toldailytopic: How do you feel about building a mosque at ground zero?

[Nick_A]

Kmoney

Why build bridges when moving the mosque would be building it to people who can't differentiate between the terrorists who attacked us and the non-extremists who are behind this mosque and cultural center?

This is a good question and a type of question that should be discussed on TOL

You approach it from the secular perspective that glorifies prestige. These fools that cannot differentiate between the wonderful and the not so wonderful are not worthy of any considerations.

However, from the Christian perspective, Jesus says in Matthew 9:

10While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. 11When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"
12On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.'[a] For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

This is absurd from the secular perspective. Why should Jesus lower himself to these people the educated believe are not worthy of him. Where is his pride?

Why should the developers of the Ground Zero mosque lower themselves and respect these people unworthy of consideration? A good question.

You have been talking a lot about the golden rule - do unto others as you would have them to unto you. How about this one: I wouldn't want to be asked to do something because people are prejudiced against me due to their inability to separate me from terrorists.

Fortunately on my path, even though it took me a while to understand it, I had to admit that the cause of all insult is within me. I growled a bit with that one but reluctantly I had to eventully admit it was true.

Consequently, even though I experience insult, I do not justify it. It is just part of being the wretched man that self knowledge reveals to the Christian. The more one experiences it for what it is, the less its effects on the person. I could refuse to give a pregnant black woman my seat on the bus because she thinks I am just a rotten white guy. It is my right. What else does she deserve? Yet I would give her my seat. I cannot explain why to you. It is a sense of inner morality you either feel or you don't and prefer to bask in being "right."

 

[Nick_A]

TH

No, but you'd have a problem even then, since the building was damaged, not destroyed and is being used.

At one time Burlington Coat Factory occupied the building. After the landing gear of the attacking plane crashed into the roof, Burlington had to leave and people lost jobs. Call it what you will but it is still part of Ground Zero.

Rather, the question is why should it be rationally opposed and moved at all.

Consideration for those having directly suffered the events of 911 at Ground Zero.

That's wrong, since it kowtows to an impulse that denigrates their faith by confusing it with the villainy of those who brought down the WTC towers.

Your elitism doesn't allow you to experience what is elementary to a Christian: "compassion."

Forgetting your overreaching nonsense at the end, if true there's no reason at all to ask them to move and every reason to encourage them to build.

This is a natural response for this New Age Interfaith nonsense. It has no basis in reality. When people are suffering, you wish to make it worse and justify it by some naive elitism.

No and the vast majority aren't objecting to it on anything like those grounds. So we come to it. You don't give a fig for anyone's sensitivity. You're at this over your own issues and are willing to use the greater clamor to advance them, which explains your insensitivity to the Muslims who perished on 9/11 neatly enough. Their cause doesn't align with your actual motivation....

Again, nothing prevents Muslims to pray at the mosque nearby.

You need a better education or dictionary and an argument wouldn't hurt either.

You need a heart and a capacity for common sense.

He said, as his arm grew even stronger for the indirect patting of his own back.

Just showing elementary sensitivity to the needs of others is considered by you to be an act of self importance. Perhaps you write this because it is this way with you.

You have a foul mouth and a mean posture and that's about the whole of it. No, she just lost her nerve along with her ability to understand the distinction between the two examples.

What you find foul is a term that reveals what you do. Susan Estrich didn't lose her nerve, she broadened her heart.

Tolerance may be a two way street, but what is being suggested promotes the antithesis of tolerance, is the enemy of those who can distinguish between an aberration and the rule.

So you don't like these nuns that becme open to compassion. You consider it weakness to move away. I consider it strength.

Rather, she almost understood, which is more than can be said for you, even if her failure is as useless for all that.

You, and those that support you are unaware that there are two motives for patriotism. As usual, Simone Weil understands them and they are elaborated on here by Jim Grote:

"The particulars of this political action are presented in the last book she wrote, The Need for Roots. Here she reflects more positively on the importance of religious and political social structures in the life of the individual. In fact, she spends pages praising the now maligned virtue of patriotism. Weil contrasts false patriotism which results from pride and true patriotism which comes from humility. She argues that "prestigious" acts of heroism need not always arise from grandiosity and egoism. For example, she observes that most people are easily capable of acting heroically in order to protect their children or aged parents. The thought of weakness inspires noble deeds as well as the thought of strength. Patriotism is merely an extension of this natural protective impulse from one's family to one's country."

This poignantly tender feeling for some beautiful, precious, fragile, and perishable object has a warmth about it which the sentiment of national grandeur altogether lacks .... The compassion felt for fragility is always associated with love for real beauty, because we are keenly conscious of the fact that the existence of the really beautiful things ought to be assured forever, and is not. One can either love France for the glory which would seem to ensure for her a prolonged existence in time and space; or else one can love her as something which, being earthly 2 an be destroyed, and is all the more precious on that account.(32)

"False patriotism results from the illusion that our personality or our country will exist forever due to its own strength. However, as Weil emphasizes: "Our personality is entirely dependent on external circumstances which have unlimited power to crush it. But we would rather die than admit this."(33) False patriotism or prestige refuses to admit the possibility of affliction.

True patriotism comes from the admission of affliction, that is, from humility. From humility grows a compassion for the fragile nature of the things of this world. When we let go of the necessity of our own existence, the fragility of mortal creatures becomes a catalyst for our love. The objects of love in this world become more precious in proportion to the precariousness of their existence. The awesome beauty of infants is a case in point."

True patriotism is the compassion you reject. The ordinary person feels it which is why so many support being sensitive to the needs of those who suffered the results of 911.

You are one of the educated elite that has lost this perception and cannot distinguish between true and false patriotism.

