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Home » Obama and that local issue—the 9/11 mosque

Obama and that local issue—the 9/11 mosque

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s the current state of the president’s position on the 9/11 mosque:

“Just to be clear, the president is not backing off in any way from the comments he made last night,” [presidential spokesman] Burton said. “It is not his role as president to pass judgment on every local project. But it is his responsibility to stand up for the constitutional principle of religious freedom and equal treatment for all Americans. What he said last night, and reaffirmed today, is that if a church, a synagogue or a Hindu temple can be built on a site, you simply cannot deny that right to those who want to build a mosque.”

White House officials later said that Obama was simply saying that since there is no local ordinance that would prevent construction of the mosque, he believed local officials made the right decision to allow it to go forward.

Ah, what a tangled web Obama and his spokespeople weave whenever they start off with “just to be clear.”

I offer the following in response:

(1) In his speech, Obama addressed a straw man, as well he knows. No one said the mosque-promoters have no right to build there. Critics say it’s nevertheless an error of judgment and taste to build a mosque there.

(2) As for the analogy to building churches or synagogues or Hindu temples, there would not be the same objections because 9/11 was not perpetrated by Christians, Jews, or Hindus in the name of their religion. To reiterate: all religions have a right to build there. But there’s only one religion whose building there would be particularly insensitive, and that religion happens to be Islam.

(3) Building permits and zoning laws are indeed a local issue. But this is not just any local project—it’s a local project on a piece of land that has enormous national significance.

(4) If the president didn’t want to comment on the issue of the project because he really does believe it’s only of local significance (a shocking statement in itself, showing he does not understand the emotional valence and significance of the 9/11 site), then he should not have commented at all on the subject. Defending the mosque-builders’ right to religious freedom was, as previously stated, unnecessary; there was no attack on said religious freedom.

(5) As the Skip Gates incident showed, Obama is hardly reluctant to pass judgment on other local issues.

Obama’s explanations feature the sort of legalistic hair-splitting that doesn’t play well with the American public, who want to know where a president stands (nobody liked Clinton when he said “it depends what the meaning of ‘is’ is”). This is Obama’s modus operandi, however; he habitually talks out of both sides of his mouth in order to appeal to the widest possible audience and to take advantage of people’s desire to project positive intentions and attributes onto him.

But it’s starting to wear thin, even to his usual supporters. They seem to be realizing that it makes him look weak and vacillating.

Why does Obama continue to do this? I submit that it’s probably because it has served him so well for most of his life—and besides, he has few other tools in his kit. Until now, he surfed on waves of adoration and respect for his supposed intelligence, cool temperament, and ability to give an effective speech. He was (as he himself has said) a blank screen. He never had to produce results, and he never had to answer to a constituency that wasn’t predominantly liberal. Now he has to do both, and the old games aren’t working any more. But Obama can’t seem to stop playing them.

Comments

Obama and that local issue—the 9/11 mosque — 122 Comments

  1. Valerie Jarrett has her hands full, that’s for sure, what with being his “brain” and all.

    Why no media curiosity (MSM or otherwise) about what she thinks of the GZ mosque?

  2. the president is once again voting not present. after 18 months in office President Obama still does not realize that he can longer vote not present. Once he commented on the issue……he owns it! if he didn’t want to have a piece of it he should have remained silent.

    Most of the politicians and MSM commemtators are trying to make this an issue about religous freedom. that dog won’t hunt. this about the impropriety of an islamic “victory Mousqe’ adjacent to where 3000 thousand New yorkers died at the hands of Islamic fundamentalists. IT DOES NOT BELONG THERE!!!

    As a NYer I take great offense at this. Bloomberg does not speak for NY…he speaks for the upper west side super libs. this issue will continue to build. the anger will become palpable. We are Still recovering our dead from the site and they want to rub thier religion in our face.

  3. Why does Obama continue to do this?
    Well, …
    1) Because Obama is nominally Muslim, although his real religion seems to be himself and the Leftist Utopia.
    2) Because like many Democrats said right after 911, Obama believes that AmeriKKKa deserved 911 and that the hijackers were heroes.
    3) He acts upon these beliefs as much as he can get away with, and then he gives some absurd lie when he can’t get away with living his beliefs.
    See the “We Support the Troops” crap that was spewed by people who would have happily thrown pig’s blood on soldiers if they could have gotten away with it.

  4. I’ll go ahead and say “they mosque-promoters have no right to build there”. The first amendment says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. How is not allowing them to build a mosque near the 9/11 site prohibiting their free exercise of religion? It’s not like there are no other mosques in New York City. That only makes sense if the 9/11 site has some religious significance like Mecca or the Temple Mount. Does anybody want to make that case? I suspect the mosque builders believe that, but I doubt they would ever say it. Absent that, using the same logic, I could make the case for Fred Phelp’s church building next to the “Stonewall Inn” or Arlington National Cemetery or the Church of Christian Identity (think the religious arm of the Aryan Brotherhood) building next to the Holocaust Museum and that’s just silly.

  5. It’s amusing to watch him contort his arguments but it will have little impact on his core supporters who are too programmed to notice or bother with them. The proles will happily nod along with his latest gaffe oblivious to the hair splitting going on.

  7. left wing democrats only tend to debate ‘well’ when up against their own strawmen… every week Obama throws out a new one and beats on it…

  9. Moss,

    You are absolutely correct.

    Obama wants the mosque there. He thinks America deserved 9/11. He thinks the mosque is a vindication for his side.

    That’s what he is. In his entire life there has NEVER been any indication that he loves America and cherishes its core values and history. There is very much evidence of the contrary side.

    He is not compicated. He is a lying and devious bully and thug, but not complicated at all. In fatc, he is a simpleton in a way light years more simpletonian that the libs used to slander Dubya wuith being.

  10. Maybe Obama, Biden, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, and the bereaved mother of some poor kid that jumped off of the World Trade Center North Tower can sit down for a ‘beer summit’.

    Let me apologize before-hand if my illustration offends anyone. I’m not trying to turn this into a joke. I’m just humbly trying to illustrate the horrific joke the administration has made of the victims of 9/11.

  11. I read one blog today which made the point that for all of Dubya’s alleged mishandling of the English language, with “misunderestimating” and all that, we never had any problem figuring out what Duba meant. Dubya said what he meant and meant what he said. Dubya was a plain speaker, whose meaning was plain to see.

    The mosque kerfuffle is just another example in which Oilbama’s meaning is as clear as mud. “Nuance” is just another word for incoherent. At least it was for John F Kerryman, and it appears to also be so for the POTUS.

  12. It is most definitely not hair-splitting and not funny.
    The take-home message is that Baraq supports mosque-building at that site. He said his words at the Ramadan-opening White House dinner, an assembly of non-dhimmis with the women in their kaffiyas. Who are these people? Why were they there? Because they are MUSLIMS, and that is the message these attendees took home. He did not have to say it to please America, but he said it to them, at the iftar or iqtar or qqfar or whatever gutter-all word it is.

    I am being forced by the evidence to the conclusion that Baraq is a muzzie, practicing taqqiya (Subversion is OK as long as it is for Islam) on us dhimmis. I am being forced into the arms of the birthers. The circumstantial evidence cries for his conviction.

