By Pablo Fanque
National Affairs Editor
I don't know, maybe it doesn't make much sense, but I plan to drive this afternoon to Florida in a pickup with a case of bourbon, a jar of criss-cross methamphetamines, 2,000 Bibles, 50 American flags, a gallon of kerosene, and as many of you as I can convince to go with me. As Preacher Jones ignites his Qurans, I will light up 2,000 Bibles on a bed of 50 kerosene-soaked American Flags. I would prefer not to. I never feel like burning things accomplishes much--draft cards, police cars, bras, flags, effigies. . .all it ever seems to really accomplish is to incite people. Granted, people sometimes need to be incited, but not now, not this time, or about this "cause."
As Woody Allen once said apropos the First Amendment,
"I think you should defend to the death their right to march, and then go down and meet them with baseball bats."
My message to The Rev. and his possibly millions of short-term and fair-weather friends is: if you don't torch yours, I won't ignite mine. If you do burn the Qurans, I have no compunction about lighting up the Bibles and flags. If you go through with it, I feel like this counterstrike, or ballast may at least let our brothers and sisters know that we too felt this was the misguided action of a misanthropic few. Maybe this makes no sense at all, but I hope it may be some kind of balm for the outrage Dr. Jones and the laughably named Dove World Outreach Center provoke.
Sorry Muslims...part of this democracy thing is allowing even deranged hatemongers to practice free speech; the first amendment is inviolable, but please don't confuse the Quran Burners and Tea Baggers (it would be interesting to see a Venn Diagram of the overlaps of these two groups) with real Americans.
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