 

[kmoney]

This is a good question and a type of question that should be discussed on TOL

I try.

You approach it from the secular perspective that glorifies prestige.

Secular perspective? Glorify prestige? I don't think I'm doing those things.

These fools that cannot differentiate between the wonderful and the not so wonderful are not worthy of any considerations.

If you think I'm "not considering these fools" then you misunderstand where I'm coming from.

However, from the Christian perspective, Jesus says in Matthew 9:

10While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. 11When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"
12On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.'[a] For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

This is absurd from the secular perspective. Why should Jesus lower himself to these people the educated believe are not worthy of him. Where is his pride?

Yes. I have no problem with Jesus' words here. I'm sure that when Jesus went to the sinners he didn't bend his actions to suit their sinful behavior, which you must mean if you intend to apply this passage to the present situation. Meetings sinners where they are != catering to their behavior or wrong beliefs.

Why should the developers of the Ground Zero mosque lower themselves and respect these people unworthy of consideration? A good question.

Respect != enabling.

Fortunately on my path, even though it took me a while to understand it, I had to admit that the cause of all insult is within me. I growled a bit with that one but reluctantly I had to eventully admit it was true. Consequently, even though I experience insult, I do not justify it.

I'm glad to see you are going to stop justifying the insult that people are facing in response to this mosque. :thumb:

It is just part of being the wretched man that self knowledge reveals to the Christian. The more one experiences it for what it is, the less its effects on the person. I could refuse to give a pregnant black woman my seat on the bus because she thinks I am just a rotten white guy. It is my right. What else does she deserve?

She deserves your seat. And in doing so you would both be serving your neighbor and breaking down the foundation of her prejudice against white people.

Unfortunately for you, you picked a poor analogy to the current situation. In your analogy the seat is something you and the pregnant woman both wanted and needed. If you really wanted a comparable scenario it would be if Rauf was asserting his rights and commandeering a building that the city, or the victims of 9/11, were trying to use as a memorial. But that isn't the case. So your comparison fails. From the flip side, another more appropriate hypothetical, albeit not perfect, would be if a black woman demanded that you give up your seat even though she has no intention of using it; she just doesn't want you having it since white KKK abused black people on a bus a decade ago.

And that's ignoring the fact that the claim that this building is "ground zero" is on shaky ground. I would bet my bottom dollar that prior to this whole controversy if you had asked anyone if that building was part of 'ground zero' they would have said "No". That's my speculation, of course.

Your example sounds more like someone acting out of spite because of someone's prejudice instead of someone acting out of goodwill to breakdown the prejudice. I'm not surprised you come up with that sort of hypothetical though, considering you can't bring yourself to think Rauf might have good intentions.

Yet I would give her my seat. I cannot explain why to you. It is a sense of inner morality you either feel or you don't and prefer to bask in being "right."

No need to explain it to me. I'm right there with you. I'd give up my seat as well. :thumb:

 

[Town Heretic]

At one time Burlington Coat Factory occupied the building.

I know. I wasn't confused on the facts, but you seemed to be, both in labeling it Ground Zero and in claiming it abandoned and destroyed when none of that was the case.

Call it what you will but it is still part of Ground Zero.

Rather, you shouldn't just call it what you will and it isn't Ground Zero.

What is the argument?

Consideration for those having directly suffered the events of 911 at Ground Zero.

Would you make the same argument in the Deep South to stave off integration? I mean, a great many people were troubled by the thought of it? Of course not. You should have compassion for people who are hurting, but you don't feed an errant understanding or send a message that the paranoia is reasonable, that suspecting all Muslims and ignoring the fact that some of the victims were of that very faith is warranted.

Your elitism doesn't allow you to experience what is elementary to a Christian: "compassion."

Rather, I can distinguish between compassion and capitulation to an ill.

It has no basis in reality. When people are suffering, you wish to make it worse and justify it by some naive elitism.

That's so profoundly stupid I'm not even going to attempt a humorous response.

Again, nothing prevents Muslims to pray at the mosque nearby.

Or running for Congress, or going to the movies. Anything on actual point?

You need a heart and a capacity for common sense.

That's about a hundred pounds of Shinola in a five ounce can. I'm not trying to work a wrong in the name of compassion while actually using the grieving as a cover for a political objection. That's you, sunshine. lain:

Just showing elementary sensitivity to the needs of others is considered by you to be an act of self importance.

No, but calling yourself a hero and directly and indirectly praising yourself at every opportunity is.

So you don't like these nuns that becme open to compassion. You consider it weakness to move away. I consider it strength.

Different situation with a far different backdrop. Apples and beef steak. I'd be happy to discuss it.

You, and those that support you are unaware that there are two motives for patriotism.

Says who? As if we all didn't know by now...egad. lain:

True patriotism is the compassion you reject.

I'm not interested in meeting your litmus test. Neither you nor a dead philosopher frame or decide the issue.

The ordinary person feels it which is why so many support being sensitive to the needs of those who suffered the results of 911.

The ordinary person these days suspects Obama is a Muslim. People these days...go figure.

You are one of the educated elite that has lost this perception and cannot distinguish between true and false patriotism.

Rather, I'm sufficiently educated to separate your aspirations from a hole in the ground.

 

[Nick_A]

Kmoney

Secular perspective? Glorify prestige? I don't think I'm doing those things.

Whenever we value rights over our obligations it glorifies prestige. It is the norm of secularism and since America is becoming increasingly secular, people argue rights rather than discuss obligations.

The Ground Zero mosque raises the questions of our obligations to those having suffered the results of 911.

Yes. I have no problem with Jesus' words here. I'm sure that when Jesus went to the sinners he didn't bend his actions to suit their sinful behavior, which you must mean if you intend to apply this passage to the present situation. Meetings sinners where they are != catering to their behavior or wrong beliefs.

