Book Burning

So I want to formulate a new rule of thumb.  If you want to burn a book, go to where the people who really care about it live, people who read it, treasure it.  Let them see what kind of a person you are with your lighter fluid and paper back copies.  If you want to burn the Koran, then do it in Kandahar.  Why hide in Florida?  Why not go to where the believers are?  Then you can get a much more immediate response to your performance.  And your audience will show you directly what they think of your statement.  All those young men in Afghanistan, surely they will want to explain why they object to your burning their sacred text.

The Nazis burned books in Berlin on Unter der Linden.  They should have sent a few of their own to New York, to London, to Palestine or Marseilles, to carry out their bonfire. Why hide in the security of your own comrades?  Far more daring to burn a book in the company of those who care about it most. 

I admit this rule reflects my own childhood, it is a rule that comes from growing up in an ethnically diverse place. Don't insult Italians because they live over there.  Your neighbors are Jewish, so don't ramble on anti-semitically.  You don't like black people, well go to the next neighborhood over and explain it there.  It's really just a matter of getting along with other people.   

So if some fool burns the Koran in Florida, let's send him over to Afghanistan, free of charge, and invite him to repeat his actions, in public with as many of his hometown friends as are willing to make the trip in support.  That way poor Scandinavian idealists won't suffer the consequences for his rabid nonsense.