Newsweek and riots, again. And Rice

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says: "Disrespect for the Holy Koran is not now, nor has it ever been, nor will it ever be, tolerated by the United States. We honor the sacred books of all the world's great religions. Disrespect for the Holy Koran is abhorrent to us all."

Speak for yourself, woman. Who this "us all" is? No matter whether you mean the State Department, Americans, or Westerners in general, a number of people consider being able to express disrespect for Koran to be a fundamental human right.

Can you say "a dumb statement in face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary"? Open your copy of the US constitution, Ms. Rice, if you have one, or google it if you don't:

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

I am afraid that it says right here that the US does in fact have to tolerate the disrespect for the Koran. They make people learn this, more or less, in order to become citizens. Apparently remembering our constitution is not a requirement for becoming the Secretary of State.

I have no great love of any kind of fundamentalists, but can you imagine even the most atrocious Christian fundies from Biggest Shithole, Bible Belt rioting on the street and killing each other just because some magazine somewhere printed an article about some horrible dumbfucks in, say, Afghanistan flushing bibles down the toilets (assuming they have flushable toilets)? Hold on, there were horrible dumbfucks ruling Afghanistan for a number of years, they were called the Taliban, and not only did they disrespect Christianity in every way, they destroyed two big and historic Buddha statues. And did anyone, anywhere, hear reports of Christians or Buddhists rioting and killing each other because of whatever Taliban did? Didn't think so.

Everyone is yelling at Newsweek now for the stupid article, because Newsweek should of course have known that in some countries of the most peaceful religion there will be murderous riots. Much fewer people are expressing outrage at the rioters themselves. But it's not due to the fact that people are trying to be politically correct or trying to show support for the rioters. It's called "low expectations".