About two weeks ago, radical fundamentalist idiot and all-around anti-Muslim bigot Terry Jones held a self-styled "trial" of the Qur'an. The "jury" was 12 members of his own church, and they found it
guilty of five “crimes against humanity,” including the promotion of terrorist acts and “the death, rape and torture of people worldwide whose only crime is not being of the Islamic faith.”Has he even read the Old Testament? No matter, the condemned book was then burned, with Jones, dressed in a judicial robe, overseeing. (“That actually burned quite well,” Jones said.) Anger in Afghanistan boiled over, leading to riots in which a number of people, including some UN staff, were killed.
In his winning submission yesterday, Jones said "We don’t feel responsible for that" despite having
considered the possibility that burning the text might elicit a violent response and that innocent people might be killed.While that infantile disconnect between one's action and another's reaction despite having predicted just that reaction could have been enough to win the award, he sealed it by demanding that the United States and United Nations take “immediate action” against Muslim nations in retaliation for the deaths of UN staff and insisting that the book-burning was not vindictive and that he took no pleasure in it at all but was "obligated" to do it because he supports the US court system.
That is champion-level disconnect. Congratulations, Mr. Jones.
Updated with a few additional details.
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2 comments:
The only ones responsible for violence are the ones doing it. Terry Jones is not responsible for the actions of crazy people halfway around the world.
The disconnect between your actions and others' reactions - particularly despite having predicted that very reaction - is precisely the disconnect to which I was referring, one which you obviously share.
Based on your argument, I take it that you, for example, were against the war on Afghanistan on the grounds that no one there was among the actual hijackers, hold that individual soldiers are responsible for everything they do and higher-ups who gave the orders but didn't actually do the deeds should go free, and that the legal concepts of "fighting words" and "incitement" are bogus since you can't be held responsible for anything that happens as a result.
If so, I will at least give you props for consistency, if not for understanding human psychology. Otherwise, otherwise.
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