Stop Draggin’ My Mosque Around

I apologize for the delay in putting together another posting on the controversy surrounding the Mohammedin’s plan to erect a triumphal mosque in Ground Zero [well…if that sentence doesn’t tell you what my thinking on this subject is, nothing will], but life intruded from a number of flanks over the past few days.

I must say I have enjoyed watching our Fearless Leader whine and get testy since he decided to wade into this ‘local issue’ last Friday during his Ramitdown speech.  Perhaps it is my dark side acting up, but I do so enjoy seeing buffoons squirming and sweating and figuratively wetting themselves [I hope that doesn’t dhimmi me in your eyes, dear readers].

-I would first like to thank all of you who have helped disseminate the passage from John Quincy Adams that I quoted in my last posting on this subject.  There’s a lot of wisdom in it from a man who had a deep understanding of mankind.  If you haven’t read it yet, please click here and check it out and post it, if you can [the important thing is to get his words read by as many people as possible].

A special thank you to reader and commentator Adobe Walls for fertilizing various comment sections in The Ether with it.

-Over at WyBlog, Chris published the JQA quote and offered this searing commentary:

Now here we are, another 200 years later. The current successor to Mr. Adams offers mealy-mouthed platitudes about “religious tolerance” in response to Mohammedan provocations. Apparently we have to let them build their Victory Mosque or the terrorists will have won.

Would that our president extended his notion of religious tolerance to the Jews of Jerusalem, whom he constantly lectures on the need to cease building synagogues and houses. Which of course turns out to be exactly the course of action desired by, you guessed it, Muslims.

Seems like that with Mr. Obama, whatever the Muslims want, the Muslims should get. It’s no wonder considering how he’s one of them.

A lot of folks are echoing that last sentiment these days.

-Chris’s commentary inspired me to head on over to Caroline Glick’s site and see if she had commented on this issue.  Oh, has she ever.  Wonderful stuff.  A highlight:

SO THE ideology Obama holds so strongly that it provokes him to take positions antithetical to the political interests of his party during an election season is not civil rights. Rather it has to do with his commitment to advancing the interests of a specific group or groups over the interests of other specific groups. In the case of the Ground Zero mosque he prefers the rights of Muslims over the values of the overwhelming majority of Americans. In the case of the Palestinians, he prefers their anti-Semitic nationalism over the civil rights of Jews.

Obama’s behavior tells Israel’s leaders something very important about how they should think about their relations with the Obama administration. It tells them that Obama is so wed to his ideology that he will push it regardless of political conditions. This means that for Israel, dealing with Obama is like standing on a landmine. Just as a landmine can explode at any minute, Obama can attack Israel at any moment. He is so ideologically bound to the Palestinian cause against Israel that he is liable to provoke a crisis when it is least politically advantageous – from his perspective – for him to do so.

One quibble: Barack Hussein Obama Al-Amriki is bound to the Muslim Cause.  I have seen no evidence that he cares a whit for the Christians of the Middle East.

–In another posting, Chris looks at the story of Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which was destroyed on 09/11 by one of the falling towers.  It has not been rebuilt and it looks as though the government of New York City will not let it be rebuilt [there’s tolerance for you!].

-Jim Hoft has more on this outrage here.

-Also from the Gateway Pundit we learn that the developers of the Victory Mosque will not refuse to take donations from countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia.

–Jonah Goldberg thinks the whole debate over the Victory Mosque is so much the poorer because we haven’t heard from one sage:

Where is Joe Biden!? We need some off-the-cuff wisdom from the White House’s foreign policy wise man. Seriously, why hasn’t he shared his no doubt dispositive views on the matter?

…

There’s just no knowing what you’ll get when Joe turns on the wisdom machine. Let Joe be Joe!

What the mosque needs now
Is Joe, Sweet Joe….

-Stacy McCain answers those who think we opponents of the Victory Mosque are scapegoating the Mohammedins.  A highlight:

No, this isn’t scapegoating. It would be scapegoating if Muslims were being blamed for widespread social or economic woes, the way Hitler made Jews the convenient explanation for all of Germany’s ills after World War I.

