Panel Clears Way for Mosque Near Ground Zero

[MDC 7,426]

It was a well thought out and appropriate analogy to the situation.

 

Uh, no - it wasn't.

 

You compared building a mosque near Ground Zero to forcing a man to allow his daughter's rapist / murderer live in the man's house. But the people who want to build the cultural center / mosque were not involved in 9/11, they just happen to share the same faith, like roughly 1.4 billion other Muslims on the planet.

 

hth?

[Saint Elistan 106]

Say there, Mr Jones. Remember that guy that raped and killed your daughter about 9 years ago. You do? Well, all your neighbors forgot, so that's all that matters. Well, here's the thing. That fine, peace loving gentleman is done serving his time next week and needs a place to live. Seeing that you never filled the void of your daughter's room, I knew you wouldn't mind if we let your daughter's killer move right in. Well, we don't care if you mind, because very important people want this to happen, so don't trouble your head with independent thinking. Oh, and don't worry about your other 3 daughters. He promised that he won't rape them much. Have a nice day.

It was a well thought out and appropriate analogy to the situation. I do not have much of an opinion on the subject matter, but I can certainly understand a rational person being opposed to the building of the mosque. I'm bringing a rational perspective to the issue. In fact, I thought it was an award worthy analogy. Somebody get Mr. Pulitzer on the phone.

I know you're just yankin' chains at this point, but c'mon man. Seriously?

 

It's more like protesting your new neighbor just because he has the same first name as the guy who killed your daughter. Jump off a bridge already.

[MDC 7,426]

I know you're just yankin' chains at this point

 

Are you sure about that? Phillybear really is a dimwit.

[Saint Elistan 106]

By the way...they already own the plot and they already hold services at the location. The protest, I guess, is just about the whole "Community Center" thing. Can hold services wherever, but we don't want to know that you're there.?

[surferskin 30]

By the way...they already own the plot and they already hold services at the location. The protest, I guess, is just about the whole "Community Center" thing. Can hold services wherever, but don't try to become part of the community?

 

Yep, they got a great deal on that building too after their buddies crashed part of a plane into it and got it condemned. Good point.

[Gepetto 1,368]

Yep, they got a great deal on that building too after their buddies crashed part of a plane into it and got it condemned. Good point.

 

Good point.

[Gepetto 1,368]

http://www.actforamerica.org/index.php/learn/recent-news

.

[phillybear 366]

Are you sure about that? Phillybear really is a dimwit.

 

Yet, somehow I manage to outwit you at every turn. Why do you suppose that is? Don't have an aneurysm thinking about it.

 

I'm the man who has the ball. I'm the man who can throw it faster than fock. So that is why i am better than everyone in the world. Kiss my ass and suck my d!ck...everyone.

[Saint Elistan 106]

Ah, the circle jerk of intolerance continues.

 

One of these days, I hope to make you people realize that Muslims integrating into Western Culture is precisely what the Extremists are fighting against. And in an ironic twist, your hatred of things you don't understand serves to isolate the American Muslim community to the point where they have little choice but to accept that maybe the Extremists are right about Western Culture.

[KSB2424 3,148]

Ah, the circle jerk of intolerance continues.

 

One of these days, I hope to make you people realize that Muslims integrating into Western Culture is precisely what the Extremists are fighting against. And in an ironic twist, your hatred of things you don't understand serves to isolate the American Muslim community to the point where they have little choice but to accept that maybe the Extremists are right about Western Culture.

Who are you talking to?

 

Or are you reacting to just one or two folks and then sterotyping everyone?

[surferskin 30]

Who are you talking to?

 

Or are you reacting to just one or two folks and then sterotyping everyone?

 

He's trying to create a one man circle jerk.

[Saint Elistan 106]

Who are you talking to?

Anyone who doesn't accept the statement that follows?

 

Your fascination with me continues. I'm flattered.

[KSB2424 3,148]

Anyone who doesn't accept the statement that follows?