  14. Talking out of both sides of his mouth worked quite well for him at Law School. He was elected editor of Law Review based on his ability to appeal to all sides of the argument. It wears thin in a president where leadership really matters.

  15. michaele: “where leadership really matters”? You are still in the good ol’ days. He’s not leading, he’s herding you/us into an abbatoir.

  16. he has few other tools in his kit

    When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail

    I am being forced by the evidence to the conclusion that Baraq is a muzzie, practicing taqqiya… …on us dhimmis

    Obama Family Secret Service Code Names
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/10/obama-family-secret-servi_n_142767.html

    Barack Obama’s is “Renegade”…

    1580s, “apostate,” probably (with change of suffix) from Sp. renegado, originally “Christian turned Muslim,” from M.L. renegatus, prop. pp. of renegare “deny” (see renege). General sense of “turncoat” is from 1660s. The form renegate, directly from M.L., is attested in Eng. from late 14c.

  20. Why does Obama continue to do this?

    I don’t think he is terribly bright nor has he much experience where what he says and does actually matters. It’s easy to sound bright if you only hang out with intellectual sorts, the bar is pretty low and mostly consists of repeating the proper slogans, avoiding forbidden thoughts, and feeling superior to those who aren’t at the party.

  21. Yep, some of us have been saying it for a while. He’s used to talking out of both sides of his mouth, and he’s good at it — and it works, so long as all he does is talk — which is really all he’s ever done, up to January 2009.

    You can talk and mean multiple things to multiple people. Doing that with your actions is much harder.

    Personally, I think the crucial point is that he said this — knowing full well that he could hide later behind the literal meaning of his words, which he then wasted no time in doing — he said all this to a Muslim audience. As such, it reminds me a lot of him apologizing to Hillary Clinton on camera… while scratching his nose with his middle finger. We all know what he said, but what he said was not what he meant… and his target audience knew all too well what he meant.

    Who was his target audience this time? Your guess is as good as mine, but I think it was the Muslims. They’re the ones he does not want to piss off. He’s demonstrated his deference for Muslims multiple times, and likewise demonstrated his lack of concern for insulting the intelligence of the American people.

    Apropos of nothing in particular — when he runs for re-election in 2012, if he gets that far, I want to initiate a campaign of mailing waffles to the White House… with the slogan “Go home and eat your waffle.”

    respectfully,
    Daniel in Brookline

  22. Neo, have you looked into the reports about a (destroyed?) Greek Orthodox Church near 911 site having trouble getting permits? Commentor “Newton” in previous post on Mosque said it was called “St Nicholas Orthodox Church”

  23. Other than the obvious, one thing I noticed about President Obama’s iftar dinner remarks was that when he called on us to remember “who we are fighting against,” he mentioned Al-Qaeda but not the Taliban. I don’t think that bodes well for how seriously he’s invested in the success of the surge in Afghanistan.

  25. The quote that came up this week that expresses so much: when your defense is “but it’s legal,” you have announced that you know the moral argument is lost. After all, if you thought it was moral on generally accepted grounds, you would include that argument.

    The GZ Mosque may indeed be legal. And great effort has been expended to try and show that the opponents are being insulting. But who is being insulting here, really? Had they wished to, the builders of the mosque could have spun some tale about how the mosque was there as a memorial to 9/11, to show that Islam doesn’t have to be like that. If that were their aim, they would certainly have said it. If they had even absorbed the societal value of hypocrisy, they would have said it as well. People may not have liked it, may have disbelieved them and grumbled, but there would have at least been some nod to our values.

    They have done none of this. This is about power, of asserting before the world that their conquering religion can do this. The rape is part of the fun. That they have used America’s laws and America’s tolerance to accomplish this is not part of their message to the world. Progressives hope that eventually, gestures like this will show others how good we are and want to be more like us. That is a fool’s hope, a quasi-religious belief to go with their quasi-religion.

  26. ponce was just before me, and I missed it.

    Yes, we have all heard that argument. We have rejected it. Other than a knee-jerk reaction that we’re all just fools and bigots, can you think of some explanation why we might reject that line of reasoning, ponce?

    It would be better if you had a try at it yourself rather than having us explain it to you.

  27. I don’t know, AVI, maybe you’ll have to explain it to me.

    I remember during the Abu Ghraib scandal we were told not to judge all U.S. soldiers by the actions of a few bad apples.

    Heard the same thing during the Bernie Madoff thing and the Larry Craig thing.

    Perhaps you can explain to me when the “Bad Apples” defense does and doesn’t apply?

  28. ponce: I’ll talk a quick stab at it.

    For the most part, Islamic terrorists are not rogue actors. They are organized. They are numerous. They enjoy (or did enjoy, for a long time) the support of much of the Islamic and Arab world, according to public opinion polls (see chart here). They act in the name of Islam.

    The perpetrators at Abu Ghraib, on the other hand, did not act in the name of the armed forces of the US, nor with its approval. They acted with its disapproval. Nor are they supported by the US population.

    That said, I do not judge all Muslims by the actions of terrorists. But as a religion, Islam is especially intolerant, with a history of violent conversion and violence against apostates. It is no accident that the vast majority of terrorists are Muslims, because it especially lends itself to terrorism.

  30. Neo,

    Given all the problems with Catholic priests and little boys, how would you feel about protests against Church construction near schools?

  31. Given all the problems with liberals spreading misery – how would you feel if we protest liberals having any power in state and federal offices? 🙂

    Ponce,

    Go ahead and protest. You’ll look a little weird.

    Like you are mental.

    Like you have too much time on your hands.

    Allahu Akbar !!!

    If you want serious reading on the subject – take the time – don’t be negligent. Read this article Ponce.

    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Protecting-America_s-sacred-spaces-1008421-100252639.html

  35. ponce: although I strongly suspect you are a troll, I’ll answer your question anyway.

    Anyone can demonstrate against anything he/she wishes to. So of course such people have a right to demonstrate.

    However, the Catholic Church has now taken a hard line against abuse in the present (as opposed to their winking attitude in the past). But abusive Catholic priests were always doing something personal that went 100% against the teachings of the Church. They were not using their religion to justify their actions.

    What’s more, even in the heyday of priestly abuse of children, most of their victims were found in their own churches (altar boys, etc; kids in the congregation or in church youth groups), not by the priest hanging around random public schoolyards and picking up kids.

  36. “They were not using their religion to justify their actions. ”

    Have you read any on the trial transcripts?

    It’s my understanding that the guy who is building Cordoba House came out strongly against the 9/11 attacks….and was even hired by the Bush admin.

  37. It’s insensitive only if you blame all Muslims for the actions of a few crazies.

    Or blame all Germans for the actions of a few crazies.

    Given all the problems with Catholic priests and little boys, how would you feel about protests against Church construction near schools?

    Gee, we thought liberals are all for pederasty. Didn’t you get the memo? Denounce yourself immediately, comrade.

  39. ponce says, “Given all the problems with Catholic priests and little boys, how would you feel about protests against Church construction near schools?”

    I’m pleased to see you’ve taken a break from your day job of composing spambots for our general amusement.

    However, a moment’s existence in an uncolonized mind, would reveal to your how measly and unconnected that question is.

