In a battle royale between Alabama, Texas, and Arizona over who had the dumbest citizenry, it really is a toss-up these days:
In an era saturated with absurd moments of anti-Muslim fear-mongering, mosques have become a touchstone for Islamophobia. Even unbuilt mosques have set off a wave of anti-Muslim sentiment in Tennessee, Texas, California, and most notably, New York. Not to be outdone, the people of Pheonix, AZ were quick to call foul over the appearance of a dome-like structure along an interstate. But in the clamor over the impending Muslim takeover, these Arizonans missed one small detail — the building is not a Mosque, it’s a church…
Keep government out of their medicare, also, too!
DonkeyKong
And we fought a Civil War to keep two of the three states mentioned in the Union……………I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue.
kdaug
I was going to quip about them having a dome on their state capital, but didn’t they sell that off recently?
Linda Featheringill
God hates architecture.
Mnemosyne
And my parents wonder why I keep refusing to move to where they live in Arizona.
Ash Can
“Luz Del Mundo?” OK, so the neighbors can stop worrying about terrorists in their back yards and start sending the cops over to check everybody’s papers.
KCinDC
Come on, the church’s domain name is luzdelmondo.net. It’s clearly a bunch of illegal immigrants, so it might as well be a mosque.
licensed to kill time
Heh heh…the banner says “if you think different you are wrong”. So many ways to interpret that :)
Sentient Puddle
@kdaug:
Yeah. And leasing it back from the people they sold it to. And buying it back in 30 years at a loss.
Really, I think Arizona wins by a mile.
stuckinred
How dare you leave out Georgia?
Lev
These guys are stupid, but they live in Phoenix. There’s not much more you can do to them.
ornery curmudgeon
Apparently many of my blessed fellow Americans were boiling over to find An Enemy to hate.
My question: were “conservative” Right-wing Republicans smart enough to figure this out … or just lucky?
FlipYrWhig
Yes, but clearly “Luz” is short for al-Andalus, i.e., Muslim Spain, and “del Mundo” means “of the world,” so it’s a monument to the worldwide restoration of the Caliphate, regardless of what kind of Christians they _pretend_ to be.
PurpleGirl
@kdaug: yep. They sold it and then rented it back. (‘Cause you know, they still needed the space for records and desks and people working there and all.)
Sentient Puddle: I didn’t know they were buying it back later at a loss. Man, that really is dumb-ass.
Dennis SGMM
The Orthodox Church recently built themselves a house if worship in our community. It’s a beautiful building but, I’m picketing anyway because it has two domes and the priests have beards also.
Mnemosyne
@ornery curmudgeon:
Oh, the Republicans have been nurturing this at least since the 2008 campaign. It’s just coming into bloom now — like a corpse flower.
qunitillian
Arizona, Alabama, Texas, but not Idaho. And certainly not Inuvik, Northwest Territories.
Bobby Thomson
@PurpleGirl:
FTFY.
PurpleGirl
I went to the church’s website. They have a sub-page listed. On this list they use English for a line about what is being built. The page itself is in Spanish. The rest of the site is in Spanish. I don’t think this is helping their case any with the morons.
stuckinred
Check out these morons in Lilburn, GA.
PurpleGirl
@Bobby Thomson: LOL. Yes, it is better. Thank you for a clearer description.
MattR
@qunitillian: Holy cow is that way up there. I thought my cousins were nuts when they lived in Yellowknife and Inuvik is about another 1000 miles north.
@stuckinred: Looks like a Fox News article.
Sentient Puddle
@Bobby Thomson: Shit, I can’t even find any information about who purchased shares in the buildings. You might be right.
suzanne
The one thing I’ll say in our defense is that our medical marijuana proposition passed.
And that we have a beautiful mosque not too far from where I live, and no one fucks with it.
Origuy
This is from a few days ago, but I just discovered this comic and I this it’s relevant.
Where the Democratic Base is Hiding.
quaint irene
Damn, that grain silo’s got a dome on it. Muslim’s hiding out in the corn?
El Tiburon
Hey, look, if you insist on pissing us off, we will give you RIck Perry. He makes W. look like a Rhodes Scholar.
But seriously. Yes. Texas can make a very strong case for the sToopid. I mean even our beaches kind of suck really.
All I can really say is that I live in Austin, which is a shiny, blue sea of sanity in an otherwise crap-hole of red lunacy. But head just a few miles south, north, east or west of this city and you are right back in the SUck.
