General Interest > Tacitus' Realm

The Muslim Hijacking of Ground Zero

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Whooter:
Our enemies have an easy target with us Americans.  They are sitting back laughing at us debating whether or not we should allow a mosque at ground Zero.  They have the upper hand every time because they use our own laws against us.  There is an Orthodox Church  which was destroyed when the towers fell but have been met with nothing but road blocks trying to rebuild, yet the Mosque gets overwhelming support.

I think as Americans we cannot just deny the building of the Mosques because of their religion.  If they are building it with good intentions they should be able to understand the sensitivity of this location and be open to dialog.  Why not build it a couple of blocks down the road?

The guy who bought the land, at ground zero, for the mosque was waiting tables in New York City 7 years ago and now has the funds to purchase this land in downtown Manhattan and Finance this Mosque?  I think as a minimum we should understand where this money is coming from.

An earlier post made reference to an analog of building a swine slaughter house next to the Mosque.  This would be legal but would it be the right thing to do?  The same question should be asked of this Mosque placement.   There may be more suitable places to build this which would make all parties happy.



...

BuzzKill:

--- Quote from: "RobertBruce" ---This should help.

http://www.citizenwarrior.com/2010/07/t ... video.html
--- End quote ---

Pretty well explains the problem.


--- Quote from: "Antigen" ---As most of us around here are acutely aware, it can be anywhere from difficult to impossible to influence the mind of a true believer. Moreso when they are surrounded by others with the same opinion. I think the only part of the puzzle somewhat within our reach is to try to reel our own governments and corporations in and get them to quit creating Blowback. Withdraw from foreign entanglements, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, So. America and all the other 200+ foreign nations in which we are inappropriately, unconstitutionally involved.

In other words, trade with all nations, alliance with none. Quit trying to conquer the world. I want the Old Deal back!
--- End quote ---

I have some sympathy for this POV.  I agree to a point. But here's the problem as I see it - there is no way to avoid blow back because they are the aggressors. They attack, we react, then they attack b/c we reacted. Does anyone really think they'll stop attacking if we stop reacting?

I can never support abandoning Israel b/c when we do God will abandon us.  But aside from this very real concern -

Should civilized nations really ignore slaughter and genocide? For example, Afghanistan. I'd like to suggest the reading of A Thousand Splendid Suns. Consider that the Taliban has murdered children for talking to American's; Decapitated teachers in front of their families for teaching girls; Generally keeps women so subjugated that a donkey has more right to expect kindness and justice from its owner than a woman does of her father or husband or brother; And they will quickly overrun that country as soon as we leave. So, which is more wrong? Stay and piss them off or leave and get them slaughtered?  Consider much of Africa - they slaughter each other on a regular basis. Remember the world criticism when we failed to charge into Rwanda? And it was awful. But we'd also have been criticized had we gone rushing in. There would have been blow back for sure.  laissez-fair is not so easily achieved or so harmless or so neutral as we might wish.

ajax13:
This is a funny game, using circular reasoning.  The proposal of a mosque is insensistive or disrespectful if the violent acts of September 11, 2001 are a manifestation of the religion of Islam as it relates to all who would call themselves Muslims.  Since the explanations for the motivation for the attacks run the gamut from retalliation against the US for it's support of Israel to the childish notion that Usama Bin Laden hates the fact that Britney Spears' vulva is on the cover of Cosmo, it is not self-evident that the attacks were in keeping with Islamic beliefs as they are accepted and practiced by most Muslims.  It is a propaganda move.

DannyB II:
Ed Koch
Former Mayor, New York City
Posted: August 16, 2010 04:10 PM
"President George Washington's Letter to the Jews of Rhode Island Applies to the Muslims of New York".
 
President Obama was right to express his views on constructing a mosque near Ground Zero, the site of the 9/11 catastrophe:

As a citizen and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country. And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan in accordance with local laws and ordinances.

The president is also right to oppose as he does the efforts by some to amend the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution to bar babies born to illegal immigrants from becoming citizens.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who was first to take up the fight to protect the legitimate rights of American Muslims to build a mosque near Ground Zero, was right and courageous to lead the way and point Americans in the right direction.

President Obama, according to the New York Times of Aug. 15, is now "faced with withering Republican criticism of his defense of the right of Muslims to build a community center and mosque near Ground Zero." Those leading the charge against the president, according to the Times, "including Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, Representative John A. Boehner, the House minority leader and Representative Peter King of New York, forcefully rejected the president's stance."

