Here's Your Beer Summit On Koran Burning

Dear Islamic World:

We understand how terribly, terribly offensive it would be for some moron in Florida to burn your holy book.  We understand that about your religion and your culture. We get it. 

But now it's time for you to learn four important facts of about our culture. Consider this your beer summit teachable moment, without the beer, because, well, we know about your beer thing:

1.  We can say whatever we want.

The first thing you need to know is that in our culture, we have legal rights. We have the right to remain silent, but we hardly ever use that.  Where's the joy in silence?  Instead, we prefer to exercise our legal right to open our big fat mouths and yammer on about anything we want. 

We criticize our elected officials, for example, and they can't do a damn thing about it.  We routinely say things that piss off one another. One of the things that makes America great is that we have decided to tolerate all points of view, no matter how dumb or offensive. We're way into freedom. There's even this group called the ACLU that filed a lawsuit so Nazis could march in Jewish neighborhood -- and they won.  Seriously.

2.  We can pick any religion or none.

The second thing you need to know about our culture is that Americans have a legal right to pick whatever religion they want, or even no religion. Heck, Americans have even made up brand new religions, and a variety of delightful cults. 

Now, combine the right to yammer and the right to pick a religion, and what have you got? You've got a bunch of people thinking they're going to Heaven, and everyone else is going to Hell unless they switch teams fast. 

We've got people expressing respect and disrespect. No one gets to stop others from criticizing his or her religion. No one is required to pretend that all religions are equally valid. On the contrary, religions actively compete for market share through door-to-door proselytizing and other methods. And that brings us to our next point:

3.  We love ridicule.

Ridicule is a big part of our culture. Seriously.  Google "Don Rickles," "celebrity roast," and "Triumph the insult comic dog." Watch the Daily Show with John Stewart. We have elevated to an art and industry the kind of cruel teasing that comes naturally to children. 

So no matter who you are, Americans are going to ridicule you, just as they ridicule one another. Get over it. Don't have a cow. Don't have a holy cow. That's how we roll in the U.S.A. That's our culture. Deal with it, the way we deal with your not eating bacon cheeseburgers.

4. We love to burn stuff.

We love bonfires, especially bonfires with political or sports overtones. Don't ask me why.  I don't know why, but I know it's true. During my lifetime alone, for example, people have, for various reasons, burned bras, books, Beatles records, bridges, draft cards and -- the one that pisses us off just us much as the sight of a Koran being used as kindling pisses you off -- the American flag.

It's safer to remove the bra before burning it.

Yup, Ole Glory herself gets ignited from time to time, and that sight ignites our tempers and inflames our passion. You know what we do about it? We DON'T kill people. We get mad, and we exercise our rights to ridicule the people who do it, but we don't kill people for burning the flag.

That's why, for example, many of you around the world who burn our flag are still alive. We could destroy your cities in a heartbeat if we wanted to. We are experts at wrecking cities. Don't believe me? Google "Dresden," "Hiroshima," "Nagasaki" and "Detroit."

We hate it when some of you burn our flag. But we "get" that the flag burners don't speak for everyone who's Islamic.  Likewise, if one of our rocket scientists burns a Koran, you can get mad. But, just as you want us to understand your culture, you have to understand ours.  

We are loudmouths from all religions who make fun of one another and burn stuff -- and proud of it, baby!