Not a valid comparison, since walking down the street has other purposes besides whipping up fanatics, and because it is not your intent to whip up fanatics.
This isn’t a matter of someone innocently going about his business. This is a matter of someone deliberately doing something for no other purpose than to provoke a reaction such as the one he got. He is just as much to blame as if he had traveled there and joined in the violence personally.
That koran burning shit happened a long time ago. Why did they wait till now to protest it? I don’t get it.
It happened March 20.
Didn’t it work out the same way with the Danish cartoons? They were published to no particular hubbub, and then a few months later some imams decided to use them to whip people into a frenzy to suit their own agenda. This is pretty much the same thing.
Or
maybe it was just to validate his 1st amendment rights parking ticket
It just happened a couple of weeks ago. The orginal burning planned on the anniversary of 9/11 was canceled. This was a new burning.
Not that I think it really had anything to do with these killings. It sounds like some insurgents just hijacked a peaceful protest for their own ends. The irony is that it makes the whole protest look like a mob of intolerant, violent zealots and confirms sterotypes all the more.
That’s just gibberish.
What, that we have a 1st Amendment?
:rolleyes: No, your statement. Obviously.
So: Largely Muslim country is invaded by Westerners with vaguely positive motives; population responds with violence (just as I would respond to a Muslim military force invading my country); for no discernible reason it is reported in the Western press as being a response to some irrelevant book-burning; Dopers are filled with OUTRAGE at Muslims and their VIOLENT response to blasphemy as a result, even though these Muslims were not actually acting in response to blasphemy but in fact simply engaged in an insurgent-style counterattack on an invading force.
Is that a fair summary?
Gee, maybe I just wouldn’t walk down your street. Problem avoided. But that’s the key. I know what the reprecussions will be so I simply avoid the action.
For the purpose of your hypothetical in any case.
Just like the dead peoples rights.
Might be helpful to include just a mention of how the entire scenario was instigated by the attacks on WTC
Not walking down the street…which you have every right to do…only encourages more violence. Once I see that threat worked against you, I tell you not to walk down my street either. Or I will commit some horrendous and illegal act–possibly against innocent bystanders. And it will be all your fault, you evil street walking down person.
So, if Jones was exercising his 1st amendment rights it’s giggerish?
Except that, yet again, these were – according to reports – insurgents engaged in a military activity who used a peaceful protest as cover for their violence.
Gosh, Dopers sure need things explained to them a lot of times before they can understand them, even when they’re simple concepts.
I think he didn’t understand your “parking ticket” comment - which translates as “maybe he just felt like it,” right?
As far as the silly walking down a street analogy goes, it only works if the goal of the person walking down the street was to kill the dog.
No. Your statement was gibberish.
And whether or not it was allowed under the First Amendment is unimportant.
Most terrorist attacks in the EU last year were committed by left wing groups, not right wing ones.
While the protesters are certainly guilty of murder, Pastor Jones played a role that simply did not have to happen.
Refraining from burning the holy book of another religion is not “walking on eggshells” or “declaring one’s First Amendment right”. It is a calculated publicity stunt designed to inflame the passions of bigots in our country and garner Jones some sort of heroic adulation because he stood up to the ravening hordes of Islam and showed them what’s what.
Jones knew - he knew - that violence towards Americans and the international community was a likely response to his reactionary pandering.
But I guess the lives of others who have nothing to do with Jones’ ambition really don’t matter much to him. There’s a legal term for the concern Jones showed when he knew his actions would spark violence and easily lead to the deaths of others: depraved indifference.
Do I hold him more responsible than the killers at the UN compound? No. But then, the killers there are part of a population that is currently living under an American rule imposed after an invasion. Let them be brought to justice by the local authorities. I would have no problem with them being hanged in a public square or handed over to The Hague for an international tribunal and a fitting sentence.
Jones is an American. He says he’s speaking for all Americans. He proclaims that he’s speaking for Christianity. What he is doing in reality is handing ammunition to our enemies and alienating the very people - Afghani, Pakistani, and Muslim - we need to succeed in that region. He has blackened our name and set our cause back. I won’t say he’s committed treason, because the standards for that are beyond even what Jones has accomplished in his need to enjoy the warm glow of admiration from a small group of racists and religious intolerants. He should, however, be pilloried, excoriated, and made to face the families of those murdered by the fanatics he provoked into violence.