[We have posted many articles on the mosque and ground zero. This one is by far the best.]
Said Mayor Michael Bloomberg to New Yorkers.
BY William Kristol, WEEKLY STANDARD
Last Tuesday, standing in front of the Statue of Liberty, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg spoke on the subject of the proposed mosque at Ground Zero. His remarks will be read with curiosity by future generations of Americans, who will look back in astonishment at the self-deluding pieties and self-destructive dogmas that are held onto, at once smugly and desperately, by today’s liberal elites. Our liberation from those dogmas, and from those elites, is underway across the nation. But it’s worth taking a look at Bloomberg’s speech, if only to remind us of what we need to ascend from so our descendants can look back with curiosity at the ethos to which we did not succumb.
As is the way of contemporary liberals, Bloomberg spoke at a very high level of abstraction. He appealed to the principle of religious toleration, while never mentioning the actual imam who is responsible for and would control the planned Ground Zero mosque. To name Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf might invite a consideration of his background, funding, and intentions. Do Rauf and his backers believe in the principles underlying the “inspiring symbol of liberty” that greets immigrants to the United States and before which Bloomberg stood? Bloomberg didn’t say. It apparently doesn’t matter. Toleration means asking nothing, criticizing nothing, saying nothing, about whom or what one is tolerating. This is the Sergeant Schultz standard of toleration: I know nothing.
Knowing nothing, or wishing to know nothing, about the mosque, Bloomberg took it upon himself to lecture his fellow New Yorkers on their obligation to be true to “the best part of ourselves.” That part is apparently the part of us that allows at once for intellectual obfuscation and moral preening. Bloomberg never acknowledged that sane and tolerant people might object to a 15-story Islamic community center and mosque right next to Ground Zero. He could not be bothered to take seriously the reservations and objections of a clear majority of his constituents. “In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists—and we should not stand for that.” So public sentiment be damned. There’s nothing to be learned from the ignorant and bigoted residents of New York.
Instead, Bloomberg lectured: “On September 11, 2001, thousands of first responders heroically rushed to the scene and saved tens of thousands of lives. More than 400 of those first responders did not make it out alive. In rushing into those burning buildings, not one of them asked ‘What God do you pray to?’ ‘What beliefs do you hold?’?” True, certainly true. But Bloomberg did not permit himself to ask what vision of god, what set of beliefs, inspired those who set those buildings aflame. Bloomberg said that it was our “spirit of openness and acceptance that was attacked on 9/11.” But attacked by whom? Bloomberg wouldn’t say.
In fact, he denied the propriety of asking such a question. It would have been one thing—a more defensible thing—if Bloomberg had argued that there was little that could be done legally to stop the mosque and that New Yorkers should therefore make the best of a bad situation. But that was not his message. Instead, Bloomberg came to the Statue of Liberty not simply to accept the mosque, but to praise it: “Of course, it is fair to ask the organizers of the mosque to show some special sensitivity to the situation—and in fact, their plan envisions reaching beyond their walls and building an interfaith community. By doing so, it is my hope that the mosque will help to bring our City even closer together. .??.??. I expect the community center and mosque will add to the life and vitality of the neighborhood and the entire City.”
But have the real, existing organizers of the mosque shown much sensitivity to other New Yorkers? The answer is no—but if you’re a contemporary liberal, you don’t get into the actual, existing facts in order to make a judgment. You govern on the basis of what the organizers’ “plan” nominally “envisions,” you appeal to a hope and expectation that even Bloomberg can’t really believe in. But it allows him to avoid coming to grips with what is really happening and what lies behind the popular sentiment of disgust, even revulsion.
