Kill it with Fire

If you're a hermit and have not been listening to the news, then you haven't heard of fringe religious pastor Terry Jones who threatened to burn Qu'rans this past September 11th. His reason for burning the holy book of the Muslim people was because he "wanted to send radical Islam a message." What I find funny is that he probably didn't realize the irony if his statement; he should have just replaced "Islam" with the name of his church.
You see, Pastor Jones is a radical in his own right; he calls Islam the "devil's religion" and that Islam is trying to dominate the United States and the world. Now, I won't challenge the legality of his right to protest the religion by burning a piece of symbolism (as established in Texas v. Johnson), but I will call him irrational. Why? Well, you'll see.
Firstly, the US' image overseas, to many Muslims, is that the country is at war with Islam itself instead of with al Qaeda, the Taliban, etc. Those groups, in turn, utilize that rhetoric to recruit young men into their ranks. Pastor Jones, with his widespread media coverage and his handlebar mustache now played all over the world, is now becoming a rallying point for radical Muslims.

(Pictured: 19th-century sex.)

With his anti-Islam message, the radical Islamic groups can now say "Look! Americans allow for the burning of the holy book without chastising him for it! Join us and defend our beliefs!" (Hope that doesn't sound too campy) A battle based on beliefs, especially personal beliefs, is the most difficult and time-consuming battle, and is almost always impossible to win.
Aside from that, Pastor Jones has revealed a flaw in our portrayal of Muslims in the country: they are all radical. The Pastor has conflated all Muslims into essentially one entity, which, as we all know, is illogical. Like I've said before, not all Catholic priests are pedophiles, not all black people are criminals, and not all Chinese people know Kung-Fu.

If this post seems a little errant, that's because I had too much damned reading to do. Hell, I'm barely even doing it.

That's all for now,
Das Flüg