Quoting the Founders, commenting, then reposting Rude Pundit

[digitaldiscipline]

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Let me allow that to sink in for a second while anyone who is up in arms about Park 51 re-reads THE FIRST GODDAMNED CLAUSE IN THE BILL OF F*CKING RIGHTS.

Everyone clear? Good.

"Let's bottom line this shit and then the Rude Pundit's done: You despise this country if you think the Cordoba Initiative should move its planned community center. You have no understanding of the Constitution. If fact, you are a traitor to it. You have no respect for freedom of religion or speech. You are a coward who believes that the Constitution and the nation are too fucking weak to handle such freedoms. If you're not one of the crass politicians seeking to exploit the simpletons for your gain or a ratings-whore on Fox, you are a vile, hate-filled, unprincipled lump of shit who thinks that rights are only good when convenient for you, and you are too fucking lazy to fight for anything other than your prejudice and hatred. That's easy, motherfucker.

But because the Rude Pundit does believe in principles and rights, he thinks it's nobody's fucking business (including the mythologized 9/11 families) where the damn thing's built. What's more, even though he thinks you're a knuckle-dragging yahoo, he'd defend to the end your right to yowl your imbecility through your facehole."

Comments

[ekeppich.livejournal.com]

Sorry, that dude's a fucking idiot.

As he can't find the subject in the sentence, it needs to be pointed out. That subject is "Congress." The State and the City can zone or re-zone anything they want. And have done so frequently in the past.

And if you think this has anything to do with religion, you are mistaken. This is a political statement, celebrating a military attack, disguised as religion and designed to fool the ignorant and naive.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

The fact that there are a couple of Christian and Jewish churches far closer to the site, operating free of harassment or impediment, kind of kicks the legs out from a lot of the prevailing arguments (zoning, et al) that say anything other than "we don't want Muslims down there."

Can you do some untangling of your closing sentence? I want to make sure I'm understanding what you're saying when I'm replying, and it turns into some kind of rhetorical Mobius strip on me about halfway through. I blame insufficient lunch and entirely too much brain drain at the office.

[ekeppich.livejournal.com]

Self-professed Christians or Jews did not destroy the Twin Towers. (A analogous case was the Carmelite nuns praying at Auschwitz for the dead Jewish, not directly related, but grossly inappropriate. An apology was offered and they were withdrawn.)

If it was merely a religious issue, then they would (presumably) be sensitive to the feelings of the locals and either scale down the mosque as to be non-intrusive or move it a quarter-mile away. I mean, really, is this religion so threatened that driving an additional ten minutes would bother it? If this was honestly about catering to the local muslims, neither would be a huge bother.

Both suggestions have been made and both have been rejected. That they have been rejected shows this has nothing to do with religion. The current structures show that

The goal of the mosque buildings is not to merely build another religious structure, but to build a huge, easily visible, half-city block, "victory monument." The developers owned one building and ran out of cash. So they dreamed up a scheme to attract investment from overseas Islamic banks, i.e. a big, mega-mosque next to the Ground Zero. Those banks like the idea of a victory monument. Now, whether the two guys actually have the hundred million it would take is another story...

Regardless, they're raising up this victory monument and doing so while hiding behind religious tolerance. Designed to due the naive and stupid... i.e. the rude pundit fellow.

[caias.livejournal.com]

It's a community center with a prayer space. Not a 'mosque'. Function space and swimming pools. Basketball courts and a culinary school. Fear Islamofascist point guards and tiramisu!

You want to blame all of Islam for the action of extremists, go ahead. While we are at it, show me your outrage at the monuments to Robert E. Lee (a general of an army that sought to destroy this nation) in the South or to all the Episcopal churches that went up near Ford's Theater (John Wilkes Booth, part of a conspiracy to assassinate a number of US politicians, was Episcopalian). Meanwhile, we've got people all over going 'no mosques in my backyard' all over the place. That would appear to be a religious issue, and a bigotry issue.

Also, a quarter mile in Manhattan is a large distance for a tightly packed city where your options are drive (ha), cab (expensive) walk (long and tiring) or public transit (not as tiring but still takes time). I'm not sure where you got the idea you can cover that distance in 10 minutes. Probably the same place where you got the rest of your ideas.

[scar4711.livejournal.com]

Also.. I don't blame all Christians for those who bomb abortion clinics or kill doctors who perform abortions... or even for those wackjobs from Kansas.. :)

[ekeppich.livejournal.com]

Well, I know Rafe, so it's okay that we disagree. I know he's not an idiot. You, I have no idea. Arguing, well, anything, over the internet with strangers is an exercise in futility.... so my first impulse is to say nothing at all, as most of any response I'll get is nonsensical non sequitors (i.e. the 14th Amendment below)... so, beginning with that I will simply make an attempt at clarification.

A "community center with a prayer space" is pretty much the definition of a mosque.

