August 12th, 2010 at 8:32 pm
So what’s your own view Tom?
If America is big enough to apply the principles of their constitution universally to all its citizens, is that a sign that the terrorists have won (as the authors of kowtows link suggest) or a sign that America has won?
Ah, the US Constitution hoves into view. Predictable.
While there are many people who are hurt and angered by the mosque proposal – to the degree that they would be willing to forget their constitutional principals and just ban it outright – I’m not one of them. Moreover, I will bet that there are a lot (perhaps a quiet majority) of Americans who will grind their teeth at recognition of the ploy yet accept the First Amendment that keeps the government (any level of government) out of religious practice. Not to mention the whole private property aspect.
But here’s the thing RRM – that’s not what this thread and this story is really about.
In fact it is precisely the sort of people who accept your argument who are proposing this gay bar. They recognise that the Government has no right to do anything to block this, and that they have no legal right to stop it as private citizens. But they also recognise that they can use other legal means to at least try to dissuade the owners from building this mosque. Most of all they recognise the double standards being applied, which is why they came up with this delicious idea in the first place.
Previous to this I’d heard of getting unions to refuse to work on the construction, or economic protests – but I suppose that such could be cast as yet more examples of bullying intolerance. The fun of this idea is that it shows – in the clearest possible light – not just the weasel words of the people behind the mosque, but the weasel words of those who have called for peace, love and understanding over the last few weeks.
And that’s the real lesson to take away here – that you and numerous others not only don’t really get the point but you actually get angry at the people who have the temerity to make it. You are unhappy with a private, smart-ass protest such as this in a way that you’re not with the original mosque proposal. The gay-bar backers are simply demanding that the same standards of moderation, understanding, and dialog be applied to their proposal by people who are demanding it for the mosque builders.
When New Yorkers and others who lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks express their hurt and anger, they’re effectively told by people like you to get over it, suck it up and get with the tolerant sensitivity program – not to mention the even loftier calls to support constitutional principles.
By contrast, when the Muslim backers of the mosque express their hurt and anger at the insensitivity of Americans who might build a gay bar next to it they’re told by people like you that they don’t have to just suck it up and get with the constitution or the diversity of America. On the contrary they’re given the message that they have special rights and that their hurts will be taken away – and since that can’t be done via the constitution it will be done by ostracising their opponents as intolerant bigots. That’s the next layer of this piece of fun, to see what happens to the voices of such ostracisers when the opposition takes the form of a gay bar, a scene not usually associated with intolerant bigots.
The mosque proposal is – like the burqa demands – a piece of political and cultural symbolism. But so is the gay bar proposal. Both may be serious. Both may be asking Americans to take a stand for the rights of “victim” groups. Both may actually be playing with the emotions of real victims. Both may be a piss-take.
But whatever they are, both these proposals are a test – not of the constitution or of the backers of the mosque or the gay bar – but of you.
---------------------------------------------------------
tom hunter (1,080) Says:
August 12th, 2010 at 11:46 pm
The analogy isn’t right though …
No, the analogy isn’t right, but not for the reasons stated.
A more accurate analogy would have the governments of Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany opening Emperor Hirohito Academies and Ein Volk High Schools in cities across Europe and America in the 1930’s, not to mention St Adolf’s Church.
Or perhaps having the Japanese obtain the negotiated end to the war in 1942 as they had planned, retaining their Greater East-Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere – and then planting a Shinto shrine in Pearl Harbour around 1946 once emotions had cooled.
The reason nobody gets upset about Japanese or German Cultural Centres nowadays is that they each represent a very different people, culture and polity. The one that represented them 60 years ago was stopped and then destroyed – militarily, politically, ideologically. The beliefs might still have gone on beating in the hearts of millions but there was nothing to give them effect, and with the passing of generations that too has almost gone.
That’s not the case with Islam.
…– bombing Pearl Harbour was an official act of the country of Japan – so all Japanese were implicitly responsible.
9/11 was the work of about 100 psychopaths – the other 1.5 billion muslims had nothing to do with it.
The bombing of Pearl Harbour was an official act of a quasi-facist, militaristic, imperial government whose people had little say in the matter as a result of the very close attentions of the Kempeitai.
By contrast, on the first anniversary of the London Tube bombings the Times of London commissioned a poll of British Muslims. Some of the findings:
• 16 percent say that while the attacks may have been wrong, the cause was right
• 7 percent agree that suicide attacks on civilians in Britain can be justified in some circumstances, rising to 16 percent for a military target.
There are one million Muslims in London, officially, half of them under the age of 30. If 7 percent think suicide attacks on civilians are justified, that’s 70,000 potential supporters in Britains capital. Most of them will probably never be able to bring themselves to pull off such an act. But only nineteen men were actually needed for 9/11, and from a group of 70,000 I’d say those are good odds.
I also object to this standard, pathetic effort by Western secularists to dismiss such people as “psychopaths” because it’s the usual effort to hand-wavingly dismiss such things as some sort of rare condition, possibly one that can be medically treated. One could argue strongly that Stalin, Hitler, Beria and Himmler were psychopaths but to no purpose in actually opposing them. Within the context of their worlds they were cunning and entirely rational – as were the planners and executors of 9/11 and numerous other terrorist attacks, and the larger groups who support them. It’s actually quite an act of bigotry to assume that they were psychopaths: they were humans beings performing great acts of evil by choice in pursuit of vision that may seem silly to you but which is entirely real to them and millions of others.
In any case, a large majority of Western Muslims support almost all the strategic goals of the Islamist terrorists. According to another poll, over 60 percent of British Muslims want to live under sharia in Britain – that’s quite a basis for rationalising attacks. It also tells me that the two groups merely disagree on the means.
So yeah, it may be hard for the victims’ families to be reminded of 9/11 by seeing a mosque, but they’re visiting the site of the attack so presumably being reminded is not actually a problem.
Really? You are this obtuse? What those families will be reminded of, on every visit, will be the fact that sitting there is a place that worships the very religion in whose names their loved ones were killed.
No comments:
Post a Comment