The president's position will be remembered by later generations of Americans with the same high regard as President George Washington's letter in 1790 to the Jews of Rhode Island who built the Touro Synagogue in that state. Moses Seixas of the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, wrote to George Washington:

Deprived as we heretofore have been of the invaluable rights of free Citizens, we now with a deep sense of gratitude to the Almighty disposer of all events behold a Government, erected by the Majesty of the People -- a Government, which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance -- but generously affording to all Liberty of conscience, and immunities of Citizenship: -- deeming every one, of whatever Nation, tongue, or language equal parts of the great governmental Machine: -- This so ample and extensive Federal Union whose basis is Philanthropy, Mutual confidence and Public Virtue, we cannot but acknowledge to be the work of the Great God, who ruleth in the Armies of Heaven, and among the Inhabitants of the Earth, doing whatever seemeth him good.

President Washington responded as follows:

   ... The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent national gifts. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support. It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my Administration, and fervent wishes for my felicity. May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy. G. Washington

Let us not do again, albeit in different form and to a different group, what we did to Japanese-Americans during World War II when we rounded them up without cause. No Japanese-American was ever charged with treason, notwithstanding that they were placed in internment camps for the balance of the war.

I am a proud Jew. Proud of my religion and my culture. Columnist David Brooks, also Jewish and similarly proud, in a New York Times article of January 12, 2010, wrote of our people's accomplishments:

    Jews are a famously accomplished group. They make up 0.2 percent of the world population, but 54 percent of the world chess champions, 27 percent of the Nobel physics laureates and 31 percent of the medicine laureates. Jews make up 2 percent of the U.S. population, but 21 percent of the Ivy League student bodies, 26 percent of the Kennedy Center honorees, 37 percent of the Academy Award-winning directors, 38 percent of those on a recent Business Week list of leading philanthropists, 51 percent of the Pulitzer Prize winners for nonfiction.

We Jews also have our share of thieves, predators, child molesters, Ponzi-schemers, traitors and profiteers. Muslims have their share of great world accomplishments -- the concept of zero, advancements in mathematics, medicine, chemistry, botany and astronomy. They also have their share of crazies, tyrants, homophobes, those holding hostile and irrational attitudes towards women, vilification of Jews, Christians, Hindus and other so-called infidels.

Let's be calm now and not need the passage of time to bring us to our senses and years later apologize. Of course, those who suffered the loss of loved ones, and those exposed to the catastrophe of 9/11 have every right to hold opinions opposing the building of the mosque. They are grieving and rightfully enraged at anyone associated in any way with the 19 Muslim terrorists who were responsible for the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans killed on 9/11, and all of us must sympathize with them and their feelings.

But Americans must never forget who we are and why our Founding Fathers and those who built the original 13 colonies came here. It was primarily to find and create a new country in which they could practice religious freedom, denied them in England. Jews found that freedom of religion in New Amsterdam, where the East India Company of Holland directed the first public anti-Semite in that city -- its Governor, Peter Stuyvesant -- to let them in, he first refusing to do so.

I believe we are locked in battle with fanatical Islam and will be for the foreseeable future. I do not believe the vast majority of Muslims, and American Muslims in particular, are fanatics or enemies of the American people.

Government should neither favor nor hinder the efforts of religious institutions, other than to protect their rights to engage in carrying them out as permitted under the First Amendment of the Constitution.

A final word on those seeking to end the concept of American citizenship by virtue of birth, led by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC):

Don't they understand that the concept of citizenship by birth is one of the great American ideas of which we have been justly proud and which distinguishes us from many other countries and has served us well? They should not fear the Know Nothings, whose voices are loud, but whose numbers are small. They should not shame themselves by joining these violators of American values and traditions.

justonemore:
I'm Gonna suggest that you all begin to educate yourselves. See and know what muhammad was, what he said, what he meant what he ::unhappy::  ::unhappy::  was. see if that co-incides with any of your 'humanist' values. See for yourselves what a christian fundamentalist really , truly is. see if that's different from a christian 'litereralist' or a christian 'evangelical'.See what they really, truly are. you'll know the truth of their belief by their behavior.Same for the muslims. Look at muslim science, architecture, economics, medicine. see the 'progress'. Examine their postulates. Educate yourselves, and now, else live under Shari'a.anne, maybe you''d look good in a burqa. But i bet you wouldn't be comfortable.
There is a war in progress, and it's been in progress for a while, now, about 1300 years, so learn, or lose.
The leading cause of death for muslims is, and has been,... muslims. Is that how you want to live?
learn what dhimmitude is. Why an 'aid flotilla' for gaza , but nothing for the primitive christians and animists of darfur?
I know men who have served in those regions, both israelis and americans ( and brits and australians and germans and a frog) Learn what'Taquiyeh' is, and why.You'll learn far more from apostate muslims than you'll ever learn from the umma. Read the Qu'ran, and know how nonsensensical, how hypocritical, how violent it is. ( it's helpful to know that the secretary for the Caliph of Bagdad re-organized the qu'ran in the twelvfe century, to aid in memorization, and to obliterate it'd contradictions) Learn who riqfa bary is, and learn her suffering.
J.O.M.
 ::unhappy::

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