I am so long past sick of this sheeshe.  This is America, this is not the way it works.

Newt Gingrich is the latest Republican to speak out against the Muslim community center  planned for near Ground Zero, arguing on his Web site that New York should ban the lower Manhattan mosque "so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia."



www.politicsdaily.com/2010/07/21/newt-gingrich-no-ground-zero-mosque-until-saudis-allow-churches/

I am so long past sick of this sheeshe.  This is America, this is not the way it works.

Newt Gingrich is the latest Republican to speak out against the Muslim community center  planned for near Ground Zero, arguing on his Web site that New York should ban the lower Manhattan mosque "so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia."



www.politicsdaily.com/2010/07/21/newt-gingrich-no-ground-zero-mosque-until-saudis-allow-churches/


Not surprising coming from Newt the toot

Dumb.  Gingrich is playing on people's emotions.  You can't ban a mosque strictly on religious grounds.  It would never stand up in court.  Newt knows that.  And that's just it.  As Danoota points it, this is America.  This is not Saudi Arabia.  The U.S. Constitution under the First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion.  Not so in Saudi Arabia. 

The Right is fond of saying, "The First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.*  The Muslims have a right to establish the Cordoba mosque and Newt has the right NOT to go there if he doesn't like it. 

It was my idea in the first place to build a mosque on top of the Freedom Tower.  What better way to discourage another 9/11?
8)

* I guess this only applies to Christians and the good kind of Jews.

+1 to Newt.

Ant

It was my idea in the first place to build a mosque on top of the Freedom Tower.  What better way to discourage another 9/11?
8)


Build a BBQ smoker out of the meteorite fragment inside the Kaaba and start serving pulled pork out of it.  Because if you can do that, the Muslims will have either gained a sense of humor about the whole religion thing or have truly come to accept peace through submission.  But then, that's why I'm not in the diplomatic corps. :)

Snark aside, I like Trump's suggestion for the WTC:  build them exactly as they were before, but one foot taller, as a demonstration that we can build 'em back faster than they can knock 'em down.  

And more importantly, to show the fanatics that just as they're willing to keep killing Westerners (and killing moderate Muslims) until the civilized world gets tired of it and goes home, the civilized world is just as fanatical about building skyscrapers, airplanes, and high-speed pornography distribution networks until the world's fanatics get tired of blowing 'em up.

It's easier to destroy than to create.  Given the choice of winning by destroying them, or winning by creating stuff faster than they can blow it up, I prefer the latter.  Pulled pork is awesome, but it's not exactly gonna earn us the full 10 out of 10 for style that we'd need if we were going for a flawless victory.

I would also suggest the Muslims build a HUGE cultural center in McLean, VA.  Why McLean?  Because Newt lives there.  I mean, if he wants to be childish about it!
::)

Snark aside, I like Trump's suggestion for the WTC:  build them exactly as they were before, but one foot taller, as a demonstration that we can build 'em back faster than they can knock 'em down.  




...and Trump can have his office on the top floor.  I would bet that wouldn't happen.  They would build it to thumb their noses, and all of the sudden the mail room people would be given the choicest view of the city, the equivalent of a bullet proof vest for the big talkers. 

...and Trump can have his office on the top floor.   


Trump can jump from the top floor!
:)

I know a Palestinian lady who's a Christian and she too thinks that having a Mosque at Times Square is wrong!

Tell Newt to go to Saudi Arabia and bring some nails, a hammer,a drills, several 2 by 4s, and start building a Church or synagogue in Saudi Arabia. That should go over quite well.

I don't really want them building a mosque near Ground Zero either, to be honest. It just doesn't seem right.

I don't really want them building a mosque near Ground Zero either, to be honest. It just doesn't seem right.


The massacres on 9/11 were NOT acts of Islam.  They were acts of terrorism.  IMO.

A shrine to terrorists at Ground Zero would not seem right to me.
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/14/nono.gif

People should really look into the details of this before jumping all over the place. For one thing, this mosque will NOT be AT Ground Zero-it is actually a few blocks away. It is also dates back to the 1850s-much older than the World Trade Center. Even though they will hold prayers there, it is more of a community center. So all of you who do not want a mosque at Ground Zero, let me ask you this question. How big should a "no mosque zone" be? A mile? All of Lower Manhattan? How about All of New York City or New York State? I think you get my point.


http://www.blogher.com/park-51-if-you-build-it-they-will-learn

This is the right spewing their fears and hate once again. And once again, people are buying into it.