The conclusion of Bloomberg’s speech was odd: “Political controversies come and go, but our values and our traditions endure—and there is no neighborhood in this City that is off limits to God’s love and mercy, as the religious leaders here with us can attest.” Do the rest of us need Bloomberg’s hand-picked religious leaders to tell us that there are no limits to God’s love and mercy? We do doubt that encouraging this mosque to be built is an appropriate expression of respect for God’s love and mercy for those who were killed almost nine years ago. And we would note that no expression of New Yorkers’ love and gratitude for the victims of September 11 has yet been built at the site of Ground Zero during Mayor Bloomberg’s tenure.
It is likely, we believe, that civic pressure will cause the mosque to be moved elsewhere—Bloomberg’s lecture notwithstanding. But if Bloomberg were to have his way, it’s worth noting that he would presumably attend a dedication of Feisal Abdul Rauf’s mosque at Ground Zero before he would attend a dedication of a proper memorial to those who died there.
Contemporary liberalism means building a mosque rather than a memorial at Ground Zero—and telling your fellow citizens to shut up about it.
Interesting comments. 🙂
What Constitutes a Religion for First Amendment Purposes?
Narvey is always on the liberal side of any issue but he cloaks his most strident liberal views in so many words that when challenged he resorts to the cowards tactic of claiming being misquoted or taken out of context or we are misreading his intent. Essentially Narvey and hophpless are two birds of a feather except only one of them is intellectually honest.
That’s because you are a leftist liberal sometimes donning the garb of a centrist.
Proven terrorist? What the fuck do you mean by proven terrorist Lawyer? Do you need to catch them with bombs in the act? Or does this piece of crap support terrorists by word or deed? Word and deed support? With Rauf a case can be made of support in word and deed terrorist organizations and in all probability receiving funding from those who purvey world terror.
Narvey is a classic fence sitter. His forte is to rehash to death that which has already been stated and cops out when it comes to taking a personal stand on any controversial issue. Narvey will argue the opposing point of view but seldom personally advocates the conclusions based on his own arguments.
While I agree some view the issue of the Community Center & Mosque as one of sensitivities to the victims of Islamic terrorism the non Muslim supporters of the Musim Center are for the most part Liberal atheists who oppose Christianity and Judaism but support Muslim rights and those on the right who oppose anything smacking of Islam. One side uses 1st amendment and the other feigned sensitivities.
Where does Narvey stand on this issue??? For or against?
The rest as is Narvey’s trademark is a restating of ea. sides positions as he understands them to be. As if we need to be reminded.
Narvey has no personal opinions, at least no personal opinions he is willing to commit to print. I agree his non personal opinions are wholly is own.
Hophmi, apart from repeating some of your past rhetoric, you seem to be coming around with a few of your points. Maybe we can get into a decent discussion.
1st off Hophmi, does it really matter whether you or Yamit started the name calling. You engaged in it.
Secondly, if you follow this blog, you will see that I am on no one’s side but my own. You will also know that independent thinking sometimes finds me on the outs with fellow bloggers. I have only one side and that is mine. Sometimes it accords with others’ views and sometimes not.
Thirdly, my suggesting you were part of the morally bankrupt and intellectually coward extremist left wing camp was because I kept telling you exactly what facts and realities I was basing my points on and yet you continued to mis-state them in response. Your then hurling accusations at me that were unwarranted did not help my patience with you either.
Let me take one more stab and see how you do.
I told you at the outset that this issue is being defined much less by law. Rather it is being defined far more in the context of sensabilities and sensitivities on both sides of the issues.
Those for the mosque raise the banner of freedom of religion. It is not really a freedom of religion issue however. Niether the law nor the constitution provides that one can practice their religion how they want and where they want, though in Western tolerant societies, that is usually the case.
Sometimes however, there is an exception. This cordoba house project as regards the site chosen is one of those exceptions.
Those opposed are not opposed to all Muslims and all mosques as you suggested. Their opposition is not to the Cordoba project mosque, but rather only the site chosen for the reasons you are well aware of. That makes this issue the exception, I spoke of, but again neither the law nor the constitution addresses the issues, save that arguments are advanced by those in favor that it is in the spirit of the law that religions can build their mosques, churches and synagoges wherever they want. Those opposed contend the spirit of the law does not extend that far.
