9/08/2010

Koran Burning, the First Amendment, and the Right to Be a Fucktard:
The First Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution allows one, nay, encourages one to be a total fucking douchebag asshole in support of whatever fucktarded cause one and one's yahoo posse want to hoot and holler over. It's that simple. It's that cut and dried. And the reason it encourages such behavior is that judging who is a total fucking douchebag asshole and whose cause is fucktarded is in the eye and ear of the beholder. For, indeed, one could have argued that blacks in the Jim Crow south who were peaceably assembling at lunch counters were the assholes. And one could argue the opposite. Many people considered the Chicago Eight a bunch of unAmerican hippie cocksuckers who deserved only imprisonment, if not exile. One could argue that Gregory Lee Johnson was a complete cunt for burning an American flag outside the Dallas City Hall during the Republican National Convention in 1984. But the Supreme Court said in 1989 that his level of cuntishness didn't matter. What mattered was that it was speech (with even Scalia agreeing). And that as such, go fuck yourself with your precious little hurt feelings.

That's the deal. That's why you say rights are rights. As New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who has emerged as this passionate advocate for free speech, said, "The First Amendment protects everybody, and you can't say that we're going to apply the First Amendment to only those cases where we are in agreement." Bloomberg was commenting on Pastor Yosemite Sam's plan to burn a pile of Korans outside his shitty little church in Gainesville, Florida.

And you know who else is right? Fucking Pastor Yosemite Sam himself. Yeah, he's a hateful redneck son of a donkey ass-fucker (more or less). But read what he says on the church's website about why he's burning a Koran:

"In a day and age where ideas are confined to 140 character tweets, the violence of modern films dulls our senses, and the attention of most is on the frivolous dribble of celebrity gossip, sports and weather, we all know how much it takes to grab our attention." Argue if you want as to whether the weather is "frivolous" information, but if he was talking about burning Cheney in effigy, most of us would be cheering him.

Sam adds, "A small church, in a small town, down a back road, burning copies of its own books, on its own property, is not responsible for the violent actions anyone may take in retaliation to our protest." And, painful as it is to say these things, that motherfucker is right. If some stoked up vet beats the shit out of someone who burns an American flag, is the flag burner responsible for his beating? Principles are principles. And, frankly, fear of stirring violence isn't a good enough reason to restrict even idiotic speech.

Now the flip side is that free speech allows us to condemn the actions of the Dove World Outreach Center and all the people supporting International Burn a Koran Day. It allows us to call them fucktarded. It allows, say, the Rude Pundit to start a Facebook group. One that's called, for the sake of argument, and for shits and giggles, "Burn a Bible on Christmas." It's a stupid and childish response to a stupid and childish action. God or Allah or Whoever or Nobody bless the First Amendment for allowing us to "nyaah" in response to their "nyaah." And, perhaps, it might drive a few fundamentalists over at the Dove Center a little nutsy.

So join up. Shit, it's Facebook. No one's gonna check to see if you actually burn a Bible. But it's saying back to Pastor Yosemite Sam, "Yeah, we got your free speech right here." And the cool part? We do.

(By the way, as far as General Petraeus saying that Pastor Yosemite Sam shouldn't exercise his right to free speech because it might endanger our troops in Afghanistan, oh, sweet General, what endangers our troops in Afghanistan is having troops in Afghanistan.)