I think most people, and particularly most New Yorkers, accept the right to build a mosque, they just question the judgment to build it on such hallowed ground. If you’re not from New York, you probably can’t understand how important Burlington Coat Factory is and what it means to people. Losing their resource for designer mens wear at factory direct prices is going to leave a hole in people’s lives that something like religion simply can’t fill. While it may technically be their right to build a mosque, the respectful thing to do would be to give people more time.
So, how far from the World Trade Center site does “hallowed ground” extend? And is it proper to have other religious buildings there, but not Muslim ones?
The strip club “New York Dolls” is within a couple of blocks of this “hallowed” ground.
I am sorry, but the WTC is not hallowed ground.
I never said it was. I’m talking about the actual site of the mosque, which was until recently a Burlington Coat Factory.
Here’s a map of all points of interest, including an existing mosque that’s just two blocks further east.
Exactly.
Hallowed Ground
Geez, I apologize, I totally missed the sarcasm. My bad.
Nice whoosh.
How many whooshed, now?
[ETA] Scooped by Frank!
Yeah, but whooshing me is like beating the Detroit Lions, it barely counts.
I initially did say Obama walked back his statement about the building, but I in turn will walk back my statement about his backwalking*. He didn’t reverse anything he said. He did clarify that he wasn’t endorsing the plan specifically because we all know that if you don’t see that this mosque is a slap in the face YOU HATE AMURRRICA WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!, and I don’t think he needed to do that - I wish he’d just said they have the right to build there if they’re following the laws and left it at that. But oh well. He had nothing to gain from speaking out on this one except that he happened to be correct and it was the statesmanlike thing to do.
*I hate “walking back” in this political sense of reversing a previous statement. It’s a sucky turn of phrase. It’s not as bad as “game changer,” but it’s bad.
When you whoosh upon a star…
Gotta say, not so sure. **Descamisado’s **timeline is pretty revealing, this has been going on for a long time, so this shit is purely opportunistic, as well as cynical, shameful and repulsive.
But now if they build there, they are asking for trouble, and its trouble that would redouble and backfire huge. The main single thing that concerns me is that this plays right into the enemy’s propaganda, about how we are at war with Islam. Some kind of incident there would make it much, much worse.
Not solidly decided, but can readily see how moving it might be wise, seeing as how it hasn’t even been built yet. They say they want it to serve Manhattan, but Manhattan is pretty darn big, isn’t it? I mean, its bigger than even greater metropolitan Waco, right?
Dunno, still pondering…
Is “back-walking” the new “flip-flopping”? Or “back-tracking”?
That Marist poll is hilarious. As usual, the people in my wonderful city have different ideas from the asshats who usually think we’re not part of the real America – except when they can co-opt a tragedy that took place in our midst for their political gain.
At the risk of it being my turn, there are at least two mosques in Waco, a city of just over 100,000 covering 84 square miles. Manhattan contains about 1.5 million people in 22 square miles . . . Ah, fuck. It is my turn, isn’t it?
Well, sure, but them are Baptist mosques. Totally not the same thing…
Yeah, they use those Korean Bibles those illegals keep smuggling over the border.
I haven’t read the Great Debates thread on the subject, but what do protestors to the Islamic cultural center think should be done: a Muslim free zone for 1 mile radius of the WTC site? Blow it up once completed? There’s absolutely no way you can get around that pesky First Amendment. The most that can be done is to ask “please don’t” of its builders but that’s not going to work.
I will say I wouldn’t be a security guard for that center once it’s open as it’s prime for some vigilante strike. Not proud or glad for this at all, but I can easily see it happening.
For the people who are out there protesting? I’d say they advocate both, and then deporting the Muslims back to their home country of Islamia.
For the people who are out there protesting? I’d say they advocate a no-Muslim zone, THEN blowing up the building, and then deporting the Muslims back to their home country of Islamia.
When I was a boy, flip-flop sandals were called thongs. It was way before the invention of string under-wear.
So I ask, is Obama thonging on this issue?