The concerns by the opposition with Imam Rauf are not because he is a proven terrorist or supporter of terrorism. Rather his words give rise to suspicions as to whether he is as sincere and of noble intention as he makes himself out to be.
Those for and against the site of the Cordoba project mosque, does not neatly line up with left and liberal on one side and conservative and right wing on the other.
The issues for both sides are visceral. For those in favour, they are moved by cherished ideals based not on law, constitution, multicultural values, tolerance and freedom of speech and religion, but rather their interpretation of them. Their arguments are passionate and highly emotive, just as yours are.
For those opposed, visceral emotions are engendered by painful memories of 9/11, by awareness that many Muslim extremists try to disguise their true agenda by blending into the Muslim community at large and speaking softly until the time comes to strike, by awareness of Muslim terrorism and terrorist plots against America and the like.
Those in favour of the Cordoba project have called those opposed bigots. There may be a few in the crowd, but you know as well as I that one cannot fairly characterize a group by a few bad apples.
By the same token those in favor of the mosque have taken bigoted stances against the opponents, when they seek to trivialize honest, sincere and justified concerns of those opposed, show no tolerance for their views, sensitivities and sensibilities and call them bigots.
I find those in favor of the Cordoba project at the site chosen and their giving the benefit of the doubt to Rauf and his group without the least bit of circumspection to check him out more carefully, while disrespecting and being intolerant of the views of those opposed, is absolutely shameful.
What has emerged is a heated debate that is getting hotter where neither side are debating in the same context or perspective when it comes to justifying their views.
Its very tough to achieve a settled synthesis, when neither side moves from their respective thesis and anti-thesis sides.
“In keeping with your nutbar leftwing comrades, you are resorting to calling the opponents of the site of the Cordoba project, evil. Earlier you claimed those who disagree with you are all right wing and bigoted. ”
Oh please. Don’t talk to me about ad hominem attacks. Yamit accused the left of lining up with evil and I responded. Your side made the accusation first. I don’t believe opponents of the mosque are evil. I believe their position in bigoted and that most of the activism comes from the right.
“How taken you are by Imam Rauf’s statement that the Cordoba project at the site chosen will help to build bridges of mutual understanding and respect and heal relations between Muslims and non-Muslim Americans. ”
Since, as your token dissident Muslim said, he’s known for his pluralism, I see no reason not to believe that those are his goals.
“How blind you are to the fact that Rauf’s pushing forward with his project, is having the exact opposite effect.”
Sure. First you wrap yourself in the cloak of some 9/11 families. Then you fan the flames. Then you argue that it’s his fault that people are upset.
“How intolerant and suspicious you are of anyone opposed to the site of the Cordoba project or concerned with Rauf’s earlier referenced words.”
I’m not intolerant. I’m calling it like it is. And I don’t believe the First Amendment should be suspended because its exercise might offend a few sensibilities.
“How unbalanced you are to say that while Rauf and Muslims have a right to express offensive words to Americans, Americans have no right to take offence and raise concerns with those words and with the integrity and sincerity of Rauf and others who expressed those words. ”
I NEVER said that Americans have no right to take offense or raise concerns. You’re going to have to learn to actual listen to what people say rather than refracting it through your own political prejudices. Americans have a perfect right to take offense and raise concerns. And I have a perfect right to criticize those sentiments if I want to. What people cannot do is encroach on the First Amendment rights of others and ask government to favor religions over one another. There are places for peoples to enact laws legislating speech they find objectionable. Europe offers several option. Just not America.
“Your refusal to honestly ground your arguments on the facts and realities as they are and your engaging in mendacious hominem attacks on those who disagree with you, is typical of the extreme and looney left wing’s moral bankruptcy and intellectual cowardice, which applies four square to you Hophmi.”
