Go watch this interview of the developer behind the Park 51 community center. He’s just like you and me (except better looking, richer, and dressed nicer), and it really is astounding that this is who the wingnuts are villainizing. I snickered when he mentioned he was on his way to the East Hamptons when he heard Obama’s remarks on the matter.
East Hamptons. A rich NYC developer headed to the East Hamptons for the weekend. It doesn’t get more American than that.
He also brings up a point I was thinking about the other day. How many of the idiots in “real ‘Murica” have never been to NYC and have no idea how big a city block is and that we aren’t talking about a dinky little block in east bumfuck. Not that that should matter in anyway, but still, you know damned well that most of them have no idea how far the place is from the WTC SITE.
toujoursdan
Fixy your linky
Face
Mosque wont be built. You heard it here first.
Ed: IMO; dont have any facts.
shortstop
I’ve been sayin’ this for weeks! It’s clear these morans are total strangers to Manhattan.
DaddyJ
Like I said in a comment buried way down in a post yesterday: somebody in NY with a camcorder should record the walk from Ground Zero to Park 51 and post it on YouTube. Just to illustrate the absurdity of the “in the shadow of” nonsense.
4tehlulz
@Face: Have you ever considered a career in television punditry?
Kryptik
I haven’t seen him, but I hate him already. Oddly, it has nothing to do with the mosque. I just hate the rich. :P
Spaghetti Lee
(except better looking, richer, and dressed nicer)
This hurts my feelings. I demand that he leave New York!
dmsilev
The demagogues don’t care. They may or may not know, but that’s irrelevant.
dms
PeakVT
This looks like it will be the most famous community center in the world.
Heh-indeedy.
danimal
Yeah, I’ve wanted to scream, “Have you ever been to NYC” in response to some of this stupidity. Ever notice how the stupid on this issue increases the further away the politician lives from NYC? By the time you get to Georgia or Alaska, the stupid approaches 100%.
buckyblue
I think it’s easier to have this conversation with people, and how we really are protecting the constitution and freedom of religion, than the conversation on the economy. How do you explain to someone who’s been out of work for a year that you’ve actually done your best to fix the economy? But a faux rage over a community center half a block closer to the ground zero hole than the Mosque down the street, well, it should be easier.
MattF
It’s a fact that blocks in Manhattan are big– but there’s another factor that people haven’t mentioned: Manhattan is visually dense and heterogeneous in all directions, including up and down. There’s just a lot of stuff and a lot of people– so going between any two points separated by two blocks and trying to be aware of everything you’re experiencing would be an exercise in sensory overload.
cleek
i like how “conservatives” constantly try to own 9/11 and everything about it. they’re the only people who remember it, the only people who care about it, the only people who understand it, etc.. it’s all about them. nobody else understands or cares, so it’s up to “conservatives” to keep the memory alive.
you’re so vain, i bet you think this mosque is about you.
Bnut
I think the only Muslims middle America has ever met have been a)the ones who work at their local 7-11 or b) the ones they shot at in Iraq/Afghanistan. I used to know a girl who have never left her county in Kansas, and she was 22. The divide is greater than we think it is.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
No, it shouldn’t. The bureaucracy has been successfully navigated so just build the fucking thing, case closed. Nobody else gets a say anymore. If you don’t like it go masturbate to midget porn for a while, you’ll feel better.
WereBear
@cleek: Kudos.
FlipYrWhig
@MattF: I’ve been making the “city block is big” point for a long time, but only recently did I realize how much more salient your point is, that a city block is also _high_.
I definitely think that when people hear about the project they imagine one big empty block where WTC used to be, and then, because this is within two blocks, the “mosque” is right there on the corner or something. Even that shouldn’t be a problem, IMHO, but I want to fuss about facts first, then principles.
schrodinger's cat
@Bnut: I have met people in Maine who haven’t even been to Boston!
New Yorker
@MattF:
Exactly. The problem is that the various demagogues and FOX News have done a rhetorical sleight-of-hand by making it sound, to those who have no idea, that part of the WTC site is being set apart for a mosque, when nothing even remotely close to that is happening.
New York City is a densely built place, and no part is more dense than lower Manhattan (hence the use of “canyons” to describe the streets down there). Off the top of my head, I can list the following things that are closer to the WTC than the Park51: the headquarters of Verizon, American Express, Dow Jones & Co. Moody’s, Merrill Lynch, Oppenheimer, the law firm Cadwalader, NASDAQ, the Millenium Hilton (are we going to allow something associated with Paris Hilton’s family to desecrate that holy ground?), Century 21 department store, and St. Paul’s chapel (hey, Christians spent centuries persecuting Jews, do the Jewish families of 9/11 have a right to demand St. Paul’s be moved out of concerns for sensitivity?)
Violet
@Bnut:
Only 22% of Americans have passports and can actually visit some place like Canada, let alone go to some scary Muslin country. It’s not much of a stretch to imagine they aren’t leaving their home county or state very much either.
Chris
I’ve been wondering if it will be the really rich people in this country that squash this anti-Islam crusade.
I mean, there are a lot of superrich Arabs and Muslims who are members of the international finance club. How long will it be before some enterprising young wingnut fires up his laptop and figures out that a Saudi prince owns 30% of Citibank and effectively controls the company? And how long after that will there be calls for the purging of Arab/Muslim dollars from our economy? Won’t that be getting a bit too close to the Hamptons for comfort? Maybe wishful thinking.
Bobby Thomson
In their defense, if you did a poll of opponents you would probably find that a surprising number of people think the plan is to put the mosque literally literally (not in a Biden or Morrisette sense) at Ground Zero as part of the memorial, and not even two blocks away.
Even Kevin Drum thought that pretty recently. Not suggesting that he’s necessarily well informed, but he’s not exactly Ma and Pa Kettle watching Fox, either.
BTD
Well, he clearly is not a real New Yorker if he said the “East Hamptons.”
Pangloss
@danimal: Peter King, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Joe Lieberman, Rick Santorum, Chris Christie?
morzer
@Face:
Since no-one wants to build a mosque there, I’d say you have quite a good chance of being right.
Jack
I’d love to see a google maps related app to display ‘things that are closer to you than the the
victory mosquecommunity center is to ground zero’Ramiah Ariya
1) I hate people saying this: “don’t make Islam responsible for the actions of a few renegades”. It is true, a) but it only leads the opponent to start quoting Islamic scripture and b) it sounds like begging.
I think every American Muslim asked to “defend” themselves should basically say “well, try stopping the mosque from being built, dumb***k”.
2) The conservatives have pivoted on this as usual – their line of argument now is this: Sure there is a legal right to build the mosque, but is there a moral one? How can you call us bigots for just asking a moral question?
The answer is, this is a moral position in the same sense that Holocaust denial is a moral position; or being pro-slavery is a moral question.
Bigots, all of them.
Svensker
I’m sorry, but no “real” Americans are are named “Sharif” or “El-Gamal”. Those people can put on Western suits and get NY accents and go to the Hamptons all they want, but they are still scary brown people and besides, he’s probably planting terrorist babies out in the Hamptons. That bespoke suit is the ultimate jihadist disguise. And you all fell for it.
Also, too, he said 52 STATES. He doesn’t know how many states there are! ! ! He’s a grown up terror baby ready to explode!
shortstop
@Bobby Thomson:
I don’t see how that’s a defense. If you have time to formulate a criticism of it, you have time to find out WTF you’re actually complaining about.
Pangloss
Somewhere I saw a timeline posted on this story. There wasn’t a peep of protest from December 2009 through last month. Even some of the people now against it specifically mentioned their support. Then Fox News and Atlas Shrugged started stirring up protest for the hell of it, and voila!
morzer
@Svensker:
Terrorist anchor babies, please. We dare not understate the threat posed to our civilization by militant radical developers who treacherously reside in the Hamptons!
Bobby Thomson
In truth, it’s only a defense of the criticism of them as being geographically illiterate (as opposed to just stupid and/or immoral), but I didn’t feel like using scare quotes.
