common with this sort of rhetoric, a name which describes exactly not what the referent is; being neither at Ground Zero, nor a Mosque (even if it does contain a prayer room, but by the same logic, containing a chapel does not make every hospital a Church)
No, he lied about his reason for caving because he's a preacher - lying is *all* he does. He's desperately changing his story because he's a preacher, the concept of being called on his blatant lies is foreign and unfamiliar to him.
(And of COURSE he also hates Jews. They're swarthy and that's almost as bad as being actually BROWN, don't you know)
Seriously, the guy openly proclaims himself to be an illiterate bigot with the words "baptist preacher". Why has anyone, EVER paid any mind to anything he said after that point?
I'm most insulted that the media is giving this whackjob his 15 minutes of fame.
I can't believe I'm actually about to say this, but I think Fox News has it right - they are not intending to cover the burning. (This may only entail not covering it with photos and video, but...) http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20016000-503544.html
I wish news outlets in general would be a bit more responsible about this kind of thing. The guy has what... 10 followers in his crazy treehouse? Anything he does, short of serving poison kool-aid to the whole lot, is NOT news.
I got a fun Fark link about the Westboro Baptist Church being pissed off because they already burned Quarans on 9/11 in 2008, but the media was completely uninterested.
The podcast is here, apparently: http://theuglytruth.podbean.com/2010/08/07/the-ugly-truth-podcast-special-edition/
There is mention that when the reverend Fraud is asked if he'll burn a Talmud as well, he says that he will.
But be aware that the guy who recorded this podcast is a anti-Semite, a Muslim whose bugbear is the idea that Mossad knew about 9/11 and that Israel is the enemy, and the podcast itself is over an hour long. I wasn't up to listening to the whole damn thing, especially not for one off-hand comment.
As I clicked this, the Florida imam in on NPR going "...I said I'd try and set up a meeting with Imam Faisel's aides. That's all I promised. I have witnesses that that's what I promised. But when we got in front of the cameras, he...just...."
I feel bad for the imam--his intentions were clearly to try and talk everybody down, and he sounds kind of blindsided by the crazy. You could argue that it was naive of him not to expect that, but since I, too, frequently find myself staggered by willful stupidity, I have a certain sympathy.
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 02:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 02:28 am (UTC)That, and he's a baptist, which means he's got a nasty case of jihad envy, but he's also a coward who's deeply afraid of being on the RECEIVING end of the violence he wishes he could inflict on everyone who isn't white and male like him. So he was NEVER going to burn the books in the first place.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 02:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 02:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 05:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-12 06:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-12 07:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 02:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 02:41 am (UTC)This guy? Crazy because he thinks HIS book of fairy tales for particularly stupid children is MORE magical and that he's making some kind of a meaningful magical point.
He's stupid for thinking burning books has magical meaning and/or for making a violent racist death threat. He says it's the first.
People who object to him torching his own property are stupid for objecting either on the grounds of magic, which is stupid, or on the grounds of accepting the Westboro Baptist Church as an actual frightening entity.
[1]: I put "billion" in quotes because the vast majority of Muslims in the world worry about "burning Qurans" only inasmuch as "burning object associated with minority" is historically most often A DEATH THREAT from the bigoted, insane, violent Christian majority.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 02:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 02:44 am (UTC)Carry on.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 02:47 am (UTC)And that REACTING to this one dude is either believing in magic (stupid) or giving him the reaction he wants (attention) to his death threat (stupid).
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 03:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 05:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 01:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 01:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 03:49 pm (UTC)It's not like this guy is just trying to do his thing (like your average abortion doctor or homosexual). He's intentionally antagonizing. the difference is staggering.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 04:13 pm (UTC)Free hint: the Christians in question *really do* believe that the gays and abortionists are doing it *specfically to offend them and their magic invisible friend*, and consider the existence of a clinic or a bar to be EXACTLY the same as a public announcement of intent to piss on the baby jesus.
Once again, your islamophobia is showing through.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 07:44 pm (UTC)But of course I hate Muslims. It stands to reason that since I think burning their holy book is a bad idea, I hate them. Why didn't I see that amazing turn of logic coming?
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 07:52 pm (UTC)And I said you were AFRAID of Muslims, and that your statements about him definitely getting killed by a billion people who are irrational and will fuck you up for making them unhappy is a pretty fucking twisted sentiment that says one whole hell of a lot about you.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-15 11:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 03:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 03:19 am (UTC)b) Burning a book is exactly as insulting as you let it be. By treating this moron as if what he's doing matters or affects you, you're giving him power over you that he didn't have before. Which is FUCKING STUPID.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 01:44 pm (UTC)b) You are not wrong. But you saying that doesn't make it any less offensive to the people who consider that book sacred. That might be a silly belief, but it doesn't mean you can pretend it doesn't exist.
