Saturday, August 14, 2010

Islam Dominant: The Ground Zero Mosque


The "Ground Zero Mosque" controversy isn't going away
anytime soon, no matter what our social and political
"leaders" say. 

But as is usually the case where there's a more heat
than light on a subject, the issues are not always
completely clear cut. To begin with, we should try to 
understand a few things.

First of all, religious freedom and tolerance are
uniquely part of the American experience - in contrast
to both Europe and the Muslim World. 

Had there not been brave people with the courage 
to flee religious persecution and discrimination,
there probably wouldn't be a United States of America.

And, unfortunately, the Muslims are only the latest
"other" religious group to face religious persecution
and discrimination here in the United States.

A quick history lesson. One hundred and fifty years ago,
waves of economic-based immigration brought tens
of millions of Roman Catholic Irish, Italians, and Poles
to our shores, to face immediate discrimination and
prejudice at the hands of the American Protestant
majority.

An entire political movement - The "Know-Nothing" 
party -  was built around anti-Catholic sentiment. 
And like today's Muslims, the Catholics were 
suspected of being a "fifth column" - part of a global 
"Papist Plot", to bring the United States - and all of 
Western Civilization - under the domination of the 
Pope in Rome.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? And the language used
by the press of that time in describing the "Catholic
Threat" would never be allowed today, even in the
most fever-swamped screeds of the fringes.

In this light, it should come as no surprise that President
Obama took the time to remind the nation of its too-often
forgotten commitment to religious freedom and toleration.
And to a point, the President is right - Imam Feisal Abdul
Rauf and his followers do have a legal right to erect a mosque
in a location of their choosing, subject to local ordinances
and the like.

But all legal platitudes aside, the decision to build a
Mosque at this particular location is hugely unwise.

To begin with, it's a direct insult to the thousands
of New Yorkers whose memories of the events of 9/11
are indelible scars.

Second, it sends exactly the wrong message of Islam
Dominant and Triumphant - when the building is
complete, it will directly overlook two holes in the
ground where the World Trade Center used to be.
That's not too terribly helpful for the "War On Terror" -
in fact, it makes "terror" look like the winning side.
Look for Al-Jazeera and the rest of "violent Islam" -
(and there's really no other kind) to treat this as
a deservedly huge propaganda victory.

So, what would be the right decision? Go ahead
and build a Mosque - but anywhere else, just not
at this particular spot.

To his credit, New York Governor David Paterson
in suggesting this got it exactly right. To his
everlasting shame, New York Mayor and Mosque
supporter Michael Bloomberg got it exactly wrong.

It would be as if the Church of the White Aryan
Resistance decided to build a church next door
to the Mt. Zion AME Church in Harlem - and then
deck the place out in Confederate Flags and play
"Dixie" on Martin Luther King Day.

Or better yet, build it next to Temple Beth Israel
and fly the swastika and play "The Horst Wessel Lied"
every Friday at sundown.

Nobody in their right mind, of course, would allow
either such thing - but that's exactly what the mosque
supporters among our elites are doing.

And this whole affair just reeks of the contempt
of the Secular Liberal Ruling Elites for any opinions
but their own. Steeped in moral relativism, bound
by situational ethics, and hopelessly debilitated
by "political correctness" , the decision to permit
this ill-advised project is just one more blot on
a sorry and sordid record.

Whether the issue is Immigration, Islam, endless
war, trade, financial reform, or corporate greed,
our "Ruling Elites" have managed to be consistently
wrong every time, on every issue.

Always ready to excuse and forgive every crime,
every transgression, every bit of wrongdoing, our
"Elites" are like the Bourbon kings of France -
they learned nothing, and remembered nothing.

And we the people, in no mood to either forgive
or forget, may well decide to give them the same
treatment the Bourbons got in 1789.

1 comment:

  1. Dear TN: I would add that building a Japanese War Memorial on top of the USS Arizona also makes sense to those for whom death is the ideal.

    I'm also thinking (such as that is possible) that the SCOTUS decision: Christian Legal Society v. Martinez; which makes membership in any group on a campus open to ALL, part of this slam. Effectively, The Underground Democrats must allow any & all (aboveground?) Republicans to not only join their group, but must also to allow them to be officers of the group. Co-laterally building a Mosque on top of the September 11th dead, shows the inability of those who support it to as you say (I paraphrase) "remember nothing".

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