Yeah, yeah, from Mr. stop-the-ad-hominem. Grow up, Bill. No one is throwing ad hominem attacks at you, and you’re not fooling anyone. It is your position that suffers from moral bankruptcy and intellectual integrity here. You’re the one who favors suspending the First Amendment in order to cater to a few “sensitivities and sensibilities.” You’re the one who distorts the positions of those with whom you disagree. You’re the one standing in a room full of fellow travelers telling those you disagree with to “go away.”
Hophmi, still here? By your last offering, you put yourself squarely in the leftwing camp or to be more accurate into the extremist and looney left wing camp.
In keeping with your nutbar leftwing comrades, you are resorting to calling the opponents of the site of the Cordoba project, evil. Earlier you claimed those who disagree with you are all right wing and bigoted.
So typical of your leftist ilk, you invariably use mendacious ad hominem attacks as a substitute for reasoned discussion and debate grounded on facts and reality and in a word truth.
Obviously you can’t handle the truth.
The cloak of moral superiority that you have wrapped yourself in, reminds me of the fairly tale, the Emporer’s New Clothes.
You are a champion of tolerance, understanding and sympathetic for Imam Rauf’s statements that America brought 9/11 on herself and that he seeks to have Sharia law in America.
How taken you are by Imam Rauf’s statement that the Cordoba project at the site chosen will help to build bridges of mutual understanding and respect and heal relations between Muslims and non-Muslim Americans.
How blind you are to the fact that Rauf’s pushing forward with his project, is having the exact opposite effect.
How intolerant and suspicious you are of anyone opposed to the site of the Cordoba project or concerned with Rauf’s earlier referenced words.
How unbalanced you are to say that while Rauf and Muslims have a right to express offensive words to Americans, Americans have no right to take offence and raise concerns with those words and with the integrity and sincerity of Rauf and others who expressed those words.
Your refusal to honestly ground your arguments on the facts and realities as they are and your engaging in mendacious hominem attacks on those who disagree with you, is typical of the extreme and looney left wing’s moral bankruptcy and intellectual cowardice, which applies four square to you Hophmi.
If you ever manage to get real and right with the world and can work up the courage to handle facts, realities and truth, come back and we can have meaningful debate.
Until then, get lost and stay lost.
Freedoms, like everything, are highly destructive and almost useless at the margins. A freedom of entertainment in the privacy of one’s home needs not extend to the marginal freedom of homosexual “marriage.” The Bible is not overly restrictive: for example, it accepts non-Jewish prostitution matter-of-factly, such as in the Judah and Tamar episode. Pornography is very different from prostitution in its reach: prostitutes are very few, and they don’t substantially degrade public morality; pornography, on the other hand, is ubiquitous.
Restrictions on marginal freedoms are not necessarily detrimental to societal evolution. The evolution of morals is questionable in the first place; prostitution is a fringe activity now as four thousand years ago. All societies criminalize some behavior; revolutionaries seek to overcome the prohibitions. Imagine a society which allows everything: it would soon be ruined by mad social experimentation. It is right for societies to erect entry barriers to new ideas and ostensibly new values: their adherents have to overcome the initial hostility, even if illegally, and convince the majority that their ideas are viable. In such a way, viable ideas proliferate eventually, while the wrong ideas are filtered out. One example is the anti-slavery movement, which was illegal originally but convinced most people in time. Such incremental, slow-paced evolution might be abominable to social reformers, but the only alternative would be allowing everything, down to Nazi groupings, KKK gatherings, and drug addiction. If it is legal to ban racism, a political theory, then how much more legal should it be to ban pornography?
Libertarians counter that since “one man’s freedom to swing his fist ends at the tip of another man’s nose,” there will always be ample opportunity to restrict harmful freedoms. That is not so at least because in the real life the noses are not clear-cut. Besides, the constant swinging of fists pushes the noses back and back. And more often than not, the nose’s owner has no time to react. We may not like the spread of pornography, but by now it is so well ensconced in liberal society that driving it back seems impossible.
