Fareed Zakaria: Build the Ground Zero Mosque - Newsweek. Not surprisingly, Zakaria makes a strong argument for the mosque as exactly what our policy since 9-11 has attempted--to encourage moderation.
I am thoroughly disgusted by the Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich bigotry on this issue. It is clearly an attempt to make political points by playing on American fears of all things Muslim, and is exactly the kind of technique that demagogues like, rather than leaders. Or hell, in all honesty, I think if Bush were still in office, he would say the same thing as Obama did--that the mosque should be built because we are a nation who believes in religious freedom.
But tell that to the Republican party busy running off a cliff in an effort to out-conservative their fellow Republicans. I honestly expect them to call for forced deportation of all Mexicans and Muslims, or even to call for the creation of internment camps until the end of the war on terror. That is the direction they are headed, rather than the moderate and tolerant tack to the middle.
Obama is calling on us to be better people. The Republican leadership is asking us to give into our fears and become lesser people and a lesser nation.
12 comments:
Is there any group that these people don't want expelled from the USA? Ugh.
Good grief it was a Burlington Coat Factory! The New York Daily News has a great headline.
Mosque gets all the press, but area near Ground Zero full of bars, porn, liquor stores, salons
How sacred is that?
"Obama did--that the mosque should be built because we are a nation who believes in religious freedom."
Obama didn't even say "believes". He simply restated the first amendment of the constitution. If local units of government can stop the construction of this mosque, I am fighting any construction of a fundie church in my city.
“Internment camps”? Those have already been built by the state of Arizona:
http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/images/0728-wires-azimmiglaw/8388549-1-eng-US/0728-wires-azimmiglaw_full_600.jpg
In 50 more years, when whites are a statistical minority in the U.S., we will reap what we sowed.
Mosque gets all the press, but area near Ground Zero full of bars, porn, liquor stores, salons
I saw that headline. Ya...some sacred ground right there. And you know, I never saw a Christian declare a church should go up a few blocks from Ground Zero. It's not like the thing is ON ground zero for heaven's sake.
"In 50 more years, when whites are a statistical minority in the U.S., we will reap what we sowed."
yet as a minority, whites will still have the majority of the money and power.
Time after time decisions of fear, intolerance, and out and out ignorance are at the least embarrassing history and at their worst lethal. They just can't connect the dots that opposing such a structure being built by American Muslims on the basis that it is insensitive carries with it the accusation that they (the Muslims) are themselves somehow responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
So many Americans are so ignorant of the 1.5 billion Muslims in the world that they automatically paint them all with an Al Qaeda brush. There is plenty of information and willing Muslim individuals out there to inform anyone who is interested in learning about and establishing relationships with regular, every day Muslims.
Responses from the wing-nuts to this community center reflects a lack of interest in learning. Outrage and ranting is the political conduit of the day and stupidity is the grease.
Political actions carried out by killers who voice devotion to a religion does not mean the general population supports their actions any more than my local church would want to be associated with these guys.
This is just getting ridiculous.
BB.
"Mosque gets all the press, but area near Ground Zero full of bars, porn, liquor stores, salons...
We shoudl go protest Comic-Con style.
I can see the sign now:
Porn yes! Mosques No!
Liquuor now! Monsques Never!
What's especially frustrating to me is that people are acting like this mosque is ON "Ground Zero." It's not. It's a few blocks away.
Why can't New York City trade some land at ground zero for the proposed site of the mosque? Let them build the mosque where the World Trade Center stood. That would show that we are truly a tolerant, open-minded, freedom loving nation.
I always liked the point that McVeigh was nominally Christian, but there was never a connection between his faith and his terrorism. No one every suggested that we not build churches close to the OKC bombing site, for example.
I do find it funny that the area is filled with bars, porn and liquor stores. Hilarious, actually. But those are American bars, selling American porn, I guess.
Sigh.
Better not do or say anything to upset the Muslims, if you don't want to get blown up.
My Priest got death threats from conservatives when the Episcopal Church consecrated an openly gay Bishop.
A class mate of his was blown up and died. No one is certain it was linked, but apparently it was not by Muslims.
Some of our Churches were assaulted with graffiti, at least one was burned down.
Christianist terrorists worry me more than Islamist ones do. At least in this part of the country.
And if memory serves, the only people who have threatened violence on this blog have been anonymous Christian conservative trolls. My guess is that a nontrivial part of the "violent Muslim" scaremongering is actually projection.
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