Does it? What was Jesus doing when dining with sinners? Was he standing on the table and hollering "repent?"

Christianity is profound psychology and far deeper in its awareness of human "being" than contemporary psychology. Jesus was meeting sinners where they are.

Respect != enabling.

Yes. Jesus was enabling them. It seems absurd and contradictory at first. Is it really? Perhaps Jesus is expressing an awareness our emphasis on prestige denies us.

I'm glad to see you are going to stop justifying the insult that people are facing in response to this mosque.

It isn't a matter of justifying insult but of appreciating the bondage of the human condition. When Jesus said "Forgive them for they know not what they do," was he justifying their insult and their insults?

We experience several emotions at the same time. Insult is a combination of many other emotions that can include repressed grief.

How do you deal with people when they are psychologically hurt? Are you mean to them because they are too emotionally disturbed to be worthy of respect and kindness you believe would just enable their hurt?

Unfortunately for you, you picked a poor analogy to the current situation. In your analogy the seat is something you and the pregnant woman both wanted and needed. If you really wanted a comparable scenario it would be if Rauf was asserting his rights and commandeering a building that the city, or the victims of 9/11, were trying to use as a memorial. But that isn't the case. So your comparison fails. From the flip side, another more appropriate hypothetical, albeit not perfect, would be if a black woman demanded that you give up your seat even though she has no intention of using it; she just doesn't want you having it since white KKK abused black people on a bus a decade ago.

No. Regardless of what happens to the building the question is the site itself and what it represents. Rauf wants to change what it represents to the people into a symbolic victory and the coming dominance of Sharia Law.

Pretend you are Jewish for a moment. would you want school kids to be taught that Jews offered nothing to art and science? Money buys this influence in the United States just like money will be the reason the mosque is allowed to be built.

You say it would be impossible for American textbooks to include such things. Don't be so sure. Money talks, nobody walks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6bARRmEpH8

Forget this politically correct Interfaith BS. The mosque is far from pure.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=194617

The mosque is being opposed both emotionally and intellectually. We simply don't have to intellectually support Sharia law in the United States by allowing it a symbolic victory at Ground Zero.

We must emotionally support the needs of American citizens to grieve after an attack on their country in the spirit of compassion and true patriotism by keeping Ground Zero free of politics.

 

[The Barbarian]

We must emotionally support the needs of American citizens to grieve after an attack on their country in the spirit of compassion and true patriotism by keeping Ground Zero free of politics.

You guys pretty much killed that one. I have no doubt that every political hack in the country will be using it as a talking point.

They have to be infuriated that Obama won't say it's a good thing the center is being built. Takes most of the value out of a perfectly good wedge issue.

And that's what they really want to get out of it.

 

[Granite]

You guys pretty much killed that one. I have no doubt that every political hack in the country will be using it as a talking point.

They have to be infuriated that Obama won't say it's a good thing the center is being built. Takes most of the value out of a perfectly good wedge issue.

And that's what they really want to get out of it.

Ground Zero and 9/11 itself will never be apolitical. It's impossible.

He's done enough by pointing out--correctly, if dispassionately--that it's legal to build it. Honestly though, would it kill the guy to show some emotion? His approach to this situation reminds of me of Dukakis explaining to Bernie Shaw that, no, even if Kitty had been raped and killed, old Mike still wouldn't support the death penalty.

 

[Town Heretic]

Translation time again...

...We must emotionally support [exploit] the needs [fear and bias] of American citizens to grieve [express an emotionally driven irrationality] after an attack on their country in the spirit of compassion [opportunism] and true patriotism [paranoia] by keeping [anything we can tangentially slap the] Ground Zero [label on to make sure the issue is never] free of politics [and serves our end game].

 

[zoo22]

We must emotionally support the needs of American citizens to grieve after an attack on their country in the spirit of compassion and true patriotism by keeping Ground Zero free of politics.

Like the nutters that accosted the guy who was wearing a Muslim-like hat at the "no mosque" demonstration?

It's been almost 10 years.

Where you you on 9/11, by the way?

I've been thinking... So what if Muslims actually did want to build a mosque @ ground zero... Would moving it two blocks away, where you couldn't see it be okay?

 

[fool]

So, all the Truthers are for the Mosque right?

 

[Nick_A]

Like the nutters that accosted the guy who was wearing a Muslim-like hat at the "no mosque" demonstration?

It's been almost 10 years.

Where you you on 9/11, by the way?

I've been thinking... So what if Muslims actually did want to build a mosque @ ground zero... Would moving it two blocks away, where you couldn't see it be okay?

Zoo

I see you are interested in art. Let me try and explain this through the medium of art.

I posted a link to this powerful video which is hard to deal with so no one will touch it and rightly so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRMz8fKkG2g

It is beyond the nature of politics that complains about before in anticipation of an imagined future. Religious art, when it is worthy of the name, refers to the quality of "Now." It allows us to "feel" in ways that are absent in our normal lives. The video asks "WHY," not looking for literal political answers but rather keeping the totality the "gestalt" of the question alive within us so as to "feel" the loss of our humanity as a result of being the wretched man. Momentarily we become humble in front of something far greater than ourselves that offers help.

We have a human need for that feeling. Many of those objecting to the mosque object for the loss of this opportunity through politics even though they may not articulate it. We need something to remind us of what we ARE in comparison to what humanity is capable of. This is true patriotism when we profit from affliction through self knowledge.

Ground Zero is a symbol of what Man is capable of from the attack itself to the heroic attempts at rescue. People feel it cheap to sell out this recognition of NOW to cheap politics especially when it is obvious the politics is sleazy. I have to agree. Respecting these special places and the people that have endured their horrors is part of being human. I support the spiritual need to become human in myself as well as in others. It requires keeping politcs out of these unique places.

