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 ...
Out here in the Diablo Valley, it’s usually quite a but warmer than SFO, but 102 is a whole lot more like mid-July than late September.
We’re in Bellingham finally. There were four fires in the past 24 hours.
Last time I was in Bellingham I went to Western Washington University with my brother and sister. We locked the door on a restroom stall and crawled out under the door. I was just a bored 7 year looking for fun. It really was my brothers idea.
Morning. It rained all night. Jake was out; he is upset. I went to bed early.
Fires on the boat? At least you weren’t bored, I suppose.
Got it! Thanks!!
Cute! Just what I need today: A dose of The Cutes.
Yes, a cute Kitteh helps the day start right, especially when he’s not on your pillow ;-).
I only had one kitty that loved my pillow and that was my little blind Tokyo Rose. She of the black and gray tabby stripes and the blue crossed eyes.
It would be good to have her on my pillow again.
Is this a new version I should record?
“Until I have my coffee, that is.”
Wouldn’t happen to be a heaping mug of doom sludge like I make, would it?
If so, it would explain some unusual events.
Darks! Sludge! Need for life! Unngh!
Looks new to me. But the Small Print is a little larger and there are some things I don’t recall. Life sucks when you live in a vacuum.
Afternoon! Tom is reading us the latest Chuck Norris jokes. This is supposed to be in aid of completing Pat’s Cub Scouts homework, but I’m not getting it.
63 and not raining right now.
Just came back from a “meeting” at the community room. A “third party contractor” was here to tell us what improvements were being made to accomodate the more disabled among us, and it sounded pretty good. It was all in accordance with HUD laws, of course.
But the folks began to nit-pick and that’s when I left.
I don’t like it when that happens, either.
It’s started raining again. Ash is sad. DP goes to a sailing class on Wednesday evenings and doesn’t come home to see her at all.
Okay, so my coffee creates an unstoppable destructobeast with a ravening thirst for the life of the living.
It’s the main reason I don’t get involved with local functions. Too much back-biting, nit-picking and just plain mean gossip.
Surely, you jest..?
?
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