Mosques No Where Near Ground Zero Meet Stiff Resistance

[Tiassa]

Like a walk in the snow

It's a surprisingly simple thing, Ti: question away.

Yes, that works well. For instance:

GeoffP: From which organisations, specifically? - that they don't seem to mind that the front-line workers were perfectly happy to auction off a dozen kids as child prostitutes.

Tiassa: This is, to my knowledge, a new claim in the escalating hysteria about ACORN. We await your demonstration of its validity.

GeoffP: (...?)​

It's eleven months later, and you still haven't backed that claim. Don't get me wrong: I'm not the least surprised by that. But it just goes to show the futility of questioning you about your claims.

• • •​

/Hands Tiassa a brick

You might find smashing your head with it to be more pleasurable.

More productive, at least. One of my favorite albums ever:

​

 

[GeoffP]

Vetting Geoff - mind the shaky scalpel, Herr Doktor

Yes, that works well. For instance:

Haw! "Vetting Geoff" indeed. You impress me with your off-topic recall: you must have been waiting a long time with that bookmark. If we must discuss it, you could pick any old news agency, a number of bloggers, or yourself, even. The New face of New Socialism. For that matter, does it even need to be an organization? The case is pretty eloquent as it is: shoot the messenger. A tried tactic, if not an honest one. (Heck, it's even been tried on this thread.)

Thanks, Ti. I was looking for a chuckle, and I got it. Maybe you could start a new thread on it or something? Seems a little out of place here: there must be a half-dozen things you could misrepresent about me on the thread itself without needing to go quite so far off-topic. You could resurrect some of Bells' claims, if you like. Not more than an inch of dirt on them as yet. I promise to make nothing at all of the stalking, off-topicness, or pointless personal nature of the attack; and particularly not as Bells has responded so completely to my requests for clarification.

(Oops.)

 

[GeoffP]

Well, can't wait forever; things to do, other people and peoples to victimize. I leave you the field, open as it is, for the flinging of things.

 

[Pandaemoni]

The resistance against one of those other mosque stiffens:

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/08/29/proposed-mosque-site-tennessee-probed/

Also, interesting, one group that plans to burn Korans to protest a local mosque has been told thay they cannot:

http://www.gainesville.com/article/...old-it-can-t-burn-Qurans&loc=interstitialskip

The latter is a good example of how speech can be limited, based not on whether the government agrees with the speech, but reasonable content-neutral public regulation. The only question I see there is whether the criteria for denying the permit are too vague (and therefore subject to abuse). Assuming the decicion is made on reasonable fore-safety grounds, though, I have no issue with it.

 

[S.A.M.]

One of the problems I have noted with so called secular societies in the west is that they have never been tested for religious tolerance. It will be educational to see how secular the society really is when tested.

 

[iceaura]

What you disingenously fail and refuse to acknowledge is the hypocrisy of the it's "Ground Zero" argument,

As it was apparently an important consideration in the choice of site (the "divine hand" that brought them the location was referred to in gratitude, etc), there's no hypocrisy in criticising that choice on that ground - on what are its own grounds, after all.

You have yet to show any proof that radical Islam would even be preached at in that particular mosque.

Right now it's a good possibility the funding is from missionary-bent Wahabi Saudis, the symbolism of the site an international consideration and the preaching or whatever to be oriented accordingly: can we at least say that? Can we describe this thing as what the people financing and building it intend it to be?

But more to the point, the hullaballoo over the "Ground Zero Mosque" is nothing more than cynical electioneering, a cheap but apparently effective attempt to exploit American xenophobia. - - -
- - - -
One thing that strikes me about this whole issue is that for all the cynicism Americans show both politicians and the press, we're still willing to allow those groups to establish the boundaries of debate;

It seems to me that an assumption of simple-mindedness on the part of the financiers and organizers is not warranted, in our cataloging of the cynical and the manipulative forces at work in the ginning.

And it is just as difficult to move the defenders of this thing out of the frame of anti-allMuslim bigotry vs welcoming tolerance and legal first principles, as it is to let the air out of the paranoia blimp so we can see what issues may actually exist.

One of the problems I have noted with so called secular societies in the west is that they have never been tested for religious tolerance.

A thousand years of religious war, religious oppression and terrorism, and open religious civil conflict, provide much experience to the West, in the area of religion and politics. This new thing, Western secular society, may indeed prove still vulnerable to the old attractions and failure modes. That would be nothing to celebrate.

 

[Tiassa]

Brief questions

As it was apparently an important consideration in the choice of site (the "divine hand" that brought them the location was referred to in gratitude, etc), there's no hypocrisy in criticising that choice on that ground - on what are its own grounds, after all.

If we consider the proposition of divinity, should we define it according to the outlook of the criticized or the critic?

And it is just as difficult to move the defenders of this thing out of the frame of anti-allMuslim bigotry vs welcoming tolerance and legal first principles, as it is to let the air out of the paranoia blimp so we can see what issues may actually exist.

I must be reading you wrongly here, because, even after considering the point over the course of several hours, I still can't figure out why we would want to "move the defenders of this thing out of the frame of anti-allMuslim bigotry".

What am I missing?

 

[iceaura]

If we consider the proposition of divinity, should we define it according to the outlook of the criticized or the critic?

We're still in the description phase - what are we describing, and to whom?

I still can't figure out why we would want to "move the defenders of this thing out of the frame of anti-allMuslim bigotry".

That's one rail. The other one mentioned was " tolerance & legality ".

Boxing the discussion between bigotry and legality hides such issues as the motives of the financiers.

 

[IamJoseph]

NY is the 2nd Ground Zero under attack from a mosque. What about the mosque in the first Ground Zero?

If a mosque rises in NY, one day those who say the Jerusalem temple is a Zionist myth, will also say 9/11 was an American myth:

"Ground Zero Mosque" Developer: I Don't Hold Islam Accountable for 9/11 Attacks"

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20015051-503544.html

 

[S.A.M.]

Of course 9/11 is an American myth. Everyone but Americans knows that.