My thoughts on the Koran Burning Saga

In the South Park episode that aired a couple of years ago entitled "Cartoon Wars", Eric Cartman comes up with a devious plan to have the television show Family Guy taken off the air. When the Fox network considers pulling a Family Guy episode that features an inoffensive and completely benign image of Mohammad, the normally racist, sexist, divisive and at times unapologetically evil Cartman suddenly develops an overwhelming sense of respect for Islam and launches a personal crusade to have the Family Guy episode pulled. In the name of religious tolerance, Cartman highlights the violence that might ensue should Fox decide to air the episode uncensored. All of a sudden, Cartman magically transforms from neanderthal to neo progressive without missing a beat. The other main characters, especially Cartmans nemesis Kyle, are opposed to Cartmans hypersensitive moral mission at first, but are eventually duped into believing that Cartmans sudden epiphany of religious reverence and concern for the safety of others is legitimate.
Toward the end of the first part of "Cartoon Wars" Cartman inadvertently reveals his true intentions to Kyle. He doesn't care about Muslims, or the safety of Americans, or offending people-- he just wants a television show that he hates to be taken off the air (no arguments there, family guy sucks). Cartman's rationale is that once an episode is pulled, the show will eventually be cancelled. Once a TV network can be coerced or threatened into censoring a single episode, Pandora's box is irrerversably opened and the network can be intimidated into pulling or censoring any or all future episodes for any reason imaginable. South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have a knack for delivering the most sane and coherent points of view on all relevant social and political issues currently taking place in this country with the acute marksmanship of a sniper. In the end, Kyle thwarts Cartmans attempt to have the episode of Family Guy showing Mohammad taken off of the air and life goes on. Kyle reminds everyone that freedom of speech is a bedrock principle that America was founded on and that it is either something to be treasured, valued and exercised without fear of violence or reprisal-- or it should be eliminated completely. Giving into fear allows the terrorists to win, and at the end of the day if we give in once, we might as well give up America. In a truly free society, either everything is fair game or nothing is.

I bring up South Park as a prelude to the Koran burning controversy for two reasons. In the first place, Parker and Stone were recently the targets of ridicule in the Muslim world for attempting to release an episode showing an image of Mohammad. As in Cartoon Wars, the image was totally inoffensive. However, Comedy Central pulled the episode amid threats of violence. What I find comical about this recent development is actually two fold. First, this is a classic example of life imitating art and vice versa. Second, ONLY MUSLIMS ARE FORBIDDEN TO SHOW IMAGES OF MOHAMMAD. The Koran says nothing about non-Muslims creating images of Mohammad (not that anyone bothered to pay attention; they were too busy hiding in a pool of their own urine). Apparently, most Muslims are illiterate or have never read the Koran.
Secondly, there is a clear parallel at work here that I can't imagine only struck me as an incredible revelation. If you wanted to diminish any strong entity, albeit a television network, publicly traded corporation or in this case the most powerful country on earth-- what would be the easiest and smartest way to go about it? Would you directly confront the giant and attempt to match its might? Of course not. You bring down a giant by destroying its mystique and by causing the supremely confident giant to question itself and lose faith in the armor of infallibility. This is not done through direct confrontation. The much smarter and easier thing to do is to attack the IDEA of the giant. If you can call into question the giants very reason for being, you can destroy the giant with a little bit of persistence and minimal effort. The giant, comfortable and complacent, is not used to any real engagement anyway, because in recent history it has had so little to fight for. So, when faced with a challenge to its authority and autonomy that has nothing to do with the things it easily wields in its control like leaves on a tree- Money, brute force, power, influence—the giant begins to panic. If the enemy can’t be bought or merely crushed like a bug, what then? Now the giant begins to cower—it can’t lose face because once in a position of weakness, others will rise to take the giants place. So what does the giant do? It abandons the idea that it is a giant and appeases the challenger to its supremacy in order to maintain the illusion of safety. All the while, the giant pats itself on the back for thwarting a potential parade of horribles—The What If scenarios abound in a smug exercise of self congratulatory delusion. The giant reassures itself that it has risen above its illogical enemy and that it has proven as much through a sacrificial exercise of benevolent self restraint. Victory has been achieved because the giant avoided conflict. Like a champion prizefighter who retains his belt because he avoids the defense of his title, the giant convinces himself that the balance of power is left undisturbed.
