The business of burning books

There are so many things to say about this but I’m going to stray from the obvious. The much larger problem here is not that fact that a Christian church is burning Korans on 9/11, although it might appear that you can’t get much worse than that. What people are failing to see is that this is the beginning of a trend. Westboro Baptist church started this trend with their outlandish anti-Semitic, anti-gay, anti-America protests. So why would an organization want to create such bad publicity for themselves? To have their message heard? To preach the ‘truth’ to save people from the depths of hell? No. The leaders of Westboro are committed to the same  higher power that we all commit to. Money, and in this case, easy money.  Fred Phelps is the leader of Westboro and he has an advantage that scares me more than a southern religious radical with the right bear arms, a family full of lawyers. The church has sued everything from the U.S. military, police departments, city governments, property owners, and down to the bereaved parents of dead soldiers that spoke out about the Westboro protests that took place at their child’s memorial. The Westboro Baptist Church does not violate any laws, but they do abuse their right of free speech to provoke others into violating them. They want negative attention, they want acts of violence, the want an uproar so that they can create any opportunity to sue the hot pants off of the very people that protect their rights and provide their “non-profit organization” with TAX FREE land. Low and behold this ludicrous sham works like a charm. Standing behind every carefully thought out scam is a wall of skilled lawyers that know legal loop holes like the back of a $100 dollar bill. I guess you can’t hate the playa, so hate the game. So is any of this starting to ring a bell? Guess who figured this out and wants in on the controversy gravy train?

This scam is perfect. Everybody hates the loonies at Westboro, but this Florida pastor has America torn in two. Because of 9/11 and other acts of Muslim extremism, boat loads of Americans think that the Muslim religion is an evil, violent cult. But it’s easy to feel that way since we only hear about the acts of violence done in the name of Allah. Hmmmm. I wonder why the Muslim extremists over seas think America is such a bad place. Maybe it’s because all they hear about is how our churches burn Korans and hate Islam. We never hear about the peaceful side of the Muslim faith, and they never hear about the peaceful side of Christianity. But I’m assuming western religion is even used for the purpose of peace. I wonder if Buddhists ever burn holy books.

The Gainesville church has got the whole city on lock down. Major streets have police check points where you must show I.D. and proof of residence, like an electricity bill. Protesters are flooding the streets of Afghanistan. American soldiers are being targeted and our country is on whatever color means ‘bad’ on the danger scale. President Obama has even spoken out, asking the Florida pastor to withdraw from his protest on Saturday. But he doesn’t care, he’s putting peoples lives in danger, including his own, because that’s what he wants. Controversy. It leads to a higher chance of  someone going vigilante on their asses, be it a soldier’s father or a Muslim extremist. Anything to give him a reason to sue the individuals and the city. The police have to protect their right to protest and if anyone slips through, it gives the Church grounds to sue the city. (Westboro has done this several times)  In response to Obama’s plea, Pastor Jones said he will not proceed with his plans for Saturday if he can meet in New York with Muslim leaders seeking to build a mosque near ground zero. Yeah. Right. Like we’ll let this nut hole represent America in a meeting held with Muslim leaders. All that demand does is create more anger and more controversy.

How can we truly stop this trend in it’s tracks before churches and organizations around the world keep escalating the levels of controversy and danger to maximize profits? At least the members of the Taliban kill themselves for their beliefs. This whole thing would be a little bit better if Pastor Jones threw himself in the fire with the Korans. But there’s no belief or faith here. Just money to be made thanks to our wonderfully fair justice system. If this trend keeps moving we might end up with American Christian extremists comparable to the Taliban, but only if there’s money in it. We are giving these organizations exactly what they want. The media is having a field day, or week, and they want you to think that they’re noble by exposing the church, but all they’re doing to fueling the fire by creating the controversy for the purpose of ratings. The only way to put out this fire is to completely ignore them. If the media didn’t cover it and people didn’t protest against it, the church wouldn’t be in danger of anything so there would be no chance of retaliation. But that won’t happen. I’m like your mom telling you to just ignore the bullies at school but you wont will you. Another way to end this trend is to create or amend a law that doesn’t make the government liable for not protecting you when you act like an idiot. These organizations mock you right to your face while hiding behind daddy. So the best thing to do at this point is just walk away, take away their power. But common sense is not the American way. I don’t want to live on this planet anymore. I’m going to Planet Vulcan where everything is based on logic. But I need money for a spaceship so I’m burning Oprah magazines until her show is taken off the air!