To be added or removed from VK, FReepmail Darkwing104.
Posted on 08/18/2010 6:30:21 AM PDT by detritus
It is hard to imagine that anything has gone unsaid about the so-called Ground Zero mosque, but an important point seems to be missing.
The mosque should be built precisely because we don't like the idea very much. We don't need constitutional protections to be agreeable, after all.
This point surpasses even all the obvious reasons for allowing the mosque, principally that there's no law against it. Precluding any such law, we let people worship when and where they please. That it hurts some people's feelings is, well, irrelevant in a nation of laws. And, really, don't we want to keep it that way?...
...[T]he more compelling point is that mosque opponents may lose by winning. Radical Muslims have set cities afire because their feelings were hurt. When a Muslim murdered filmmaker Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam, it was because his feelings were hurt. Ditto the Muslims who rioted about cartoons depicting the image of Muhammad and sent frightened doodlers into hiding...
This is why plans for the mosque near Ground Zero should be allowed to proceed, if that's what these Muslims want. We teach tolerance by being tolerant. We can't insist that our freedom of speech allows us to draw cartoons or produce plays that Muslims find offensive and then demand that they be more sensitive to our feelings....
Nobody ever said freedom would be easy. We are challenged every day to reconcile what is allowable and what is acceptable. Compromise, though sometimes maddening, is part of the bargain. We let the Ku Klux Klan march, not because we agree with them but because they have a right to display their hideous ignorance.
Ultimately, when sensitivity becomes a cudgel against lawful expressions of speech or religious belief--or disbelief--we all lose.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
This issue has little to do with “feelings” and everything to do with logic. If you look at this from an unemotional point of view, the attempt to build this mosque in such a close proximity to ground zero would seem to me to be a bad idea from all involved.
Yes, it can be built there according to our laws, but to do so would NOT be the right thing to do and the majority of Americans understand this.
Allowing this issue to be framed in the context of principles and “rule of law” is absurd. It is NOT the “right thing to do”, and those who disagree have their head up their fourth point of contact, IMO.
Well written. Well said.
It is clear that you are passionate about this issue.
I disagree with bringing the entire body of property rights law into this specific issue. The mosque is an outlier. It is a unique case. It cannot be painted with the broad brush of every property rights dispute in the country, because of it’s sensitivity and uniqueness. That is my opinion, and I understand yours.
Thank you for the insightful conversation and I agree with much of what you said.
We will agree to disagree.
Later on my friend, and hold on to the passion. It will keep you young.
To be added or removed from VK, FReepmail Darkwing104.
Mmmmm! Ozone!
Next election, all liberals should vote for Palin because they don't like the idea very much.
Was this columb written in Crayon?
sion! Just thought you might want to check this out for September!
detritus. Sometimes a name just fits........
I would suggest that if there had been a private covenant on the properties surrounding the 9/11 crash, the owners would have agreed by 2/3 vote (or near unanimous) to amend the covenant to exclude building a provocative meeting place of sympathizers with the perpertrators of this calamity.
Or, if this was zoned in the normal manner, the zoning board should have changed the zoning appropriately.
Sometimes things are subject to change, sometimes extraordinary things happen as a precursor to "change". This was one of them, IMO.
Without the 2nd you wouldn’t be able to protect the 1st. Are you so “rule of law” about the 2nd? How about murdering children that are younger than 9 months?
Oh, and how about reviewing the funding of this mosque? You OK with Hamas funding it and opening it on the 10 year anniversary of 9/11?
This mosque is nothing more than a victory dance on 3,000 American’s graves.
I got shredded wheat stuck in my keyboard once.
I saw it coming. IATZ for the aptly-named detritus.
Go ahead and let them riot. It will prove to everyone in the country that they don't deserve any respect and aren't interested in peace.
BTW, in the neighborhood where I bought my home there was a private covenant that stated that no home could be sold to Jews or Blacks. The covenant was amended in the 1960’s to remove that clause. And thats just one example.
Perhaps but...that point is academic. Because such contracts were never formulated PRIMARILY BECAUSE OF THE ZONING RULES YOU WANT TO BROADEN, We are left with a real live issue of whether to extend of limit the arbitrary power of politicians (at the federal level?) over a specific piece of land.
Absolutely false.
Regardless of your religion you can't marry a 10 year-old, beat your wife, practice slavery, impose your beliefs on others, attempt to overthrow the government, etc. The same holds true for freedom of speech. If these were absolute freedoms we would have anarchy.
There is no question about the legal right of a private owner to build on his or her own property whatever they desire, subject to local zoning and building regulations.
The issue here is the wisdom and decency of building a place of religious worship immediately adjacent to an infamous site which was destroyed at the cost of 3,000 souls by members of the same faith who claimed their actions in its very name.
In addition, there is no apparent reason to build a mosque in this desired location... save one. There are at present over 30 operational mosques in Manhattan, and by all accounts they provide sufficient capacity for those who wish to use them. There are numerous vacant and otherwise available buildings, even in lower Manhattan that might also be used for the intended purpose, were a mosque truly needed to accommodate new worshipers. Curiously too, the intended location is entirely commercial and devoid of residents. Who builds a church or a synagogue or any other place of worship in such a place, much less a $100 million high-rise palace of a mosque?
No one, that's who. But which religious group has traditionally built its places of worship directly upon the conquered sites of other faiths? Yes - the same faith that did exactly that in Cordoba, Spain in the 8th Century. And what is the proposed name of this mosque? Cordoba. And that is why there is only one reason why the Ground Zero mosque is now sought: as a monument and a tribute to those who tore a giant hole in the ground nearby, entombing thousands of innocents, and as an affront to the nation whose citizens they were.
For these reasons, the New Cordoba mosque, even if legal, would be the abomination and the insult it is intended to be. While Kathleen Parker may delude herself into viewing New York's accommodation as peace offering, I can assure her that those who are paying for and planning the mosque view the matter quite differently.
What pisses me off is Bloomberg and a host of progressives now running this nation know damned well the mosque is the Islamic 'we won, get over it' symbol, yet they are so cowardly they will allow the murderous bastards to put their symbol at ground zero! It isn't political correctness, it isn't tolerance, it is pure snivelling cowardice. And it will get millions of Americans killed by these same demon spawn calling themselves a religion!
Similarly, Dr Laura should say "the N-word" on the air precisely because it gets certain people upset.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.