Jack bauer
I live in the NJ burbs of Philly. Took a class a few years ago and met a lady, about 24yrs old, who had never been to NYC. It’s 90mins on a cheap bus away…
I really couldn’t believe it.
Svensker
Also, also, too, did anyone else notice how much he looks and sounds like Glenn Greenwald?
Professor
The developer,Sharif El-Gamal, looks more semitic than Binyamin Netanyahu. And who is a semite? Arab, Hebrew and (Akkadians(extinct), Canaanites (absorbed), Phoenician).
BTD
@BTD:
Ah, it turns out it was the West Virginian who came up with “East Hamptons.”
The New Yorker said “East Hampton,” not “East Hamptons.”
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@cleek:
You mean like the way they try to keep alive the sacred memory of the hallowed ground at Gettysburg…
…by agitating to repeal the 14th Amendment.
R. Porrofatto
@Pangloss:
started stirring up protest for the hell of it
Oh, no, it wasn’t for the hell of it. It had a purpose, and has been extremely effective. When you see headlines to the effect that this bullshit might even swing November elections, I’d say mission fucking accomplished.
A timeline of events is at Salon.
Chad N Freude
GOP Muslims Fear Failure Of Bush Outreach Efforts After Anti-Mosque Furor¡Qué sorpresa!
Money quote:
Chad N Freude
@Chad N Freude: Bad spacing, but editing privileges denied.
Anya
I am confused, he did not say “death to America” once. How can I reconcile that with everything else I know about Muslims.
OGLiberal
Here’s a question for the opponents of this center. (not that there are many here, of course) How would you react if, after the middle-finger-to-the-dirty-Ay-rabs Freedom Tower monument to capitalism is finished at the real Ground Zero, this guy moved his company’s offices into that building and, for the convenience of his Muslim workers, included a prayer room in their office space?
dm9871
Um, call me an elitist, but….
one could call it “the Hamptons” or “East Hampton,” – but it’s definitely not “East Hamptons” or “the East Hamptons.”
scav
@Svensker: You’re right, and that “El-Gamal” point made me think of that other guy that puts on suits and tries to delude us as to his middle-American pretensions. At first I was worried he was a terror baby, but I checked and it turns out it’s worse, he’s wasn’t born here at all and came here illegally, taking away real Americans’ real jobs: Deport Kal-El! Deport Kal-El! Deport Kal-El!
trollhattan
To my huge relief, because it cleared up a nasty case of cognitive dissonance, Carly has now separated herself from Evil Boxer Lady(tm) and sez the “mosque” needs movin’.
http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2010/08/fiorina-says-mosque-should-be.html
Let’s stick to the script, Carly.
JCT
@cleek: It seems that they don’t want to “own” the bill for the first responder’s health care though.
How odd.
Indie Tarheel
@cleek: I’m stealing that.
WereBear
Actually, what this reminds me of is what some people have described to me as happening in their home… when their spouse is cheating.
It’s not enough that they’re doing it, and getting away with it. They have to justify it. So they start nitpicking the other person, complaining about this or that, even things that have been fine for years, and exaggerating how upset this makes them. They will continue to carry on this way whenever the person shows any signs of suspicion or even looking in the direction of suspicion.
So this was fine with the Conservatives… until it was not. So what are they up to, and what are they hiding?
schrodinger's cat
@R. Porrofatto: But will it? I mean these are the same people who predicted that Hillary would be the Democratic nominee for President.
Every week there is new manufactured outrage, so I predict that there will be another newer shiny object for the media to play with (courtesy the right wing outrage machine) before November comes.
OGLiberal
@Anya: You missed it. He had “Allahu Akbar” written on one eyelid and “America is the Great Satan” on the other and flashed them right at the camera whenever he blinked.
trollhattan
Also, too, Part II of Mrs. Polly’s hallowed ground walkin’ tour.
http://www.rumproast.com/index.php/site/comments/a_stroll_around_my_hallowed_neighborhood_ground_zero_part_ii/
Hob
@Bobby Thomson:
And probably some of those people are even in New York, thanks to Pam Fucking Geller. (And thanks to the MTA, who doesn’t seem to care that an inflammatory ad contains blatant lies; unfortunately, that NY Observer piece I linked to repeats one of those lies by saying that Geller’s skyscraper-with-crescent picture is “a photograph of the proposed Ground Zero Mosque.” Even the fucking NY Post didn’t go that far.)
pat kelly
Just remember that lots of folks are being misinformed about almost every issue, including this one, by Fox and others. The major papers and news broadcasts almost never call bullsh*t. For example, have you seen articles or news reports contradicting the claim that Rauf wants Sharia law?
Just keep that in mind while we’re calling people stupid – the loudest megaphones that could push back on the crazy are usually silent in the face of fakers. The Ground Zero (false) Mosque (wrong) bogusness should have been rebutted right away.
birthmarker
This is from WikiAnswers. just FYI for the discussion.
edit-the paragraph under the block quote is the wiki answer, not my info.
Southern Beale
It’s all in the framing. Stuff like how long a city block is, or what’s already on that city block, none of that matters. The media already decided it had its red meat issue and ran with it. Thus, America heard the message that “a group of Muslims in the U.S.” [want] to build “a mosque” two blocks from the World Trade Center site” — not, more accurately, that “a group of Americans” want to build “a center promoting moderate, peaceful Islam” in downtown New York City. (via Eugene Robinson)
OGLiberal
Don’t you people know about Al-Taqqiya? The Muslim religion dictates that if threatened or under threat, you can make friends with non-Muslims and even pretend not to be Muslim. That’s what this guy and Obama and all American Muslims have been doing for years. They’re just waiting for the Nancy Pelosi to pass sharia law, at which point they will tear off their suits, put on their native Arab garb, grab their sabers, get on their horses, and rampage through “real ‘Murca”, beheading virile young men and raping our women. You don’t think it can happen here?
Kevin
@cleek: Brilliant! And so true…
licensed to kill time
It wouldn’t matter to the mosque-deniers if they comprehended how large city blocks are in NYC. Their trump card is “the landing gear from one of the planes landed on the roof of that building!” Hence, Automatic Hallowed Ground.
Shoot down one argument, another takes its place. AKA moving the goalposts.
Cacti
Given that the GOP’s entire political strategy at this point appears to be naked appeals to bigotry…
How long before some “patriot” sets off a bomb in a mosque, or a predominantly hispanic church of any variety?
Mary
Don’t you get it? That’s what makes him so dangerous. He’s coopting our culture and edging out our home grown American millionaires. And also, he must be one of those liberal elitists. They’re all in it together. It’s a vast conspiracy!
morzer
@OGLiberal:
Isn’t that the Muslim equivalent of the GOP’s attempts to pretend that they are reasonable?
JR
Know who should be building a community center in Lower Manhattan? Some group that tries to cultivate multi-cultural and multi-faith understanding across minds and borders. Maybe some group out to improve Muslim-West relations. That could go a long way to healing the wounds left by 9/11.
If only we could find such an organization!
Gin & Tonic
@birthmarker:
Except those rules don’t apply south of Houston St., the neighborhood in which the Burlington Coat Factory community center is.
Davis X. Machina
@Cacti: Overtaken by events, in May already.
Hob
@licensed to kill time: Hmm… by that logic, my entire body is now hallowed ground, since (like everyone who was working downtown) I breathed in the pulverized remains of the buildings and the victims for several weeks.
Violet
@Cacti:
Not very long. They’re already calling for it:
And then denying it:
He was eventually forced to apologize. But how many people saw the apology and how many people just heard “bomb the mosque”? He’s still working at the radio station.
Bender
I think they do. They’re the ones passing around the photo.
Tax Analyst
@cleek:
Hee-hee. Funny.
El Cruzado
But… but… darkies!
