Those who follow the international news will know that the nutcase pastor down in Florida burned a copy of the Koran. This prompted the President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, to call for the arrest of the pastor resulting in a bunch of yahoos in Afghanistan rioting in protest and in Mazar-i-Sharif even killing UN aid personnel. Western governments criticized the action, General Petraeus, commander of NATO forces, condemned the act, and even the reactionary commentator Bill O'Reilly condemned it, saying that the pastor, Terry Jones, had blood on his hands.

Well, Terry Jones backed off on the Koran burning. So what? Why should any rational person care if someone burns a Koran, or a Bible, the Sears catalogue or a Donald Duck comic book? That would depend on the nature of the burning.

Book burnings by governments or others with the intent to deprive society of their content would be a direct attack on the right of free expression and the open exchange of ideas. Two important elements
of an enlightened democracy.