I became livid when I first heard the nation denounce Terry Jones' plan to burn a Quran in 2010. Even most conservatives who defended Jones' right to burn it qualified their statements by calling him a "lunatic" or otherwise insulting him.
Nevertheless, after this outcry I looked at the bright side and said, "Well, at least we won't have to worry about any more anti-Christian desecrations – particularly anti-Christian 'art' that receives taxpayer money." Not after the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, the president of the United States and (inexplicably) the commander of the International Security Assistance Force condemned Jones. Not after, as Allan Wall writes at American Thinker, "Terry Jones received death threats. His website was shut down. The mortgage on his church's property was called in and – what a coincidence – the church's property insurance was canceled. The city of Gainesville threatened to charge the church for protection."
Yes, I knew that we wouldn't have to worry about any more Muslims burning Bibles in Pakistan, Muslims urinating on and burning Bibles in Australia, or Muslims burning Bibles in Gaza. And, of course, we certainly wouldn't have to worry about any more crucifixes being placed in urine, feces-splattered images of Mary, plays featuring a sexually immoral Jesus, actor Ian McKellen defacing Bibles, or other blatant insults to Christianity.
And yet I was wrong.
Within a few weeks, a story broke regarding the Smithsonian Institution. This story revealed that the National Portrait Gallery, a Smithsonian museum, displayed an anti-Christian piece of "art." Instead of killing people and acting like animals, reasonable people urged the taxpayer-funded Smithsonian to remove the offensive exhibit. The Smithsonian eventually complied, and yet this was no win for Christianity. You see, while the Smithsonian removed the anti-Christian exhibit, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, the president of the United States and the commander of ISAF didn't publicly denounce it. Nor did the exhibit's creator suffer the same communal punishment Jones did. And then things became even worse.
The left denounced the Smithsonian and those who called for the removal of the exhibit. They proudly stood up for the anti-Christian hatred. The Christophobes rallied around the hateful exhibit; they screamed that preventing public subsidization of the exhibit amount to censorship, and they otherwise displayed their normal "civility." They did not care that they lied; they did not care about the gross double standard; they did not worry about "alienating" others; they did not worry about their partisanship. They simply stood up for their unapologetic attack on Christianity.
So you can imagine how angry I am over the latest attacks on Jones. This submission to Islam and leftism exemplifies the larger problem with our nation: the unconditional surrender of those claiming to be conservatives. Conservatives always retreat from an issue if they think the left (or a leftist ally) will become violent over it. The left, on the other hand, has no such reservations. And the reason behind this is that the left truly believes what it professes and is willing to do anything to achieve its immoral goals. The left is passionate and unapologetic about its beliefs. The same passion is nowhere to be found with conservatives.
Conservatives must stop insisting on "winning the hearts and minds" of Muslims, and stop insisting on trying not to "alienate" the left. If Muslims and leftists want war, then we should stand up to them. Our Founding Fathers didn't value "peace" above all else, and the Americans who fought in the War Between the States didn't either. The failure of the conservative movement and U.S. at large to recognize this means that they are losing my heart and mind and alienating me.
Furthermore, the irony of the peace-at-any-cost "strategy" is that it actually promotes violence. After all, who is getting what they want? The violent Islamic animals? Or the peaceful Christians? The violent union and leftist rioters? Or the peaceful tea partiers? This will not go unnoticed forever. And so if conservatives, America, and her leaders truly want peace and order, they will stop rewarding violence and hatred while punishing peace and respect.
They'll stop condemning people who burn the hate-filled Quran and start defending them and others who strike back against enemies who have warred against the U.S. since our founding.
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Paul Hair is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. His columns have appeared at The Daily Caller and other outlets.