Where's our outrage?

One of the under-reported aspects of the whole Newsweek affair of this past week, it seems to me, is the question of the seeming tacit acceptance of the violence it caused.

I don't know whether or not a Koran has ever been flushed down a toilet at Gitmo. Frankly, I don't care either way. It's a book for God's sake (I guess literally and figuratively, as it were). What is insane to me is that more people aren't horrified and disgusted that a person would be so utterly inhuman and devoid of worth as to feel justified to kill someone because a piece of cloth and paper was reportedly flushed down a toilet on the other side of the planet.

I am a devout Catholic and I am extremely reverent towards the Bible. That said, I don't give a hoot what someone else chooses to do with their Bible. The worth of the text is in its message, not in the physical paper and ink that was used to create it. Moreoever, its importance is its message to ME. What someone else chooses to do with their book is their own business. People seem to forget that ultimately religion is merely a personal philosophy that shapes the way we behave and look at the world. Because it is my religion, it doesn't matter what anyone else chooses to believe, inclusive of how much value they find in a given material text or book.

Granted, it is probably true that the individuals involved in the violence were pieces of human refuse anyway, so it isn't worth pointing out to them the illogic and immorality of their behavior. But we as rationale people who would never dream of such behavior should not remain silent in the face of such injustice, lest we become tacitly approving in our silence.

To this end, whether or not the Newsweek story ended up being true, it is entirely contemptable and unnacceptible for groups of people to value bound pieces of paper over human life. It's a part of Islam, perhaps? Well too damn bad. They need to change that aspect of their religion then. Satanist believe in ritual dismemberment and execution. That doesn't mean we view it as acceptible behavior and remain silent if their practices infringe on the life of innocents.

Why then, aren't more people condeming the behavior of those Muslims who were involved in the barbarity that occurred earlier this week?


On a similar note, though more eloquently written, is Jonah Goldberg in the National Review.
Money Quote:

I don’t know how to read the minds of Islamist fanatics, but it seems to me they have all the excuses in the world they’ll ever need to hate us. Osama bin Laden says the Crusades are reason enough. When he blew up that train in Spain, he said it was partly out of a desire to avenge the taking of Andalusia — i.e. Muslim Spain in the 15th century. At some point you need to start saying, “Who cares what makes these people angry?"