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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
 Posted - 08/16/2010 : 21:17:48
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Can ANYONE explain to me how any democrat can fail to see the obvious position to take with regard to the "ground zero" (aka "blocks away") mosque/community center?
When anyone says "NO GROUND ZERO MOSQUE!"
The answer is, "The 1st Ammendment guarantees people the right to worship without interference by the government. period. Why do you hate the constitution?"
Not to mention the rights of private citizens and the use of private property and all that....
The answer is NOT TO FUCKING AGREE WITH THEM HARRY REID! Nor is it to walk your first response back with wordplay about the "wisdom" of building it Mr Obama. WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU ASSHOLES?!
Honestly, dems are not getting my vote in november. (said it before, still saying it) I'm sitting this out in protest. And if Obama and congressional dems don't fucking grow a pair (they can share if they do, because none of them have any right now) I'll stay home in 2012 too.
Oh, I get why they are pussing out here. It's a policy non-starter. Like the asinine "repeal the 14th" crowd, you can take any position on this one, no matter how extreme, and you know it matters not a fucking bit to what the reality will be. The 14th isn't ever getting repealed and the "ground (two blocks away) zero" mosque is going to get built. Reid can prevent his opponent in AZ from making it into a wedge issue, same for other dems facing fringe teabaggers in elections. But seriously, WTF! Make your own wedge democrats, and attach it to a fucking train and run these "morans" down with it. Because if you can't win a fucking argument DEFENDING THE FIRST AMENDMENT, you don't deserve to hold office. Assholes.....
I need to go take some blood pressure meds before my head fucking pops....
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 08/16/2010 : 21:57:36 [Permalink]
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| You really can't win an argument on First Amendment grounds when your opponent thinks that the ACLU is trying to revoke their right to pray (for example). You can't win any sort of argument at all against such people. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/16/2010 : 22:24:32 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
You really can't win an argument on First Amendment grounds when your opponent thinks that the ACLU is trying to revoke their right to pray (for example). You can't win any sort of argument at all against such people.
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You misunderstand me. I'm not suggesting that you can sway the opinion of the people making that argument, but rather the people listening to the arguments. Just as (I think) we agree that the target audience here on SFN is the broader reader base, not the people whos arguments we tackle.
I doubt anyone would ever get that asshole Cheney to publicly say that torture is wrong, but I still fail to see how dems lost that argument in the public arena.
How do they constantly fail to win arguments that should be laughably simple to win in the public arena? This mosque thing is just the most recent.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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On fire for Christ
SFN Regular
Norway
1273 Posts |
Posted - 08/16/2010 : 23:16:53 [Permalink]
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| Do that many Muslims even want a ground zero mosque? The whole idea seems a bit inflammatory. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 08/17/2010 : 00:10:31 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by On fire for Christ
Do that many Muslims even want a ground zero mosque? The whole idea seems a bit inflammatory.
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There wasn't supposed to be anything inflammatory about it. This controversy is completely political and absolute bullshit.
'Ground Zero Mosque' Controversy Shows America's New Nativism
Have you heard about the "ground zero mosque?" They're going to build a great towering monstrosity of a thing, a gloating reminder of what they did to us on 9/11, a thumb in the eye of any real Americans who want to pay respect to those lost on that tragic day.
It will, according to Rudy Giuliani, be a "desecration" of ground zero. Newt Gingrich has called it an "assertion of Islamist triumphalism." And Sarah Palin was so incensed at what she called a "stab ... in the heart" that she coined a new word, calling on peaceful Muslims to "refudiate" the project.
[Check out our editorial cartoons on the "ground zero mosque" controversy.]
It's too bad they're wrong. The debate over the so-called ground zero mosque, which is neither a mosque nor at ground zero, is certainly a cause for anger and outrage. But it's not because some Americans want to exercise their constitutionally guaranteed right to worship freely. Rather it's troubling as an expression of a new Know-Nothingism that is infecting our politics, especially on the demagogic right.
The phrase "ground zero mosque" conjures images of a minaret-adorned structure sprouting on or abutting ground zero. But the truth is less provocative. The project is sponsored by the Cordoba Initiative, a group whose stated mission is to achieve an "atmosphere of interfaith tolerance and respect" among Muslims, Christians, and Jews. The $100 million building they want to construct, called Park51 (for its address on Park Place) is not a mosque as such, but rather a community center with a restaurant, a swimming pool, a performing arts center, and, yes, prayer space. (Muslims, by the way, already gather weekly in the existing building to pray. Should they be barred from doing so?)
And it's not at ground zero. Park Place is a small street two blocks north of where the twin towers stood. The intervening blocks have buildings taller than the planned center. Someone standing at ground zero, in other words, would not be aware of Park51's existence; though when the Freedom Tower finally rises from the World Trade Center's footprints, it will be visible throughout most of lower Manhattan and beyond. Park51 will be just another building in what Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a defender of the project, called the "diverse and dense" city.
