On missing the point
I hate it when people argue like this:
But it brings to mind a question my pal Greg over at Rhymes With Right raised a while ago: If you can burn a flag, why can’t you burn a Qu’ran?
The answer of course is that you can.
It’s revealing that the Left is absolutely bat bonkers about the Qu’ran barbecue but has always been totally supportive of burning the American flag as a matter of Constitutionally mandated free speech if nothing else. Quoted in “Emotional Puberty and Wingnuttia”
See what he did there? He took one position: (“hey, let’s go to a flag burning party!”) and confused it with another issue entirely (“is there a legal right to burn the flag?”). I don’t have any friends on the left who have burned a flag. People who burn things in protest are jerks. This guy who wants to burn a lot of Qu’rans? He’s publicizing being a jerk.
But that’s his right.
Recognizing that someone has a right to be a jerk is an entirely different thing from supporting the actions of jerks. This particular jerk seems to have missed that subtlety.
It also seems like he’s further conflating Islam with nationality (and nationality with terrorism), which is the sort of thing we’re running into with all the “Ground Zero Mosque” stupidity.
Here’s a question for your editor brain: does “conflating” imply an unintentional confusion? Or can it also be an intentional muddying of the waters? Because I’m sure the latter is true.