 

Your fascination with me continues. I'm flattered.

Fascination? I've responded to two or three of your posts in a month. Considering you're leading every political thread in post count, it's sorta hard not to do.

 

I do have a question for you though. After almost two years, do you or do you not feel just a little bit guilty still accepting unemployment while spending hours a day posting on the internet and watching Glenn Beck re-runs?

[Saint Elistan 106]

Fascination? I've responded to two or three of your posts in a month. Considering you're leading every political thread in post count, it's sorta hard not to do.

 

I do have a question for you though. After almost two years, do you or do you not feel just a little bit guilty still accepting unemployment while spending hours a day posting on the internet and watching Glenn Beck re-runs?

 

I love it.

 

"I'm not fascinated with you...so...wadda say we talk about you? "

[MDC 7,426]

I'm the man who has the ball.

 

And yet, you don't even have a car to drive to work in and take the public bus and train 2 hours to your office every day.

 

[phillybear 366]

And yet, you don't even have a car to drive to work in and take the public bus and train 2 hours to your office every day.

 

 

You are the America's Funniest Home Videos caliber of hilarity. Be proud.

[MDC 7,426]

You are the America's Funniest Home Videos caliber of hilarity. Be proud.

 

Whacked in the nads ... comedy gold!

[drobeski 3,061]

Whacked in the nads ... comedy gold!

You'd be a shoo in for for the gold at the unfunny Olympics

[MDC 7,426]

You'd be a shoo in for for the gold at the unfunny Olympics

 

It's not funny because it's true.

[mobb_deep 920]

Yet, somehow I manage to outwit you at every turn. Why do you suppose that is? Don't have an aneurysm thinking about it.

 

I'm the man who has the ball. I'm the man who can throw it faster than fock. So that is why i am better than everyone in the world. Kiss my ass and suck my d!ck...everyone.

 

 

Sure, I've been called a xenophobe, but the truth is, I'm not. I honestly just feel that America is the best country and the other countries aren't as good. That used to be called patriotism.

[gocolts 300]

 

 

Conversely, how far away would they have to build the mosque for people NOT to be offended? And why is that distance okay but not a half mile closer? What's the cut off and why?

How about the cut off be the dust cloud, since all of that would be ground zero.

[itsbigmoni 1]

It was a well thought out and appropriate analogy to the situation. I do not have much of an opinion on the subject matter, but I can certainly understand a rational person being opposed to the building of the mosque. I'm bringing a rational perspective to the issue.

 

In fact, I thought it was an award worthy analogy. Somebody get Mr. Pulitzer on the phone.

 

The fact that you think its the same general idea shows out irrational you are.

[Saint Elistan 106]

California interfaith leaders to back ground zero Islamic center

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/20/california.islamic.center.controversy/?hpt=T2

Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- A group of 60 interfaith leaders in California will come out Friday in favor of a controversial Islamic center near ground zero in New York City.

 

"Christian, Jewish, Mormon and Muslim leaders will address the rapidly expanding epidemic of Islamophobia across the nation -- from Temecula to Tennessee to New York to Connecticut -- which they view as a threat to religious freedom and rights of mosques, churches, and synagogues to exist," the group said in a statement.

 

"We Americans, whether Muslim or Christian, whether Jew or Hindu, whether of faith or no faith, were all attacked on 9/11 by terrorists who can only be described as criminals," the text of the signed statement provided to CNN says. "We oppose the exploitation of the pain and suffering of 9/11 by political opportunists. They only divide our country and undermine the principles of pluralism, religious freedom, and security by fostering hate based on fear."

 

"The rhetoric against Muslim Americans -- namely, that they are a suspect community, or worse, enemies of the state; their religion is uncivilized and anti-American; they are deceitful; and they aim to destroy our culture and our constitution -- are replicas of attacks against other religious minorities in the past as well as current attacks against ethnic and racial minorities," the group says.

