Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Olbermann--In Harm's Way



I'm just going to talk for myself on this one--I don't have any use for religion. I think this kind of signifying "My God's real and yours ain't!" stuff is nonsense--the truth claims of any religion is opinion-only. I do have some pretty strong feelings about what I consider responsible behavior from our political figures with respect to religion, though.

We are a diverse country, and we deal, internationally, with people of every imaginable background. The reason, as I see it, for the silence of so many people who affiliated themselves with the anti-"Ground Zero Mosque" issue is that they didn't hop on this particular bandwagon with responsibility for the broader implications of their message in the first place. They would rather not accept the authority to be a grown-up here, because they don't want to lose the affections of--

The haters. That's right. It's just easier to let the hate build up and flow over and result in various forms of stupid acting-out behavior--because saying "no" would make the vipers they've been juggling bite back on them. Maybe if they draw back, people will still hold a reasonably good opinion of them, despite their demogoguing on an issue that made what should have been the shit-fit of a tiny little fringe group of racist Bible-bangers into a potential international incident, by expending their political nous on a cheap election-year wedge issue. Or, maybe if they showed leadership--ah, but when is that gonna happen?

Now as for me, I'm a First Amendment fetishist of the first order. I didn't hesitate to support the cartoonists whose work offended the Ummah regarding its depiction of the Prophet, and I will even go so far as to support the WBC when they have their creepy, sick little protests outside of funerals (if only so I can pre-emptively sanction the inevitable Pride Parade that will surely be launched when father Fred slips this mortal coil), so I also don't have a major issue with the burning of the holy book of about a billion people, some of whom do in fact get actually murderously angry when their religion is insulted. I support this church's right to be obnoxious. With the caveat that I think it's tacky, and inflammatory and I wouldn't, and books are for reading, not for burning.

Only, I hope the press gets this very right--

The Head Koran-Burner in Charge is named Terry...that's T...E....R...R...Y..Jones......J...O....

I'm afraid I'm all too ready to consider the information of this excellent post from 8ackgr0und N015e at the Great Orange Satan when considering the intentions of these doofuses.

1 comment:

Reamus said...

Well said, nice post.

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