The Book Burning

Comes now a self-ordained minister from out of the South; his name is Jerry/James/Pat/David/Jimmy/Al/, whatever; just pick one, it doesn’t make any difference. He proposes to burn a book; the name of the book doesn’t matter, it is just a book.
Of more import are his reasons for burning the book. He does so to claim his fifteen minutes of fame supposedly given to us all, perhaps thinking that his fame will last longer than that, and that he would become a leader to everyone.

He does so under the guise of catchwords such as patriotism, and christianism, and human rights. He does so without mention of hatred, and prejudice.

He would have us pull oars on the good ship Ignorance, piloted by him and at his whim. The oars have names; fear, loathing, arrogance, stupidity, greed, et al.

Does he have the right to burn a book if he wishes? Of course, he does, the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression is paramount of all the rights we enjoy. The question is not that he has the right, rather, it is, is he right to do so?

In my opinion, he is wrong, his methods are wrong, and he attempts to make fools of us all through his actions. The burning of books has been quite the rage at various times in the history of humankind; in no instance has it ever served the people well.

He acts out of fear, not out of righteousness; what he does not understand he would separate himself from it by burning the offending object, instead of trying to understand it.

He is arrogant; he would have us accept his words without reading the words of others.

He has forgotten that humankind should exist together, not apart.

He is stridently militaristic, for if he burns this book, might your book not be the next?

He is supposedly a man of God, but he rides on the Devil’s ship of false prophets; ambiguously leading us into self-destruction.

All of this he does for a few headlines on a news page. I feel sorrow for him, and even more so for the flock he attends; do not become one of them.

The burning of a book, any book, represents a step backward in our history. Hold your books, and the books of all others, dear to you. They represent a literary trail of the passage of time in our little universe; to destroy them is to destroy ourselves, whether we believe what is written on their pages, or not.