Cat

People should really look into the details of this before jumping all over the place. For one thing, this mosque will NOT be AT Ground Zero-it is actually a few blocks away. It is also dates back to the 1850s-much older than the World Trade Center. Even though they will hold prayers there, it is more of a community center. So all of you who do not want a mosque at Ground Zero, let me ask you this question. How big should a "no mosque zone" be? A mile? All of Lower Manhattan? How about All of New York City or New York State? I think you get my point.


http://www.blogher.com/park-51-if-you-build-it-they-will-learn

This is the right spewing their fears and hate once again. And once again, people are buying into it.



Cat


Big Ditto

I don't see these same people calling to ban Catholic Churches from being near schools, ask an abused child what the sight of a priest collar feels like.  I don't see them equating the KKK with Christianity, even though they call themselves Christian Knights.(KKK=Koloreds Kikes and Katholics), and asking for the removal of Christian churches.  This stuff is vile, it's small minded, and it is buying into racism.  It's just stupid.

(KKK=Koloreds Kikes and Katholics)

;D

I remember that one!  I remember, "The cops, the courts, and the Ku Klux Klan!  All a part of the bosses' plan!"

We used to call the Boston Globe "The Bosses' Globe"!  Adolescent Lefty stuff.

"The Challenge" had two boilplate headlines:

WORKER MUST UNITE TO
SMASH
RACIST BOSSES' FASCISM!

or

WORKERS MUST UNITE TO
SMASH
FASCIST BOSSES' RACISM!

Not too difficult to run a lefty rag.  Now it's even easier.  You can have your lefty website.  As long as you have a policy of anonymity for letters to the editorials and columnists, you don't have to let it slip that the paper is written by the same five neurotic grad students every issue!

Just remember:


WORKER MUST UNITE TO
SMASH
RACIST BOSSES' FASCISM!

or

WORKERS MUST UNITE TO
SMASH
FASCIST BOSSES' RACISM!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/10/znaika.gif

+1 to Newt.

Ant



Agreed actually...  #uck Saudi Arabia.

Agreed actually...   #uck Saudi Arabia.


Thusly we become what we despise.

Thusly we become what we despise.


Not really...  For example, we don't punish non-Christians for walking around in holy places that are important to Christianity.  We don't treat women like dirt.  We don't have religious police or neglect to prosecute Christian terrorists.

We'd have to fall pretty far to become like them.

Not really...  For example, we don't punish non-Christians for walking around in holy places that are important to Christianity.  We don't treat women like dirt.  We don't have religious police or neglect to prosecute Christian terrorists.

We'd have to fall pretty far to become like them.


My point exactly.  We enjoy freedoms Saudi-Arabians don't because our Constitution requires freedom of religion.  No freedom of religion in Saudi Arabia. 

We have wingnuts on the Christian Right who advocate theocracy in America, but they don't get very far because we believe in separation of church and state.  In the Wahabist culture, there IS no CONCEPT of the separation of church and state. 

However, if we condemn them for what they believe, we commit the same sin of which we say they are guilty. 

Our Constitution was written for a republic, not an empire.  We had just fought a war to win independence from an empire.  It certainly doesn't prescribe meddling in foreign cultures.  However, back in their day oil meant lamp oil and lamp oil came from a whale, which we could fish for from New Bedford.  Our forefathers didn't expect policy foreign or domestic would be affected  by a bunch of Bedouin chiefs from Arabia!
;D

Not really...  For example, we don't punish non-Christians for walking around in holy places that are important to Christianity.  We don't treat women like dirt.  We don't have religious police or neglect to prosecute Christian terrorists.

We'd have to fall pretty far to become like them.




It wasn't so long ago so let's not be so holier than thou. 

To ascribe this behavior, and to take this attitude, towards all Muslims is a misguided at best.  I find it very akin to the anti-Catholicism, anti-Minority, anti-Women, anti-Jewish, anti-homosexual attitudes that persist today that were the norm up until the sixties. 

My point exactly.  We enjoy freedoms Saudi-Arabians don't because our Constitution requires freedom of religion.  No freedom of religion in Saudi Arabia. 

We have wingnuts on the Christian Right who advocate theocracy in America, but they don't get very far because we believe in separation of church and state.  In the Wahabist culture, there IS no CONCEPT of the separation of church and state. 

