Burning of the Koran

There was an article in the Boston Globe today about a priest in Florida who burned the Koran, and the reaction of the Afghani people on American troops. Unsurprisingly, they did not react to the news well, and have so far killed over 20 people. The question raised is whether or not the government needs to step in and take action to arrest him, or does his first amendmnet right of freedom of speech protect him in this instance. In my opinion, I do not believe that the man should be arrested. Yes, I completely disagree with his actions, but there is a bigger issue. We cannot allow Afghanistan, a poor, corrupt, backwards country to control our actions and our misuse of the Constitution. America has prided itself on always adhering to these rights, and if we start to put them aside now, it will create a downward spiral that would lead to these rights not being protected. On another note, it is not this one action for which Afghanis hate us. Sure, it was just adding more fuel to the fire, but the fire was started by many of the actions of America, most importantly the war we began in Afghanistan. We cannot blame this one man for these murders, but the actions taken by this nation as a whole, and the bias that it fed through the media by the government in Afghanistan to the Afghani people.