    As to what substance there is to it, it might surprise you to know that the Catholic church actually builds schools. It might also surprise you to learn that on the grounds of many schools are these structures called “chapels.”

    Nowhere in these schools or chapels is it written that thou shalt do untoward things with little boys. Nor is it found in the teachings of the church.

    I could go on but I have learned that “Once a bear is hooked on garbage, there’s no cure.”

  40. “You have no understanding.”

    Perhaps you’re right, OB.

    I’ve been told these attempts to er…restrict where mosques can be built have nothing to do with religion.

    But it’s clear from the responses here that they have everything to do with religion.

  41. ponce:
    No, it has to do with totalitarianism, and our opposition to it. Islam is not a religion; it is a totalitarian political ideology.

  44. “In his speech, Obama addressed a straw man, as well he knows. No one said the mosque-promoters have no right to build there. Critics say it’s nevertheless an error of judgment and taste to build a mosque there.”

    This is false. Carl Paladino, a Repub candiate for NY gov, said: “As governor, I will use the power of eminent domain to stop the mosque….”

    rick lazio another rebpub running for ny gov said:
    “As governor I will appoint commissioners . . . who, like me, oppose this group’s plan to build a mosque at Ground Zero — and I encourage New Yorkers to call the Public Service commissioners and tell them the same,”

    the washington examiner advocated a similar tactic: “The federal’ government has at its disposal dozens of land preservation methods that could delay or even halt development of the Islamic center”

    The AFA ‘s Bryan Fischer said: “Permits, in my judgment, should not be granted to build even one more mosque in the United States of America. Not one!”

    Charles Krauthammer attempts to reinterpret expands the “time place manner” limits: “America is a free country where you can build whatever you want – but not anywhere”

    Tennessee Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, apparently inaware of the free-speech calsue, thinks lableing islam a non-religion may do the job: “Now, you could even argue whether being a Muslim is actually a religion, or is it a nationality, way of life, cult whatever you want to call it. Now certainly we do protect our religions, but at the same time this is something we are going to have to face.”

    all these actions would be a clear free-excersie clause violation vilation, even by the original intent standars of thomas of scalia, not to mention the more expansive standards of libertarian leaning judges alledgedly favored by teapartiers.

    the fiorst point in this post is demonstartively false. Prez Bam was correct to intervene for the american way.

  45. Apparently had Germany merely declared Naziism a religion, the liberal would have been helpless to think outside of any such box besides the one of accomodation. Of course Nazis didn’t propose dressing women in potato sacks, which would have put the masochistic liberal in quite the conondrum as far as support.

  46. What’s the world coming to? A troll named “ponce?”

    Manju, you are right. Mainstream critics (such as neo) have stipulated that the Cordoba House developers have a legal right to proceed, but that is only a stipulation. One would have to know New York real estate and administrative law and to have knowledge of the plan to really conclude that the developers are certain to have the legal right to proceed. I don’t have that information or background, and as far as I know, neither does President Obama.

    Furthermore, not every developer gets fast track treatment, despite their rights. Target is suddenly having “stormy” meetings with San Francisco city officials as they try to develop two new stores; this follows GLBT criticism of Target for company contributions to a pro-business group in Minnesota. I wonder whether this St. Nicholas’ Orthodox Church has found the bureaucrats to be helpful or obstructive.

    The decision to fast track development is a political decision in support of the project, not a stance of disinterest or scrupulous neutrality. For City Hall to pick favorites is indeed the American Way in practice, if not in principle. For Bloomberg and Obama to wrap themselves in the flag to deflect criticism and avoid responsibility for a political decision brings Dr. Johnson’s famous dictum to mind, albeit ironically: “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”

  47. Manju,

    all these actions would be a clear free-excersie clause violation vilation, even by the original intent standars of thomas of scalia, not to mention the more expansive standards of libertarian leaning judges alledgedly favored by teapartiers.

    No they wouldn’t.

    This is how the Liberal Tyrants argue their case: They throw a mishmash of qutoes up there to muddle and confuse. And then say, ‘See!’ They then declare victry and presume the self-righteous stance of the teacher’s pet, tut-tutting all around.

    You’re wrong. Your’re a fraud. And you’re rotten. Krauthaumer’s statment, in particular, is the most clear and true.

  48. ponce Says:
    August 16th, 2010 at 12:56 am

    Given all the problems with Catholic priests and little boys, how would you feel about protests against Church construction near schools?

    I see you like the strawmen.

    Statistically speaking, little boys and girls would be safer with Catholic priests than with school teachers. There have been a lot more abused by teachers than priest.

    As others have said the Catholic church has condemned and been working to stop this from happening. Not so with Islamic leaders and their ‘faithful’. In fact hatred preached from the highest reaches of Islam. Do all Muslims engage in terrorism? No some have to work to provide money for those who do.

  49. When a non-Muslim building of worship is constructed within the 830,000 square miles of Saudi Arabia, then I will support a mosque in the shadow of Ground Zero.

    What say you, Ponce and manju?

  50. And neo is right, too: Obama is dealing with a strawman with respect to arguments from the mainstream critics of the mosque. By talking about a non-issue, he can avoid addressing the core of the argument. Not intellectually impressive or honest, but about what we have come to expect from him.

  51. Sarah Palin, as usual, was the most challenging to Obama. She also managed to state the fact of legality and the issue of prudence and judgement (for all parties) in her challenge. She has more guts than anyone else out there.

    “Mr. President, should they or should they not build a mosque steps away from where radical Islamists killed 3,000 people? Please tell us your position. We all know that they have the right to do it, but should they? And, no, this is not above your pay grade,”

  52. Nyers visiting thr 9/11 memorial should not have to listen to the Muslim call to prayer echoing throughout the rebuilt WTC complex. nuff said!

  53. How successful is asking that evil not be done?

    Please Mr. Castro, please Mr. Chavez, please Mr. Obama….

    Good luck with that.

  54. Given all the problems with Catholic priests and little boys

    Problems? What problems? They’re just expressing their love. Vaughan Walker is going to cite some studies by the NAMBLA Institute for Human Rights that proves that pederasty is good for kids. And then he’s going to so rule.

    So rule, that is, right after he rules that latter-day Aztecs have a right to conduct human sacrifice, and Obama will support his ruling. Religious freedom, you know. Besides, all cultures are equally good, valid, and worthy of expression.

  55. Islam has no moral content. It is a supremacist cult. It is a Cult for Psychopaths.

    No one would ever voluntarily choose to be a Muslim unless they wanted to dominate others (non-Muslims). There is not one good thing that can be said about Islam.

    (Please don’t tell me how wonderful the sufi poets are. That’s like saying the aztecs had pretty songs for their sacrificial rites.)

  56. Ponce,
    Given all the problems with Catholic priests and little boys, how would you feel about protests against Church construction near schools?

    Dodd reveals that the CPUSA had 1100 members become Catholic priests in the 1930′s. It also subverted the American education system by taking over the teacher’s unions and learned societies. Only people who accepted the “materialistic, collectivist international class struggle approach” advanced.

    [the same kind of progress of believers that catholocism offered, but through a power system of pavlovian/skinerian rewards]

    Eventually Dodd was expelled and smeared as “anti-Negro, anti-Puerto Rican, anti-Semitic, anti-labor and a defender of the landlord.” (220). Sound familiar? After more than 20 year of tireless sacrifice, she was without family or friends. The party had been her family. Its “hates had become my hates.”