There are no persons with living memory of the 1860s. John Wilkes Booth never primarily identified himself as killing Lincoln for "Episcopealism." The analogy makes zero sense. On the other hand, removing confederate emblems from State flags, I'm all in favor of.

And, from the way I've seen New Yorkers walk, ten minutes is easily thirty to forty miles. (That's a joke.)

But the fact that the Victory Mosque remains primarily a political statement celebrating 9-11 stands... and it should be stopped.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering where this "Victory Mosque" term comes from. I've seen it referred to as "Park 51" and that's about it.

As pointed out by m_a, there wasn't much local hue and cry over this until outside folks wanted to make political hay just in time for primaries and the run-up to the national elections. I've been in that part of the city, and two blocks in that neighborhood is roughly the equivalent of two miles out here in the real world in terms of the sheer amount of people and stuff crammed into it.

[miss-adventure.livejournal.com]

Initially the project was called Cordoba House, the idea being that Cordoba was a city in which Christians and Muslims peacefully coexisted. (Historically speaking, Cordoba Spain returned to Christian hands so I am curious as to where the nay-sayers are getting their facts. They are clearly not using the same sources as the rest of us.) The imam heading the project is a Sufi who has repeatedly denounced the actions and philosophies of Al Quaeda. Then, when pundits got their panties in a bunch over...well, I'm not sure, really...the name was changed to Park 51 (the site address being in part 51 Park Place). So the "Victory Mosque" thing is sheer hysterical punditry, because nobody actually involved in the project has called it anything of the sort. Additionally, there is another, much smaller mosque that is purely a house of worship (as opposed to what is being planned as the Muslim equivalent of a YMCA with its pool, ball courts, auditoriums, etc) three blocks from the WTC site and less than half a block from City Hall. It has been on that block since several months before the WTC was even built, suggesting that Muslims have lived, worked, and worshiped in the area for decades, and are in fact a vital part of the community. Even the Pentagon has a mosque on premises. Also, it disgusts but doesn't surprise me that Muslims who were killed on 9/11, including NYPD Cadet and licensed EMT Salman Hamdani who died while trying to evacuate the buildings and aid those injured, are so quickly forgotten or disappeared for political expediency. The 9/11 families are not some monolithic, monocultural entity.

IIRC, the Cordoba House site was initially planned for the vicinity of 23rd Street in Chelsea, a couple of miles north of Park Place, but that real estate deal fell through because prices are at a premium there, even by Manhattan standards. Pockets of Lower Manhattan, OTOH, have been pretty economically depressed for years, and the Park Place site has been sitting empty and damaged since 9/11. That's why, by Manhattan standards, they were able to get that property cheaply. Nobody else wants it. It's a large building on a block that doesn't get much foot traffic, which is rare for the area.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

That's essentially the same understanding of the situation that I've got; both the name, the location, and the existence of the actual site worship nearby that predated 9/11. The pictures of the latter seem to consist of a sign stuck to a wall or sitting on a table inside a fairly nondescript hallway.

Admittedly, I learned most of that from Keith Olbermann, so I wasn't sure if I might have been missing part of the story or not; as much as I tend to agree with a lot of his commentary and criticism, and think he's more prone to fact-checking than most conservative news/opinion sources, I still seek alternate sources for confirmation.

the Park Place site has been sitting empty and damaged since 9/11. That's why, by Manhattan standards, they were able to get that property cheaply.

I've heard that it was bordering on ludicrously cheap - $2.5 or $4.5 million? - and/because it had caught a rather large chunk of landing gear.

[caias.livejournal.com]

So if a battleship has a chapel, it's a church now?

And the Pentagon, which has prayer space for Muslims, that's a mosque now?

You blame all of Christianity for the actions of the KKK? How about for the actions of McVeigh and Nichols? That close enough in living memory for you?

Assuming any point brought up by your opposition is 'nonsensical'? How about you just put your fingers in your ears and go 'NANANANAN I'm not listening!' while your at it?

And if you consider the 14th Amendment (ie, that part that doesn't let the local governments just bypass the Constitution as you claimed they could) to be 'nonsense', especially when it removes your whole 'Congress' angle from things, well I can't use logic to argue you out of a position you didn't use logic to get into.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

easy, chief.

[ekeppich.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I thought this was a waste of time....

[caias.livejournal.com]

Fair enough regarding my (matched to others) tone.

As for content, this is once again people buying into the fear of the 'other'. Before this, black people, before that, Jews, before that, the Irish and a host of others. If someone's view is sufficiently extreme and adversarial ('Victory Mosque'?), I don't have a duty to meet them halfway.

[caias.livejournal.com]

Why thank you.

Anything pertaining to the actual matter of the community center, or just want to be catty? :)

[caias.livejournal.com]

Ah, trolling then. Best of luck to you.

[caias.livejournal.com]

Bless your heart.