A typical libertarian argument is that a country which suppresses some expression will eventually suppress much wider expression, even including political speech. That is nonsense. Societies constantly balance opposing objectives. That’s what the system of checks and balances is for. The libertarian argument can be applied to the government: every government tends to assume the most powers, so shall we dismantle the governments? No, but we keep them in check, theoretically, with judicial review. Contrary to the argument, it is the very equating of freedoms that dilutes them.
America enjoyed excellent freedom of political expression for two centuries when pornography was prohibited. After pornography became protected under the same freedom of expression statute as political speech, both of them became censored simultaneously.
The media and web hosting providers, who refuse publicity to child porn, also refuse publicity to “hate speech” and other controversial political expression. That is so simple: if pornography and political speech are both “expression” in the constitutional sense, if both of them enjoy the same First Amendment protection, then logically the same restrictions should apply for both. Indeed, it would be very non-liberal to censor one type of expression (porn) but not the other (political speech). Here we see a typical sophistic problem: expanding the term’s meaning undermines it. Once freedom of expression is construed to cover pornography, and while some restrictions on pornography are universally accepted, the same restrictions are applied to any expression.
The liberals who fought for legitimizing pornography in the 1960s, sowed the seeds of the current leftist support and defense of Islam and Muslims.
“This is just the latest manifestation of the hysterical left lining up with evil and using legal argument as a club.”
More like the latest example of the left lining up against evil using a legal argument to preserve the First Amendment.
You are right it is anti Muslim, but in view of the facts and truth; The opposition has the facts if not the Law on their side in opposing the mosque. That said, The left doesn’t care about ends; they mostly enjoy the means. Note how the Western leftists changed their sympathies from Nazis to Communists to Vietnamese to Arab Muslims to endangered species. The only thing common among those attachments is the desire to change the existing order of things, and preside over the introduction of a new one. Leftism is about power, and power is best demonstrated by repression. This is just the latest manifestation of the hysterical left lining up with evil and using legal argument as a club.
“Hophmi, now you are disingenuous. Did you even listen to what Raheel Raza stated?”
What, you mean the token dissident Muslim that you put on to support your bigoted position? I watched it. Don’t bother sending me an Ayaan Hirst Ali video that I’m sure you have lined up next.
Did you hear the part about how Imam Rauf is known as a “pluralistic visionary man?” Maybe you missed that part, since it eviscerates your attempts to cast him as some sort of radical.
I’m amazed at this sudden conservative concern for “sensitivity.” Obviously, you don’t see the irony and utter hypocrisy of criticizing political correctness on the one hand (which O’Reilly says is the basis for the mayor unpopular, politically damaging stance on this issue) and calling for sensitivity on the other. A position cannot be politically correct when it is politically damaging.
“Insisting that the opposition to the Cordoba Project is based on a nationwide fear of Muslims, that anti-Muslim sentiments are being whipped up by the right, that opposition nationwide to the Cordoba project is based on a fear of all Muslims, an equating of all Muslims to al Qaeda and that opposition is against the existence of all mosques and building new ones in America, flies in the face of the facts and reality. ”
Are you missing the fact that there are anti-mosque protests all over the place now?
If this is not about conflating these Muslims with Al-Qaeda Muslims, pray tell what are we supposed to make of those saying that they are offended by the mosque because the 9/11 perpetrators were Muslim, or the more explicit sentiments expressed here that the people building the mosque are the people who “caused the tragedy”? Again I ask: if this is simply about sensitivity and not about fear of Muslims, why the protest? What one irreducible fact is the reason for this opposition? It is the fact that the project is a Muslim one. If this were a Jewish community center, a YMCA, or a clothing store, we would not be having this discussion.
Hophmi, now you are disingenuous. Did you even listen to what Raheel Raza stated?
