Building Mountains Out Of Mosque Hills
The ingenious design of the constitution is that not only is the concept of majority rule defined, but at the same time, minority protections are written into the document as well.
History is littered with very real examples of the “majority” collective mindset not always being a shining beacon of the correct path. Nazi Germany? The Civil Rights Movement activity centered around the South?
This country was settled by the Pilgrims (among others), a minority escaping the religious persecution of the crown.
The list can be voluminous.
Would a Christianity based church built within a three city block radius of George Tiller’s former medical practice cause such a public hub-bub? A YMCA within the vicinity of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building site in Oklahoma City? Probably not. People choosing to follow the tenets of Christianity do not scare or intimidate me, even if sometimes it spawns dangerous radicalism on it’s fringes.
Extremism is Extremism, no matter what faith it attaches itself to.
There is a difference between the Islamic faith and Islamic extremism. In the aftermath of 9/11, President George W. Bush was very careful in responsibly drawing that distinction in a crisis, a distinction that is now disintegrating behind the purposeful crafted agendas of right wing think tanks, and it’s media organs. It’s a cheap political ploy, but by demonizing a populace for political gain, it starts to smell like a page out of the National Socialist playbook; state sanctioned bigotry, anger, and its eventual violent outcome being its cornerstone. It is civic irresponsibility beyond the pale.
This is the REAL dangerous issue, not the construction of an Islamic community center .
As long as you aren’t a conspiracy theorist and think that the Illuminati took down the twin towers to gin up a phony war to control the world’s oil reserves and accept the premise that members of Al Qaeda did the deed, then an Islamic Community Center really isn’t that big of a deal…. unless of course, it is engineered to appear as such.
This is a faux controversy, created to obsfucate the electorate from what is truly important in this year’s election cycle, with the sheep-like acceptance of the media in promoting this quantum cartload of horse manure…on both sides of the ideological spectrum, and not just the obvious projectile bile that spews forth nightly from FOX NEWS and NEWS CORP’s Murdochian maw. Because these shenanigans have to be exposed, it sucks everybody into the black hole to the detriment of all.
August is always a slow month. Last year it was “Death Panels”.
The sad part is that the general populace buys this crap, year in and year out. All of these jerks are absolutely dependent on a dumbed down population, and unfortunately it is a strategy that seems to be working.
The risks and liabilities of demonizing and persecuting a peaceful Muslim faithful for the gain of a vote and political leverage will ultimately be externalized upon a populace that doesn’t even realize, even in a post 9/11 world, how those risks and liabilities could manifest themselves in a future reality.
Does anyone think that widespread religious persecution of followers of a specific faith is EVER going to end well, here at home or abroad?
The whole of human history suggests otherwise. These are dark days indeed.