Baraka_Guru

With all due respect, this is Tilted Paranoia, and I reserve the right to fulfill the expectation of playing up some of my baser emotions on a variety of subjects. But I do appreciate your reasoned response. It's important to keep in mind, however, that as a Canadian, the idea of stockpiling arms is foreign to me. We don't don't have a long history of violence like Americans do. We have no declaration of independence, revolution, or ensuing constitution; we simply have the Constitution Acts of 1867 and 1982, during the time of Queens Victoria and Elizabeth, respectively. We had no civil war; only a few rebellions predating the formation of the country and a few problems with a guy named Louis Riel. Distrust of government isn't a national pastime; ridicule of government is. Violence isn't an expectation on all levels of society; it's an aberration.

Despite what you might have been told, Canadians are quite different from Americans, especially when you look at core values. Sociologically, we're quite different as well. And, of course, you get the geographic differences, being both our nations are so large.

Anyway, my point is that when I see news articles south of the border that describe a fevered market activity with regard to stockpiling weapons and ammunition---and in response to the first black president being elected, and in the aftermath of a two-term neocon president, and in a post-9/11 America---I don't see that as a regular part of the news cycle. I understand that owning guns is normalized for Americans, and that all walks of life own them, but I was more concerned about the more extreme and fringe set who were not only stocking up; they were spewing rhetoric that was a bit more of a concern when you value a reasonable and stable society.

This isn't a direct response to what you quoted of me. You're shifting into a comparison to burning the flag and your own response. You're also shifting to what religious freedom means instead of looking at the most important issue of burning Qurans: it's not a reasoned criticism; it's inciting a response. The burning of books is never about criticism; it's an objection, an outright disapproval. The act of burning a book suggests that something isn't worthy of existing and should be destroyed. The act of burning a book symbolizes what should be done to the very ideas contained therein.

If someone wants to criticize Islam, they should read the damn thing, not burn it. It's my belief that any American who chooses to burn the Quran has little value for the idea of freedom of religion, because if they truly believed in the freedom of religion, they wouldn't be burning the holy book of other religions. If Christians have a problem with the most fringe groups of Islam, then deal with the problems: oh, I don't know....work towards liberating and educating their girls and women; work towards finding ways to prevent the alienation and radicalization of young men, etc.

If you have a problem with violent Islamofascism, I think the last thing you should be doing is burning the Quran. The only thing that says to me (and I'm no a Muslim) is, "I hate your religion; I wish to destroy it." That's not a reasoned criticism.

I know, right?! Tilted Paranoia; holy fuck!

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot