Burning books is fun

I got to hand it to Pastor Terry Jones and his tiny, fringe evangelical church in Florida. Brilliant marketing, really. And as any connoisseur of the 1930’s knows; book burning is fun. Well to be honest that little Austrian painter and his followers wasn’t first with this hilarious stunt. Pretty much every conquering nation in history, alongside almost every government in history, has thrown knowledge on fiery heaps in one way or the other.

However, I cannot help being supportive in this case.

This has nothing to do with me despising the Islamic faith - which I do. And I am not supportive because of any Christian belief; I despise that sect as well. I believe all religions are highly stupid and bring out the worst in people. And I don't like people burning books, for whatever reason. Books are almost synonym to knowledge and if there is one thing this world need more of it is knowledge.

So why do I support these book burning idiots in Florida?

It’s simple. They have a right to. If they buy and burn 112 bibles, 58 Korans, 93 Bahavagita and hold marshmallows over burning Torahs, that’s their choice. I see no problem in this whatsoever.

This isn’t a fascist government forcing people to burn books. Its people making a choice. A stupid one, sure, but a choice nevertheless. It would be far worse if the American government stopped them. Then we would have a problem. Then we would have fascism. Burning a book isn’t automatically evil, fascist or totalitarian. It’s not even automatically, as in this case, anti-Islamic. If there were no choice and/or if they torched things under threat of violence from someone/government, well then things would be different.

Politically correct media, certain groups and governments want you to think that people burning books are evil, especially in a case like this. Not because book burning fools very well might be evil, no, it is because 'they' want you to want them to stop it.

But hold on and think for a moment.

What is really totalitarian and evil: people freely choosing to burn books or a government using force to stop them?