 

John Stewart yesterday:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-19-2010/extremist-makeover---homeland-edition

[Saint Elistan 106]

The campaign against the proposed Cordoba centre in New York is unjust and dangerous

http://www.economist.com/node/16743239?story_id=16743239&CFID=137504622&CFTOKEN=72078618

What makes a Muslim in Britain or America wake up and decide that he is no longer a Briton or American but an Islamic “soldier” fighting a holy war against the infidel? Part of it must be pull: the lure of jihadism. Part is presumably push: a feeling that he no longer belongs to the place where he lives. Either way, the results can be lethal. A chilling feature of the suicide video left by Mohammad Sidique Khan, the leader of the band that killed more than 50 people in London in July, 2005, was the homely Yorkshire accent in which he told his countrymen that “your” government is at war with “my people”.

 

The White House national security strategy published in May says that one way to guard against radicalisation at home is to stress that “diversity is part of our strength—not a source of division or insecurity.” This is hardly rocket science. America is plainly safer if its Muslims feel part of “us” and not, like Mohammad Sidique Khan, part of “them”. And that means reminding Americans of the difference—a real one, by the way, not one fabricated for the purposes of political correctness—between Islam, a religion with a billion adherents, and al-Qaeda, a terrorist outfit that claims to speak in Islam’s name but has absolutely no right or mandate to do so.

 

Why would any responsible American politician want to erase that vital distinction? Good question. Ask Sarah Palin, or Newt Gingrich, or the many others who have lately clambered aboard the offensive campaign to stop Cordoba House, a proposed community centre and mosque, from being built in New York two blocks from the site of the twin towers. Every single argument put forward for blocking this project leans in some way on the misconceived notion that all Muslims, and Islam itself, share the responsibility for, or are tainted by, the atrocities of 9/11.

 

Cordoba House is not being built by al-Qaeda. To the contrary, it is the brainchild of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, a well-meaning American cleric who has spent years trying to promote interfaith understanding, not an apostle of religious war like Osama bin Laden. He is modelling his project on New York’s 92nd Street Y, a Jewish community centre that reaches out to other religions. The site was selected in part precisely so that it might heal some of the wounds opened by the felling of the twin towers and all that followed. True, some relatives of 9/11 victims are hurt by the idea of a mosque going up near the site. But that feeling of hurt makes sense only if they too buy the false idea that Muslims in general were perpetrators of the crime. Besides, what about the feelings, and for that matter the rights, of America’s Muslims—some of whom also perished in the atrocity?

 

No such plea of mitigation can be entered on behalf of Mr Gingrich. The former Republican speaker of the House of Representatives may or may not have presidential pretensions, but he certainly has intellectual ones. That makes it impossible to excuse the mean spirit and scrambled logic of his assertion that “there should be no mosque near ground zero so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia”. Come again? Why hold the rights of Americans who happen to be Muslim hostage to the policy of a foreign country that happens also to be Muslim? To Mr Gingrich, it seems, an American Muslim is a Muslim first and an American second. Al-Qaeda would doubtless concur.

[Saint Elistan 106]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToHFSjM28ow

[Saint Elistan 106]

The New York mosque is part of the American dream

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10232/1081253-153.stm

Some Americans believe that the planned Park51 Islamic Cultural Center two blocks north of Ground Zero is insensitive to the memory of the victims of 9/11 and their families. "It is too soon," they say with solemn exasperation. "It is hallowed ground. It is selfish for Muslims to invoke the name of Allah where so many Americans were massacred."

 

Meanwhile, hundreds of our fellow Americans have been meeting and praying at the site of the old Burlington Coat Factory since last year. The store closed shortly after the landing gear from one of the doomed planes that slammed into the World Trade Center crashed through the roof. It has been nearly a decade, but the Muslims who want to transform the dusty premises into a more dignified place to meet, eat, sweat and pray have been alone in seeing a use for the property. They have already hallowed the building with their prayers.