But what of the challenger? The challenger now becomes emboldened. Seeing that the giant has no stomach to fight and no will to maintain his superiority beyond superficial displays that demonstrate a monumental lack of courage and conviction, the challenger follows the same formula again. Agitate, threaten, demand and escalate tensions while asking for sympathy and understanding at the same time. The idea always remains the same, but the issue of contention being used to attack the giants’ spirit will change. Sure enough, the same predictable outcome is reached. Little by little, bit by bit the giant can’t see what is happening. By fighting not to lose instead of fighting to win, the giant is too far removed to see his reflection below. Too vain and short sided to risk being viewed as unpopular; the giant’s very survival is now threatened. What started off as a harmless appeasement to avoid a prolonged struggle against an unworthy and undignified adversary has now mushroomed into an all consuming cloud of doubt, cowardice and at long last, instability.
Symbolism and imagery aside, my little foray into cartoons and ideological combat is meant to bring the Koran burning drama into proper perspective. I personally do not think that burning books is an effective way to bring attention to the world’s greatest threat against all of secular and civilized society. However, Terry Jones has the right to burn as many Korans as he can get his hands on. It is his RIGHT to do so under the Constitution of the United States. He is free to decide how to express himself politically, religiously or otherwise and his followers are free to do the same. Cross burning is protected speech. Flag burning is protected speech. Pornography is protected speech. He is a private citizen with a congregation of about 50 families in a sparsely populated area of Florida. Quite frankly, I don’t care what he does or how he does it. When I first heard about his plan to burn Koran’s on 911, I was against it—not because I care one iota about offending Muslims, but because it seemed like an immature way to highlight a serious problem and that inevitably, the main stream media would ignore the message and instead focus on the means of delivering that message. But now, after the whole world has taken notice of this crackpot Preacher with next to no followers, I adamantly support his publicity stunt. I am absolutely incensed that the Obama administration has spoken out against this man. Now, we are going to let what Islamic fanatics might do dictate whether or not we exercise our constitutional rights?! This is madness and insanity on levels that I didn’t think I would ever live to see in my country. The underlying message being promoted via the garbage coming out of the Obama administrations mouth is simple—give up your rights when violent barbarians on the other side of the world say so and when threatened with violence, cower and comply with the demands of the violent barbarians in the name of tolerance. In the end, what happens? THE TERRORISTS WIN. First it was cartoons, now private citizens can’t engage in freedom of speech, next time, what will these animals demand of us and how fast should we throw the constitution in the garbage to meet their demands?
The Islamist terror movement is doing exactly what Eric Cartman did in the South Park episode “Cartoon Wars”. At the outset of the episode, Kyle was behaving like most American liberals do—deluded and brainwashed into believing that Cartman and by extension the global Islamic fundamentalist (and their propaganda wing in the Council of American Islamic Relations) movement is genuinely concerned about the Koran burnings because they fear for the safety of American soldiers and citizens and that efforts should be made to prevent the exercise of free speech in the name of tolerance. I am hoping that this country finally wakes up and is struck by a lightning bolt of awareness in the same fashion that Kyle does toward the end of “Cartoon Wars”. All of the evidence is in plain view. Hopefully, this unpleasant realization will be made without the prerequisite of a nationally televised confession from the figure heads of the Islamist movement. Because unlike the confession Cartman makes to Kyle in “Cartoon Wars” that reveals the truth with plenty of time left in the episode for Kyle to save the day, real life is never as scripted or merciful.
The devious minds at work behind the violent struggle to falsely portray Islam as a peaceful religion and to elevate Islam beyond the reach of our Constitution are gaining ground right now, every day, right in front of our eyes. Every inch we give them plunges America deeper and deeper into the opiates of complacency, self delusion and willful blindness. The foundational principles that this country was built upon should never waiver, accommodate or falter under any circumstances, for any person or persons or for any reason. America is an idea, the end result of a dream conjured up by great minds that agreed certain aspects of our lives are beyond government control. To dilute or compromise the basic aspects of American life because of the potential consequences destroys everything that this country stands for and relegates America to the same status as the tyrant regimes that hundreds of thousands of American lives have been sacrificed to defeat.
My final thought involves how the Ground Zero Mosque ties in with the Koran Burning controversy. Does anyone else find it infuriating and hypocritical that Obama and his staff of spineless chumps want freedom of speech to take a backseat to the demands of Islamist extremism because America doesn’t want to offend Muslims, yet the Ground Zero Mosque which is 100 times more offensive, outrageous and incendiary to AMERICANS than burning some pieces of paper is defended tooth and nail? I suppose that we should pay close attention to our Islamic brethren. They have figured out how to make the giant bend to its will. Perhaps some violent protesting, the murder of innocent people and some other acts of destruction and brutality will prompt the United States government to be concerned with ( WAIT FOR IT)-----GASPPPPPPP---- THE DEMANDS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.