 

[The Barbarian]

His approach to this situation reminds of me of Dukakis explaining to Bernie Shaw that, no, even if Kitty had been raped and killed, old Mike still wouldn't support the death penalty.

Yep. He really messed up on that one. Someone once asked me the same question, after I said that executions should be halted until we had at least a good indication that states would stop sentencing innocent people to death.

My answer? "Would I want to kill a man if he raped and murdered my wife? Of course I would. I might even do it, if I had the opportunity. I'm not made of stone.

The point is, what our emotions tell us to do is not always the right thing to do. The rights of people who were sentenced to death, but later found to be innocent count just as much as anyone else's. How would my emotions cancel out the emotions of a parent who saw his son or daughter wrongly condemned by the state?"

For that, she had no answer, and called me a "liberal." I think that's a rather harsh judgment; surely there are conservatives who are rational and believe in the rule of law.

 

[aSeattleConserv]

surely there are conservatives who are rational and believe in the rule of law.

Yes we do. We believe they should be applied equally. As Christian conservative Gary DeMar writes in his latest article "The Left is Now Interested in ‘Constitutional Freedoms’ ", so-called "Constitutional Rights" are looked at differently in the eyes of liberals (such as yourself Barbarian):

[Film critic Roger Ebert has expressed his views on the subject by saying]:

"America missed a golden opportunity to showcase its Constitutional freedoms. The instinctive response of Americans should have been the same as President Obama’s: Muslims have every right to build there. Where one religion can build a church, so can all religions."

[DeMar responds]:

America’s constitutional freedoms were violated when a bunch of radical Islamists decided to subvert those freedoms and fly planes into American buildings and kill thousands of Americans. In his third point, Ebert writes, “The Muslims who attacked the World Trade Center are not the Muslims who are building the center.” This is true. Those who attacked the World Trade Center were the ones who flew the planes and took their lives and the lives of nearly 3000 others. But those who want to build the center and a majority of so-called moderate Muslims are not demonstrating in the streets by the tens of thousands denouncing the radicals. Instead, they are content to have their religious fellow travelers to use our freedoms against us.

The long-term goal of Islam is the abolition of our constitutional freedoms since the majority of them are an affront to the fundamental tenets of Islam. If Islam gains dominance in the United States—a natural outgrowth of its worldview—will there be freedom of religion, speech, assembly, and press? Would Christians be permitted to build churches? Could the minority population of Christians be able to evangelize Muslims? To ask these questions is to answer them.

Mr. Ebert likes to pick and choose how he will apply the constitutional freedom issue. Is this the same America that had an opportunity to showcase its constitutional freedoms when more than seven million voters in California were denied their constitutional freedoms by a single unelected judge because a majority of those who voted to define marriage as between a man and a woman did so in terms of religion? It’s important to note that the judge in the case argued that religion cannot be used to determine whether an act is either moral or immoral. “The evidence shows conclusively,” Judge Vaughn Walker writes, “that moral and religious views form the only basis for a belief that same-sex couples are different from opposite-sex couples” (page 130). Religion is repeatedly attacked in the 136-page decision because it was seen as the determining factor in the decision process for the majority of voters. What if a future judge argues in a similar way about polygamous and father-daughter marriages? Where is Mr. Ebert on this issue?

Where was Mr. Ebert’s column on how the “constitutional freedoms” of Jennifer Keeton were trampled on when she was ordered to change her religious beliefs in order to graduate from the counseling program at Georgia’s Augusta State University? “Augusta State University ordered Keeton to undergo a re-education plan, in which she must attend ‘diversity sensitivity training,’ complete additional remedial reading, and write papers to describe their impact on her beliefs. If she does not change her beliefs or agree to the plan, the university says it will expel her from the Counselor Education Program. . . . After her professors learned of her Christian beliefs, specifically her views on homosexual conduct, from both classroom discussions and private conversations with other students, the school imposed the re-education plan.” A similar case involves a counseling student at Eastern Michigan University. A federal judge ruled in favor of the university that removed a Christian student from its graduate program in school counseling because she would not relinquish her Christian belief that homosexuality is morally wrong.

The Christmas season is not far off. Government schools have diluted the seasonal meaning by redefining it as “Winter Holiday” and banned even instrumental versions of traditional Christmas music.

The ACLU has continually sued local municipalities when the Ten Commandments are put on public display even though the First Amendment applies to what Congress can and cannot do and has no application to local governments.

When Brittany McComb gave her speech as valedictorian of Foothill High School in Nevada, her microphone was cut off by school officials because they determined that her speech would violate the first Amendment as interpreted by the courts.

School administrators, with the advice of their district legal counsel, censored her speech, deleting all three Bible references, several references to “the Lord” and the only mention of the word “Christ” (see here).

Where was Mr. Ebert when this young woman’s “constitutional freedoms” were denied?

A court in Utah ruled that highway crosses violated the Constitution. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stated: “We hold that these memorials have the impermissible effect of conveying to the reasonable observer the message that the state prefers or otherwise endorses a certain religion.” The memorial crosses were placed along Utah public roads by a non-government organization, the Utah Highway Patrol Association. The crosses, commemorating the deaths of fallen state highway troopers, are maintained by the UHPA. Consider the court’s logic:

“The judges said they were also concerned that the memorials included the insignia of the Utah Highway Patrol. They said the combination of the cross and insignia links the state with a particular religious symbol. And that, they said, ‘may lead the reasonable observer to fear that Christians are likely to receive preferential treatment from the UHP—both in their hiring practices and, more generally, in the treatment that people may expect to receive on Utah’s highways.’ The judges added: ‘The reasonable observer’s fear of unequal treatment would likely be compounded by the fact that these memorials carry the same symbol that appears on UHP patrol vehicles.’”