The symbolism of a Muslim community center being just another building in the shadow of the Freedom Tower is one we should embrace. It speaks to our diversity and the strength of our ideals. It's certainly more attractive than that of political leaders in the world's most powerful nation rallying to deny its most fundamental rights to a tiny minority.
Opponents say that Park51's mere proximity to ground zero is an intentional political statement, and it almost certainly is. It says that not all Muslims are radical killers and thugs, and that Islamic moderates won't be cowed into letting terrorists be the face of their religion. Isn't that what we've wanted? |
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/17/2010 : 01:25:15 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by On fire for Christ
Do that many Muslims even want a ground zero mosque? The whole idea seems a bit inflammatory.
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Does it matter?
Say you get some money and want to come build a church next to my house. You buy the land and prepare to build. Hypothetically, if I find your brand of christianity to be personally offensive, and raise a big stink about it in the local media, get the locals stirred up, demand government prevent you from building your church, what is your reaction going to be? I mean, the locals don't want you, the local media is down on you, and I'm organizing protests. Should the city revoke your permit to build your church just because I'm a bigoted asshole making a lot of noise about your particular flavor of zombie worship?
You support the first amendment or you don't, it's that simple.
The "ground (two blocks away) zero" mosque is only inflamatory if you are a bigoted asshole. If people have the right to worship as they wish in this country then it can't be an "inflamatory" issue. Only if you disregard one of the major founding principles of this country can you protest the building of any church in any place it is legal to build one.
I'm a fairly die-hard atheist, and this offends my sense of patriotism and country to the very core. As ridiculous as I find all religion there is an important reason to protect the right of every person to choose if, when, and where they practice their religion (with practical exceptions, obviously. No government sponsored religion, no human sacrifice, etc). Once you exclude or favor one, it's only a matter of time till you favor one above all others and exclude the rest. Don't think that will end without bloodshed.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Ebone4rock
SFN Regular
USA
894 Posts |
Posted - 08/17/2010 : 05:15:54 [Permalink]
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originally posted by Dude
Can ANYONE explain to me how any democrat can fail to see the obvious position to take with regard to the "ground zero" (aka "blocks away") mosque/community center?
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Why is it only democrats that should be able to see the obvious position? I in no way consider myself a democrat and I can clearly see that this whole controversy is based on ignorance, bigotry, and lies. I am sick and tired of the media playing into it.
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Haole with heart, thats all I'll ever be. I'm not a part of the North Shore society. Stuck on the shoulder, that's where you'll find me. Digging for scraps with the kooks in line. -Offspring |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 08/17/2010 : 05:49:59 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by On fire for Christ
Do that many Muslims even want a ground zero mosque? The whole idea seems a bit inflammatory. |
It's only inflammatory if, analogously, a Christian church being built near any site where the KKK has burnt a cross is inflammatory. After all, the KKK are nearly all Christians, so building a Christian church should be seen as a sign of Christian victory against people of color.
Because 9/11 wasn't a Muslim attack, it was an Al Qaeda attack. Far-right ideologues are trying to confuse the religion for the terrorist group. They wouldn't like it if it were their religion. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 08/17/2010 : 05:55:22 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
Originally posted by Dave W.
You really can't win an argument on First Amendment grounds when your opponent thinks that the ACLU is trying to revoke their right to pray (for example). You can't win any sort of argument at all against such people. |
You misunderstand me. I'm not suggesting that you can sway the opinion of the people making that argument, but rather the people listening to the arguments. Just as (I think) we agree that the target audience here on SFN is the broader reader base, not the people whos arguments we tackle. |
You're right, but the people listening to the arguments are more swayed by the FUD and emotionalism of the people making the arguments. Gingrinch, forcryingoutloud, appealed to people's sense of fairness when he said that the citizens of the U.S.A. shouldn't have to be better behaved or more principled than Saudi Arabia. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 08/17/2010 : 06:42:22 [Permalink]
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Damn, but the Religious Right are lousy at respecting and protecting their own Constitution religious rights! Are we Freethinkers the only people willing to save them from their own sectarian excesses?
To be fair, Harry Reed's Senate candidacy for reelection is hanging by a thread. NOT opposing this Islamic Center would quite likely make him lose in conservative Nevada. Still, I hate his bigoted position. He personally does deserve to lose.
Like Obama, Reed should have taken the (risky) high road and explained the Constitution's protection of religion to his constituents. |
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/17/2010 : 08:34:20 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Ebone4rock
originally posted by Dude
Can ANYONE explain to me how any democrat can fail to see the obvious position to take with regard to the "ground zero" (aka "blocks away") mosque/community center?
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Why is it only democrats that should be able to see the obvious position? I in no way consider myself a democrat and I can clearly see that this whole controversy is based on ignorance, bigotry, and lies. I am sick and tired of the media playing into it.
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My personal ire is directed towards democrats at the moment. But sure, any rational person should see through this quite easily.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 08/17/2010 : 21:04:03 [Permalink]
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I'm lol'ing at the whole thing.....so predictable!