    “This is the key to the mental enslavement of mankind. The individual is made into nothing … he operates as the physical part of [a] higher group intelligence… he has no awareness of the plans the higher group intelligence has for utilizing him.” (158) [school of darkness]

  57. John, to ponce: “I see you like the strawmen.”

    I would say bob-and-weave to other subjects, actually, trying to move to analogies that don’t quite fit, distracting us into those replies.

    Ponce, I went for the condescending tone to counter yours, and apparently hit right on target. I will note that you have displayed no effort to understand another point of view, which I thought central to the discussion. To any discussion, actually.

    So I will ask it a different way, to see if you can get toward the important point. If you were on the board of this proposed mosque, would you advocate for it being built at GZ? Whether you say yes or no is less important than what you would use as reasons for your decision.

    Manju has a point, but Oblio’s reply is good. I think there are conservatives who are falsely confident this can be easily declared illegal. But, there are liberals who are falsely confident that it is legal, on very general freedom-of-worship grounds. It just seems to them that it should be legal, so they believe it is. But zoning, permissions, fast-tracks, in-keeping-with-prevailing standards, etc are often a byzantine (heh) maze, where technicalities matter. The Target example is a good one. You can’t always get what you want, even though it seems right to you. A synogogue or church that wished to build on this location would have to jump through many hoops and likely encounter opposition as well, though likely less. But imagine some others – if Scientologists, Mormons, Pentacostals, or some other more controversial group wished to build, do you think none would raise a fuss?

    Political pressure also matters (either way), and this is less noble than evenhanded rule of law, but is still part of our system. In a situation such as this, neither side can play the victim “but you used political pressure, no fair” card afterward. We all hope that folks deciding respond to the facts on the page as much as possible.

    As to the coy comments of why Islam should be treated any less well, and why are we so quick to assume the worst about them, this whole set of events is an illustration. It is because some Moslems act in this aggressive manner and other Moslems do not rein them in that we suspect something is up. If you prefer a characterization which says that these people are largely tribal and violently competitive, with each other and everyone else, quite unrelated to their declared religion, and Islam has not sufficiently pacified them yet, I suppose that would be another logical alternative. But I’m not sure you want to go there.

  59. Just one practical consideration: this mosque, if built, would be an open invitation for some nut to blow it up during Friday prayers. It easier to do than people imagine. Remember Oklahoma federal building?

  60. I was always a fan of George Bush because I knew he would try to defend America. However, I still fault him for saying that Islam is a religion of peace.

    I don’t know if he believed this because he also had to deal with Arab countries on the Persian Gulf in order to assemble troops for the Iraq invasion. So there were political strategies he needed to follow.

    Yet he wasted two terms of his administration not informing the American people of the nature of Islam. Islam is an excuse for conquest, rape, and plunder.

    We all need to get the American people to understand that Islam is a terrible cult and that the sooner people get out of it and find some other religion that has a moral content the better.

    Islam is a Religion of Murderers.

  61. My thoughts Prom – we can’t tarnish all who practice Islam.

    I do believe they need a “new testament” so to speak which puts to bed all the submission and death to the infidel stuff.

    There are too many versus that talk about dominance and etc.

    The book says what it says……..

  63. http://tammybruce.com/2010/08/a-tammy-special-reportgz-mosque-w-asra-nomani.html

    excerpt:

    Asra Nomani is an American, a mother, a reporter, a teacher, a speaker, and a Muslim woman of faith. Asra was kind enough to agree to a special podcast interview today regarding her opposition to the Ground Zero mosque, the player for which is at the bottom of this post. The conversation is wide ranging including the condition of Islam today, the internal struggle of the religion, and her efforts as a Muslim woman to confront Islam’s extremist elements.

  64. Excerpt from Debra Burlingame (her brother was killed on 9/11):

    “Muslims have worshiped in New York without incident both before and after the attacks of 9/11. This controversy is not about religious freedom. 9/11 was more than a ‘deeply traumatic event,’ it was an act of war. Building a 15-story mosque at Ground Zero is a deliberately provocative act that will precipitate more bloodshed in the name of Allah. Those who continue to target and kill American civilians and U.S. troops will see it as a symbol of their historic progress at the site of their most bloody victory. Demolishing a building that was damaged by wreckage from one of the hijacked planes in order to build a mosque and Islamic Center will further energize those who regard it as a ratification of their violent and divinely ordered mission: the spread of shariah law and its subjugation of all free people, including secular Muslims who come to this country fleeing that medieval ideology, which destroys lives and crushes the human spirit.

  65. @Mike Mc: “This is how the Liberal Tyrants argue their case”

    Then allow me to reference a law professor who is certainly not a liberal

    “the legal issue is open and shut…This means that the government may not refuse a zoning permit to a group because it’s Muslim, or Tea Party, or Socialist, or anti-gay-rights. It may not try to use landmarking law to bar the group from reconstructing a building, if the law is being used because of the group’s message. (A religious organization may in some situations and in some jurisdictions get an exemption even when a neutral, generally applicable law is being applied to it for religion— and speech-independent reasons; but here the landmarking law was clearly being applied precisely because the mosque was a mosque, so the Free Exercise Clause’s prohibition on religious discrimination comes into play.)

    Nor can the New York Public Service Commission force Consolidated Edison to refuse to sell its property to a religious or ideological because of the entity’s religious or ideological affiliation. A private property owner might have the right to discriminate based on religion or ideology in its choice of buyers. (I don’t know New York law on the subject, and I don’t know whether federal housing law would apply to discrimination based on religion in sale of non-residential property.) But the government may not force or coercively pressure private property owners to so discriminate.”

    -Eugene Volokh

  66. Manju,

    Follow along. No one has been arguing that it is illegal, or should be.

    If you quote a few whackos or the uninformed, all you are doing is creating a strawman.

    It’s what you liberals do. I’d like to make that illegal. Every liberal or Dem, these days, is a walking and talking fallacy machine. The part that galls is that you then get all smug and self-rightoeus about it. Had classic education not been banished by you people from the classroom for three decades now, no one would fall for your nonsense.

    I sure won’t.

  67. Well, this really is the “icing on the cake” for me. I’m not surprised though. The pedigree is and has been there, for all to bear witness to. My concerns now, are for who will replace this guy, who will have it all to go up against the hype-machine that birthed this mess, and win convincingly, dominantly.

    Disgust.

  69. “Manju, You failed to listen to this interview.”

    Well, Mike told me to avoid “whackos or the uninformed” so how can I listen to a woman who theorizes Obama’s real father is Malcolm X?

  71. I think you hit the ball out of the park when you pointed out that Obama’s tactics have always worked in the past. That’s why all sociopaths continue in their self-destructive ways as long as people let them get away with it. Obama has a large enough and attentive enough audience that the usual tricks are not fooling everyone.
    I note that there have already been Muslim religious ceremonies taking place on the property at 45 Park Place. No one has objected to the current building being used as a mosque. The problem is making a large steel and glass edifice that not so subtly announces to the world: we dropped the Twin Towers on 9/11 and we are here to stay. What do dogs do when they mark their territory? It’s the same thing.