How would a UHP officer know that a person stopped for a traffic violation was a Christian or not? How does this line of argumentation affect the official declaration that our nation’s currency includes the words “In God We Trust” and the Constitution of the United States, the document the court claims it is upholding, includes the words “In the year of our Lord,” a not so subtle reference to Jesus Christ who died on a cross?

The above are only several of hundreds of examples of Christians being discriminated against because of their beliefs, and all of a sudden we find people like Roger Ebert interested in constitutional freedom issues. Where was he when these cases were being considered and ruled on?
http://americanvision.org/3416/the-left-is-now-interested-in-‘constitutional-freedoms’/#comments

 

[The Barbarian]

Yes we do. We believe they should be applied equally. As Christian conservative Gary DeMar writes in his latest article "The Left is Now Interested in ‘Constitutional Freedoms’ ", so-called "Constitutional Rights" are looked at differently in the eyes of liberals (such as yourself Barbarian):

Hmmmm... I don't know how liberals see it, but libertarians surely see the Constitution differently than ol' Gary does. Gary, as you might know, has threatened to sue a Connecticut high school for neglecting to put "in the year of our Lord" on their diplomas.
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2010/07/demar_distorts_history_and_law.php

He is, as you can see, loopy enough to suppose that the religious freedom clause is invalid.

Libertarians like Ron Paul, for example, have repeatedly pointed out the stupidity of hating Muslims so badly that one denies they have rights:

The debate should have provided the conservative defenders of property rights with a perfect example of how the right to own property also protects the 1st Amendment rights of assembly and religion by supporting the building of the mosque.

Instead, we hear lip service given to the property rights position while demanding that the need to be “sensitive” requires an all-out assault on the building of a mosque, several blocks from “ground zero.”

(Gary's jihadist rant)

The long-term goal of Islam is the abolition of our constitutional freedoms since the majority of them are an affront to the fundamental tenets of Islam.

Apparently, Gary is sick with worry that the Muslims might do it before his fellow froot loops can get it done. Professional jealousy, I suppose. His rant continues:

Mr. Ebert likes to pick and choose how he will apply the constitutional freedom issue. Is this the same America that had an opportunity to showcase its constitutional freedoms when more than seven million voters in California were denied their constitutional freedoms by a single unelected judge because a majority of those who voted to define marriage as between a man and a woman did so in terms of religion?

Boy, don't you just hate those gay atheist Muslims? Gary does. Apparently, he thinks the Bill of Rights is subject to a majority vote. So does the KKK.

That's the reason we have a Constitution; to prevent the tyranny of the majority.

 

[Town Heretic]

... As Christian conservative Gary DeMar writes in his latest article "The Left is Now Interested in ‘Constitutional Freedoms’ ", so-called "Constitutional Rights"

As though they weren't prior? As though the Civil Rights movement wasn't their creation...much like Women's Suffrage and the abolition movement, the fight for child labor laws and for the establishment of labor unions. The left has a history of concern with rights, just as the far right has a history of resistance to every one of them.

[DeMar responds]:
America’s constitutional freedoms were violated when a bunch of radical Islamists decided to subvert those freedoms and fly planes into American buildings and kill thousands of Americans.

Which in nonsense. Freedoms can't be violated. Laws are violated.

...those who want to build the center and a majority of so-called moderate Muslims are not demonstrating in the streets by the tens of thousands denouncing the radicals.

And in labeling them "so-called moderate Muslims" the same sort of passive aggressive inferential smearing is done that would be should those interested in building the mosque allow themselves to be convinced the idea is somehow shameful.

As to the bile about Muslims inferred silence, given the immediate climate of 9/11 I would imagine most Muslims here were being as unobtrusive as possible. That said, many raised their voices in horror. I'd suggest a look at this, by way of example relating to both the anti Muslim backlash and the statements against the terrorism of 9/11.

Instead, they are content to have their religious fellow travelers to use our freedoms against us.

And now the even less reasoned or founded "commie" card coupled with a less veiled smear.

The long-term goal of Islam is the abolition of our constitutional freedoms since the majority of them are an affront to the fundamental tenets of Islam.

The majority? Nonsense. And many of our government's practices are anathema to Christendom. Islam, unlike Catholicism, has no central, controlling leader and no uniting agenda.

If Islam gains dominance in the United States—a natural outgrowth of its worldview—will there be freedom of religion, speech, assembly, and press? Would Christians be permitted to build churches? Could the minority population of Christians be able to evangelize Muslims?

I'd imagine so, but this is a pointless speculation regarding a potential that will never be realized, that isn't supported by a single statistical trend and exists solely to fan the flames of mistrust and paranoia.

To ask these questions is to answer them.

No, he's conflating presumption with reason. Apparently a recurring methodology where he's concerned. lain:

Mr. Ebert likes to pick and choose how he will apply the constitutional freedom issue. [/B]Is this the same America that had an opportunity to showcase its constitutional freedoms when more than seven million voters in California were denied their constitutional freedoms by a single unelected judge because a majority of those who voted to define marriage as between a man and a woman did so in terms of religion?

You don't have a constitutional freedom to do the very thing he fears should the Muslims come to power...a wonder he didn't think of that problem with his argument.

The rest is a mix of legitimate concerns and tired, under-thought and over generalized conclusions.

 

[Nick_A]

As though they weren't prior? As though the Civil Rights movement wasn't their creation...much like Women's Suffrage and the abolition movement, the fight for child labor laws and for the establishment of labor unions. The left has a history of concern with rights, just as the far right has a history of resistance to every one of them.