Insisting that the opposition to the Cordoba Project is based on a nationwide fear of Muslims, that anti-Muslim sentiments are being whipped up by the right, that opposition nationwide to the Cordoba project is based on a fear of all Muslims, an equating of all Muslims to al Qaeda and that opposition is against the existence of all mosques and building new ones in America, flies in the face of the facts and reality.
You are gong to extraordinary lengths to blind yourself to facts and reality that to any objective and rationale observer of this controversy, get in the way of your ideologically contrived perceptions. That willful blindness is what robs your argument of any merit.
Enough already. Go away.
“over 90% of all terrorist act perpetrated in the last 20yrs have been Muslim initiated. That includes America and it includes those caught before they could initiate their terrorist acts, ergo no Muslims no terror. you speak of peaceful Muslims defined as moderates. ”
Agreed. I know that’s your view. It simply doesn’t follow that because some Muslims commit terrorist acts, all Muslims are guilty of them.
“Advocating belief in Sharia Law makes them subversive to American fundamental precepts of legal and civil democratic society. To say otherwise shows you to be both ignorant and arrogant. The arrogance of ignorance.”
Again, it is clear that over the years the Catholic Church has applied Canonical Law to pedophile priests to the detriment of American law. The question is not whether someone professes to follow an alternate legal system. Clergy always profess the follow the laws of their churchs/synagogues/mosques. The question is whether one conforms his actions to American law. I see no evidence that this Imam has not done that.
“Every Muslim in the world rejoiced over 9/11 and other acts of Muslim terror around the world.”
Right. I don’t remember the rejoicing in this country, particularly among the dead Muslims in the WTC.
“Whatever you specious arguments may be re. Judaism and rabbis, Muslims are credited for being responsible for the killing and murder of over 600 million people since the 7th century including tens of millions of other Muslims. It’s part of the belief and creed. Prove me wrong or concede.”
Your assertion, your responsibility to prove it, along with the one about “every Muslim” rejoicing over 9/11.
How many people have Christians killed since the 7th century?
over 90% of all terrorist act perpetrated in the last 20yrs have been Muslim initiated. That includes America and it includes those caught before they could initiate their terrorist acts, ergo no Muslims no terror. you speak of peaceful Muslims defined as moderates. Where are they? Who are they? Giving 1/8 of their donations to charities supporting Muslim terror makes them terrorist supporters. Not publicly condemning acts of Muslim terror makes them complicit and supportive of Muslim terrorist acts.
Advocating belief in Sharia Law makes them subversive to American fundamental precepts of legal and civil democratic society. To say otherwise shows you to be both ignorant and arrogant. The arrogance of ignorance.
Every Muslim in the world rejoiced over 9/11 and other acts of Muslim terror around the world. Whatever you specious arguments may be re. Judaism and rabbis, Muslims are credited for being responsible for the killing and murder of over 600 million people since the 7th century including tens of millions of other Muslims. It’s part of the belief and creed. Prove me wrong or concede.
“Mayor Bloomberg is trying get us to extend that generosity to the very people that caused the tragedy.”
Again, this is the typical view. Rauf and the Muslims who attend his mosque did not cause 9/11. You’re confusing them with Al-Qaeda.
“It is that ideology that so clearly shapes your thinking, which blinds you to the fact that this debate is not about law and freedom of religion as I and others have repeatedly pointed out to you. Your fundamental ideology further makes you, like Imam Rauf and his group of supporters, insenstive and intolerant of the sensibilities of those opposed to the building of the Cordoba project near Ground Zero.”
I guess you guys are being compassionate conservatives.
I have plenty of sympathy for the sensibilities of the 9/11 families, who are not of one mind on this question. Some of them thought it was insensitive to rebuild the Trade Center at all. Are you against rebuilding the Trade Center? There’s certainly no First Amendment problem with stopping that.
Those sensibilities are not a reason to quash the Corboda project.
