wildrose wrote:I'm completely against any legal sanctions being taken against this Jones character. Although it was predictable that burning Qur'ans would cause an uproar and possibly violence, what he did was in no way illegal. I'm completely against any kind of legal tactic that would punish him for exercising his free speech rights. That would have a chilling effect on the rights of all of us. I'm for public condemnation of his act by individuals through the exercise of their own free speech rights. I'm for intelligent discussion of all the related topics. But I'm completely against doing anything that would in any way reduce or nullify freedom of speech in the USA.
Ultimately the blame needs to go to those responsible for the actual violence. It's not like the idiots who committed the violent acts are puppets controlled by Jones. They allowed themselves to become angry over something of utterly no real significance and then they allowed their anger to get out of control to the point where they harmed other people. There is no excuse for that kind of behavior and it's ridiculous to assert that Jones is responsible for the behavior of idiots. It may well be that Jones is also an idiot, but he's an idiot of an entirely different kind.