@Jackofalltrades phil,
Jackofalltrades phil wrote:
First there is a sustained opposition to a Mosque - to be build near WTC land - a distance of couple of hundred meters away, now we get a church leader who wants to burn a holy book.
Should the first amendment need a serious relook? How will America cope with such situations primarily motivated by religious sentimentsand conservative values. I think, two freedoms are being challenged 1) the freedom for practising own religion, and 2) the freedom of speech and expression.
Also, a political issue that springs is whether inter religious competition, and intra faith community centres and churchs competiting to get attention? Is it direct marketing?
Please let us see it from a moral angle, and discuss the ethics of such political and religious posturing.
First, a long justificatory tirade to justify a minor statement of opinion:
American conservatives have a point. Unfortunately, it is not the point they want to make. Relatively recently, a guy named Bill Bishop wrote a book called
The Big Sort. When i read it, my reaction, in a way similar to many other US liberals, was "well, duh!" The point the author made was that, as a response to the relative economic freedom that modern Americans experience, they have begun to isolate themselves in political communities of like-minded individuals. Therefore, right-wingers tend to surround themselves with right-wingers, and vice versa.
A trend that Bishop might not have properly acknowledged is that certain socio-economical groups might have an incentive, that is to say an investment in political groups. What i am saying is that rural people, and poor, rural communities, tend to sympathize with "conservatism", while slightly more socially affluent, but still financially poor, urban communities tend to sympathize with "liberalism". While I am not inclined to go into the more complicated reasons that each of these groups, their contrasts and similarities, exist; i am willing to speculate as to why each perceives itself to be a minority: conservatives perceive themselves to be the power minority, despite being the numerical majority, because their small communities are dwarfed by larger urban liberal-enclaves and separated by geographical disatnce, and by the fact that their communities do not communicate well. Liberals, on the other hand, perceive themselves to be the numerical minority, because they are such, despite their higher concentration in urban settings (thus their high media profile and increased political impact). Thus, in a certain way, populist right-wing media blitzes are guaranteed to succeed, even those that breach their own principles.
Should conservative religio-political groups act in a way that impinges upon religious rights? Logically and morally: No. Successfully: Yes. At the same time, the condemnation that rains down on them is equally justified, given that their behavior contradicts the basic agreement that includes their justification in US society: the Constitution.
You'd think that an obvious symbolic agreement with Nazism would be enough to disqualify book-burning ad infinitum. Ignorance is a surprisingly powerful tool for the repetition of atrocity.
To express my final opinion, ethically speaking, the Quaran burning is shameful, to say the least.
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