The "WTC Mosque" hysteria, in a nutshell

[Doktor Howl]

Feingold still says the Muslim community centre is cool.  So at least there is that.

Figured he would.  That's good in a way, but the proper response was "not in my purview".

Funny thing is, it's not even a federal fucking issue.  It's a City of New York issue.  So much for "small government conservatives", "state's rights", or "any rights", for that matter.

Fucking America.  It's like we have lead in the Goddamn plumbing or something.

[Cain]

This is kicking off more anti-Muslim hysteria, too

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/nyregion/11mosque.html?_r=2

In the last few months, Muslim groups have encountered unexpectedly intense opposition to their plans for opening mosques in Lower Manhattan, in Brooklyn and most recently in an empty convent on Staten Island.

Some opponents have cited traffic and parking concerns. But the objections have focused overwhelmingly on more intangible and volatile issues: fear of terrorism, distrust of Islam and a linkage of the two in opponents' minds.

"Wouldn't you agree that every terrorist, past and present, has come out of a mosque?" asked one woman who stood up Wednesday night during a civic association meeting on Staten Island to address representatives of a group that wants to convert a Roman Catholic convent into a mosque in the Midland Beach neighborhood.

"No," began Ayman Hammous, president of the Staten Island branch of the group, the Muslim American Society — though the rest of his answer was drowned out by catcalls and boos from among the 400 people who packed the gymnasium of a community center.

Yasmin Ammirato, president of the Midland Beach Civic Association, which organized the meeting in an effort to dispel tensions, bellowed into her portable microphone in the first of many efforts to keep control during the subsequent three hours: "Excuse me! This is a civic association meeting! Everybody have a little respect!"

Opposition to new mosques has become almost commonplace. A similar uproar erupted during a Lower Manhattan community board meeting on May 25 over plans to build a mosque near ground zero. Protests also have broken out in Brentwood, Tenn.; Sheboygan County, Wis.; and Dayton, Ohio.

And http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100809/pl_yblog_upshot/mosques-around-the-country-facing-opposition

Two weeks later, the New York Times and the Associated Press are catching up with The Upshot's reporting on the growing opposition to mosques around the country. Mosques in small communities in Tennessee, California and Wisconsin — far from the emotionally loaded Ground Zero site — are facing protests from community members who contend that the Muslim houses of worship serve as training grounds for jihadists.

Both stories highlight a recent two-year study by Duke University and the University of North Carolina, which found that mosques and other community organizations like Muslim bookstores help prevent radicalization among American Muslims.

Meanwhile, American University professor and former U.K. ambassador to Pakistan Akbar Ahmed told "The Daily Show's" Jon Stewart that America's Founding Fathers held deep respect for Islam, and that modern opponents are rewriting history by attacking Islam as a religion of evil.

"Everywhere there's a mosque, there's a tension now," Ahmed told The Upshot two weeks ago, citing his year of field research visiting 100 mosques around the country.

That tension doesn't seem likely to let up any time soon. On Friday, about a dozen protesters confronted worshipers at a mosque in Bridgeport, Conn., yelling at them with a bullhorn: "Murderers!" and "Jesus hates Muslims."

[Doktor Howl]

HAHAHAHA!

GOOD THING IT'S NOT THE FUCKING 1950s ANYMORE!

[Doktor Howl]

We have a very nice mosque on Speedway Blvd, in Tucson. 

They are treated with respect, and they reciprocate.

Sometimes I fucking love this city.

[Thurnez Isa]

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/44196/20100819/obama-president-muslim-pew-survey-the-audacity-of-hope-dreams-from-my-father-wasp.htm

According to the latest survey by Pew Research Center, more and more Americans have come to believe that their President is a Muslim.

The percentage of people who correctly identify him as a Christian has fallen to just 34 percent. The survey shows that one in five Americans believe that Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim.

[Doktor Howl]

HAW HAW!

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Feingold still says the Muslim community centre is cool.  So at least there is that.

Figured he would.  That's good in a way, but the proper response was "not in my purview".

