Quote:
Originally Posted by joegrundman
even so, i do not think this should be considered criminal activity
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And you may well be right but this leads us into the whole question of hate laws...
Most countries legislate my right to swing my fist ends at the tip of someone else's nose. In other words, I'm free to do whatever I want provided it causes no physical harm to someone else.
So far so good in that 'the law' is generally agreed on this principle. But then (rightly or wrongly) it seeks to extend it further by drafting so-called hate laws to cover 'emotional' harm.
At this point many suggest people should just 'suck it up' and not be offended, and while there may be some merit to this line of thinking, the authorities are not in a position to simply ignore an entire segment of the population that are (rationally or irrationally) enraged.
Some sort of mediation or mollification becomes necessary and hence we arrive at the rather dubious situation where anything that might be viewed as too offensive (and thereby disruptive to public order) can be labeled as criminal activity.
In other words, because the government has limited ability to control the reaction of the masses, (but can control the action of the individual), burning the Koran becomes 'criminal' activity because it has the potential to disturb the peace.
Not that I think it's right, but until someone devises a better solution we're sort of stuck in this boat.