To say nothing of the fact that I would even be able to get behind the idea if I thought, even for a second, that he was doing this because he wanted to show the world that there is nothing magical about a mass produced book, that paper is just paper, and that his disrespecting the Qur'an doesn't do anything to diminish their faith.
But he's not. he's doing it because he wants to anger Muslims. Because he hates and fears them. And he clearly doesn't believe the above lesson, because if you and I were burning the bible, he'd probably be at the head of the mob there to lynch us.
I'm not saying that either side makes sense. But you can't dismiss them either. Sure, he *shouldn't* care enough about their book to burn it and they *shouldn't* care enough about the burning to do anything rash, but since neither of those things is the case, the only really smart thing to do is to urge him not to burn holy books and to urge Muslims not to react if he does. (and since he's one guy and there are a billion Muslims in the world, I know where I'm starting my campaign).
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 08:05 pm (UTC)You really don't see why this statement is racist[1], do you.
Imagine if I started a weekly bible burning telethon in this country? You don't think i'd drive some Christians to violence?
None who weren't already violent and unstable, no.
[1]: blah blah blah Islam is not a race blah blah, whatever. Black, white, asian, arab, indian, and all the rest aren't "races", either.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-15 11:13 pm (UTC)Nobody spontaneously blows up a building or kills a doctor or murder tourists. They are worked up to it by seeing and experiencing things that make them feel as if that is a reasonable course of action. It may *not* be reasonable and I'll say it's not anytime. but why give that mindset ammo when you don't have to? Especially when your ammo is based on something as lame as religious intolerance and ignorance.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 12:29 pm (UTC)I give a shit. What'd the Grimm boys ever do to anybody?
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 02:38 am (UTC)Having the president go on national TV to personally call him an idiot may have been an influence as well.
Oh, and it's not necessarily anti-Islam feeling (alone) feeding this bottom-feeder. He was planning to burn the Talmud as well. He's an equal-opportunity bigot.
[0] being, as is common with this sort of rhetoric, a name which describes exactly not what the referent is; being neither at Ground Zero, nor a Mosque (even if it does contain a prayer room, but by the same logic, containing a chapel does not make every hospital a Church)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 02:44 am (UTC)(And of COURSE he also hates Jews. They're swarthy and that's almost as bad as being actually BROWN, don't you know)
Seriously, the guy openly proclaims himself to be an illiterate bigot with the words "baptist preacher". Why has anyone, EVER paid any mind to anything he said after that point?
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 02:50 am (UTC)Impressions and clickthroughs.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 02:27 pm (UTC)I can't believe I'm actually about to say this, but I think Fox News has it right - they are not intending to cover the burning. (This may only entail not covering it with photos and video, but...)
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20016000-503544.html
I wish news outlets in general would be a bit more responsible about this kind of thing. The guy has what... 10 followers in his crazy treehouse? Anything he does, short of serving poison kool-aid to the whole lot, is NOT news.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-11 02:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 10:37 am (UTC)Crazy bloggers keep making his idiot antics show up on my friends page.
What, you didn't think I actually read the news, did you?
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 05:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 06:13 am (UTC)http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/09/05/1810373/uf-muslims-fear-koran-burning.html
http://www.examiner.com/civil-rights-in-miami/local-muslim-leaders-try-to-keep-tensions-down-despite-upcoming-international-burn-a-koran-day
I saw it first in the Register, but I can't find much else in Google News.
So, reports that he's planning it, but no actual quote from the man himself, upon investigation.
So it may be just a rumour after all.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 06:31 am (UTC)http://theuglytruth.podbean.com/2010/08/07/the-ugly-truth-podcast-special-edition/
There is mention that when the reverend Fraud is asked if he'll burn a Talmud as well, he says that he will.
But be aware that the guy who recorded this podcast is a anti-Semite, a Muslim whose bugbear is the idea that Mossad knew about 9/11 and that Israel is the enemy, and the podcast itself is over an hour long. I wasn't up to listening to the whole damn thing, especially not for one off-hand comment.
Your stomach may be stronger than mine.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 05:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 02:10 pm (UTC)I feel bad for the imam--his intentions were clearly to try and talk everybody down, and he sounds kind of blindsided by the crazy. You could argue that it was naive of him not to expect that, but since I, too, frequently find myself staggered by willful stupidity, I have a certain sympathy.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 07:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 11:07 pm (UTC)