Roger Moore
@qunitillian:
This leads to a question I’ve always meant to ask: what do you do for Ramadan if it’s in the summer and you’re far enough above the Arctic circle that the sun never sets? Would you be forbidden from eating and drinking for the whole month? If it’s the winter and the sun never rises, are you allowed to eat and drink whenever you want, even though it’s Ramadan?
Culture of Truth
Also they banned Shakira, hummus, and homo sapiens.
New Yorker
What piece of idiocy from Alabama did I recently miss?
@qunitillian:
Maybe nobody cares about that mosque because the people who worship there look like Real ‘Murkans and not dusky-skinned towelheads?
MattR
@Roger Moore: Write a letter to the good people of Inuvik and I bet you will get a reply, in three months.
I honestly do wonder how they communicate with the rest of the world from up there. I kinda doubt they laid any kind of cable. Do they actually get satellite coverage?
FlipYrWhig
@El Tiburon: It was amazing to see Perry on The Daily Show. It was like a complete but not-quite-right Dubya impression, complete with smirking, frat-bro antics, and the weird hand positions that always made Bush look even more simian than his face already did.
Danno
To be fair, La Luz del Mundo IS pretty creepy. My architecture firm was approached to work with them in Bakersfield, but after doing some research we decided not to get mixed up with the organization. We talked with a couple of Mexican architects we have connections with, and they said it would be like doing work for the Branch Davidians. The president/”God’s One True Apostle” has been implicated in everything from tax fraud to running sex slave rings.
This may be a “church”, but it ain’t Christian.
PeakVT
I think Arizona wins the stupidity contest because of the tragedy of Balbir Singh Sodhi.
Sorry, Blue Arizonans.
kdaug
@El Tiburon:
I’m in Austin, too. But in Texas’ meager defense, Houston and Dallas are purple-ish, trending blue. (Houston is the largest city in the US with an openly gay mayor now).
This was a solid blue state once, back when Ann Richards was in charge. But like Molly Ivans said (paraphrasing), “Maybe next time you people will listen to me when I tell you not to elect presidents who come from Texas”.
Problem is, in Texas the Governor is a figurehead – the real power is in the Lt. Governor. So Goodhair has plenty of time to shill his book and mull a national run. But there’s no actual responsibility in *governing* in the Governor’s office. (Don’t ask me why – it’s in the Texas Constitution).
Culture of Truth
in Texas the Governor is a figurehead – the real power is in the Lt. Governor
to the rest of us that’s a little puzzling
kdaug
Ah, found the quote:
“Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention.”
– Molly Ivins
kdaug
From here, btw.
MikeJ
@Danno:
So you think Catholics aren’t christian?
Keith G
Oh Puhleeese. Let’s just avoid the, “They’re all dumb because….” meme.
My youth was spent in Ohio and I remember crossing the Ohio River and running into groups of folk who could be properly called ignorant mouth breathers. I never thought they were exemplars of the whole.
I had a second cousin from Marietta who used the ol’ line:
What a ya call a West Virginia girl who can outrun her brothers?
I am reasonably sure that my cousin was being unjust.
Montysano
@stuckinred:
From the post:
That post was a big bucket of stupidity and hatred.
The Other Chuck
@Roger Moore:
They use a clock: the fasting times go from sunrise to sunset _in Mecca_. Not too many Muslim Eskimos running around, but enough in Scandinavian countries for that to actually need an answer.
Dennis SGMM
@Keith G:
I spent some time in West Virginia on business. A local asked me, “What’s the number one pickup line in West Virginia?”
The answer was, “Get in the truck, sis.”
El Tiburon
@Dennis SGMM:
Or,
What does a girl from Arkansas say when she is making love?
“Git up dad, yore squashing my smokes!”
Dennis SGMM
@El Tiburon:
That’s ruthless. Good though.
Keith G
@kdaug:
After the Civil War, as Reconstruction was coming to a close, Texas had to rewrite its constitution to be readmitted. The citizenry had not been happy with some of the abuses experienced under the executive authority of Union appointed leadership.
As a reaction to that, and to some over-reaching governors in the following years, real political power was split up between half a dozen elected members of the executive branch. The Lt Governor is more of a creature of the legislature and has considerable power in the Texas Senate and can affect the pace and flow of legislation.