Funny thing is, it's not even a federal fucking issue.  It's a City of New York issue.  So much for "small government conservatives", "state's rights", or "any rights", for that matter.

Fucking America.  It's like we have lead in the Goddamn plumbing or something.

Cain: this is not a consensus, it's a bunch of retarded "liberals" running around like they're about to lose their asses because they aren't sufficiently conservative. This is complete horse shit and it is the exact reason why nobody is going to show up in November to defend them. I know I'm not. And it has nothing to do with them being too liberal.

The Democrats have a chronic lack of balls. It's hilarious, too, because this has the people's problem with them for the past 30 years. Democrats are pussies. They don't stand for anything, they don't fight for anybody, and they won't commit to a solid agenda until they've backroom-dealt the soul of their ideas away. I'm not just dissatisfied with their progress, I'm completely sick of them as people. There's a noticeable part of me that honestly wants to vote Republican - not because I agree with a damn one of their planks, but because at least they say what they are going to do, and then they fucking do it.

In fact, it's gotten to the point now where it's obvious, at least to me, that the Democrats are practically a front organization for the Big Business agenda. They're put into power with a bunch of bullshit words, they make a few token gestures toward progress, and it's all used to agitate and energize people who diametrically oppose anything like social progress or equality, in order to get the GOP back into power on a wave of bigotry and xenophobia with so much momentum that everything real Progressives did 50 or 60 years ago can be swept away and forgotten.

Meanwhile, modern Democrats play Kumbaya around a fake campfire, playing "post-partisan" games and trying to "cooperate" and talk nice. Until there's a swing in public opinion away from their position, and then they say "Me too!!!1!11" and try to hitch a ride on whatever seems to be going the way people are moving, instead of standing up for their position and telling people why the forces of ignorance and hatred are wrong. That's all their base wants to see - a show that they, too, can feel strongly about something. But every one of them from the dipshit running for State Superintendent in Wyoming to President Obama are so obsessed with playing political billiards and positioning themselves, that they completely miss out on every single opportunity to demonstrate that the progressive agenda is actually superior.

[LMNO]

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/44196/20100819/obama-president-muslim-pew-survey-the-audacity-of-hope-dreams-from-my-father-wasp.htm

According to the latest survey by Pew Research Center, more and more Americans have come to believe that their President is a Muslim.

The percentage of people who correctly identify him as a Christian has fallen to just 34 percent. The survey shows that one in five Americans believe that Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim.

Wouldn't it be great if Obama just up and converted?  He'd be all, "Now what, crackers?"

[Doktor Howl]

Cain: this is not a consensus, it's a bunch of retarded "liberals" running around like they're about to lose their asses because they aren't sufficiently conservative. This is complete horse shit and it is the exact reason why nobody is going to show up in November to defend them. I know I'm not. And it has nothing to do with them being too liberal.

Same here.  Fuck America.  It had its chance.  Give it to the retards.

The Democrats have a chronic lack of balls. It's hilarious, too, because this has the people's problem with them for the past 30 years. Democrats are pussies. They don't stand for anything, they don't fight for anybody, and they won't commit to a solid agenda until they've backroom-dealt the soul of their ideas away. I'm not just dissatisfied with their progress, I'm completely sick of them as people. There's a noticeable part of me that honestly wants to vote Republican - not because I agree with a damn one of their planks, but because at least they say what they are going to do, and then they fucking do it.

A plague on both their houses.  Evil men who do what they say, and "good" (har!) men who dither and fiddle-fuck around until everything they try to accomplish has tumbled back into the river of shit.

[Doktor Howl]

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/44196/20100819/obama-president-muslim-pew-survey-the-audacity-of-hope-dreams-from-my-father-wasp.htm

According to the latest survey by Pew Research Center, more and more Americans have come to believe that their President is a Muslim.

The percentage of people who correctly identify him as a Christian has fallen to just 34 percent. The survey shows that one in five Americans believe that Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim.

Wouldn't it be great if Obama just up and converted?  He'd be all, "Now what, crackers?"