“Your suggestion however, that opponents of the Cordoba project have conflated moderate Muslims with the perpetrators of 9/11 is facile. There is no such conflation, save in your own mind, necessitated to ensure your arguments fit within your own ideological grasp of reality. The psychological term for allegation against the opposition is called projection.”
That conflation is exactly what is happening, and it is echoed throughout the country. You’re just in denial. People are protesting against the building of mosques nationwide now, and it is because they fear Muslims. That fear stems from 9/11, though it’s being whipped up by the right over the Cordoba project. The argument is that the bombers were Muslims, the bombers went to mosques, and thus we need to stop building mosques. It is an understandable fear. It just happens not to be a basis for stopping the building of a mosque, because there is no evidence that all Muslims are the same.
What will happen, I predict, is that if Muslims are made to feel that they are not part of this society (which is how they’ve been made to feel in Europe), there will definitely be a spike in radicalism.
As far as the term “moderate,” I am using it in the adoption of Western norms sense, not the foreign policy Middle East sense. But mostly, I believe it is relevant that the guy has run a mosque in that neighborhood for close to 30 years and I haven’t heard anything about his being a radical. I also have seen a pattern of modern, law-abiding Muslims smeared by right-wingers over the past few years and this campaign bears resemblence to those; the same people behind the stop-the-mosque campaign are the people who were behind the campaign to shut down the secular Arab-language school (deemed the “Stop-the Madrassa” campaign) in New York City a few years ago.
“What has thus far been revealed however, already raises serious suspicions as to his true nature, intent and agenda”
Besides stating the oft-stated view that American foreign policy played a role in causing 9/11 and stating that he follows the laws of his religion, what exactly are you basing this opinion on?
Kendra, is it your nonsense or mischief that moved you to make a point and raise a question that is not at all responsive to what I wrote?
Giving you the benefit of the doubt that it is neither nonsense nor mischief, but rather a gross misunderstanding of my views, I suggest you carefully read what I wrote and much more carefully this time.
Hophmi,the weakness of your views is revealed by the strength of your ideological convictions, whether they be left wing as Charles suggests or some other bias.
It is that ideology that so clearly shapes your thinking, which blinds you to the fact that this debate is not about law and freedom of religion as I and others have repeatedly pointed out to you. Your fundamental ideology further makes you, like Imam Rauf and his group of supporters, insenstive and intolerant of the sensibilities of those opposed to the building of the Cordoba project near Ground Zero.
Perhaps the point can better be brought home to you by the succinct opinion of Raheel Raza of the Muslim Canadian Congress stated in the following brief you tube video of her appearance on the O’Reilly Factor:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VwL8IqnZ2o&feature=player_embedded
You state:
Fear of Islam may be part of the underlying sensibilities of those opposed to the Cordoba project near Ground Zero. It is not like that fear is unwarranted.
Your suggestion however, that opponents of the Cordoba project have conflated moderate Muslims with the perpetrators of 9/11 is facile. There is no such conflation, save in your own mind, necessitated to ensure your arguments fit within your own ideological grasp of reality. The psychological term for allegation against the opposition is called projection.
As for your suggesting Imam Rauf and his group are moderate, that remains to be seen. That point is quite apart from the issue I have before raised that the descriptor “moderate” is meaningless since it is been used to describe Muslims who are peaceful law abiding Western citizens loyal to their host Western nation and who have adopted Western norms and values to the likes of Mahmood Abbas, head of Fatah who is anything but moderate.
Whether Rauf and his supporters are “moderate” in the vague context you have suggested, will only be seen as more and more of Rauf’s past views and deeds are revealed. What has thus far been revealed however, already raises serious suspicions as to his true nature, intent and agenda. It is looking less and less like he is a “moderate”.
“Despite being shown that Rauf supports Sharia law in the United States, a system antithetical to everything he claims to believe in and hold dear, hopinmybed goes on about the “moderate” imam.”