Which in nonsense. Freedoms can't be violated. Laws are violated.


And in labeling them "so-called moderate Muslims" the same sort of passive aggressive inferential smearing is done that would be should those interested in building the mosque allow themselves to be convinced the idea is somehow shameful.

As to the bile about Muslims inferred silence, given the immediate climate of 9/11 I would imagine most Muslims here were being as unobtrusive as possible. That said, many raised their voices in horror. I'd suggest a look at this, by way of example relating to both the anti Muslim backlash and the statements against the terrorism of 9/11.


And now the even less reasoned or founded "commie" card coupled with a less veiled smear.


The majority? Nonsense. And many of our government's practices are anathema to Christendom. Islam, unlike Catholicism, has no central, controlling leader and no uniting agenda.


I'd imagine so, but this is a pointless speculation regarding a potential that will never be realized, that isn't supported by a single statistical trend and exists solely to fan the flames of mistrust and paranoia.


No, he's conflating presumption with reason. Apparently a recurring methodology where he's concerned. lain:


You don't have a constitutional freedom to do the very thing he fears should the Muslims come to power...a wonder he didn't think of that problem with his argument.

The rest is a mix of legitimate concerns and tired, under-thought and over generalized conclusions.

You are like a mother-in-law in heat. You are expressing righteous indignation over what you don't understand.

America doesn't have a national identity as does France or Italy for example. America is a country founded on ideas. These ideas are furthered by the constitution.

Immigrants are invited into the country because they believe in the ideas America is founded upon and not to change these ideas. These developers of the Mosque are asserting Sharia Law as necessary to replace the ideas on Which America was founded. And since America is defined by ideas, they wish the destruction of America.

The Ground Zero Mosque is a symbol of this destruction of and the transformation of America into a new Muslim identity.

And you wonder why people object to the mosque. They seek to preserve American values while acknowledging the sufferings of those attacked by people seeking the destruction of the ideas that make America unique.

 

[Nick_A]

Christopher Hitchens gets it right. He sees through all that PC Interfaith BS as it concerns the Ground Zero mosque. if Atheism taught him to be able to see through it, it was truly beneficial.

The "Ground Zero mosque" debate is about tolerance—and a whole lot more.
By Christopher Hitchens

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf Two weeks ago, I wrote that the arguments against the construction of the Cordoba Initiative center in lower Manhattan were so stupid and demagogic as to be beneath notice. Things have only gone further south since then, with Newt Gingrich's comparison to a Nazi sign outside the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum or (take your pick from the grab bag of hysteria) a Japanese cultural center at Pearl Harbor. The first of those pseudo-analogies is wrong in every possible way, in that the Holocaust museum already contains one of the most coolly comprehensive guides to the theory and practice of the Nazi regime in existence, including special exhibits on race theory and party ideology and objective studies of the conditions that brought the party to power. As for the second, there has long been a significant Japanese-American population in Hawaii, and I can't see any reason why it should not place a cultural center anywhere on the islands that it chooses.
From the beginning, though, I pointed out that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf was no great bargain and that his Cordoba Initiative was full of euphemisms about Islamic jihad and Islamic theocracy. I mentioned his sinister belief that the United States was partially responsible for the assault on the World Trade Center and his refusal to take a position on the racist Hamas dictatorship in Gaza. The more one reads through his statements, the more alarming it gets. For example, here is Rauf's editorial on the upheaval that followed the brutal hijacking of the Iranian elections in 2009. Regarding President Obama, he advised that:

He should say his administration respects many of the guiding principles of the 1979 revolution—to establish a government that expresses the will of the people; a just government, based on the idea of Vilayet-i-faquih, that establishes the rule of law.

(perhaps for "outreach" purposes), Vilayet-i-faquih is the special term promulgated by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to describe the idea that all of Iranian society is under the permanent stewardship (sometimes rendered as guardianship) of the mullahs. Under this dispensation, "the will of the people" is a meaningless expression, because "the people" are the wards and children of the clergy. It is the justification for a clerical supreme leader, whose rule is impervious to elections and who can pick and choose the candidates and, if it comes to that, the results. It is extremely controversial within Shiite Islam. (Grand Ayatollah Sistani in Iraq, for example, does not endorse it.) As for those numerous Iranians who are not Shiites, it reminds them yet again that they are not considered to be real citizens of the Islamic Republic.

I do not find myself reassured by the fact that Imam Rauf publicly endorses the most extreme and repressive version of Muslim theocracy. The letterhead of the statement, incidentally, describes him as the Cordoba Initiative's "Founder and Visionary." Why does that not delight me, either?

Emboldened by the crass nature of the opposition to the center, its defenders have started to talk as if it represented no problem at all and as if the question were solely one of religious tolerance. It would be nice if this were true. But tolerance is one of the first and most awkward questions raised by any examination of Islamism. We are wrong to talk as if the only subject was that of terrorism. As Western Europe has already found to its cost, local Muslim leaders have a habit, once they feel strong enough, of making demands of the most intolerant kind. Sometimes it will be calls for censorship of anything "offensive" to Islam. Sometimes it will be demands for sexual segregation in schools and swimming pools. The script is becoming a very familiar one. And those who make such demands are of course usually quite careful to avoid any association with violence. They merely hint that, if their demands are not taken seriously, there just might be a teeny smidgeon of violence from some other unnamed quarter …

As for the gorgeous mosaic of religious pluralism, it's easy enough to find mosque Web sites and DVDs that peddle the most disgusting attacks on Jews, Hindus, Christians, unbelievers, and other Muslims—to say nothing of insane diatribes about women and homosexuals. This is why the fake term Islamophobia is so dangerous: It insinuates that any reservations about Islam must ipso facto be "phobic." A phobia is an irrational fear or dislike. Islamic preaching very often manifests precisely this feature, which is why suspicion of it is by no means irrational.