If I were him, I'd be trolling the conservatives incessantly.

[Adios]

Jesus fucking christ on a stick.

[Adios]

Cain: this is not a consensus, it's a bunch of retarded "liberals" running around like they're about to lose their asses because they aren't sufficiently conservative. This is complete horse shit and it is the exact reason why nobody is going to show up in November to defend them. I know I'm not. And it has nothing to do with them being too liberal.

Same here.  Fuck America.  It had its chance.  Give it to the retards.

The Democrats have a chronic lack of balls. It's hilarious, too, because this has the people's problem with them for the past 30 years. Democrats are pussies. They don't stand for anything, they don't fight for anybody, and they won't commit to a solid agenda until they've backroom-dealt the soul of their ideas away. I'm not just dissatisfied with their progress, I'm completely sick of them as people. There's a noticeable part of me that honestly wants to vote Republican - not because I agree with a damn one of their planks, but because at least they say what they are going to do, and then they fucking do it.

A plague on both their houses.  Evil men who do what they say, and "good" (har!) men who dither and fiddle-fuck around until everything they try to accomplish has tumbled back into the river of shit.

Hell yes, Dok.

[Prince Glittersnatch III]

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/44196/20100819/obama-president-muslim-pew-survey-the-audacity-of-hope-dreams-from-my-father-wasp.htm

According to the latest survey by Pew Research Center, more and more Americans have come to believe that their President is a Muslim.

The percentage of people who correctly identify him as a Christian has fallen to just 34 percent. The survey shows that one in five Americans believe that Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim.

You know there is a part of the Koran that explicitly states that you can not deny your faith if your a Muslim. Being a secret Muslim is sort of an oxymoron.

[BabylonHoruv]

I was prompted by BH over at TCC to do some Googling, and it turns out not only is there a statue to Jesus at the "hallowed ground"* of the OK City bombing, but there is also a cathedral less than a block away.  Why are Christians threatening our values and way of life?


*Is it just me, or is there something rather disturbing, if historically accurate, about describing a site of politically inspired mass murder in such religious terminology?  I mean it's like referring to the areas where Catholic priests have raped little kids as "sacred space".

Well, Timothy McVeigh appears to have been motivated by anti-federal dogma more than the fact that the Branch Davidians were Christian, while the 9/11 bombers seem more clearly motivated by religious dogma.

Regardless, the "hallowed ground" point is still a great point, I hadn't considered that. There is something deeply fucked up, and yes, oddly appropriate about it.

I think it's a question of where you draw the line.  Most of the 90s antifederalist movement was religiously motivated, and even though McVeigh was an agnostic, he was moving within a milieu of people who believed in Christian Identity inspired ideologies and worldviews.  Equally, many Al-Qaeda members are highly educated men, who seem to believe in Islam for more cultural and political reasons than strictly for religious reasons (they believe Islam provides a blueprint for living which stops men from slipping into ignorant, hedonistic barbarism and becoming weak, rather than because Allah sent the Archangel Gabriel to Mohammed to strike up a new convenant).

Al Queda is pretty clearly a political, as opposed to purely religious, movement.  That's actually one of the things that the anti Muslim fanatics keep bringing up "It's not just a cult, it's a way of life!"

[BabylonHoruv]

Yeah, Islam cant be a religion, because it aims to rule the world.

Which makes it totally unlike, say, Catholicism:

Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff

Then again, if anyone actually took the time to learn about Islam, they'd find out it wasn't that far off from Catholicism or Christianity as a whole. Or how much they (Muslims) admire the teachings of Jesus as a prophet and even devote a fair chunk of the Quran to him.

...But we can't expect people to ever read anything, unless it's published in a Glenn Beck book, can we?

My Southern Baptist uncle once sent my parents black and white copies of pages within the Quran, and highlighted parts where it said to "kill the infidels". I fired back my own copies of the Bible, highlighting similar phrases, the original decree given by Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, and other documentation.

He refuses to speak to me ever again.

Don't most Southern Baptists think that the Catholic Church is a horrible evil institution?