But then again I'm all for the banning of building all churches :) |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 08/18/2010 : 05:34:26 [Permalink]
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Speaking for myself, I don't care where they put the damned thing; I just wish they'd shut the fuck up about it.
But that won't happen. No politician, liberal or conservative or anything in between, ever shuts the fuck up when he/she should because they don't know how. I declare, sometimes I think a terminal dose of tetanus is called for in many cases.
I have been reading that the neighborhood is pretty seedy, with XX book stores, strip clubs, gin mills, roach-ranch restaurant's, and all of the attractions associated with the same. This is evidently ok with anti-mosque squallers, but a community center with an included house of worship is not. Go figger.....
Anyhow, I fear that we'll have to live with this nonsense at least until this November and probably beyond. 
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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dglas
Skeptic Friend
Canada
397 Posts |
Posted - 08/18/2010 : 06:41:48 [Permalink]
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We lock up murderers. Does this make us anti-freedom. Of course not.
When a pacifist physically defends his/her family, is the principle of pacifism betrayed? Of course not.
No principle stands up to extremes.
You will have to make a choice between islam and your Constitution. The question is when do you make it.
This is not a bigotry issue - ideas don't get human rights.
This is not a partisan political issue - your political partisanship matters not at all to islam.
Islam will exploit the Constitution's guarantee of freedom in order to push its social upheaval. Just like it has in Europe.
It's not any kind of supposition. It's not any kind of guess-work.
It is the dogma. It is the doctrine.
Anyone heard of the OIC's anti-blasphemy mandate? Anyone notice the separate Sharia legal systems rising in Europe? Anyone remember the implied death threats that caused South Park to self-censor?
It's not about freedom, islam will rip that from you at its first opportunity; it's about dogma. And it's about waking up.
As for freedom to practice religion, there must be limits. otherwise we can look forward to parents letting their children die by using faith healing and prayer instead of medical resources. Kara, people learned, it seems, absolutely nothing from your death.
You are going to have to face this, like it or not, because islam will force you to. Your "live and let live" principle will be be broken, by islam's "convert or die" absolutism. The only choice you get is whether most of the principle will remain. You will either suspend your Constitution, or limit its application, or you will see it utterly decimated. Those are your choices; if you think otherwise, you are living in a dream world. You had better get acclimated to that and started thinking with some clarity.
The problem in this thread is the knee-jerk reaction to the tea party and the GOP. If something is true, it is true regardless of who says it - even if it's the tea party. Now the radical right in America is trying to turn it into a religious war of competing dogmas. But you don't have to be in the grips of a religious dogma to realize a dogma is dangerous, anti-freedom, totalitarianist and vicious.
That makes about as much sense as refusing to vote Democrat because of one issue and letting the Republicans win by default.
And if you are that stupid, you deserve what you get. Sadly, none of the rest of the world does. |
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- dglas (In the hell of 1000 unresolved subplots...)
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The Presupposition of Intrinsic Evil
+ A Self-Justificatory Framework
= The "Heart of Darkness"
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 08/18/2010 : 07:10:23 [Permalink]
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Happened across this, from the Skeeter Bites Report.
Foes of Planned Mosque Near N.Y.'s Ground Zero Have No Constitutional Right to Stop It
It's on Private Property Owned by Muslims; They Have Every Right Under the First Amendment's Guarantee of Freedom of Religion to Build a House of Worship on Their Property -- Lawsuit to Stop Proposed Mosque Filed By Conservative Group Founded By Christian Evangelist Pat Robertson Should Be Thrown Out
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Pat Robertson, hmm? Might'a known that old dry-douche would be involved.
What follows is one of the best summaries I have seen on this topic.
By SKEETER SANDERS
It's a controversy that's been building for months and now threatens to explode into a major First Amendment battle over Muslims' constitutional right to freedom of worship.
It also threatens to further roil an already volatile midterm election campaign.
"It" is proposed mosque to be built on private, Muslim-owned property in New York near Ground Zero, the site of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, when 19 al-Qaida extremists hijacked four California-bound airliners shortly after takeoff. Two of them, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, were slammed into the World Trade Center, destroying the landmark twin towers and killing more than 3,000 people.
Lawyers from a conservative group founded by Christian evangelist Pat Robertson have filed a lawsuit to block the mosque. But the lawsuit by Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice is very likely to fail -- and could even provoke a First Amendment freedom-of-religion countersuit by the Muslim owners of the property.
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And so forth.
Y'know, what with all Christian hysteria, conservative caterwauling and political posturing amongst our alleged leaders, this could turn out to be highly amusing, for as long as it lasts. Confusion to our enemies, eh?
I will make a prediction: if this center goes in, it will be the most heavily bugged building in history. There'll be enough surreptitious electronic gidgits in there to gladden the hearts of even the most jaded of hackers.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 08/18/2010 : 10:01:44 [Permalink]
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Funniest analogy ever: John Oliver on The Daily Show:There is a difference between what you can do, and what you should do. For instance, you can build a Catholic church next to a playground. Should you? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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I… WTF…?