However, if we condemn them for what they believe, we commit the same sin of which we say they are guilty. 

Our Constitution was written for a republic, not an empire.  We had just fought a war to win independence from an empire.  It certainly doesn't prescribe meddling in foreign cultures.  However, back in their day oil meant lamp oil and lamp oil came from a whale, which we could fish for from New Bedford.  Our forefathers didn't expect policy foreign or domestic would be affected  by a bunch of Bedouin chiefs from Arabia!
;D





It wasn't so long ago so let's not be so holier than thou. 

To ascribe this behavior, and to take this attitude, towards all Muslims is a misguided at best.  I find it very akin to the anti-Catholicism, anti-Minority, anti-Women, anti-Jewish, anti-homosexual attitudes that persist today that were the norm up until the sixties. 




http://www.thesmilies.com/smilies/happy/applause.gif




Cat

It wasn't so long ago so let's not be so holier than thou.  

To ascribe this behavior, and to take this attitude, towards all Muslims is a misguided at best.  I find it very akin to the anti-Catholicism, anti-Minority, anti-Women, anti-Jewish, anti-homosexual attitudes that persist today that were the norm up until the sixties.  


Oh, the poor folks hate the rich folks,
And the rich folks hate the poor folks.
All of my folks hate all of your folks,
It's American as apple pie.

-- Tom Lehrer
("National Brotherhood Week")
;)

Oh, the poor folks hate the rich folks,
And the rich folks hate the poor folks.
All of my folks hate all of your folks,
It's American as apple pie.

-- Tom Lehrer
("National Brotherhood Week")
;)


Oh, MaxwellSmart, always harping on class war when this is a thread about religious war.  On to the next verse!

"Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics,
And the Catholics hate the Protestants,
And the Hindus hate the Muslims,
And everybody hates the Jews!"
-- Still Tom Lehrer, National Brotherhood Week.

(Any black or hispanic folks here, y'all missed the first verse, so we'll wait 'till it comes around on the piano again ... :)

Oh, MaxwellSmart, always harping on class war when this is a thread about religious war.  On to the next verse!

"Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics,
And the Catholics hate the Protestants,
And the Hindus hate the Muslims,
And everybody hates the Jews!"
-- Still Tom Lehrer, National Brotherhood Week.

(Any black or hispanic folks here, y'all missed the first verse, so we'll wait 'till it comes around on the piano again ... :)


I chose the other verse because of "It's American as apple pie."  It used be that everybody hated the Jews.  That goes back to Lehrer's childhood.  The bad Jews in America are no longer referred to as "The Jews," instead they're called "The New York Times" and "Hollywood elites."  The good Jews are gung-ho militaristic and they're all about how great Israel is.
::)

Sorry to be provocative here...

I chose the other verse because of "It's American as apple pie."  It used be that everybody hated the Jews.  That goes back to Lehrer's childhood.  The bad Jews in America are no longer referred to as "The Jews," instead they're called "The New York Times" and "Hollywood elites."  The good Jews are gung-ho militaristic and they're all about how great Israel is.
::)

Sorry to be provocative here...


Ditto.... without the sorry part.

It wasn't so long ago so let's not be so holier than thou. 

To ascribe this behavior, and to take this attitude, towards all Muslims is a misguided at best.  I find it very akin to the anti-Catholicism, anti-Minority, anti-Women, anti-Jewish, anti-homosexual attitudes that persist today that were the norm up until the sixties. 


I'd rather take that risk than have fundamentalist Muslims use the placement of this mosque as a rallying tool.

My point exactly.  We enjoy freedoms Saudi-Arabians don't because our Constitution requires freedom of religion.  No freedom of religion in Saudi Arabia. 

We have wingnuts on the Christian Right who advocate theocracy in America, but they don't get very far because we believe in separation of church and state.  In the Wahabist culture, there IS no CONCEPT of the separation of church and state. 

However, if we condemn them for what they believe, we commit the same sin of which we say they are guilty. 

Uh... no...  We SHOULD condemn Wahhabists for what they believe.  I'm not saying we should ban them from living here, but we should condemn their practices toward women and their utter intolerance of homosexuals, or any non-Muslim for that matter.  Deciding on whether or not a mosque can be placed at Ground Zero is a local matter.  If the city votes against it, they just have to deal with that.  This isn't a matter of the freedom of religion -- it's a matter of city ordinances.