OGLiberal
@Southern Beale: This, in particular, drives me nuts:
that “a group of Americans” want to build
Nowhere have I seed it mentioned that the people behind this center are American freaking citizens. Abdul Rauf is a citizen, Daisy Khan is a citizen, and it looks like this dude was born in Forest Hills, Queens. You know that a majority of Americans probably think it’s a bunch of illegal immigrants in turbans and PLO scarfs, doing that Arab bedouin high pitched thing with their voices, cruising around Manhattan on camels with their harem in tow. Of course, not that it should matter if that were what they are. But still…
Having lived in the NY metro area all of my life I just have no idea how isolated people are in most other parts of the country. They’d probably faint from fear if they ever stepped onto an NYC subway car and were hit in the face with the united nations of different people I see on there everyday.
p.a.
John, your post really stabs at the heart of
. Or does it stab at the bum of… the heartlandbums? Heartbumlanders? Bumheartlandiacs?
BalloonJuicers, pls refudiate this post!
Gin & Tonic
@Cacti:
Kristallnacht, here we come.
Chyron HR
A man of wealth and taste? Could it be… SAAAAAAATAN?
Davis X. Machina
Some of hijackers came from and trained in Hamburg, yet the Goethe-Institut is allowed to continue to operate only blocks from Ground Zero?
Und wir beim Alten bleiben.
Suffern ACE
@Pangloss: I believe Pam Geller is from New York, too. Newt Gingrich has most certainly been to New York many times. The writers of the Daily News and the New York Post, who are flogging this “Victims Rights vs. Cold, Mean Obama” story like there is no tomorrow are in New York. It really doesn’t matter whether or not people have been to New York when mentally diseased crackpots like Pam Geller are photogenic enough to get on TV and are treated like credible witnesses.
On a side note, you would be surprised at the number of New Yorkers who don’t get out of their neighborhoods and look around places. I worked in midtown for years and lived in Queens and Brooklyn. I might have been to the World Trade Center twice before 9-11 and once or twice since then to look at the rubble and to take someone from out of town to look at the construction site.
I now work in Fort Lee and a lot of my co-workers live there. I am amazed at the number of people who go into the city only once or twice per year who live near the darn bridge that would take them into the city.
AnnaN
At the risk of being spanked, isn’t this akin to a private business owner in the South putting a big ol’ Confederate flag in his storefront window?
My attitude: I don’t agree with putting this mosque there, but legally, they can build wherever they want. However, it’s still a non-literal slap in the face to many people.
What’s the difference between this developer and the business owner in my above example who says, “I can’t stand the politics and attitudes of those Confederate idiots but man, do they like to spend money in my store ever since I put that flag in the window.”
licensed to kill time
@Hob:
Well see, now they will never be able to build a mosque in your hair, anyway. So there’s that.
BR
This guy is good. He hits all the right points and frames the issue perfectly.
If only elected Dems would just verbatim say what he said, they’d win this issue.
jl
Maybe I missed it someplace above, but below is link to the timeline at Salon, so you people can marvel at the rank silliness and cynicism of what is obviously a politically motivated scare campaign:
How the “ground zero mosque” fear mongering began:
A viciously anti-Muslim blogger, the New York Post and the right-wing media machine: How it all went down
By Justin Elliott
Salon
http://www.salon.com/news/ground_zero_mosque/index.html?page=3
The project was reported in the NY Times in Dec 2009. No one cared until May this year. Some of the very media scum flogging the scare campaign now discussed the project in a neutral or approving way several months ago.
My opinion is that the reactionary GOP media scum machine was cranked up in May because summer was approaching, economic news suggested that recovery might be taking off. They needed some material to keep their noxious and sick base riled up, and needed to float some trail balloons in preparation for the election.
Suddenly, after ten years, there is a sudden upwelling of local resistance to mosques and Islamic centers around the country. Why now, why the organized protests? Why does the GOP and other cowardly, spineless, incompetent and compassless media suddenly take it seriously.
I remember sporadic local protests against mosques over the last ten years. I remember new stories about how some yahoo opened a pig farm next to a proposed mosque, and it was treated like the offensive joke that it was. Now it is a Big Serious Story.
Really? Is it?
This is a case where half measures are worse than none at all. This stuff needs to be called out, the media needs to be called out. Too bad Obama, and Democrats, do not have the stuff it takes to lead.
Our somewhat dim and gullible ex-president, GW Bush, new how to lead even after his lousy ideas were flopping big time. Is there no one who can lead and represent for ideas that are right and will lead us to success?
I guess not.
Ramiah Ariya
It just hit me – it is not a “moral question” to ask if Muslims can build a prayer center or not; because moral questions do not apply to generalized groups of people. Only legal questions apply to corporations or non-profits. You can judge people morally only as individuals – not when they aggregate.
Bender
And 63% of those three-toothed, bumfuck, straw-in-their-teeth inbreds IN NEW YORK oppose the building of the mosque on that site.
Only 27% of the overall-sporting, sheep-buggering hayseeds in New York support the mosque.
Those stupid flyover-tards.
Ramiah Ariya
@AnnaN – the community center involves people worshipping there – therefore you cannot judge it morally at all. Moral judgements should not be made on collectives.
freelancer
@Ramiah Ariya:
coughNaziscough
jl
@AnnaN: I disagree with your analogy. It is not like some one putting an offensive flag in their window.
It is like some one accusing a random German organization planning a community center, even one that opposes Nazism, of being Nazi, just because they are German.
Or opposing a monument next to the site of a Northern defeat in the Civil war to a Southerner who opposed slavery (and there were some, from the Revolution on up to the Civil War) of being offensive merely because it honors a Southerner.
D-Chance.
How many of the idiots in “real ‘Murica” have never been to NYC and have no idea how big a city block is…
I understand blocks in NYC are, like, a bajillion miles long. Each. That’s why cabbies are making 7 figures. One block alone can earn them almost $6000 per ride. You need food vendors on every corner because you leave one intersection at breakfast, and don’t make it to the next one until lunch. It’s amazing, that NYC.
roshan
Give them hell, Sharif El-Gamal.
AnnaN
@Ramiah Ariya:
Of course I can make moral judgments on a group of people. I do it all the time with the tea baggers.
Ramiah Ariya
@freelancer
To clarify, I think people DO make such judgements -I just don’t think they should be doing it. Even with the Nazis.
New Yorker
You know, I was just thinking of how I still don’t want people from out of town telling us what to do in New York when another thought occurred to me.
I remember the last part of Ken Burns’ “The National Parks” in which several new parks were established in Alaska in the 1980s and there was a huge uproar from the locals there, who didn’t want outsiders telling them what to do with their land.
Needless to say, I thought of this because Queen Sarah the Stupid is leading the charge of people meddling in affairs that are none of their business. I don’t imagine she was much aware of the parks controversy in the 70s (she’s not aware of very much at all), but I’d bet dollars to donuts that she’d oppose outsiders meddling in Alaska’s affairs if, say, Obama were to propose a new park or national monument in Alaska.
The cognitive dissonance, it hurts.
Sentient Puddle
I remember a commenter somewhere saying that if he was less scrupulous, he’d set up a website with a map of the area, a pin on ground zero, and a pin on the Burlington Coat Factory. He’d label the latter as a proposed new site for the mosque, and solicit donations to help the efforts.
Anyone doing that could probably make a mint by linking this to their wingnut relatives and letting them fan it out.
jl
Or, to be more specific, this artificial and politically motivated nonsense is like opposing a Buddhist temple near Pearl Harbor because a plurality, probably a majority, of rank and file Buddhist priests enthusiastically supported the Japanese effort in WWII. Or a Japanese cultural center.
Note that many of the national head Buddhist priests spent the war in jail because they opposed the Japanese war effort, and some did so very publicly, even when speaking to military audiences. So the rank and file knew they had a choice and they made the wrong one,
But there are Buddhist temples near Pearl Harbor, and Japanese cultural centers, and no one makes a fuss about it because there is no profit in ginning up some hate on that issue.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
As a resident of East Bumfuck, lemme tell ya about mental disconnect of the Real ‘Murkins who live here.