  72. “Islam is not a religion; it is a totalitarian political ideology.”

    “Islam is a Religion of Murderers.”

    “Islam has no moral content. It is a supremacist cult. It is a Cult for Psychopaths.”

    These are not reasoned arguments, they are straightforward examples of religious hatred.

  73. ponce,

    http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/023-violence.htm

    It’s a recognition that Islam is not just a religion, it prescribes economics, education, everything.

    Islam prescribes tyranny and total control and institution of Islam as a country’s religion.

    While the U.S. isn’t there yet – it is INCOMPATIBLE with the U.S. constitution – but yet we will always allow people to practice their faith as long as they don’t break the rule of law – and try to alter our constitution.

    There are hundreds of mosques in New York city. You are free to worship.

    The question if you listen to the Pamela Geller interview is not one of legality. http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/10/how-could-stanl.html

    Do you understand this Ponce? Or will you stay uninformed?

  74. Ponce, If you speak truth – are you a hater?

    If Muslims themselves speak truth, are they haters of Islam?

    No.

    They are simply speaking truth.

    We can pretend that NAMBLA doesn’t promotes sex between men and boys. In this way we look like we don’t ‘hate’ NAMBLA. But if you speak truth about NAMBLA does that make the speaker a hater?

    No.

  76. Interestingly, a Greek Orthodox Christian Church that was originally across the street from the WTC and was destroyed in the 9/11 attack is having a tremendous amount of difficulty getting permits to rebuild there. One of the stated reasons has to do with the height of the dome, which is supposed to not rise higher than the 9/11 memorial—but the mosque rises higher than the memorial as well, and ran into no problems on that score.

    Are the Greek Orthodox being discriminated against? Are they unable to practice freedom of religion?

    Oh, and manju—let’s have a fuller excerpt from the Krauthammer column you quoted, in order to understand what he’s actually saying [emphasis mine]:

    Location matters. Especially this location. Ground Zero is the site of the greatest mass murder in American history — perpetrated by Muslims of a particular Islamist orthodoxy in whose cause they died and in whose name they killed.

    Of course that strain represents only a minority of Muslims. Islam is no more intrinsically Islamist than present-day Germany is Nazi — yet despite contemporary Germany’s innocence, no German of goodwill would even think of proposing a German cultural center at, say, Treblinka…

    America is a free country where you can build whatever you want — but not anywhere. That’s why we have zoning laws. No liquor store near a school, no strip malls where they offend local sensibilities, and, if your house doesn’t meet community architectural codes, you cannot build at all.

    These restrictions are for reasons of aesthetics. Others are for more profound reasons of common decency and respect for the sacred. No commercial tower over Gettysburg, no convent at Auschwitz — and no mosque at Ground Zero.

    Krauthammer is quite explicit that the opposition to the mosque is for “profound reasons of common decency and respect”—not because there is no right to build it.

  77. You know, I get really tired of having to advance this argument — and to protest that, yes, I take an uncompromising hard line against Islamic terror, and no, that does not mean that I hate all Muslims.

    Are there peaceful Muslims, who want nothing more than to live in peace beside their neighbors, and don’t care what religion those neighbors practice? Certainly there are; I’ve met many. But that’s not the point. Such people do not speak for Islam.

    The people who speak for Islam are the ones who advocate hating Christians and Jews; who speak endlessly about Jihad as a moral obligation for all Muslims; who refuse to condemn terrorism, and sometimes actively support and encourage it.

    There are no doubt many reasons for this. But the reasons don’t matter; we must deal with the situation we have, regardless of why it is there.

    I, and many other people I know, have waited in vain — for decades — for moderate Muslims to speak out. For terrorism to be condemned, loudly, by major Islamic religious leaders, as unacceptable. For the hatred spewing forth from many mosques — many major mosques — to be countered by religious Muslims who reject the preaching of hate.

    We have heard a few courageous lone voices, but that is all — and all of them, without exception, have made it clear that they speak only for themselves.

    So, unfortunately, we must take radical Islam at its word… because they are the ones doing the talking. They are the ones in control.

    It is obviously true that most Muslims are not terrorists. It is, unfortunately, just as obviously true that most terrorists are Muslims. So long as that remains true — and so long as Muslim moderates remain silent, while their religious leaders preach loudly of Jihad — then we will NOT treat Islam the same way we treat other religions… nor should we.

    respectfully,
    Daniel in Brookline

  78. His goose is cooked. The democrats’ geese are cooked. This stuff is not sustainable. Everyone can see that.

    No one has to admit in public they voted for the wrong guy. I don’t even care about that any more.
    We simply must get this man, and those in the house and senate who think like him…..OUT!!

  79. Related Observations:

    1. Islam is a religion on the march. Muslims do what Islam prescribes. When you are being Muslim, this is one of the things you would do. I am pretty sure that the great, great majority of Muslims in the world are very pleased with the idea, once it has been proposed. It is a fundamental of the religion that it will one day rule the entire world, under sharia. It is fundamental that lands, geopgraphies are Islamic. If one is not yet, it will one day. If one was once won for Islam, and is then taken away, it is a great shame on the practitioners. They have let allah down and will n otrest until that wrong is righted.

    2. People are naturally religious.

    3. There was a day when if something like this happened in Manhattan, they’d have built a Church. There was once a day when the Catholic church might have built some glorious structure. It is not an accident that the great Cathedrals and churches of the world are located in the best real estate of the world. In fact, they are typically the ground that others built around.

    4. Secularism is a religion. It’s not building churches. When it wants to be militant it builds government buildings to hoiuse bureacracies, or it builds gulags and re-education camps.

    5. Christianity is weakened and on the decline in America. It might build a tent or a Kumbaya Center. It might actually build a mosque to show it’s lack of belief and that all it has left is tolerance.

    6. The political involvment has meant that there is still a hole where there should not be one.

    7. I’m almost hoping they build the mosque. It would somehow serve us right – to have that in our faces. Especially after electing the first almost muslim President, and a President who hates his country. If we elect Obama, and Bloomberg (3 times!!!), we should expect what exactly? WHat we’ve got.

    8. When enough people are really outraged, this thing won’t happen. Islam will know better than to push it to far.

  81. “IslamThe Aztec religion is not a religion; it is a totalitarian political ideology.”

    “IslamThe Aztec religion is a Religion of Murderers.”

    “IslamThe Aztec religion has no moral content. It is a supremacist cult. It is a Cult for Psychopaths.”

    These are not reasoned arguments, they are straightforward examples of religious hatredobservation.

  82. Neo, the only time I personally came across the term “ponce” was when I was working in Latin America. A New Zealander used it as a generic term to describe Englishmen- including the Englishman we worked with.

  83. “Krauthammer is quite explicit that the opposition to the mosque is for “profound reasons of common decency and respect”–not because there is no right to build it”

    Kraut clearly states you can’t build anywhere:

    “America is a free country where you can build whatever you want – but not anywhere.”

