Shooting The Dove

September 11th, 2010 by Richard

by Richard

Today marks the ninth anniversary of the day when terrorists used airplanes as weapons, destroying the World Trade Center, damaging the Pentagon, killing passengers, firefighters, cops and just normal folks. Around 3,000 people lost their lives in the attack and its aftermath.

For a brief, shining moment, we stood tall as Americans and tried to live up to our vision of ourselves as a country, as exceptional people and an exceptional nation.

Then, of course, it all went to hell. Torture. Unnecessary war. Spying on our own people. Basically a repudiation of everything we’re supposed to believe in.

Now, to mark this anniversary, the leaders of a church in my beloved town of Gainesville, FL, (and, no, I’m not going to name them nor provide them any linkage) are going to spit on our traditions, our heritage and our highest aspirations. Today, they’re going to show not the best of America, but the worst. They’re going to burn copies of the Koran, the holy book of the Islamic faith.

(update: As I write this Friday night, I’ve learned that they might not be doing the burning on Saturday. That’s good news. Still, the stupid stands. I think what follows does have relevance, no matter what happens.)

Thereby confirming my belief that there’s not a scintilla of difference in their ideologies between what they’re doing and what the terrorists who attacked us on Sept. 11, 2001 believed.

We are better than this, dudes. We need to win this conflict of ideologies not by stooping to the level of our attackers, but by being better than they are. By showing the world, by showing their followers that we are better, our ideals are better, our ways of doing things are better.

Burning the Koran? That’s just stupid, reactionary garbage.

The pastor who’s leading the book burning (and, make no mistake, that’s just what this is) said he’s going to keep on doing this, despite pleas from the leadership of the American armed forces that this will only make the lives of our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq worse. No, the pastor says, he’s going to do it because our constitution says he can.

(update: or maybe not. He’s been waffling on the subject. It was on. It was off. It was suspended. Whatever. He’s still a jerk.)

And, yes, our constitution says he can. That’s true. I wouldn’t ever try to forcibly stop him from exercising his constitutional rights. However, there’s a big difference between can and should.

I’m not saying this guy is flat-out a bigoted, ignorant America-hater just because I’m afraid of what the backlash will be for his stupid stunt. No, I’m saying it because it will accomplish nothing. Absolutely nothing. Except to make him and is idiot followers feel better about themselves since, of course, they have no concept of a healthy self-image that can deal people believing something different than what they believe in. Even my 17-year-old gets it. We were talking about this and Sarcasmo said, “This guy is just basically saying neener, neener, neener.”

Burning the Koran will not make one potential terrorist rethink his or her position. It does absolutely nothing. Except disgrace our American ideals.

Nice way to commemorate our honored dead there, fella. That pastory guy? He’s no dude. He’s a jerk. And I’m done with him.

Sorry for the rant there, dudes. Sometimes things just need to be said.