They hate NYC, think it’s full of ‘Murkin-loathing furrners, queers and people who talk funny. True story, 9/11, the former post mistress, a born and bred local who’s probably never been further than Branson said, and this is a no shitter, that the residents of NYC *deserved* what they got when the planes hit the towers.
And yet, you can be damned sure she’s out there with the rest of the Faux “News” crowd shrieking about a so-called mosque in NYC.
I really wish these people would move to half a dozen southern states and secede their ass outta here.
Frank
@Bobby Thomson:
If that’s true, then these idiots should not have the right to vote.
Violet
Ramiah Ariya: Please edit your last post and remove the dash. It’s fucking up the site.
roshan
Heh, the Decider decided not to decide this time around, fucking coward.
p.a.
@Bender:
this varies greatly by borough. Manhattanites support the community center, Staten Island is by far the most opposed (70+%). sorry, can’t find the link at present.
Ramiah Ariya
@AnnaN – Sure, but such judgements are bound to be generalizations and inaccurate. They reflect more upon the “judger” than the “judgee”.
My point is simply that people pretend that there are two levels here; the specific argument goes like – I am NOT for the Mosque, but I support the legal right to build it.
That argument is wrong because there is ONLY the legal level – there is no moral level here, because it involves an aggregate of people.
Comrade Kevin
@Bender: So, Bender, do you think that people’s constitutional rights should be subject to a popularity contest? If not, why do you keep citing opinion polls?
cleek
@Violet:
USA PATRIOT 802(c):
(5) the term `domestic terrorism’ means activities that-
`(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;
`(B) appear to be intended–
`(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
`(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
`(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and
`(C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.’.
just sayin
Chris
This is astonishing:
In fact, Liberty Central, a tea-party-related group founded by Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is circulating a petition opposing the mosque, and Ginni Thomas is set to speak at an anti-mosque rally on Sept. 11.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41196_Page3.html#ixzz0wywhtWCs
Tax Analyst
@dm9871:
Let me see if I have this straight: If “the East Hamptons” or “East Hamptons” are incorrect then “the east bumfucks” or “east bumfucks” would be incorrect as well?
morzer
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
Out of interest, do they refer to themselves as East Bumfuckers? East Bumfuckese? The East Bumfuckerati?
RapterFence
Bill Kristol weighs in:
morzer
@Gin & Tonic:
I think we’ve already had Kristolnacht. It led to the invasion of Iraq.
Frank
@AnnaN:
And where would you like it to stop? Should catholic churches be forbidden because it could be insensitive to all those people who have been sexually molested by their priests? Should any Christian Church be forbidden since it could be insensitive to the Native Americans?
And what about the Mosque which is only four blocks from Ground Zero and has been there since at least 911? Why has that one been OK over the years, but not this one?
Why is OK for a strip club to be two blocks away from Ground Zero but not a community center (Yes, it is community center, NOT a mosque. Hell, there is a chapel in my hospital in my town. If you are going to call this a mosque, then you would also have to start calling my hospital a church instead of a hospital)?
JR
@AnnaN: No, it’s the equivalent to a business in Marietta, GA putting a cross in its window and someone screaming that it means it’s celebrating the Leo Frank lynching.
jl
@cleek: Well if wingnut sites are fomenting acts of domestic terror and bombing the future community center, then I think for public safety, it MUST be moved.
I suggest moving the site. Put it IN the rebuilt world trade center, preferably right next to, or above, or below the 911 memorial.
That would be fine with me, and I would not be offended. And it might serve to protect the center.
res ipsa loquitur
@Jack bauer: I have cousins who grew up in Queens who DRIVE to Manhattan exactly once a year (to see the Rock Centre Xmas tree). It would not occur to them to come at any other time or to take the train.
Long Island is full of people like this, too.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@morzer:
It’s a term they’re unaware exists or if they are, think it refers to people in Arkansas. Everybody here in Misery looks at Arkansas much the way we here look at much of Flyover Country and many southern states.
Ramiah Ariya
One more question – if people do have moral objections to a private developer building the community center, why are those objections not addressed at the developers themselves?
Till now all the sound and fury from the right, rallies and more, seem to be addressed at the general public – why is that?
If someone objects to a business owner sticking the Confederate flag in their store window, shouldn’t that objection be addressed at the business owner? Would someone take out a rally for that purpose?
The fact that the anti-Mosque people are holding rallies, going on the media and talking about it endlessly shows clearly that their objection is really not a moral one – they are whipping bigotry for other purposes.
JR
@p.a.: To be fair, Harold Ford already proved that Staten Island is really still “flyover country.”
Frank
@Bender:
And 53% in Manhattan are in FAVOR of this community center (it is NOT a mosque! If you are going to call this a mosque than you would have to start to call any hospital with a chapel a church). And only 31% are against it.
BTW – My state is heavily Democratic. I bet if there was a poll most of them would ban FoxNews. Would you be in favor of that? What if they were in favor of banning Christian churches, would you be in favor of that?
The First Amendment is not up for a vote. Nuff said…
Tsulagi
Easy to explain and understand. It’s the 28%er/R-base/teabagger version of the Niemoller poem. For this situation…
First the government put a mosque in the Pentagon,
But I didn’t object because my guys were in charge.
Next, even the Marines put a mosque in freaking Quantico using my tax dollars,
But I didn’t object because my guys were in charge.
Now some private brown guy using his own money wants to put a mosque in a former retail store,
Fucking A I’m bitching because my guys aren’t in charge.
b-psycho
@AnnaN: No. The equivalent to the confederate flag thing would be if a halal grocer in the area put up a Bin Laden poster in his window. Confederate flags mean more than just “I am a southern white conservative”, while a mosque in and of itself says nothing more than “Muslims come here”.
toujoursdan
@D-Chance.:
Blocks in New York are generally higher than the they are long. The height/density/diversity is what makes NY blocks “big”. You literally can’t see anything that is more than 100 feet away in many parts of town.
cleek
Friedersdorf’s gonna get himself a whippin for that!
Bender
@Comrade Kevin: ‘
I cite opinion polls of New Yorkers to disabuse John of his laughable notion that only hayseeds who don’t know shit about New York would oppose a structure that’s a full FIVE MINUTE WALK from Ground Zero, and whose roof only sustained partial damage due to plane parts crashing through it on 9/11. Clearly, such a site couldn’t be described as Ground Zero. “Ground 0.075,” perhaps, but not Ground Zero.
And the question of “Should it be built?” is very different from the question of “Is it LEGAL to build it,” of course. The anti-mosque campaign is just exerting political pressure to shift the site — no one’s going to put Imam Blame-the-US-for-9/11 in shackles if they decide to go through with it.
toujoursdan
African Americans are welcome to the bus if they choose to, but letting them sit with white people was a non-literal slap in the face to many people. They are also more than welcome to go to school but they shouldn’t go to MY school because that is a slap in the face. The law can’t stop them from using the toilet or water fountain but can’t they just respect the fact that we want to use our own and they can use another somewhere else? They are so uncompromising.
Yup. “Freedom for minorities is guaranteed, but why can’t they do it somewhere else?” has been one of this countries shining values.
/snark
catclub
@jl:
“no profit in ginning up some hate on that issue.”
At present, but we’ll keep you in mind, honey.
Bender
Can Jews go in and pray at the exclusively-Islamic-place-of-worship-that-is-not-really-a-full-blown-mosque?
They can at the hospital.
How in the world is this a First Amendment issue? Who’s going to put Imam Jews-really-did-9/11 in jail if they go through with Mosque-Lite?
chopper
well, it doesn’t get any more NYC than that. god, if i overhear some shmuck on the street talking about ‘the hamptons’ one more time i’m a go on a rampage.
AnnaN
@Ramiah
Of course my judgments say a lot about me. That’s a given. I have a liberal stick up my ass every time a teabagger comes into view. I also have a stick up my ass when it comes to people saying that Muslims are horribly misunderstood and that Islam is a religion about love and acceptance and, pardon me while I vomit on my shoes. (I have the same issues with Catholicism).