From my window, I can see the beautiful minaret of the Washington, D.C., mosque on Massachusetts Avenue. It is situated at the heart of the capital city's diplomatic quarter, and it is where President Bush went immediately after 9/11 to make his gesture toward the "religion of peace." A short while ago, the wife of a new ambassador told me that she had been taking her dog for a walk when a bearded man accosted her and brusquely warned her not to take the animal so close to the sacred precincts. Muslim cabdrivers in other American cities have already refused to take passengers with "unclean" canines.

Another feature of my local mosque that I don't entirely like is the display of flags outside, purportedly showing all those nations that are already Muslim. Some of these flags are of countries like Malaysia, where Islam barely has a majority, or of Turkey, which still has a secular constitution. At the United Nations, the voting bloc of the Organization of the Islamic Conference nations is already proposing a resolution that would circumscribe any criticism of religion in general and of Islam in particular. So, before he is used by our State Department on any more goodwill missions overseas, I would like to see Imam Rauf asked a few searching questions about his support for clerical dictatorship in, just for now, Iran. Let us by all means make the "Ground Zero" debate a test of tolerance. But this will be a one-way street unless it is to be a test of Muslim tolerance as well.

I can just see it now. There will be a Muslim gay bar next to the Ground Zero mosque, Taxis will ignore people with "unclean" canines and dog walking will be prohibited near the mosque.

 

[Town Heretic]

You are like a mother-in-law in heat.

And you're like a four year old nose picker, but without the sophistication.

You are expressing righteous indignation over what you don't understand.

Rather, you don't understand my expression, which unlike your own doesn't owe its soul to bigoted fear and half digested philosophy.

America doesn't have a national identity as does France or Italy for example. America is a country founded on ideas. These ideas are furthered by the constitution.

Said the man dedicated to subverting those principles where they fail to conform to his blinkered vision and who derides the process elsewhere set out by the Constitution.

Immigrants are invited into the country because they believe in the ideas America is founded upon and not to change these ideas.

Invited by other immigrants who shaped a fine document to reflect our aspirations as a people of an uncommon vision, if disparate cultures.

These developers of the Mosque are asserting Sharia Law as necessary to replace the ideas on Which America was founded.

Quotes from the mosque leaders to this effect? Not that I don't trust you...but I don't.

And since America is defined by ideas, they wish the destruction of America.

So you're saying they have in mind changing the laws of this land to match their religious views? Cite? It can't be done. Wouldn't pass Constitutional muster, IF anyone actually tried to legislate it.

The Ground Zero Mosque is a symbol of this destruction of and the transformation of America into a new Muslim identity.

Only in your mind, on all counts...well, maybe out of your mind too. lain:

And you wonder why people object to the mosque.

No, I really don't. I've been reading and listening to the different reasons given. Mostly it's the utterly one sided "sensitivity" card. But I've answered on that error prior.

They seek to preserve American values

Like the celebration of religious freedom and expression? You aren't fooling anyone who doesn't want to be... :nono:

 

[Nick_A]

TH

Quotes from the mosque leaders to this effect? Not that I don't trust you...but I don't.

Your elitism is only surpassed your ignorance which makes you a very useful idiot for the cause of Sharia.

Walid Shoebat was a terrorist. He is trying to awaken useful idiots to reality

http://thewestislamandsharia.blogspot.com/2010/08/walid-shoebat-americas-untapped.html

Former head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Yasser Arafat was caught on more than one occasion speaking peacefully in English while preaching hate in Arabic.

As a former member of the PLO, Walid Shoebat insists that such tactics are part of the overall strategy to deceive the west. In Islam, says Shoebat, the standard is to use Muruna (stealth, flexibility), Taqiyya (Guarding the faith), and Kitman (Concealing the true intent); in plain English—lying.

Shoebat insists that westerners are not used to the concept of lying in order to further the agenda of a religion but that is what we are facing. He also states that the motives behind the ground zero mosque are not all that dissimilar from the motives behind the murder of seven CIA officials in Khost, Afghanistan last year—the difference is in approach only.

Since converting to Christianity in 1993, Shoebat has made it his life’s work to warn the west of the threats it faces from Islam.

He is ready to help in any way he can but when his phone rings, it’s never the CIA, the FBI, or the DOD on the other end. Instead, it’s often another radio talk show host fascinated by his story and wanting him to share it with the audience.

On December 30th, 2009, at Camp Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi detonated a bomb that killed himself and seven high ranking CIA officials, including the base chief who had been tracking Osama bin Laden since 1997.

Narrowly escaping death was the #2 CIA Chief in Afghanistan. A supposed informant with allegedly time sensitive intelligence about al Qaeda’s number #2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Balawi was a actually a triple agent.

In the days after the bombing, a video of al-Balawi was released in which he was seen revealing his intentions in Arabic prior to the bombing.

However, Shoebat maintains that al-Balawi had been communicating his intentions on the internet long before that fateful day at Camp Chapman. Had the CIA cared to enlist him in the effort to interpret them, seven American lives may have been saved.

Here are al-Balawi’s words—translated by Shoebat—that appeared on an internet blogpost before he murdered those seven CIA officials:

When I drive my car at a traffic police station on the side of the road, my surroundings change by a push of a flash button. I find myself going for martyrdom driving a booby trapped Laurie with a bomb heading towards the pagan guards.

The hand brake turns into a switch waiting for the last press. My tongue utters the name of Allah and the Shahadatan. I cry out Allah Akbar (Allah is Great) Allah Akbar. Allah pay them back…

Or how about this one?