Again, there are plenty of rabbis in this country who follow Torah law, a system of responsibilities that is completely antithetical to our system of rights, and plenty of priests who follow canonical law, which in recent years has been applied to subvert the laws of this country. Plenty of these people are moderates. But I know you’re predisposed toward believing there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim, so perhaps it’s not worth bothering with you.
Despite being shown that Rauf supports Sharia law in the United States, a system antithetical to everything he claims to believe in and hold dear, hopinmybed goes on about the “moderate” imam. What is it about the left? Do they have a congenital learning disability? Or too much hashish in college?
Well, at least Bill actually attempts an argument. I am not sure how I am “chasing my own tail.”
“This controversial issue is not so much, if at all about the law, constitution and Bill of rights including freedom of religion.”
No, it’s not, because the legal issues are simple and all on the side of the mosque.
“9/11 is still an open wound for most Americans. The opponents are not saying no mosques should be built anywhere. The opposition to this project is saying that the Cordoba project should not be built so close to Ground Zero. There is a huge difference between opposing building any mosque and opposing the location of the mosque.”
Some of the opponents are saying exactly that, but for those who are saying that it simply should go elsewhere, they are claiming that because Al-Qaeda is Islamic, a mosque would be upsetting, as if this mosque had anything to do with Al-Qaeda.
“That difference makes this not an issue of denying freedom of religion, but rather an issue of the opponents of the Cordoba project expecting and demanding from Imam Rauf and his people tolerance and respect for their sensibilities and sensitivities.”
There are always sensibilities and sensitivities. No one doubts that the 9/11 families feel pain. But is that a reason not to build the mosque? Who says they won’t feel the same pain when they pass a mosque in Times Square or on the Upper West Side?
“1. Imam Rauf appears intolerant and insensitive to the sensitivities and sensibilities of the very non-Muslim Americans he expects to build bridges of tolerance, respect and mutual understanding with;”
Frankly, that’s because much of the criticism of the mosque has more to do with anti-Muslim sentiment and politics than it does with 9/11 families.
“Taking into account that 9/11 was committed in the name of Islam, that there have been a number of hienous terrorist attacks against Americans by Muslims who had hidden their true agendas before they struck and that authorities have uncovered and prevented many terrorist and terrorist supporting plots, many of which were hatched in American mosques by Muslims who disguised their true natures and agendas, there is every good reason to be suspicious of Imam Rauf’s true intentions.”
If Rauf had any history of involvement in acts like these, or a history of vocal support for such acts, I would be with you. He does not.
“That Rauf in past has refused to cite Hamas as a terrorist group, has accused Americans of having brought 9/11 on themselves and that he refuses to divulge who his financiers are only adds to suspicions as to whether in stating his intentions and goals as regards the Cordoba project, he is telling the truth. Add to that the fact that Rauf’s statement about building bridges as being his noble intent and goal, raises huge credibility issues since his insistance on pushing forward with the project, is burning those bridges before they are even being built.”
That is politics, not advocacy of violence. Many people believe that American foreign policy played a role in causing the sentiments that led to 9/11. And many believe that defining Hamas as a terrorist group is, at least at this point, a complicated question since it has a political wing. I don’t share these opinions. But we don’t people who express them of their First Amendment rights for holding them. Rauf has a long record as a Imam. I’ve not heard of any violence or radicalism coming from his mosque.
“Opponents of the Cordoba project at the chosen site have every reason to be circumspect and demand answers to the questions they pose. They also in the circumstances have every right to oppose this project, not only pursuant to their own freedom of speech, but their understandable right to have their sensibilities and sensitivies respected and tolerated.”
No one would argue that those opposed to the mosque have the right to oppose it or to be understood. But at the core of a great deal of that opposition is fear of Islam and the unfair conflation of someone who is essentially a moderate with the people who actually perpetrated 9/11.
Narvey: In view of the many thousands of lives that have been badly damaged by clerical abuse of children, would you be in favor of constructing a Roman Catholic church next to a boys’ elementary school?. here we are not discussing sensitivities but security, ptotection of children.