And, yes I can make a distinctin between law and legalities and what I feel about a situation. I am vehemently pro-choice even though I know people will choose to abort a child on some frivolous basis (and yes, the frivolity is a judgment call of MINE) but just because I demand a right or stand up for other’s rights in the law, I don’t have to like it and I get to say as much. Your pretending that my feelings don’t matter, because this is ultimately a legal matter is ridiculous. you think feelings don’t have an impact in this case? Then why is there such a brouhaha about this situation in the first place and why is there the very real possibility that the mosque developers legal rights are going to be torpedoed? I know a lot of people who don’t like the mosque idea and aren’t bigots and aren’t tools of the Republican or Tea Baggin parties.
jl
@toujoursdan: Glad some one agrees with me. I don’t see why private businesses shouldn’t have ‘whites only preferred” signs. And since private feelings of offense or inappropriateness of this that or the other are now very important national issues, I don’t see why governments can’t have “whites only preferred” signs on stuff too.
In fact, I am very offended that this solution to for hurt feelings of racial bigots has not been thought of before now.
dave
So per teh google earth it’s 500′ +/- from the NE corner of the WTC site to the 51Park location. Even leaving the catholic church out of this half of the states allow sex offenders to live as close or closer to schools, playgrounds, and daycares.
Cain
@Suffern ACE:
Having been to New York a couple of times, I reckon it’s because nobody wants to deal with the traffic/noise/people.
On the other hand, damn I want to hit one of those new york delis and just eat like a madman on whatever they got over there.. yum.. (except for indian food.. )
cain
Sentient Puddle
@Bender:
I hope some will take a moment to appreciate the fact that someone with a name like mine is about to ask this question:
Do you even understand religion at all?
toujoursdan
Actually the legal rights of the developers can’t be torpedoed.
Experts: Argue All You Want, Mosque Project on Firm Legal Ground
Bender
So John can still call people in Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island “idiots in “real ‘Murica” who have never been to NYC and have no idea how big a city block is and that we aren’t talking about a dinky little block in east bumfuck.”
That’ll make him feel better, if he can still pretend to be superior to someone.
chopper
i’m willing to bet good money that if we blindfolded every moron coming out against this building and dropped them off right in front of the place, took off the blindfold and asked them to point in the direction of ground zero, 90% of them wouldn’t get it right.
Frank
@Bender:
Do you know the difference between a mosque and a community center? Everybody has a right to visit a community center, just like everybody has a right to visit a hospital.
Again, if you are going to call this a mosque than we should all start calling our hospitals churches.
Legalize
@OGLiberal:
Yes, like every single business in the City in which many Muslims work. I wonder if these morons know (I know they don’t know and I know that they don’t care) how many car services employ divers who happen to be Muslim, and that every single one of these little offices where the dispatcher sits has a little prayer room in the back, i.e. a “MOSQUE!!!!!!!” And the Halal delis. Prayer rooms. They’re on like very corner. Within sight of sacred ground.
cleek
@Frank:
airports, too.
Bender
@Sentient Puddle:
Yes. Do you have anything important to add, like an answer to my question?
Ramiah Ariya
@AnnaN
You misunderstood me – I did not say your feelings did not matter. They will matter, of course, but you should not be having generalized moral feelings about people in aggregate is what I am saying.
That is, there is no defensible moral angle to the mosque controversy at all – people only call it a moral issue to carve a fine distinction between bigotry and “feelings”. It is somewhat similar to the neo-confederates arguing about states’ rights to draw a distinction from being racists.
chopper
there’s a jew on the board of directors, you half-wit. it’s an open place, like a JCC.
AnnaN
@toujoursdan
AnnaN
@toujoursdan
It’s not the same at all. If you would care to rephrase with an example that pertains to a horrific event in which the appearance of a black man on a bus would be insensitive to say the least, then perhaps you will have a point.
chopper
@OGLiberal:
fixed.
Steve
As a Californian, New York has always been a flyover state (on the way to real cities like Paris and London), so this whole hubub about some New York Local Yocals wanting to change the zoning restriction on a building and the local yocal media in New York endlessly discussing it is quite amusing.
kay
@toujoursdan:
The only happy part in this whole disgusting episode has been this:
“If the City of New York denies the zoning approval sought for this site, it will blatantly violate [the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act] and expose the city to one whopping lawsuit that is extremely likely to succeed,” as Chicago attorney Dan Lauber [4] told Chicago Sun-Times columnist Lynn Sweet. “A federal law adopted by a Republican Congress makes the denial the Republicans seek blatantly illegal.”
I looked it up yesterday. You should see the conservative religious roster behind that law. It’s like a who’s who.
I love, love, love that. Courts carved out an exception for eminent domain, but other than that, you really can build a place of worship just about anywhere you want in this country, thanks to religious conservatives.
Alwhite
@Cacti:
I worry about that every time there is a comment about an actual mosque just 2 blocks further down that has been there since before WTC was even built. I expect some wingnut will want to make their bones by hitting that target. Then of course everyone will be amazed that it could go that far!
dmsilev
@Bender:
It’s a safe bet that he can feel superior to *you*. A low bar to clear, granted, but we all have to start somewhere.
dms
toujoursdan
@jl:
Yeah. South Africa was right when they assigned different groups of people to “Bantustans” under governments of their own people. We’d be far better off if the did that here. No one’s feelings would be hurt.
Muslims can build mosques on their own bantustan. Then no one would have to look at them. Separate Development worked wonders.
schrodinger's cat
@Frank: I am not a muslim, but as far as I know you don’t have to be a muslim to enter a mosque.
AnnaN
@ Ramiah
Ah. thanks for the clarification – I did misunderstand.
toujoursdan
@AnnaN:
How does that change anything? This isn’t about the horrific event itself. It’s about how we treat people who weren’t personally involved in that horrific event (and probably lost family that day) who REMIND us of a horrific event.
If the Germans can tolerate McDonald’s restaurants in Dresden and Berlin, if the Israelis can embrace Goethe Institutes in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, if the Chinese and Koreans can tolerate Japanese supermarkets, video rental stores and industrial plants in Nanking and Seoul, if the Japanese can handle American-staffed Episcopal and Lutheran churches in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, why are Americans who are supposed to embrace diversity so squeamish over this? Those other events were far more horrific to the people involved than this (if you want to play that game.)
kay
@toujoursdan:
It’s also a big, fat federal law that stomps all over local control and zoning, so there’s that delicious irony too.
Religious can build anything they want, nearly anywhere.
Frank
@schrodinger’s cat:
I think you are right. I’m a lutheran and you could be whatever and still attend my church. This is why I don’t understand Bender’s argument that Jews would be forbidden in the community center/mosque.
TooManyJens
@Hob:
I realize this is beside the point, but how would one photograph a proposed building?
jl
@kay: thanks for providing the information on the Religious Land Use law. Please put up any links you have for more information.
I appreciate the irony too. Too bad irony won’t shut down the hate mongers.
dmsilev
@kay:
Sometimes has unfortunate implications for the neighborhood. Near where my parents live, a church is putting up a small building (mostly office space) adjacent to the church itself, and this thing couldn’t be uglier if they had tried. Think of the worst Brutalist-style building that comes to mind, and then make it look more forbidding and less inviting. It would have been nice if someone could have said “You know, a few extra windows and a bit of a facade might not be a bad idea”. But, as a church building, there was nothing the local planning commission could do about it. So, a nice pleasant street now has a blockhouse sitting on it. Sigh.
dms
PeakVT
Apropos nothing in particular, I want to say that I reject the notion that the WTC site is “hallowed ground.” As far as I know, no supernatural being related to any known religion has done anything of significance at that location. It’s a place where some peopled were killed, and where some others acted bravely and sacrificed their future health. We should put up a reasonable memorial to each, and then focus on non-symbolic issues for a change. An example of a non-symbolic issue is global warming, which threatens to drown the WTC site in a century or two, rendering the current nontroversy moot.