Make no mistake though, the Texas Governor has some real sources of power and an smart political operator can be a strong governor.
Triassic Sands
@stuckinred:
After the recent election, I’d like to offer Washington State up — at least for honorable mention. I know we aren’t ready to compete equally with some states, but damn it, we’re working on it.
And, please, don’t forget Wisconsin.
Lahru
I would rather have a mosque in my town than a Xristian “church’ because the Muslims keep to themselves, don’t wear their beliefs on their sleeves and are mostly apolitical. As opposed to…?
WereBear
@Culture of Truth: Texans have a loooooong history of disliking guv’ment. They make all their branches as weak as possible, and limit terms and the sitting of the legislature, if I’m not mistaken.
a state prison employee
@PeakVT: To add to that particular tragedy, Inmate Roque is a complete jerk who remains convinced that his actions were both justified and honorable. I’m glad he’s never getting out. I’ve met child molesters who have more humanity than that man.
pking
@Dennis SGMM:This seems appropriate re Oedipus Tex:
“He killed his ma and he married his pa.
That’s a thirty-dollar fine in Arkansas!”
http://acdrupal.evergreen.edu/pw/oedipus-rex
Southern Beale
Yes well no one in our media has bothered to follow the trail of breadcrumbs linking this so-called “wave of anti-Muslim sentiment” to the SAME fucking rightwing fearmongering bigoted assholes behind EVERY SINGLE ONE of these cases.
But you know it’s probably impolite for me to point that out.
JMC in the ATL
San Antonio, El Paso, and the Valley and South Gulf are all also majority Democratic. I love living in Austin, but the “blue in a sea of red” applies to many urban areas throughout the country, and it seems kind of typical of Austinite Special Snowflakeness to claim some sort of More Blue Than Thou title.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@stuckinred: And South Carolina. Damn, y’all.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@stuckinred: Man, who writes that blog? Is there an actual name on it?
Bernard
how dare you leave Louisiana and Mississippi out of this competition. Home of David Vitter, David Duke, Mary Landrieu. Haley Barbour, Trent Lott, and a host of others that make your states so blue. lol.
of course, this is quite a “dubious” honor. let the South secede, please!
mai naem
Excuse me, but you forgot Floriduh who just voted for a true crook to become the governator. Yeah, sure ,we have a governator whose brain freezes during a major debate but at least she didn’t settle up with the feds over the largest medicare fraud case evah!!!! Also too MIssissippi.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Obama had this one built in D.C. right after he was elected!
Seriously, I may have to incorporate the basilica into my Fuck with a Tourist campaign.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@Bernard: David Vitter was a Rhodes Scholar. So was Bobby Jindal. That terrifies me every time I remember it.
John Bird
As someone who loves North Carolina, the by-a-nose defeat of Etheridge was bizarre and frightening in a year that overwhelmingly favored incumbents on the federal level in NC. (The “historical” Republican takeover of the legislature wasn’t even surprising — bound to happen sooner or later.)
The best-known commercial from the House race was Etheridge’s opponent’s ad about the “Ground Zero Mosque”, not an issue immediately before the review of the U.S. House of Representatives or the State of North Carolina.
Etheridge and Representative-elect Ellmers actually had the same media-retarded position on the issue. Oh, well.
ricky
@FlipYrWhig: I thought Luz was the whacky Benedict daughter who left all the oil to Jett Rink.
ricky
@JMC in the ATL:
Son, three of the four Texas places you mentioned just elected Republicans to Congress over Hispanic Democrats.
Gemina13
Phoenix has a growing Democratic base, but the Birchers have been living here for decades. It’ll take something along the lines of the hantavirus to get rid of them.
I’m completely unsurprised by all this. I’m just shocked that Joe Arpaio didn’t show up with deputies to harass the workers for their identification.
urbanmeemaw
Sorry. Kentucky wins. Think McConnell, Bunning, and now Rand Man. Stupid, evil people.
jon
Please, can we just not compete in this? How about a race to be better? I know that’s hard, which makes it unAmerican, but it is the kind of thing that got our country to this great place where we have to figure out how to squander our riches.
caune
I live in Phoenix and have 2 mosques within biking distance of my house and another about 8 miles away. I’ve never heard anyone utter a word, especially a negative word, about them……but I do live in the “minority” section on the south side where we all just get along ;)
PWL
If we’re really this stupid and chicken-hearted, how did we get to be the Most Powerful Nation In The World?