Oh how I wished to be in Gaza. I am a man killed by his own wishes or that I pray Allah has mercy on my condition.

My desire to be a mortar bomb placed in the believer’s canon, Or to be operating as a taxi driver booby trapped with a bomb to send as many Jews to hell.

Despite these very bold red flags, the CIA allowed itself to be convinced that al-Balawi had a falling out with al Qaeda. Shoebat insists this was wishful thinking on the part of Americans while the Arab world considered it laughable. “Americans do not understand their enemy,” Shoebat says matter-of-factly.

In New York City, Shoebat maintains, is a threat to America that far too many of its citizens fail to comprehend. Feisal Abdul Rauf, otherwise known as the Imam heading up the Cordoba Initiative, has uttered words in Arabic that Shoebat says should ring alarm bells for every American.

For example, in a May 9th, 2009 article that appeared in a Jordanian newspaper, Shoebat translates Rauf as saying the following:

If someone in the Middle East cries out, “where is the law”, he knows that the law exists. The only law that the Muslim needs exists already in the Koran and the Hadith.

People asked me right after the 9/11 attack why do movements with political agendas carry [Islamic] religious names? Why call it ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ or ‘Hezbollah (Party of Allah)’ or ‘Hamas’ or ‘Islamic Resistance Movement’? I answer them this—that the trend towards Islamic law and justice begins in religious movements, because secularism had failed to deliver what the Muslim wants, which is life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

“In english,” Shoebat says, “Rauf speaks of building bridges when he talks about why he wants to build a mosque in the shadow of ground zero.

The real reason is to implement Shariah law in the United States through incremental, peaceful means. It is taqiyya. Those in power know how to reach me but, like Glenn Beck’s red phone, mine doesn’t ring either.”

Shoebat began warning people about his former religion when he converted to Christianity in 1993. He would tell westerners to “look at the foreheads”.

He was referring to what in Arabic is known as the Zabiba—the mark left from daily prostration. The direct translation is “raisin” and Shoebat warned that Muslims who dress as westerners while sporting the Zabiba should be considered extremely suspect—yes, he attempted to warn us of this years before 9/11.

Perhaps if Shoebat had been listened to then, thereby prompting the TSA to be trained without regard for absurd political correctness, the twin towers – along with 3000 Americans—would still be standing. Before a symbol of Islamic conquest is constructed blocks away from where the World Trade Center once stood, maybe the CIA, the FBI, and the DOD should listen to him now.

Of course, president Barack Obama has now publicly expressed his support for Rauf’s efforts to build the ground zero mosque so Shoebat’s phone, like Beck’s, is unlikely to ring anytime soon – unless it’s a talk show host on the other end.

 

[Town Heretic]

Your elitism is only surpassed your ignorance which makes you a very useful idiot for the cause of Sharia.

Whereas your intelligence is only outstripped by your charm. :chuckle: So that's a no, you can't produce those quotes. That's what I thought. I omit your cherry picking history. Colorful, but useless.

Walid Shoebat was a terrorist.

On the building committee is he? lain:

Former head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Yasser Arafat was caught on more than one occasion speaking peacefully in English while preaching hate in Arabic.

I think he's dead, so probably not a member of the mosque either.

Shoebat insists that westerners are not used to the concept of lying in order to further the agenda of a religion but that is what we are facing.

So he doesn't know us very well then.

He also states that the motives behind the ground zero mosque are not all that dissimilar from the motives behind the murder of seven CIA officials in Khost, Afghanistan last year—the difference is in approach only.

Maybe he's a zealot who sees zealotry everywhere because it's all he's ever been or known? I've met Muslims who aren't the sort he appears to think uniformly populate Islam. Maybe he just needs to get out more. :think:

Since converting to Christianity in 1993, Shoebat has made it his life’s work to warn the west of the threats it faces from Islam. He is ready to help in any way he can but when his phone rings, it’s never the CIA, the FBI, or the DOD on the other end.

I wonder why. It's a shame that you don't.

,,,On December 30th, 2009, at Camp Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi detonated a bomb that killed himself and seven high ranking CIA officials, including the base chief who had been tracking Osama bin Laden since 1997.

So he's DEFINITELY not on the committee then.

I omit your unrelated, but page turning account of others not remotely involved with the mosque or members thereof.

Or how about this one?

There are fanatical, horrible creatures who profess Islam. Sure. There have been and will be horrible creatures who profess Christianity. It happens.

In New York City, Shoebat maintains, is a threat to America that far too many of its citizens fail to comprehend. Feisal Abdul Rauf, otherwise known as the Imam heading up the Cordoba Initiative, has uttered words in Arabic that Shoebat says should ring alarm bells for every American.

Now we're getting to it.

For example, in a May 9th, 2009 article that appeared in a Jordanian newspaper, Shoebat translates Rauf as saying the following:

If someone in the Middle East cries out, “where is the law”, he knows that the law exists. The only law that the Muslim needs exists already in the Koran and the Hadith.

A bit like a minister saying the same thing about God's law in scripture. Where's the part where he decries our government and declares his intent to alter it? And where's the cite to the actual article so the less than enamored could look at it for themselves to see the context that isn't presented?

“In english,” Shoebat says, “Rauf speaks of building bridges when he talks about why he wants to build a mosque in the shadow of ground zero.

That I've read.

The real reason is to implement Shariah law in the United States through incremental, peaceful means. It is taqiyya. Those in power know how to reach me but, like Glenn Beck’s red phone, mine doesn’t ring either.”

So he says. So he may well believe, seeing zealots everywhere because he was one and is again in his new faith. But that doesn't mean he's right.

It also might suggest why his phone isn't ringing. :e4e: