Inter-faith dialogue

Some knucklehead sets fire to a book, then some other knuckleheads decide that the best way to improve the situation is to start killing people. I think that people who burn books are idiots. I also think that they've got a perfect right to be idiots - free speech isn't only for nice people who happen to agree with me. I don't believe that anybody has the right to kill innocent third parties, just because they're upset to hear that somebody has been acting like an idiot. Hell, they don't have the right to murder anybody, even the idiot who caused the offence in the first place. No ifs, no buts, end of.

A simple request. If people are offended by the symbolic destruction of inanimate objects and really must do something violent to relieve their hurt feelings, could they please take their offendedness out on inanimate objects and take human beings out of the loop of destruction. Since it's books that people are getting so upset about, why can't the protesters just burn a few Bibles in return? Even better, why can't the Gideon Society send the Afghans a few Bibles to burn? After all, wasn't it Jesus who advised that if 'someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also?' Or are all of the parties involved idolaters who value paper and their own pride above human life?

Even better, they could take some lesson from secular liberals who didn't enjoy watching copies of The Satanic Verses being torched by boneheads, but were big enough to shrug their shoulders and let it go, without even thinking of murdering anybody in revenge. But I suppose that's too much to hope for.