…

If you think Newt Gingrich is demagoging the Ground Zero Mosque story, or that Fox News is exploiting it, then by all means denounce the demagoguery and exploitation. But do not make the mistake of assuming that an issue is illegitimate, simply because it is being promoted by people you don’t like.

-The Princess Of The Asinine, Kathleen Parker has penned another column that is a tribute to fatuousness.  A highlight [tip of the fedora to Peter Kirsanow]:

The mosque should be built precisely because we don’t like the idea very much. We don’t need constitutional protections to be agreeable, after all.

This point surpasses even all the obvious reasons for allowing the mosque, principally that there’s no law against it. Precluding any such law, we let people worship when and where they please. That it hurts some people’s feelings is, well, irrelevant in a nation of laws. And, really, don’t we want to keep it that way?

Confession: I would prefer that the mosque not be built so close to the ground where nearly 3,000 innocent souls perished. That’s my personal feeling, especially as I imagine the suffering of so many families whose loved ones died in the conflagration.

But why do so many Americans feel this way? The answer is inherent in the question. Feeling is emotion, which isn’t necessarily bad, but it bears watching.

It gets worse:

Reason tells us something else: The Muslims who want to build this mosque didn’t fly airplanes into skyscrapers. They don’t support terrorism. By what understanding do we assign guilt to all for the actions of a relative few?

Even so, as others have noted, civilized people and nations are careful to avoid trespassing on the sorrow, suffering and sacrifice we associate with hallowed grounds. As Charles Krauthammer pointed out, Pope John Paul II ordered Carmelite nuns to abandon a convent they had established at Auschwitz, among other examples.

We would like to think that others would be as respectful of our own horrors. And yet, we should beware what we demand lest others demand the same of us. Count the number of times we’ve heard “sensitivity” invoked the past several days. Muslims should be more sensitive to the families of those who perished, we’ve heard repeatedly. Even the Anti-Defamation League, defender of religious freedom, urged the mosque’s leaders to situate the building farther from Ground Zero — out of sensitivity.

Many couldn’t agree more, and yet it goes without saying — even if President Obama felt it necessary to state — that American Muslims have the same right as any other citizens to practice their religion and to build on private property.

Some might wish that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who is behind the proposal, were more sensitive, though opinions are mixed. Others have argued that a moderate Muslim such as Rauf is just the sort of person we hope will help influence a more-moderate Islam. Might an Islamic center near the spot where the religion’s worst adherents slaughtered thousands, fellow Muslims among them, be useful to that end?

Let’s stop right there for a moment: Mzzz. Parker, have you done any research into Rauf?  He supports Hamas and has hinted that non-Muslims may have been responsible for 09/11 and…well, why don’t you get off your lazy arse and click here and read a full report on this Jihadist, so that, in the future, you won’t write such idiotic foolishness that makes you look like a such a stupid bink.

Once more into the breach, dear friends…

These are all reasonable arguments. But the more compelling point is that mosque opponents may lose by winning. Radical Muslims have set cities afire because their feelings were hurt. When a Muslim murdered filmmaker Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam, it was because his feelings were hurt. Ditto the Muslims who rioted about cartoons depicting the image of Muhammad and sent frightened doodlers into hiding.

The idea that one should never have one’s feelings hurt — and the violent means to which some will resort in the protection of their own self-regard — has done harm rivaling evil. It isn’t a stretch to say that the greatest threat to free speech is, in fact, “sensitivity.”

This is why plans for the mosque near Ground Zero should be allowed to proceed, if that’s what these Muslims want. We teach tolerance by being tolerant. We can’t insist that our freedom of speech allows us to draw cartoons or produce plays that Muslims find offensive and then demand that they be more sensitive to our feelings.

So……if I understand you correctly, Mzzz. Parker, we should give into the violent intimidation of Muslims?  Are you serious?  What are you on?  Did somebody shove a unicorn up your waiting arse?

I don’t know about you, but I can’t take anymore of this pablum-puking douche nozzle.

-Over at Three Beers Later, Richard McEnroe has created a must-see video that uses some very effective visual aids to help us all better understand Barack Hussein Obama Al-Amriki’s views on the Grand Victory Mosque.  Send the link to everyone you know.

Bravo, Richard!