(Yeah, yeah, I know we won’t and I know why we won’t.)
Bender
Let’s refer this to a practicing Muslim, Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury:
He says “mosque.” So do a lot of other Muslims I’ve read on the issue. I can argue with a Muslim on what constitutes a mosque?
If it is really true (ahem) that Jews can go in and pray alongside the Muslims in the top two floors of the maybe-a-mosque, just like anyone can go pray in a hospital chapel, you’d think that might be the first thing out of the mouth of Imam Jews-did-9/11. That would buy a lot of good will.
Hey, another question: Can women go to the mosque — errrrrr, community center? Can they go to the prayer area?
YellowJournalism
@Bender:
Yeah, actually, they can. Because it’s not exclusively an Islamic place of worship. The intent has always been for it to welcome people of all religions in order to build a better sense of community and understanding and to use it to reach out against all types of bullshit generalizations and stereotypes Muslims are facing right now thanks to an uber-crazy blogger and anyone who jumped on the anti-mosque bandwagon for political clout.
And as far as the whole can they or should they argument goes, anyone who says they shouldn`t build the center is doing so under the horrible assumption that all Muslims are terrorists until they shout their hatred of Osama from the rooftops. (And even then, they`re still suspect.)
Legalize
@Frank:
He’s not making an argument. He’s moving the goal posts and lying by inventing an evil in order to somehow pretend that this is about something other than he and his ilk being bigots. Non Muslims can go to Mosques just like non Christians can go to churches. Of course, what Bender actually wants to know is if he can walk into a Mosque eating a bacon sandwich and generally act like a turd without someone frowning in a menacing way in his direction – a clear violation of his 1st amendment rights.
YellowJournalism
@Bender:
I never realized that women were banned from mosques in the first place. (Yes, I know some mosques have separate prayer areas, as do other religions.)
toujoursdan
Let’s try this again.
Park 51’s Vision Statement:
Park51 will be dedicated to pluralism, service, arts and culture, education and empowerment, appreciation for our city and a deep respect for our planet. Park51 will join New York to the world, offering a welcoming community center with multiple points of entry.
Mission Statement:
To realize this mission, Park51 will:
* Uphold respect for the diversity of expression and ideas between all people
* Cultivate and embrace neighborly relations between all New Yorkers, fostering a spirit of civic participation and an awareness of common needs and opportunities
* Encourage open discussion and dialogue on issues of relevance to New Yorkers, Americans and the international reality of our interconnected planet
* Revive the historic Muslim tradition of education, engagement and service, becoming a resource for empowerment and advancement
* Connect New York’s communities to global ideas and trends
* Commit to social justice, dignified human development and spiritual growth for all
* Pursue the development of American Muslim identities, engaging New York’s many and diverse Muslim communities and promoting empowerment and compassion for all
* Build partnerships and relationships with key actors and institutions who share our values, to address shared needs and solve common problems
* Establish a state-of-the-art green facility that will serve as a model and inspiration for sustainable space, helping to advance sustainable living in urban contexts
* Empower our communities with the skills and knowledge they need to advance in their various life stages
* Provide financial assistance for those in need, offering subsidies for our programming and scholarships to reach new audiences and further our vision
Scary Sharia stuff.
From the New York Times article:
A few blocks away, at the Masjid al-Farah, the scene was somewhat different. Men and women sat together. The worshipers, devotees of the Sufi tradition of Islamic mysticism, came from an even wider array of countries and included a young man with multiple piercings and a shirt identifying him as an employee at Jivamukti Yoga. The mosque, in a two-story building sandwiched between two bars — the neon-lighted Tribeca Tavern and the nouvelle-brasserie-type Cercle Rouge — has a pristine, high-ceilinged, white-painted interior decorated with stained glass and Arabic calligraphy.
There are many mosques where women and men pray together in this city. There are even mosque where the Imam IS a woman in this city.
PS: Why would anyone assume that all Muslims think exactly alike? There may be some Muslims in disagreement. They aren’t robots. It’s interesting that later in the article Choudhury acknowledges that it isn’t a mosque but what the builders said it is.
Alwhite
@morzer:
Nah, the Iraq F’up is more like the reaction from the Rieichstag fire.
We have not, yet, had a Kristallnacht for Muslims.
We have, sadly enough, plenty of other “Kristallnacht” events, particularly in the 1920s & 30’s. They have names like Elaine Massacre and Rosewood massacre and a dozen or so forgotten names of small towns. That they are so poorly remembered just adds to the shame.
jl
@PeakVT: I agree with the substance of what you say. But ‘hallowed’ means that humans decide to make a place holy or significant.
When some one says ‘hallowed’ about the WTC, I worry that they get into the making it holy business, with which I respectfully disagree.
It was a great tragedy that destroyed many lives, many more lives than were lost that day. So I do agree that it is a very significant site that should merit some special consideration, but I don’t think it should be considered holy in any sense of that word.
I did knew a person who died in the attack, one that barely got out alive, and one who wasn’t killed probably because she was running late to work that morning. so I understand peoples’ feelings about it. But I disagree with putting too much emphasis on it being ‘hallowed’.
Mnemosyne
@Bender:
Yes, they can. Both Christian and Jewish organizations will also have offices at the community center.
Any more stupid questions that show you know absolutely nothing about the “mosque” you have your panties in a twist about?
I guess the freedom of religion promised by the First Amendment only applies to Christians and Jews in wingnut land. In the United States of America, it applies equally to all religions, even the ones you don’t like.
Bender
Wait. Hold on. So a Muslim could whip out his rug (and yes, I know the prayer-times wouldn’t coincide, but we’re just thought-experimenting here), or a Jew could start praying in Hebrew in the middle of one of your services, and everybody would be cool with that? Ummm, I’d advise you to check with your synod on that issue.
Some Lutheran churches don’t allow Christians of other denominations to take communion there. That’s why I find your assertion totally impossible to believe.
However, in non-denominational hospital chapels (many of which have been stripped of all imagery so as not to offend Muslims), Muslims and Jews can both pray alongside Christians.
Chyron HR
Bender: Since you’ve decided to adopt the people of New York as your brothers in arms, are you going to “refudiate” the GOP position that Elena Kagan shouldn’t be allowed on the Supreme Court because she’s from New York?
(Or was that just Republican code for “She’s a kike”? It’s hard to tell with you guys.)
toujoursdan
@Bender:
Many mainline parishes rent/give their space to developing congregations in other faiths. My former church allowed a Jewish group to worship there on Saturdays. They took down the cross and put it up once it was over. The Canadian show “Little Mosque on the Prairie” featured an Anglican church renting space to Muslim congregation in Saskatchewan and the various clergy sharing office space. So it’s not all that uncommon.
No one is saying that followers of different religions will be praying at the same time. That would be chaotic. But they will use the same facility at different times no matter who owns it.
The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Synod don’t allow communion from non-members. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America welcomes all baptized Christians to receive communion. Anyone can sit in a service no matter what they believe.
chopper
Hey, another question: Can women go to the mosque—- errrrrr, community center? Can they go to the prayer area?
Mnemosyne
@AnnaN:
I’m afraid the Supreme Court disagrees with you, which is why the American Nazi Party was given permission to march in Skokie. You don’t get to infringe on other people’s legal rights because of your widdle fee-fees.
So you agree with the defenders of Prop 8 that gay people shouldn’t be allowed to marry in their state because it’s against their feelings? Or is it only Muslims who shouldn’t be allowed to hurt people’s feelings by walking around being all Muslimy?
Sorry, but the more you post, the clearer it is that you only want people you approve of to have rights, and fuck everyone else. That’s not how it works in this country. Sorry.
Suffern ACE
@Bender: Those non-denominational places were stripped of religious imagery so as not to offend Jews and Muslims, as well Methodists and Quakers and other Christian sects that don’t go in for all that high falutin graven image stuff.
