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Help me articulate why this rant vs. NY Mosque is wrong
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Anonymous
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Those who are protesting are the ones politicizing it, not the people seeking to build the mosque, plain and simple.
They are building a mosque TWO BLOCKS away, out of side of any memorial or space for reflection at Ground Zero. How far away would they have to be before it'd become political? Four blocks? Ten blocks? Out of Manhattan? This isn't a rhetorical question, but a serious one. How close is too close when we are talking about private construction on private land? |
Anonymous
| My understanding is that pieces of the plane landed on the mosque site. The twin towers were huge. 2 blocks was in the blast path so to speak. It is close. Did you see her example about the pope reconsidering building a Christian structure outside of Auschwitz? You can make the same argument. of how close is too close. Apparently close enough to make the daughter of an Iranian-American victim alarmed. How is her protest politicizing it again? She just has a different take. |
Anonymous
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The site is massive. It has enough space without including a two block radius around it. If you walked from the center of Ground Zero, it would be about a quarter of a mile away to the mosque.
Regarding Auschwitz, I think the key difference is that the Catholic Church itself deserves some blame for its silence during the War. Pius XII refused publicly condemn the holocaust, and it was a great moral failure for the Church. But the same can't be said of Islam, which has no head but which has many leaders who condemned 9/11. |
Anonymous
I agree the Catholic church deserves some of its blame, though you do know that Catholics also formed resistance networks and gave their lives to save Jews? You are opening a HUGE door here with your statement "But the same can't be said of Islam". There is an association with Islamic radicalism and 9/11. There are currently world leaders of Islamic states and sub-groups who embody the viewpoint that lead to it. Sorry, can't follow your logic. I am not blaming Islam (mainstream) but I am not going with you to say that the people who are made uncomfortable by a mosque near the 9/11 site aren't feeling the same discomfort as a Catholic site outside Auschwitz might have created. The White Rose, heroes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rose "Why do German people behave so apathetically in the face of all these abominable crimes, crimes so unworthy of the human race? ... The German people slumber on in their dull, stupid sleep and encourage these fascist criminals....[The German] must evidence not only sympathy; no, much more: a sense of complicity in guilt....For through his apathetic behaviour he gives these evil men the opportunity to act as they do.... he himself is to blame for the fact that it came about at all! Each man wants to be exonerated ....But he cannot be exonerated; he is guilty, guilty, guilty!... now that we have recognized [the Nazis] for what they are, it must be the sole and first duty, the holiest duty of every German to destroy these beasts. (From Leaflet 2) " |
jsteele
Site Admin Online
Site Admin Online
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The Auschwitz example is a red herring and another example of how right wing blogs are now driving nearly the entire political discourse of this country. The building in Auschwitz was not two blocks away, it was right outside the gate. It had actually been used as part of the camp operations; poison gas had actually been stored there.
The fact is that this is a right wing political issue. The people of New York largely support building the Islamic Center at that location. As a resident of DC, I hate having outsiders telling us how to run our city. I am sure New Yorkers hate it just as much. Why a bunch of right wingers want to do Usama Bin Laden's work for him and create a war of civilizations between the West and Islam is something I don't understand. Well, I guess I do understand the politicians -- they just want votes. But, the rest should really give it a break. |
Anonymous
| Well, that doesn't seem a one-sided point of view at all... |
jsteele
Site Admin Online
Site Admin Online
Yes, it's one-sided. You know what else is one-sided? The First Amendment. It says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...". It does not say "except in the case of Muslims hurting right-wing feelings." |
Anonymous
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Why is it the right-wingers want to embody our worst fears and not our best hopes?
Since Saudi Arabia is intolerant, we too should be intolerant? No. I believe in social democracy and multi-culturalism and that the hiccups we encounter as we proceed to that goal can be overcome. I believe in the fundamental ability of man to improve and become closer to God's image. I believe in human progress. |
Anonymous
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I've read it will have a pool and the people planning it envision it as something like the 92nd street Y.
http://www.92y.org/content/about_the_y.asp?92Y_global=AboutTheY I've been to the WTC when it was a building. I knew people who died as friends, parents. I had friends scurrying/fleeing even from neighboring buildings. http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local-beat/New-Yorkers-Oppose-Ground-Zero-Mosque-Poll-97602569.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/muslims/interviews/feisal.html quote from above interview that [to me] articulates one reason why immigration is different today: "as the American Muslim community matures in this country, that the American Muslim community will be an interlocutor, and important intermediary between the West and the Muslim world. And more so today, because today, we have much more much easier communications between the immigrant Muslim population and their extended families in the Muslim world. ... Unlike those who immigrated a century ago from Europe, there is maintained contacts with the Old World and the New [World]. And this phenomenon will give rise to a much different sense of what it means to be a Muslim in the world." Fatwahs? Sharia? Will the pool be coed? |
Anonymous
Yes, I am sure some of the discomfort is the same. But I do not think they are equal. As a lifelong Catholic, I understand that there were Catholics who helped the Jews, mostly by harboring them during the war. Even the Vatican privately urged some of this. But the Pope refused direct appeals, time and time again, to make a public statement or call regarding the treatment of the Jews during the war. He refused, citing the Vatican's desire to maintain "neutrality". This was fundamentally wrong. We are a religion of 1 billion people, certainly our numbers were substantially that during the war years. But we did so very little as a Church. I am sorry, but I cannot accept the individual achievements of Catholic laity as a substitute for the direct condemnation by the Vatican and instruction to all Catholics on the issue. If there is anything that is strange about Auschwitz, and I think here too is a lesson, it is that the Auschwitz I camp (where the Catholic nuns were) was a place that held Polish Catholics and gypsies. The Jews were sent to another camp, Birkenau, which is sometimes called Auschwitz II, and it's about 1/2 mile away. Perhaps it was impossible to recognize that distinction among the larger issues of Holocaust remembrance, but I do not think the Auschwitz example is entirely clearcut either. |
Anonymous
Haha |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
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Here's another Muslim American voice against the site of the proposed mosque. Sorry, I don't think you get to say it's all "Muslim Hating Right Wingers" (as if the two go hand in hand--grow up!). There are many reasonable voices in opposition; rational people for whom this project gives pause. It's OK to actually be contemplative you know.
"The Muslims in our family living here in the United States have never been prevented from practicing their religion in any way. Yet those of us who question the construction of a mosque and Muslim community center in the shadow of Ground Zero are called religious bigots or intolerant. This is ridiculous." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/08/AR2010080802475.html?sub=AR |
Anonymous
| I reiterate my previous question... for those who argue it is too close... how close is too close? How far must it be before it is deemed appropriate? |
Anonymous
Yes, this is something that people seem to be missing. It's New York friggin' City, people! There are a zillion people and businesses within 1500 feet of the World Trade Center. It's not like there's the World Trade Center, a huge field, and nothing but a mosque in it. After this thing opens, it's not like it's going to stand out in this crowded area. Frankly, if the opponents were to succeed in keeping the mosque from being built, in my view, they would just be helping the terrorists win. The terrorists would be able to say that the United States treats Muslims differently from other religious groups. For all the mistakes the US has made in the Middle East, there are a lot of Muslims around the world who appreciate the freedom to worship however you want in the United States. Because, remember, there is a wide diversity of Muslims and they don't all get along and the most powerful groups don't necessarily extend equal rights to people who belong to less powerful Muslim sects. But people forget -- this is the goal of terrorists -- to antagonize states into punitive behavior that will then backfire and lose public support for those states. We did exactly what Osama Bin Laden wanted us to do when we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. To keep this mosque from being built is exactly what Osama Bin Laden wants. It would be a public relations gift for him. |