[miss-adventure.livejournal.com]

That mosque, Masjid Manhattan, is less than half a block from City Hall, and has been on that block (albeit in a different building that it currently is) since 1970. I'd even hazard a guess that there are City Hall staffers are among their congregants. Manhattan is highly multicultural, and has been since the Dutch real estate scam of 1626. In other breaking news, fire is hot and water is wet.

[scar4711.livejournal.com]

U.S. Constitution: Fourteenth Amendment

Fourteenth Amendment - Rights Guaranteed Privileges and Immunities of Citizenship, Due Process and Equal Protection

Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

[miss-adventure.livejournal.com]

This. Establishment Clause for the win!

Incidentally, Community Board 1 voted in favour 29 to 1--that is, almost unanimously--for Park 51. Lower Manhattan, in other words, is not against this project.

More personally, I work in the precinct which covers both the former World Trade Center Site and the block of Park Place on which the community centre is to be built. Further, though I was not assigned to that precinct at the time, I was on scene on 9/11/01 when the towers came down, worked the rescue and recovery for months afterward, and have the scarred lungs to prove it. I am appalled and disgusted that the pundits, the same ones who like to claim that NYC is not "real America," think they get any say over what we "East Coast liberal elites" do in our own city. I am dismayed that they try to make political gain via bigotry, fear, and disinformation, and I am bloody well embarrassed that this is even an issue.

The glory of Manhattan is that one is never more than two blocks* away from something new, or different, or not to one's personal taste. That's part of what makes Manhattan a sometimes difficult place to live and work, but that's also part of what makes Manhattan such an amazing place to live and work.

Furthermore, the Imam in charge of the project is a Sufi. Sufis have been and continue to be violently repressed in hard-line Sunni and Shi'a theocracies because they are a very liberal and socially progressive stream of Islam.

So basically, I cordially invite the hate-mongers to get bent. I and my colleagues did not sustain chronic health conditions, and we did not give our lives, so that neo-Know Nothings with political axes to grind can trample the Constitution that we swore to uphold and defend.

*The proposed community centre is two blocks from the WTC site, which by Lower Manhattan standards is an appreciable distance.

edited for typo correction

[zymergist.livejournal.com]

A few honest questions, I have not had time to do my own research on these points:

Is part of the land the proposed facility will be on actualy municipal land as claimed by some?

do you know anything about the Greek Orthodox church that is supposedly having problems getting permits to rebuild?

[miss-adventure.livejournal.com]

The Park 51 site is privately-owned property. It had been a Burlington Coat Factory store until 9/11.

St Nicholas Church, the Greek Orthodox church that was demolished when the WTC towers fell, has been plagued by funding troubles and bureaucratic red tape with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which has control over the WTC site. As of April, the talks between the Church and the Port Authority seem to have stalled.

[miss-adventure.livejournal.com]

No idea. The press has been surprisingly quiet on the matter, as has the congregation.

[cheez-ball.livejournal.com]

I don't know about you, but I've been squicked out about this whole situation from the start. If I buy a building, get all the permits and pay all the taxes, I should be able to do anything legal in it I want. I'd MUCH rather see a community center, for whatever peaceful community, than yet another tourist kitch store.

FWIW another friend of mine posted these and I'm reposting them here for your viewing enjoyment.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matt-sledge/just-how-far-is-the-groun_b_660585.html
http://daryllang.com/blog/4421
(this one's a video) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/38731398#38731398

[miss-adventure.livejournal.com]

Or, y'know, the empty moldering building that particular lot has been for the past nine years. On the Big List of Things That Are Not Scary: swimming pools, cooking classes, exercise classes for senior citizens...

[vatine]

You can't be too safe with those elderly citizens. Leave them unwatched for a few seconds and the next thing you know, there'll be someone hit with a cane, ears tugged and a few "back in the days, when I was...". Malicious, that sort of thing.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

GET OFF MAH LAWN!

(gratuitous icon use)

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I dunno... gramps in a speedo...

;-)

[cheez-ball.livejournal.com]

Better IN the speedo than out of it.

Anecdota time: my dad likes to wear very old, very short khaki shorts. We all wish he wouldn't. :-P

[miss-adventure.livejournal.com]

Also, better a Speedo than a thong.

Mine is all about the loud Hawaiian shirts. He has never been to Hawaii, and because he hates air travel he is unlikely ever to go. It remains a mystery.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

my garish and ugly clothing is almost exclusively below the waist: some fantastically ugly pants, an orange camo utilikilt, and two tie-dyed skirts.

[y2kdragon.livejournal.com]

"If you're not one of the crass politicians seeking to exploit the simpletons for your gain or a ratings-whore on Fox, you are a vile, hate-filled, unprincipled lump of shit who thinks that rights are only good when convenient for you, and you are too fucking lazy to fight for anything other than your prejudice and hatred."

I dunno, but I'd happily lump said politicians and Fox whores in with the rest of the haters. Saying they are doing it for votes or for money is, IMO, worse than just doing it.