Frank
@Bender:
While it has never happened, I doubt the worshipper would even be escorted out. Why? It is a place worship. You know, love they enemies and all that. You should try it some time.
jl
@Bender: Many Christian churches don’t allow just anyone to take communion in their church. Though how this is really enforced I have no idea. I presume it is left up to the conscience of the individual.
You can ‘be’ just anything at many Christian churches but you certainly cannot ‘do’ anything.
I attended a Christian church a while back where some people freaked out about a Muslim giving a talk in the church’s community hall. The fact that he sang a short sura in the community hall scandalized many. All sorts of red herrings were dragged out. the fact that this was a very liberal Muslim who called Arafat a ‘thug’ (along with the Likud leadership) and denounced many Middle Eastern practices regarding women as barbaric cultural relics that had nothing to do with Islam.
All sorts of people have ready excuses for their intolerance and excessive delicacy.
Hob
@TooManyJens: Well, it could’ve been a photograph of the building in Pamela Geller’s mind… except I’m pretty sure that Geller’s mind, like vampires, doesn’t show up on film.
Comrade Kevin
@Bender:
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! Oh, you’re funny.
Perhaps you should have a talk with these people.
chopper
@Bender
women and men are split into different prayer areas in the beit knesset at the chabad house down the way, even tho it’s open to everyone. what’s your point? should the chabadniks not get to build those community centers either? cause if so you best get on that, there’s a chabad house on every corner these days.
cleek
there are sects of Christianity (the Coptics, for one) who separate men and women during services.
David Hunt
@scav:
Okay. You win the internet, today. There’s no point in me looking at anything else online, today. You even managed to make that comment on a Wednesday.
Sentient Puddle
@Bender: See, it’s posts like this that make me question whether or not you even understand religion.
toujoursdan
@chopper:
In many New York City mosques women and men pray together. As mentioned, they may even be led by a female Imam. It depends on the tradition (as in Judaism, where Orthodox and a few conservative Conservative Temples are segregated by sex).
Frank
@Bender:
Not sure what this has to do with anything. But since you went there, should we ban all Mormon Churches then? As I understand it, about a third of their service, men and women are not allowed to be in the same room.
MikeJ
@David Hunt: In researching Supe’s immigration status, I ran across this article that says the supreme court ruled that the rocket was an “artificial womb” and he was therefore “born” in the US.
Sadly, I also read a lot of people arguing over the legality of the Kent’s adoption, assuming that if he were adopted that would confer citizenship. I’m not convinced it would.
Bender
@Mnemosyne:
Good to know, but that doesn’t answer my question, though, does it? Will Christians and Jews be allowed to worship alongside Muslims? If the answer is no, then the analogy to a hospital chapel (or even more inapt, a Vegas casino chapel) is ridiculous. I mean, it’s still ridiculous if the answer is yes, for many reasons, but I digress…
Look, I am far from adamant about the issue. Today’s the first time I’ve posted anywhere about it, and that was mostly just because I hate retarded analogies like the one above.The mosque doesn’t affect me in the least.
I do think everyone should be honest about what is really happening: A proposed structure that is offensive to many people (and seen as deliberately offensive by some, including some Muslims) is being lobbied to change its plans and move elsewhere, similar to when they lobby Wal-Mart or a Target not to build in my neighborhood.
I think we’re all agreed that it’s only a big national issue because the Democrats have bungled it so badly.
In the end, I think this issue is destructive politically to Muslims, to the extent that, of course, they’ll move the mosque. At a time when much has been done in the US to change rules, laws, and customs to accommodate the sensibilities of Muslims, these particular Muslims are showing themselves to be wholly unconcerned with the concerns and sensibilities of those affected by the murders of 3000 people in New York by Muslims in the name of Islam. Would Americans adopt the same “If you are offended, fuck off” mentality toward Muslims the next 100 times they want something changed? I’d suggest yes.
Svensker
@AnnaN:
So what you’re saying is that all Islam is guilty of the 9/11 sin, not just the guys who flew the airplanes?
Given that you think all of Islam is at least partially guilty, should lower Manhattan, the Pentagon and the spot in PA all be Muslim-free zones? Or, at least if Muslims do go to these spots, they refrain in any way from indicating that they are Muslims? Or perhaps our Muslims citizens should start wearing armbands to indicate their sin, so they can be kept away from people who might be offended?
At what distance from the WTC,Pentagon,spot in PA, should Muslims be allowed?
I am very interested in your answers. Remember that building permits, etc., depend on your answers, so be very specific, i.e., 4 blocks, 1.5 miles, etc.
The Other Chuck
I’m not pulling out any arguments about “you can’t judge X from Y” or “should we forbid a church in X spot?” or any of that logical crap, because they don’t listen. Here is my response:
“This is AMERICA, and we have a first amendment. Love it or leave it motherfucker.”
chopper
@toujoursdan
i know this.
as a conservative jew in brooklyn, let me clearly state for the record that i did not need to be told this fact.
also: while we’re just laying out information, they’re called “temples” in the reform side of judaism. the more conservadox side of conservative jews and the orthodox typically call it a synagogue or shul.
Bender
@Comrade Kevin:
Looks like they’re an organization that protests Islamic organizations. Isn’t that pretty much the definition of “exerting political pressure?”
cleek
downtown NYC wasn’t the only place attacked on 9/11 , of course.
and there’s a mosque inside the other building that was attacked: the Pentagon.
of course the Pentagon isn’t hallowed ground, like the former Burlington Coat Factory building. so that’s completely different.
toujoursdan
@chopper:
[shrugs]
The rabbi at the Kane Street (Conservative) Synagogue around the corner from where I live in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn has called their building a temple on more than one occasion… so I was just going with that.
Bender
Why should I defend an argument I’ve never heard except in cartoons from lefties?
MikeJ
@cleek: It’s because republicans hate the military. Absolutely no respect for the troops.
catclub
From one of bender’s posts:
“everyone who is still heavy with shock at the tragic death of 3,000 people killed by Islamist militants during the attack on 9/11.”
I’m not jewish and my reaction to this is oy vey.
Is that like zero people who are actually still shocked nine years later?
Are they heavy with shock for the 200,000 killed by the Christmas day tsunami of 2004?
How about even the Haiti earthquake of this year?
Not so much for those? Why is that? Brown people, you say?
Sly
@Tax Analyst:
East Hampton refers to either the Town of East Hampton or the Village of East Hampton (which resides within the Town of East Hampton… eastern Long Island has a very odd and multi-tiered municipal government system that dates back to the Puritan period of the 1600s). There isn’t such a thing as “East Hamptons,” unless you mean Montauk Point, but no one ever calls it that.
The definition of “The Hamptons” can change depending on who you ask. Technically its everything in the Towns of Westhampton, Southampton, and East Hampton, which basically includes all of the southern fork of eastern Long Island. When jet-setters talk about “going out to the Hamptons,” they’re more than likely talking about East Hampton Villiage and/or Shinnecock Hills Country Club. They’re not talking about places like Quogue or Noyack.
Stefan
East Hamptons. A rich NYC developer headed to the East Hamptons for the weekend. It doesn’t get more American than that.
No definite article. East Hampton is a village in a series of hamlets and villages on the South Fork of Long Island that are collectively known as “the Hamptons” (Southampton, Water Mill, Sag Harbor, Bridgehampton, East Hampton, Wainscott and Amagansett, roughly, but not, oddly, Hampton Bays, which is on the wrong side of the Shinnecock Canal). You go to either “the Hamptons” or “East Hampton” but you don’t go to “the East Hamptons.”
les
Well, this “city blocks” argument may not travel well. Here in the Heart of America, we employ the Thomas Jefferson approved city/county layout, with nice regular roads every mile and the Founder-mandated 8 blocks per mile. So your picayune, measly 20 to the mile blocks are as nothing. Cluttered skylines are of course confined to decaying central cities, which means the mosque is LOOMING directly over our hallowed ground in your cursed metropolis. Hah.