    This is true and he then refers to various “time, place, manner” restrictions, which are allowed if the regulation is content-neutral and unrelated to the suppresion of a particular viewpoint. (like say a law stating you can’t shout in blowhorn at 3am)

    he specifies zoning laws aganst liquor stores and strip, but these have no expressive content and scotus doesn’t consider them speech or religion (though libertarisns who value property rights have a different take). He then cites architectual codes but those are viewpoint neutral regualtions and are considered pure action, not speech (though rand paul may disagree).l

    He then uses these restrictions to justify those based on more profound reasons of common decency and respect for the sacred.” But the very reson the other restrictions are allowed is becasue they aren’t profound. Kraut has adopted the left-wing sensitivity exception to free speech. Thats not allowed, as Volokh cleary states, becasue it would indeed constitute a denial of a right.

  84. manju: In that sentence of Krauthammer’s, “anywhere” means “not just anywhere.” And it’s true for everyone. He’s referring to zoning laws in general, which ban construction of buildings that fail to meet regulations.

    And then he says that the objection to the mosque does not come under the same argument as zoning laws (which he says are based on “aesthetics”). It comes under a different argument—that of attention to common decency and respect for the sacred.

    In the piece, Krauthammer mentions the zoning laws merely to say that the right to build is generally not an absolute one—for anyone. He is not making an analogy in any other way; he is merely establishing the principle that there are restrictions on the right to build a structure, both legally (zoning) and non-legally (questions of judgment and sensitivity, which would be voluntary rather than a matter of law and/or public policy). Krauthammer never says—nor does he imply—that government should step in and ban the mosque construction in the same way that it bans or regulates buildings through zoning ordinances. Nor does he say those ordinances should be used against the mosque in some sort of targeted fashion, or even imply it (although a few others have).

    Krauthammer ends his piece with the following paragraph, making it clear he thinks the mosque-builders would do well to voluntarily withdraw, and implies that they are hypocrites for not doing so if their stated purpose of “building bridges” is indeed sincere:

    The governor of New York offered to help find land to build the mosque elsewhere. A mosque really seeking to build bridges, Rauf’s ostensible hope for the structure, would accept the offer.

  85. “Krauthammer never says–nor does he imply–that government should step in and ban the mosque construction in the same way that it bans or regulates buildings through zoning ordinances.”

    The problem with censors is that they often want to have their cake and eat it too. The UN, some Muslims, the former Ussr, PC police, do this all the time…demand censorship while simultaneously claiming to represent free speech.

    Kraut isn’t 100% clear either way, neither saying “there is no right to build there” or clearly stating there is one. The implication is clearly that there isn’t one though:

    “Ground Zero is indeed unlike any other place and therefore unique criteria govern what can be done there.”

    Notice the use of the word “can” instead of “should”

    His reference to constitutionally allowed restrictions serves no purpose than to imply “even more profound reasons” than aesthetics should justify a ban. Why else establish that a right is not absolute unless you want to carve out another exception to it. How in the world does establishing that non-discriminatory, content-neutral, regulations exist help make the case that a particular action is wrong and should be voluntarily stopped?

    If I thought Howard Zinn should not speak at a Victims to Communism memorial, how does it help my case to note that banning obscenity is constitutionally allowed? It only helps if you sek to censor, by establishing an exception from which you can hopefully extrapolate another exception, like “Zinn at such a memorial is so obscene the govt shouldn’t allow that either.”

  86. Obama believes that Arabs have the right to build a mosque anywhere they choose in New York City, but Jews cannot build homes anywhere they want in Israel.

    Read The Obama Timeline to learn the full story behind the thug-in-chief.

  87. That Islam, or any religion, might be regarded as theoretically tolerable in a free society is not the point. We might indeed grant that Islam could, and in some places does, brush up against other beliefs without causing much stir.

    But what we have as a reality is Islam-as-currently-expressed, and that is all a society can ever have to base its decisions on. People thought Mormon or Catholic ideas abhorrent, but in America we learned to get along because there were no practical negatives, no continuing attacks, which caused us to compromise on our ideal of live and let live though I hate you.

    For example – Catholic priests who were discovered as pederasts (and tangentially, we are finding that they are not more common in that clergy than in the population at large) did not proclaim that their pederasty was a necessary and true expression of their Catholicism, nor can we imagine other Catholics waffling on that point and shrugging that some extreme Catholics might legitimately express their faith that way. The accused guards at Abu Ghraib did not justify their actions as an extreme Americanism, nor did their superiors; ditto Madoff and Wall St.

    The 9/11 terrorists, on the other hand, did make clear that they were committing this as an expressly Moslem, and good act. It then falls to other Moslems to deny this in the strongest terms, distancing themselves as best they can, in order to preserve their claim that they are not dangerous. Some Moslems did. Some still do, and good on them. I wish them every success in convincing their co-religionists that this is the high road. But not enough, not by any near approach, did so. We instead heard a great deal of hedging and excuse making, and immediate complaint about how Moslems were being treated. Many of the terrorists were Saudis. Had we discovered that they were claiming a specifically Saudi cause, we would have looked to the Saudi government, and perhaps its nearest allies, for the requisite apologies and distancing – not the Moslem world as a whole.

    That is the civil contract, when anyone commits a crime in the name of a cause. We look to others in the cause, especially its leaders, to denounce the crime. That is not a rule we restrict to Islamists; it is universal.

    We did not draw the connection of 9/11 to Islam. The perpetrators did that explicitly. It then falls to the rest of Islam to reassure us that they do not condone such things. Yes, that is a bit unfair, for people who knew nothing of the crime to be called to make a statement about it, but that is how civil society operates. We cannot function without it. Criminal elements in a group are dissuaded from aggression only when it is clear to them that they are bringing shame upon their group, and are not helping the cause. Any sense that they are in fact well-regarded within their own circle for their crimes is an encouragement to more aggression.

    So the analogies suggesting that we are imposing some new and unfair standard on Islam, while letting other groups do as they will, is simply inaccurate. Distinctions matter, and unlike things are not like simply because one can find a point of similarity. Frankly, ponce, it is dishonest to make the claim.

  88. AVI,

    The guy who wants to build Cordoba House has explicitly condemned the 9/11 attack, rendering your whole argument moot unless you believe in collective punishment.

    I’ve already pointed out several instances of blatant religious hatred posted in this thread…where are the moderate mosque opponents to condemn statements like:

    “Islam is a Religion of Murderers.”

    “Islam has no moral content. It is a supremacist cult. It is a Cult for Psychopaths.”

    So far, not even our hostess has objected to such hateful language.

  89. Even though today I spent a lot of money on a root canal, tomorrow I think I’ll probably order The Reliance of the Traveler, the “official edition” of the Koran authorized by the Islamist gurus at Al Azar University in Cairo.

    Then the Manjus and the Ponces of the world, who have never read the Koran or studied the history of Islam, won’t be able to tell me what Islam is. Because I’ll be able to quote chapter and verse of the “official version” of the crazy book.

    Islam is a cult invented by a madman. His disciples were drooling idiots or vicious bandits who found a “religious” reason to plunder, rape, and murder.

    Manju and Ponce, stop wasting our time. You don’t know anything about Islam. The era of PC is over.

    BTW, all the Mexicans I know (legal or illegal), hate Islam. Your Islamist sympathizers are found mainly in universities or in prisons–both dependent upon taxpayers. Ha, ha.