 

With the exception of a handful of politicians who cynically conflate the religion of American Muslims with the nihilism of the 9/11 terrorists, the right of worshippers to transform abandoned property in the middle of an economic dead zone into a cultural center is not in question. The objection to an Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero is rooted in metaphysical rather than constitutional arguments. Vague apprehensions about Muslims in general provide the accelerant of suspicion necessary to scare a majority of Americans into opposing the project.

 

There literally is no reasoning with those who make the mental leap from 19 jihadists on four planes to thousands of ecumenical-minded Muslims in New York. If you point out that the Park51 project will consist of a culinary school, exercise and swimming facilities, public meeting halls, a 9/11 meditation hall and a mosque, they repeat that it is "too soon." If you ask them why their fear of Muslims meeting in this particular spot is so extreme, they have no logical response. They are simply overwhelmed by the symbolism and incapable of processing the benign reality behind their fear.

 

It may not disabuse them of their anxiety, but try asking an opponent of the Park51 project what he or she really thinks will happen once the cultural center is built. Do they imagine a domed structure surrounded by looming minarets casting sinister shadows from property where a modest, Italian Renaissance, palazzo-style building used to stand?

 

What do they imagine their fellow Americans will be doing inside New York's first cultural center for Muslims? What is there to fear about providing a quality space for Muslim youth to play basketball? What is so threatening about an interfaith speaker series? Why is it "too soon" for a swimming pool to open two blocks from Ground Zero? What is it about the presence of an official mosque on a property where Muslims have gathered to pray since last year that makes so many Americans agitated and fearful?

 

The answer is deceptively simple: A growing percentage of Americans believe the absolute worst about their fellow citizens who happen to be Muslim. That's why the fear of Park51, although inherently irrational, remains politically potent for opportunistic politicians.

 

There will be American flags at Park51. There will be reverence for the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence in its halls. It will spur economic development in the area. Those who worship and play there will be the greatest rebuke to those who perpetuated the horror of 9/11. They will be Americans who embrace both Allah and the American Dream.

[surferskin 30]

Saint, you're like the love child of Posty and GFIAFP.

 

[Saint Elistan 106]

Build the Mosque; Help Defeat Al Qaeda

by Matthew Alexander, interrogator whose work found Zarqawi

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-alexander/build-the-mosque-help-def_b_689086.html

There is a much larger rationale for building a Muslim community center near the former site of the Twin Towers: It can be used as a weapon to defeat al Qaeda.

 

Since Sept. 11, 2001, our counterterrorism strategy has focused on stopping terrorist attacks. That's an important goal, but only part of the equation. A comprehensive strategy should include a greater focus on removing the root causes of terrorism. The only way to deliver a sustainable defeat to al Qaeda is to both destroy its leadership and cut off its ability to recruit.

 

Building a Muslim community center near the site of Ground Zero will bolster our ability to do the latter. Imagine an al Qaeda recruiter attempting to sway a potential charge by citing an imaginary American war against Muslims but having to face the counterargument that Americans built a Muslim community center near the site of the former Twin Towers.

 

The Cordoba House would be a powerful symbol of U.S. tolerance and freedom that will stand in direct contradiction to al Qaeda's narrative that Americans hate Muslims. As a symbol, its construction demonstrates that the U.S. is not at war with Islam and that Muslims are welcome in America. It communicates a message of moderation that stands in stark contrast to al Qaeda's bankrupt ideology.

 

As I discovered as a high-level interrogator of al Qaeda members in Iraq, symbols like this matter. Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and the policy of torture and abuse handed al Qaeda its number one recruiting tool. Those who think al Qaeda will not be able to spin this controversy to their advantage are disastrously mistaken - but it can be a victory for America as well.