I'm not saying all Muslims are bad, but the fundamentalists are.  Most Christian fundamentalists deserve the same condemnation as well.  Any fundamentalists should be condemned, to be honest, because the last thing America needs is more religious nuts.

Our Constitution was written for a republic, not an empire.  We had just fought a war to win independence from an empire.  It certainly doesn't prescribe meddling in foreign cultures.  However, back in their day oil meant lamp oil and lamp oil came from a whale, which we could fish for from New Bedford.  Our forefathers didn't expect policy foreign or domestic would be affected  by a bunch of Bedouin chiefs from Arabia!
;D


I agree, but "foreign cultures" have been meddling here for a while now.  Admittedly, most of us are descended from foreign meddlers, but we would be wise to learn from what the original natives experienced by keeping a wary eye towards foreign fundamentalists.

I'd rather take that risk than have fundamentalist Muslims use the placement of this mosque as a rallying tool.


The building is currently an Islamic prayer center, has been for quite a while and has been used as such.  The only difference is they are tearing down the building and putting up a new one. Sooooo......

The building is currently an Islamic prayer center, has been for quite a while and has been used as such.  The only difference is they are tearing down the building and putting up a new one. Sooooo......


From what I understand, there was a Greek Orthodox Church in place beforehand.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/08/nine-years-later-church-at-ground-zero-still-not-rebuilt-but-mad-rush-to-build-islamic-supremacist-m.html

I agree, but "foreign cultures" have been meddling here for a while now.  Admittedly, most of us are descended from foreign meddlers, but we would be wise to learn from what the original natives experienced by keeping a wary eye towards foreign fundamentalists.


My ancestors, the Massachusetts Puritans were religious fundamentalists.  They came over to the New World from England via Holland.  They're the ones that banned Christmas.  What a barrel of laughs they were.  They wanted freedom of religion in order to make religion less free.  A thrifty eye, a laconic manner, and stoic attitude are all stereotypical "Yankee" attributes.  They are fading a way as the culture deteriorates, but you still find them among the older generation in rural New England.  It was without social rank.  "He doesn't talk much, he nods, gives gestures.  If he speaks, he considers his statements carefully and uses an economy of words to express them."  That could apply to an old lobster fisherman from Maine or it my grandfather, a native Western Mass., who went to medical school at Penn.  Both my grandfather, a highly-educated man from an upper middle class background and the fisherman with little education and just the hopes of another paycheck both shared these inherited traits of character.  Both were descended from Puritans.

I'm actually more reserved and less physically demonstrative than all but a few types of Americans -- and all of them have heavy-duty Protestantism in their ancestry!
8)

From what I understand, there was a Greek Orthodox Church in place beforehand.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/08/nine-years-later-church-at-ground-zero-still-not-rebuilt-but-mad-rush-to-build-islamic-supremacist-m.html


No, that was a different building, on the other side of the WTC.  Having been to the area many, many, many, times I can say, unequivocally, that, unless you go up in a trade center building at least, maybe 15 stories or so, you won't be able to see the mosque, and if you do you probably will say "What is that new building over there?".  You will not be able to see it, at all, walking around the WTC area unless you are on the street on which it is located, which is a couple of blocks away.  They keep saying it is being built ON or AT ground zero, it isn't, it is two blocks away.  Two New York blocks away.

Two New York blocks away.


Exactamundo!!!

If the Islamophobic right-wing agitators hadn't started a major media whining campaign about the mosque building, nobody else would notice, let alone care.  IF they every get the Freedom Tower built, it's not as if businesses and tourists are going to boycott it because there's a mosque in Manhattan!

A lot of this hate campaign is driven by Pat Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice.  I wish that man would just FADE AWAY!
>:(

No, that was a different building, on the other side of the WTC.  Having been to the area many, many, many, times I can say, unequivocally, that, unless you go up in a trade center building at least, maybe 15 stories or so, you won't be able to see the mosque, and if you do you probably will say "What is that new building over there?".  You will not be able to see it, at all, walking around the WTC area unless you are on the street on which it is located, which is a couple of blocks away.  They keep saying it is being built ON or AT ground zero, it isn't, it is two blocks away.  Two New York blocks away.


Very well, I will concede on this matter then.

Admittedly, it would most likely result in a legal mess if they did bar the construction of this mosque anyway.