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Basing One’s Morals Upon the Worst of Others’

September 12th, 2010

Despite the Florida group’s decision to cancel their Koran-burning event, one protester near the NYC Islamic center site did burn some pages from the holy book. Now, had he said, “if they can build a mosque near Ground Zero, I can burn the Koran,” both would have been true in terms of what rights each group has, but the statement would have been a false equivalency; building a house of worship and interfaith community center is not comparable to defiling a book of scripture.

But that’s not what the guy said; he said something that sounded much more reasonable. He said, “If they can burn American flags, I can burn the Koran.” Now, that’s easier to identify with. The double standard does get pretty galling sometimes; angry groups in the Middle East do seem to regularly get out and burn our sacred symbols a lot, as well as our leaders in effigy–but if we do something like a Koran burning (or even a Mohammed cartoon) back, they get furious. One could, I suppose, draw differences between national flags and holy books (maybe they would not mind it so much if we burned their flags), but with the “you can’t draw Mohammed” issue, the standard does not seem to be a tit-for-tat but rather a requirement to observe what is most sacred to each group. And the American flag is pretty damn sacred to a lot of Americans. The people who burn them don’t seem to care, or perhaps that’s why they burn them.

First, there is the point of who is being hurt. Lots of people in the Middle East have burned American flags. But hardly all of them, not even a large percent. Burning pages of a Koran, however, hurts millions of people worldwide who did nothing to offend, who were probably even in opposition to that offense. Many have wondered recently how all of America could be held responsible for the acts of a tiny church in Florida with only a few dozen members. Well, that’s how–we tend to do the exact same thing.

It is easy to forget, however, that the real issue here is one level higher: doing the right thing. Being a good person. One of our biggest flaws as human beings is our ability to rationalize an immoral act based on someone else doing something we don’t like. Punching someone in the face is wrong; but if another person says enough provocative things, we feel justified, as if that person’s wrong actions somehow justifies our own. The guy who burned the Koran in New York may have felt justified, but what he did was still wrong. In one sense, he just burned paper like it’s burned all the time. But that’s not the real meaning of what he did, which was instead to carry out an act he knew would cause disrespect and anguish to others. And while that’s legal, and while he has that right, it doesn’t mean it is a moral or correct action to take.

In recent weeks, the example has been, “if we can’t build a church in Mecca, they shouldn’t be allowed to build a mosque near Ground Zero.” This, however, is based upon the same fallacy. Yes, they are wrong to deny people religious freedoms. But no, that does not mean we should follow their example. It’s the same with what many feel justifies the death penalty–why should the murderer get “life” when the victim got death–but my own primary objection is that whatever the criminals did, we should not feel justified in doing the same wrong action. Most would see this the same way in light of the analogy that we do not rape rapists–although far too many people would at the very least be satisfied with such a thing happening, and at the most would go so far as to promote it.

This follows a scriptural moral code that many embrace: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Tit for tat. However, this was superseded by the New Testament morality of “turn the other cheek,” something that every mother echoes with the age-old clichéd lesson, “two wrongs don’t make a right.” We all know this. And yet we seem ready to abandon this simple, common wisdom at the burning of a flag.

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