Saturday, April 02, 2011

Is the Price Too High?


I watched Jeremiah Johnson again today. I really love that movie, not the least of which is for Robert Redford. Yes, I have a weakness for the towheads and if ever there were a prototype towhead, it's Bob...well, I call him Bob...in my mind, y'see.

If you haven't seen it, it's about a man who, sick of war, turns his back on civilization and goes into the mountains to trap, sell pelts and exist in near solitude. He's meager at it at first, but is taken under the wing of an experienced mountain man, taught to be successful in the ways of hunting in lone existence and is then sent on his way. Through both tragic and humorous happenstance, he has a wife and a young boy to care for. He's alone no longer and fitfully comes to enjoy it.

When he seems to be most happy with this family he never wanted but now treasures, he is pressed into guide service by a group, including a soldier and a preacher, looking to rescue cohorts trapped in the mountains. He leaves his wife and boy

On their way to the rescue, he is made to desecrate an Crow burial ground. I say "made to" because his initially tells them that they have to go the 20 miles out of their way around. The preacher, full of pomp and righteousness with a handkerchief pressed to his nose so as not to smell dead Indians, asks why should he honor the Crow burial ground. The rescue party is not Crow. Those they are looking to rescue, who he says are freezing and starving, are not Crow. They must go through. Johnson reluctantly agrees.

They make it to the starving, freezing wagons in the mountains, and Jeremiah turns toward home. When he gets back to the burial ground, he sees his wife's trinkets strewn among the bones of the burial ground. He beats ass for home, only to find his wife and the boy slaughtered.

And here is where I recognized something.

Terry Jones, the Florida Koran burner, has the same bigotry and disdain for other religions, doesn't he? What arrogance it takes to publicly abuse the beliefs of others. Without apology. With full felt righteousness he pulled his church in league with his bigotry. And they brought the lighter fluid. Now, instead of a wife and child found murdered, we have UN workers dead.

The preacher in Jeremiah Johnson rode away to rescue and his life. Terry Jones will preach another day.

Sad.

Yeah, I get the "It's his right as an American to express himself" reasoning. But just because you can it doesn't mean you should. The Good Pastor Jones isn't the one paying for his expression, is he. It would seem he would consider the price too high.

3 comments:

  1. Wow, I hadn't seen that story yet. I'll admit that it stirs up a lot of inner "unrest" as it were about the freedom of speech that we have.

    The... it's not ironic really (?), I don't know the word for it... but it's like both parties in that dance are doing exactly what the other wants, feeding their stereotypes and a vicious circle of stupidity. Sigh.

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  2. I love that movie. Old Mountain man screamin " Can You Skin Grizz?"________"well skin this Grizz" as he draws the beast through the cabin, laughing all the way. Nuts. We actually used to trap for fur around here during the early eighties when fur was still worth something, and before political correctness. I've got as much a beef with fur as I do with Goose down sleeping bags (Less Carbon Emission producing than the synthetic shit.) Its just hard for me to take only the fur -- its too wasteful for my taste anymore. But checking our traplines in way back in the mountains during the dead of winter____This Movie we could feel.

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  3. Anonymous10:15 PM

    "Terry Jones, the Florida Koran burner, has the same bigotry and disdain for other religions, doesn't he? What arrogance it takes to publicly abuse the beliefs of others."

    And why shouldn't he when the Quran justifies the killing of infidels or non believers and treating women as second class citizens? People like you need to open your eyes. He was burning the Quran to make a point and when those Muslims started killing people, they proved it beyond any doubt.

    "Yeah, I get the "It's his right as an American to express himself" reasoning. But just because you can it doesn't mean you should. The Good Pastor Jones isn't the one paying for his expression, is he. It would seem he would consider the price too high."

    Your right, Jones isn't the one paying for his freedom of expression. That price was paid long ago, by our forefathers who fought in the Revolutionary war and regardless of how you feel about it, Jones has every right to burn a Quran in protest. That being said, who are you to say that he would consider the price to high to pay? Just because he hasn't signed up to serve in our completely voluntary military, doesn't mean he wouldn't if the time were to ever come where he was asked to do so.

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