I <3 Hypocrisy

Holy crap, is this a serious post? It sure is. Take a minute to compose yourself so that you don't have a stroke or an aneurysm or something equally bad as a result of the shock.

There is a pastor down in Florida somewhere (Gainesville I think, but don't quote me on it) who plans on burning the Koran on September 11th to show. . . I am not sure, maybe that he is a crazy zealot. Who knows with these people. Burning books is always bad, but burning religious books is especially bad because religious people tend to be a lot crazier than your standard, run-of-the-mill secular person. I think we can all agree that organizing a plan to burn religious books is a bad idea. So far, I am with the people on the news channels.

And then they immediately lose me.

Everyone that spoke today on the TV at the gym was adamantly opposed to the burning (as they should be) because of the danger it may pose to Americans serving overseas. Apparently the burning may result in radical nut jobs targeting soldiers. Except that I seem to remember that after 9/11 how the big thing to say on the news was that just because it was Islamic terrorists who committed the atrocities, Americans shouldn't target all Muslims because the majority of them are not fanatics. But now apparently they are fanatics who will attack American soldiers because some other American, who probably has absolutely no connection to the soldiers in the Middle East, is burning their book. I'm not sure it can work both ways.

Someone here is being hypocritical. It could be the TV people, who claim that Muslims are extremists or not extremists depending on which one is more helpful to them at that point in time. Or it could be some of the Muslims, who want to claim that not all of them are radicals until something like this pops up and then they get all crazy. Hey, it's easy to claim to be something as long as no one is going to challenge you on it. Bobby Knight could tell everyone he's an easygoing guy, which he might be until anything goes against his plan, when he transforms into the crazy guy who throws chairs. However, I am inclined to side with the Muslims on this one, because TV personalities suck.

I realize that being on TV means either being incredibly vocal and obnoxious and never wavering from your position no matter the evidence (I call this the Glenn Beck approach) or being a waffler on any issue and just saying whatever is popular (this is most everyone who is a moderate). I just wish that maybe it didn't have to be that way. Damn hypocrites.

-Jon