  90. Ponce, are you going to prosecute me for “hate crimes”?

    That will be very funny when I quote the Koran in my defense.

  91. “The era of PC is over. ”

    Is this PC, Prom?

    Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

    Or perhaps the words of a madman?

  92. “ponce Says:
    “Islam is a Religion of Murderers.”

    “Islam has no moral content. It is a supremacist cult. It is a Cult for Psychopaths.”

    So far, not even our hostess has objected to such hateful language.”

    Observation is not hate speech.

    Ramadan 2010 Scorecard

    Day 5

    In the name of The Religion of Peace

    Terror Attacks – 24

    Dead Bodies – 60

    In the name of All Other Religions

    Terror Attacks – 0

    Dead Bodies – 0

    http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/

    “ponce Says:
    The guy who wants to build Cordoba House has explicitly condemned the 9/11 attack, rendering your whole argument moot unless you believe in collective punishment.”

    Can you provide a link for that?

  93. First Manju wraps himself in the flag, now ponce wraps himself in the Bible. Quoting scripture as a way of claiming political points are self-evident is not exactly the way to make peace. If ponce is being insincere, this is deeply offensive. I suspect that if he were sincere, he would be showing a little more compassion.

    Now I call on ponce to turn the other cheek.

  94. What a coincidence, Oblio,

    You mention compassion just as I was just thinking this anti mosque campaign is an example of what Schopenhauer means by pure malice.

    As for quoting scripture, I’m curious how Christians reconcile Jesus’ teaching with their attacks on Muslims.

  95. ponce, what attacks are you talking about?

    Surely you aren’t saying that opposition to this mosque project equals an attack on Muslims. I could construe some of the rhetoric as expressing a willingness to attack what we must believe is a small subset of fanatics who wish to promote jihad and the extension of sharia to the United States. Since these jihadists are waging open and clandestine war against the United States, I can’t conclude that such belligerence is what Shakespeare would have described as “motiveless malignity.”

    I don’t think that we can even conclude that harsh criticism of Islam indicates a hatred of Muslims, unless we can also conclude that harsh criticism of Christian doctrine and churches inevitably reflects pure malice and hatred of Christians. Enduring harsh criticism and even unfair criticism goes with the territory when you live in the States. That’s how we roll.

    You might well feel that it is a very bad thing to insult Islam or defame the Prophet. It is illegal under sharia. But we don’t live under sharia, which is the whole point.

    You need to consider the entire fact set and make allowances for human nature. You should also review your behavior and rhetoric on this thread: if you are trying to show good faith and influence others, you are doing it wrong.

  96. ponce, I had known that about the builder of Cordoba House and approve. That is not enough. That you seem to think it is suggests that you are less concerned with how things are than how you can make them appear with words.

    Supporting that hypothesis would be your claim that you are curious how Christians reconcile Jesus’s teaching with attacks on Moslems. If you were actually curious, I presume you would trot over to First Things or some such place and find out. So you are not actually curious, are you? You use the word as a sneer, while maintaining plausible deniability. If you actually seek to know that answer, there are many who can give you explanations. You might find them unsatisfying, but will at least not leap to conclusions with your rather tired idea that Christians have somehow missed the import of their Lord’s words.

    You might find the generalization too great that all of Islam to be accused on the basis of the actions of some. Fair enough. But there does seem to be this unfortunate tendency to warfare everywhere Islam brushes up against other beliefs. In Africa, certainly, with both Christians and animists; In India, with Sikhs & Hindus; in China, with Buddhists, communists, Confucianists; in Palestine, with Jews; in Iran, with Bahai and Zoroastrianism; in the West, with both secularism and Christianity. Plus, of course, there are their wars with each other, Sunni, Shiite, and the poor Sufis.

    Who exactly are they getting along with peacefully?

    If you find the blanket condemnation by others here too extreme, too inflammatory, then offer your own just description of where Islam stands in the matter of aggression versus comity, and support it with evidence.

    Oh, sorry, my bad. You aren’t here to offer any constructive ideas, just point out how wrong and hateful we are. I will again challenge you to actually do the work, think it through, check your analogies, consider possible objections, before putting words to page. I don’t know how you are coming off to the others, but to me it’s “bright but lazy.” Do you want to actually know things, or just have arguments?

  97. What a strange obsessions it is to be ashamed being seen as “hater”. Hate is a normal, natural human emotion, nothing wrong with it. There are lots of things that are hateful for me – much more than those which I like. It is just as natural to hate individuals as to hate groups of people, if there is a sound reason for this. It worth to going out of closet with our hates, declare and celebrate them proudly rather that hypocritically hide them.

  100. Schopenhauer, Niebuhr, Heidigger, Kant, Sartre, James, Maimonides, Pascal, Diderot . . .

    Hey, let’s all drop philosopher bombs on each other instead of thinking about causes and effects.

    Manju Ponce . . . do you know where the word “sophomoric” comes from?

  101. “ponce, I had known that about the builder of Cordoba House and approve. That is not enough.”

    Avi,

    Why isn’t it enough?

    Not only am I curious how Christians can attack the mosque and still consider themselves Christian given Jesus’ teachings, I’m also curious about your concept that people can earn the right to be racists or religious bigots.

    You admit the guy who wants to build the Muslim community center has spoken out against the 9/11 attacks and terrorism in general loudly and repeatedly, but you feel you can still discriminate against him.

    Is this the just primitive urge to engage in collective punishment or a new form of bigotry?

  105. “These are not reasoned arguments, they are straightforward examples of religious hatred.”

    I don’t expect much a reasoned argument in comments to a blog. The comments cited would be examples of religious hatred only if the comments weren’t true (about which I make no claim). Unless, of course, you think harsh conclusions about Scientology, Astrology, and Thugee are also examples of religious hatred.

    The problem with another religious hatred, anti-Semtism isn’t just that it’s hatred; it’s that it’s not true: Jews don’t rule the world, Jews don’t make blood sacrifices of Christian boys, etc. Claims about Islam’s desire for world domination (true), about its caste system with Muslim males at the top (true), about its denial of human rights to and punishing taxation of non-Muslims (true), about its record of conquest and oppression (true), and I can go on. If the truth be hatred, then hate will set you free.

  106. http://wizbangblog.com/content/2010/08/17/muslims-question-the-intent-of-the-ground-zero-mosque.php

    Excerpt for the ponces of the world:

    “The Qur’an commands us Muslims to, ‘Be considerate when you debate with the People of the Book’ — i.e., Jews and Christians [chapter 29, verse 46]. Building an exclusive place of worship for Muslims at the place where Muslims killed thousands of New Yorkers, is not being considerate or sensitive, it is undoubtedly an act of “fitna,” the letter added.

  109. Not only am I curious how Christians can attack the mosque and still consider themselves Christian given Jesus’ teachings

    You mean Do unto others?

    “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.”

    Those who repeat the general, meaningless, non-committal, goody-goody desires of pacifism are not really working for a democratic peace.

    Either expose the vapidity, stupidity and hypocrisy of bourgeois pacifism, or “paraphrase” it into “socialist” pacifism. Fight the Jouhaux, Renaudels, Legiens and Davids as the “hirelings” of the governments, or join with them in empty pacifist declamations on the French or German models.