Or, in reality, not.
chopper
@toujoursdan
i took some classes there, and have gone to services there. rabbi weintraub is a great guy.
that aside, i mentioned ‘the reform side’ typically uses that term, which is what that congregation is. it’s a very liberal congregation, certainly not conservadox. the same is true for most every conservative congregation in brooklyn, like the park slope jewish center down the way (where i usually go when i make it to shabbat services). hell, we even have an openly-lesbian rabbi FFS.
chopper
@catclub
if you’re still so ‘heavy with shock’ 9 years later that you can’t stand to see regular run of the mill american muslims in lower manhattan without flipping out, you need some therapy.
Sly
@chopper:
Such a person would have long left Lower Manhattan years ago, unless they enjoy having panic attacks every time they walk out of their apartment. The area is not exactly Snow-White Christendom.
toujoursdan
@chopper:
They seem like a great congregation.
I go to the Episcopal church up on Clinton/Kane (and live next door) and we have always been keen to do more with them – joint dinners, social events, concerts or have someone teach us about Judaism. The rabbi seems a bit concerned that we’re out to proselytize, but we’re Episcopalians. We don’t even proselytize our own. Heck, the Senior Warden (highest non-clergy position) is married to a Jewish woman and goes to her synagogue on Saturday and church on Sunday and we have a Methodist who gets up and leaves when the communion part of the service begins because he doesn’t like the “hocus-pokus”.
We’re just looking for friends. Ahh well. Maybe someday…
chopper
@toujoursdan
there’s an ‘intro to judaism’ course that’s taught in a revolving basis b/w kane street, PSJC and i think the synagogue up in brooklyn heights. it might be at kane street this year, check into it.
toujoursdan
@chopper: Will do definitely. Thanks for the tip.
Comrade Kevin
@Bender: I suppose they are “exerting political pressure”, in the same way that groups like the “White Citizens Councils” used to.
Bender
@catclub:
I never wrote that. Get your shit straight, asshole.
Bender
@Comrade Kevin:
That card is maxed out. Denied.
Bender
@Bender:
Ahhhh, Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury said it. My apologies, catclub (serves me right for losing temper).
Yeah, shock seems odd. “Grief” would’ve been a better word.
Mnemosyne
@Bender:
You need to work on your reading comprehension. Concentrate on the word “also.”
Yes, clearly it’s the Democrats’ fault that well-known Islamophobe Pam Atlas went on TV and spouted her pernicious lies like a fountain, with the full and enthusiastic backup of Limbaugh and Hannity. Because, as everyone knows, they’re prominent Democrats.
I do love how you can’t even take responsibility for your own manufactured controversy. Nope, it must all be the Democrats’ fault that the Republicans started screeching like stuck pigs over a community center that they were praising only three months ago.
chopper
@Bender:
in your defense, you are an idiot.
asiangrrlMN
You know what’s a slap in my agnostic face? Every single religious building that is anywhere near me (‘coz y’all have some skeletons in your closets). So, until they are all razed, I hereby declare that I am terribly hurt and that my rights to be unoffended are being trampled on.
@jl: And with that, you are on the virtual couch again, FH#4. I truly hope you enjoy your stay. Maybe I should call Dr. Laura for advice on how to handle snarky racist statements from a fake-hubby on the intertoobz.
@chopper: You fucking cracked me up with this line. I’ve pied Bender, but because of all the generous excerpting, I get the general gist.
Hob
Why is everyone still feeding the troll? I don’t care if (as he says) this is is the first time Bender’s opined on this particular subject; he’s never shown his face here for any other reason than to spout bullshit that he thinks will annoy liberals. This is a little more polite than most of his offerings, but it’s not like you’re arguing with someone who will listen to reason.
KevinNYC
For New Yorkers, this issue is simple. The mosque is simply not a “ground zero mosque” because it’s not at ground zero.
I used to work two blocks south of ground zero. I never kidded myself that I was at “ground zero.” On that block tourists would often ask where ground zero was because it was not obvious. And yes, around the corner there was a porn/lingerie store and a strip club, an even seedier strip club than the one most folks are mentioning when they talk about this story. So yes, there are two strip clubs within blocks of ground zero.
Original Lee
@WereBear: This.
AnnaN
@mnemosyne
So you agree with the defenders of Prop 8 that gay people shouldn’t be allowed to marry in their state because it’s against their feelings? Or is it only Muslims who shouldn’t be allowed to hurt people’s feelings by walking around being all Muslimy?
Sorry, but the more you post, the clearer it is that you only want people you approve of to have rights, and fuck everyone else. That’s not how it works in this country. Sorry. ”
No, I’m the one who is sorry. Sorry to burst your bubble that I’m not the bigot you need me to be. And sorry that your clever instructions on constitutional law glaringly points out how you may have read but did not, in fact, comprehend what I was writing. I have NEVER written anywhere that they shouldn’t be allowed to build their mosque. I have said that I don’t really agree with it and that some people (obviously and duh!) view it as a slap in the face. Are you one of those people who can’t accept that defending a legal right doesn’t mean you have to agree with it on an emotional level? Sorry too that I’m not a one-dimensional, black and white kinda gal, but not everyone can be you. Thank the lord and pass the potatoes.
Kissies.
AnnaN
@Svensker
“So what you’re saying is that all Islam is guilty of the 9/11 sin, not just the guys who flew the airplanes?
Given that you think all of Islam is at least partially guilty, should lower Manhattan, the Pentagon and the spot in PA all be Muslim-free zones? …blahblahblah SNIP!”
Apologies for taking so long to respond. I read your post and my eyes rolled out of my head necessitating a long search for the detached orbs…
Please show me my sentence where I say that all Muslims are responsible. Oh, did you say you inferred it? Ah. Okay then, I guess you roll with the Hysterical Interpretation of Blog Posts (aka, wavey-hand open-mouthed, silent-scream effect).
My problem with Islam is a general all-around irritation with it. Not a specific, Muslim = Terrorist sort of way. Same as I have a problem with Catholicism but I don’t think Priest = Pedophile or believer = nut job.
And yet, I believe they should be able to build their mosque wherever they want. And said as much.
So, though you are wrong in the first, I think it intriguing that you carry forth your error with such determination and gusto and further believe that your blog posty ways are manly and commanding enough to give me a little teaching assignment. Heh.
So cute – you ARE the dickens.
Mnemosyne
@AnnaN:
You compared building a mosque to putting a Confederate flag in the window of a store. I think we all pretty much agree that, at this point, a Confederate flag is an expression of white supremacism, yes? You’re not one of those people who tries to claim it’s a perfectly innocent expression of Southern pride with no racist undertones, correct?
So I’m really trying to understand why your claim is that a mosque that is completely unrelated to the 9/11 hijackers is an expression of hatred on the level of displaying a Confederate flag. Because that’s the comparison you’re making: having a publicly visible mosque is a symbol of hatred just like the Confederate flag.
Again, claiming that a mosque — any mosque at all — is automatically as upsetting to people as the Confederate flag is the kind of claim that the supporters of Prop 8 make when they claim that we can’t have gay marriage because it will just be so upsetting for them to have to see gay couple on the streets acting like they have a perfect right to be there.
Bender
So… did I miss when pole-dancers crashed planes into the WTC? You’d think that would be a day we’d never forget…
Bender
@Hob:
I was here before you. I was here years before Schiavo. I’ve was here when John was cogent. I was here before people knew DougJ was a spoof. I was here back when the commenters (oh, what glorious commenters back in the day!) could rub more than six brain cells together. I was here before pie.
So fuck off, newbie. Go get your shinebox.
chopper
@Bender:
i kinda missed the part where they congregation trying to open this center crashed planes into the WTC.
xian
sucks that this Bender idiot has stolen the name of a great robot. his slur against the Imam is entirely unsupported as well and is probably based on the deliberate misreading of Rauf’s comments about the influence of US policies on the terror blowback (a view acknowledged by such radical Muslim anti-semites as Ron Paul and the authors of the 9/11 commission report).