 

The political uproar over the Cordoba project, and in particular the use of harmful, bigoted rhetoric by some opportunists, leaves America facing a choice. It can project one of two symbols: One of integration, acceptance and positive affirmation of American values; or one of intolerance, rejection, and animosity. The former will work to undermine al Qaeda as part of a long-term strategy to defeat them. The latter will bolster Islamic extremists' arguments that America is an intolerant country hell-bent on war with Islam, aid recruitment efforts and add support for more terrorist attacks.

 

The choice is obvious. Let's build the Cordoba House.

[Recliner Pilot 61]

It ain't getting built. See ya, Fukktards.

 

 

A growing number of New York construction workers are vowing not to work on the mosque planned near Ground Zero.

 

"It's a very touchy thing because they want to do this on sacred ground," said Dave Kaiser, 38, a blaster who is working to rebuild the World Trade Center site.

 

"I wouldn't work there, especially after I found out about what the imam said about U.S. policy being responsible for 9/11," Kaiser said.

 

The grass-roots movement is gaining momentum on the Internet. One construction worker created the "Hard Hat Pledge" on his blog and asked others to vow not to work on the project if it stays on Park Place.

 

"Thousands of people are signing up from all over the country," said creator Andy Sullivan, a construction worker from Brooklyn. "People who sell glass, steel, lumber, insurance. They are all refusing to do work if they build there."

 

"Hopefully, this will be a tool to get them to move it," he said. "I got a problem with this ostentatious building looming over Ground Zero."

 

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/08/20/2010-08-20_we_wont_build_it_hardhats_say_no_way_they_will_work_on_wtc_mosque.html

[Saint Elistan 106]

I'm sure there are enough unemployed Construction Workers to compensate for their loss.

[phillybear 366]

Maybe if Muslims weren't so focking intolerant, they would be a more sympathetic group.

 

Just compare them to the Mormons. Neither group drinks, smokes, has any clue how to have fun. Both groups treat women like sh!t, are very anti-h0m0. Why do you suppose Mormons are treated like kooks, but not scorned like Muslims? Is it because they don't actively practice or accept violent terrorism among it's more active members? They don't stone their women for going outside? In Saudi Arabia, the court system is trying to punish a criminal by paralyzing him, cutting his spinal cord. It's so bizarre. I'd be nice if tolerance became a 2 way street. Muslims just won't condemn the actions of terrorism. They just won't do it. Discuss.

 

Of course, I'd like to point out that I think all religions should be protected as long as they aren't doing anything illegal. Libertarian for life.

[Recliner Pilot 61]

I'm sure there are enough unemployed Construction Workers to compensate for their loss.

 

 

Apparently you don't know how NYC unions operate.

[Saint Elistan 106]

Of course, I'd like to point out that I think all religions should be protected as long as they aren't doing anything illegal. Libertarian for life.

 

Don't give me that bullsh1t. The moment anyone objects to Park51 is the moment they can no longer claim anything to do with Libertarian ideals.

[Saint Elistan 106]

Apparently you don't know how NYC unions operate.

Yeah, the operate with one goal in mind; money. They like to make it.

[itsbigmoni 1]

I'm sure there are enough unemployed Construction Workers to compensate for their loss.

 

Illegal mexicans? Imagine the controversy then.

 

But yea, no grass roots movement is gonna prevent this thing from being built.

 

Bloomberg said exactly how i feel. Jon stewart has been slapping the sh1t out of the rah-tards. I think the longer this drags out, the more extreme the opposition will get, which makes them look like crazies and they will start losing support.

 

Jon stewart played clips from last november on fox that showed hosts on fox network supporting the decision.

[Recliner Pilot 61]

Yeah, the operate with one goal in mind; money. They like to make it.

 

 

Still won't get them to build one building and lose tons of future business for doing it.

[phillybear 366]

Don't give me that bullsh1t. The moment anyone objects to Park51 is the moment they can no longer claim anything to do with Libertarian ideals.