    -=-==-=-=-=–
    to permit murder when one could have prevented it is morally wrong. To allow a rape when one could have hindered it is an evil. To watch an act of cruelty to children without trying to intervene is morally inexcusable. In brief, not resisting evil is an evil of omission, and an evil of omission can be just as evil as an evil of commission. Any man who refuses to protect his wife and children against a violent intruder fails them morally.”
    -=-==-=-=-=–

    Pacifism, the preaching of peace in the abstract, is one of the means of duping the working class.
    Lenin Collected Works, Volume 21, pages 158-164.

  110. ponce – good questions. As soon as you respond to some of the questions directed at you – or mine, at least – I’ll have a go at them. I’m counting at least a dozen things from me alone that are unaddressed. Pick a few. I would consider that a down payment on your part that you are actually entering a discussion.

  111. “Who exactly are they getting along with peacefully?”

    The Muslims in America are getting along with their fellow citizens rather peacefully.

    The Muslims haters plan is to…punish them for it?

  112. Ponce ridiculously wrote, “The Muslims in America are getting along with their fellow citizens rather peacefully.”

    Are you allowed to generalize and we can’t.

    U N D E R W E A R B O M B E R

    W A S

    N O T

    P E A C E F U L

  114. ponce:

    Bak, I hate to embarrass you once again but, THE UNDERWEAR BOMBER IS NIGERIAN.

    Here is what Baklava said before referring to the underwear bomber:

    Ponce ridiculously wrote,“The Muslims in America are getting along with their fellow citizens rather peacefully.”

    OK Ponce, let’s deal only with US citizens who are also Muslim, whom you claim “are getting along with their fellow citizens rather peacefully.” Like that Army doctor at Fort Hood, Ponce? Like Faisal Shahzad, the US citizen of Pakistani origin who was arrested for the failed car bomb in Times Square in New York? That would be the Faisal Shazad who also met with leaders of the Pakistani Taliban. Like John Allen Muhammed, the Beltway Sniper? What about the 14 in U.S. accused of supporting Somali terrorist group:

    Moreover, you can pettifog about the underwear bomber not being a US citizen. The fact is that he was in the “special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States.” That the 9/11 people were not US citizens in no way increases the ability of Muslims to get along peacefully in the US.

    I do not deny that there are many instances of US citizens of the Muslim faith who get along with non-Muslims. A neighbor of mine is from Morocco. We get along fine. There have been a number of examples in which US citizens of the Muslim faith have turned in jihadis to the FBI. Nonetheless, there is enough of a track record for us to be concerned.

  115. More for Ponce.
    14 in U.S. accused of supporting Somali terrorist group:

    Most of those charged are U.S. citizens of Somali descent. They are accused of sending money and fighters to Shabab, an Islamist army with ties to Al Qaeda.

    Here is just one example of what pops up when IGoogle Dearborn Hezbollah

    Dearborn man gets 10 years for trying to help Hezbollah
    A federal judge on Friday sentenced a former Ford Motor Co. engineer to 10 years in prison for trying to supply global positioning satellite equipment and other materials to the terrorist group Hezbollah. “You allowed the depth of your feeling for what was happening in your homeland to overcome your judgment,” U.S. District Judge Gerald E. Rosen told Fawzi Mustapha Assi, a Lebanese-born U.S. citizen. “These were serious misjudgments.”

    Yes, many and probably most Muslims in the US are good citizens. But we have enough evidence to take the “trust, but verify” approach.

  116. “Yes, many and probably most Muslims in the US are good citizens. But we have enough evidence to take the “trust, but verify” approach.”

    The same goes for Catholic priests, Gringo.

    What say we start closing down all their schools…just to be safe?

  117. When you can document the terrorist involvement of Catholic priests that I have for US citizens who are Muslim, then you have a point.
    Otherwise, your comment is worthy of a true ponce.

  118. Ponce can’t get anything right.

    He isn’t interested in being sensitive or a good muslim.

    Remember:
    The Qur’an commands us Muslims to, ‘Be considerate when you debate with the People of the Book’ – i.e., Jews and Christians [chapter 29, verse 46]. Building an exclusive place of worship for Muslims at the place where Muslims killed thousands of New Yorkers, is not being considerate or sensitive, it is undoubtedly an act of “fitna,” the letter added.

  120. ponce, thank you for having a go at one question, though it was a rather minimalist response.

    Compared to most other places in the world, certainly, American Moslems are getting along with their neighbors. Especially, those who have stayed to become citizens (or were born citizens) I have great hope for. Good neocons hope that George Bush’s idea – if you bring freedom to a group they will respond decently – might actually work, and recently I have had my doubts.

    I will additionally grant, even though you didn’t mention it, that most places in England where Moslems are not living in tight communities, but are in the regular neighborhoods, also seem to do quite well.

    However, as others have noted, there is not only a high crime rate, which might be expected in any clustered immigrant population, but an entirely disproportionate amount of serious, warlike, terrorist crime as well. As they are often people who have been here for quite some time but are often not citizens, I am not sure how we count them – as American Moslems who are clearly not getting along, or as foreign nationals who shouldn’t count against the side?

    I am disappointed that your returned to the Catholic priest analogy in another recent comment. I thought I had dispatched that pretty solidly.

    Here is a more general bit of information which might give you some perspective on what you read here. Your accusations imply that you regard us as narrow Americans who are reflexively hating outsiders or those we are told to hate. That may even be true of some here. But this particular group includes many who were once reflexive liberals, and sounded much as you do in earlier versions of ourselves. But not only have people here read and thought much about world events and history, which you might have been prepared to expect, many of us have had extensive dealings abroad in impoverished and dangerous places, some have lived abroad for extended periods, and some here are actully from other countries. We have seen evil in forms other than Islam, sometimes up close. Yet we come back to you, across the divide, and say “No, this is different. There is some greater evil at work here.”

    For myself, two of my five children are Romanian, I have a fair bit of experience in the Balkans, and friends here who are refugees from former Yugoslavia. I tend to see world events and history through their eyes as well as my American ones. Also, we are helping a Sudanese church get started, and I know many Sudanese (and other African) refugees as well (no friends yet, but that will come in time). I see much of the world through their eyes as well. Others here could tell you similar stories.

    You seem to have made an enormous assumption that just isn’t so. We tell you that something about Islam seems to be of a different order of evil, and we don’t all say it lightly or reflexively. We know that’s not the polite thing to say. We know it sounds intolerant. Yet we say it anyway. Something to think about.

  121. Ponce:

    You’re right! It is bigotry for me to object to a Mosque (the Cordoba Mosque!) being built at Ground Zero. Just as it was bigotry for me to object to a convent being built at Auschwitz, bigotry for me to object to President Reagan laying a wreath at Bitburg, bigotry for me to object to the Japanese Prime Minister’s annual trip to the Yasukuni Shrine, and bigotry for me to object to the flying of the Confederate flag.

    You sure have me pegged!

  122. Obama doesn’t have the first idea about what religious freedom means. Take Islam for example. The entire religion, and culture that surrounds it is oppressive and bigoted – to women, to anyone of another religious belief, to anyone who doesn’t follow its tenets. And this a**wipe “president” of ours insists on defending an imam who has excoriated America and American people – similar to the Irreverend Wright.

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