 

No two libertarians ever agree on anything. It's insane, but true. If Libertarianism is founded in isolationism, then you have let down the brotherhood by being against the Arizona law enforcement against illegal immigrants. For example. What is the point of surrounding our borders with troops if you don't want to stop illegals from illegally being in this country. Meh, whatever. I understand your angle on the situation, but many situation have many angles.

 

I have made no objection to the building of the Terrorist Building. I've said it a couple of times in this thread. I simply can see why the Muslims in this situation are a bunch of assh0les.

[Saint Elistan 106]

You're spot on, itsbigmoni. I'm finally starting to feel a little bit better about the situation as more and more people are coming to their senses and realizing they are being played by incumbents and candidates that no longer wish to talk about real issues. It's as if the American People are the Eye of Sauron. We're getting distracted by a petty squable at the gates while Frodo's moving that ring closer and closer to the fires of Mt Doom.

 

The Park51 controversy isn’t really about a building. It’s about erasing individuals.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2010/08/ground-zero-mosque-201008

Let me begin with a question: Who is a Muslim? Virtually everyone who has commented on the “Ground Zero Mosque” controversy claims to know the answer to the above question. As Leon Wieseltier once put it, “On September 10, 2001, nobody in America seemed to know anything about Islam. On September 12, 2001, everybody seemed to know everything about Islam.”

 

A few weeks after the attacks of September 11, I was sitting one night in a car on a street in Lahore. The driver of the car, Qasim, a slight man with a thin mustache, turned to ask me where I lived. On hearing my answer, he said, “The Americans are the true Muslims.” I didn’t understand this. He said, “They have read and really understood the message of the Qu’ran.” This was even more baffling. But Qasim went on to explain his point. He said, “The Americans treat their workers in the right way. They pay them overtime.”

 

Ah, overtime! Fair wages, just working conditions, true democracy. Where in this debate about the construction of a mosque in New York City, in the contrary assertions about militancy and peace, is there any evidence of Qasim’s plain sense of his religion and his appreciation for the American people?

 

We were first told in the press that the mosque was going to be built on Ground Zero. Then we learned that it was actually more than two blocks away. It was clarified that it wasn’t even going to be simply a mosque, nor would its membership be limited to Muslims. In fact, the building was going to house a community center with a basketball court and a culinary school. Accuracy and truth lay buried deep under the routine invocations of hallowed ground.

 

What has really been happening in this debate is the annihilation of the individual. There is no longer a conversation about a particular person; we can talk only about a faith. But is that faith one that is practiced by real people? No, because instead of people, we are always talking only of politics and symbols.

 

“The propagandist’s purpose,” Aldous Huxley said long ago, “is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.” The real subject of the furor we have been witnessing is not a building but rather the question of whether to grant men like Qasim a measure of ordinary humanity.

 

In David Hare’s play Stuff Happens, an unnamed British character declares on stage, “On September 11th, America changed. Yes. It got much stupider.” The controversy over the Park 51 is as good an occasion as any to refudiate our downward slide.

[KSB2424 3,148]

I simply can see why the Muslims in this situation are a bunch of assh0les.

Yup. They have the right. It was never about if they had the freedom to do so, at least not for me. That was a given. And I think it would be wrong for somebody to "stop" them per se. BUT, if the purpose of the Imam and backers of this building is in fact to help Muslim relations in this country and especially NYC, then it would be awesome if they came out and said something like this:

 

"Even though this mosque is supposed to be an example of moderate Islam, we now see that 9/11 is still painful within the hearts of New Yorkers. Therefore as an act of kindness we will take up the Mayors proposal to build our center in another location. Hopefully this shows the people of this great city that we want to pursue a goal of interfaith understanding and not controversy. And this is better achieved by not building our center so close to Ground Zero."

 

Wouldn't that be cool as hell? But they won't do something like that. So fock em.

[surferskin 30]

This is the same Iman that said the US's policies were responsible for 9/11. He wont back down because building this thing was never about helping relations. It's a giant, fock you.