# Why are the media ignoring the protest against the ground zero mosque? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 8, 2010, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-media-ignoring-the-protest-against-the-ground-zero-mosque/542367 "2010-06-08T00:48:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-media-ignoring-the-protest-against-the-ground-zero-mosque/542367/201 "2010-06-10T18:55:04Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > I don’t recall saying I wanted to destroy every Muslim. What I do say is that the west is finally waking up and defending itself. Muslims can remain in their own countries imposing Islam, stoning, repressing women, hanging gays, murdering apostates, cutting off hands, whatever turns them on. It is our western way of life I want to protect. God, you’re insane. Consider medication. ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-media-ignoring-the-protest-against-the-ground-zero-mosque/542367/202 "2010-06-10T19:05:24Z")
> [@Hello\_Again](#): > > Gee, I don’t know, why did Nazi-influenced hate groups spring up all over America and Europe to defend themselves from the Lying Jew, bent on world domination? > > Perhaps the answer to both questions is that where ever you go, there are some assholes. So you want to play a game of “Reductio ad Hitlerium”? You realize of course that according to one rule of debate, the first person to haul out Nazis and Hitler automatically loses the argument? But I don’t apply that rule in every case. Sometimes the comparison is relevant. Your major premise: When groups spring up all over America and Europe to oppose what some people see as an evil force bent on world domination, it is because the people in these groups are assholes. The minor premise: Churchill, De Gaulle, anti-Nazi Germans, the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War, and numerous organizations in Europe and America sprang up in the 1930s to oppose the menace of spreading Naziism and Fascism. Conclusion: All of the above-named organizations and people were delusional, paranoid assholes. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-media-ignoring-the-protest-against-the-ground-zero-mosque/542367/203 "2010-06-10T19:12:58Z")
Conclusion: Valteron is a delusional, paranoid asshole. Jesus, you’re a stupid fuck. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-media-ignoring-the-protest-against-the-ground-zero-mosque/542367/204 "2010-06-10T19:16:22Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > Thank you, Kimstu, for your colourful if somewhat scatological description. I am not without compassion for the millions of women, gays, atheists and freethinkers, religious minority groups and others who must suffer under the benighted hand of Islamofascism in Muslim countries. > > But realistically speaking, I doubt if the Muslim world will change in any forseeable future. Indeed, the movement, in countries like Turkey for example, is AWAY from secularism. Groups like the Taliban, who have growing incluence in Pakistan, for example, and other Islamist movements are growing daily. Do you know why this is? In part, it’s because they’re scared of assholes like you–when you and other supposedly liberal people in modern democracies are manning the barricades against their religion without regard for sect or creed or degree of fundamentalism, when you do things like accuse all Muslims of lying to you all the time for the express purpose of taking over, when you conflate a legitimate war against a terror group with randomly kicking over a secular leader’s sandpile because he happens to be Arab (Iraq) because you’re too pussy to declare war on the real problem (Saudi Arabia), when you have US soldiers in Muslim nations using anti-Muslim propaganda and lumping all Muslims together and actively trying to convert them to Christianity…of course people are going to circle the wagons. If you shoot a a liberal Muslim because he’s a Muslim enough times, pretty damn soon he’s going to think “well, why the fuck should I bother, that white Canadian asshole accuses me of lying when I’m liberal and vilifies me anyway, it’s me or him and it ain’t gonna be him.” And I don’t blame him, because he’s damn well right! The exact same thing happens EVERYWHERE where you see western powers acting in ways that are perceived by the locals as extending our hegemony without regard to their wishes or needs. > [@](#): > > And make no mistake about it, if we do not defend our freedoms, they will die the death of a thousand cuts. South Park censors itself. Big companies do stupid things all the time in the name of political correctness. > [@](#): > > College professors who are not Muslims show “cultural sensitivity” by giving in to the demands of Muslim students who insist that they mumble “Peace be unto him” when they mention Mohammed. So the fuck what? Respecting another person’s religion is a sign of being civilized, in exactly the same way as respecting them regardless of their education level, orientation, or gender. > [@](#): > > Harvard publishes a book about the “Cartoons that Shook the World” but, unbelievably, does not have the balls to publish the cartoons in the book. So the fuck what? Who the fuck cares what a private concern does out of respect for another’s culture? I should publish a big book of anti-Gay artwork and screeds and dare you to call me out for it. After all, to not put the actual offensive stuff in there would be cowardice, right? > [@](#): > > Polygamists who are clearly violating our laws are not prosecuted. Polygamists of every culture–this is far more a retarded psuedo-Mormon problem than a retarded pseudo-Muslim problem in the US. > [@](#): > > As Sam Harris has written, when Muslims began flooding into the west, it was as if there had been some sort of rip in the fabric of time and millions of people from the middle ages were flooding into our modern world. Tell that to my dentist. Or the hundreds of Muslim students at the local university. Basically, you are a bigoted asshole, and frankly you are evil. You are doing the EXACT same thing to Muslims as every religious asshole of every stripe has done to gays from the dawn of time–making them all into the enemy when they mostly just want to be left in peace with their own culture and mores. You are what you hate, and you’re too stupid to see it. ---
**Author:** ![Omegaman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e480ec/32.png) [@Omegaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omegaman)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-media-ignoring-the-protest-against-the-ground-zero-mosque/542367/205 "2010-06-10T19:18:13Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > I think much can be explained if one assumes that **Valteron** is a coward. Forgone conclusion in my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-media-ignoring-the-protest-against-the-ground-zero-mosque/542367/206 "2010-06-10T19:18:23Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > Your major premise: When groups spring up all over America and Europe to oppose what some people see as an evil force bent on world domination, it is because the people in these groups are assholes. Your reading comprehension is faulty–his example of people springing up everywhere to combat the evil force of Judaism… was meant to show you that there is NO truth value assigned to “everyone is doing it”, you chowderbrained fuckwit. I’ve scraped things off my shoe that had a better ability to evaluate danger. > [@Gyrate](#): > > I think much can be explained if one assumes that Valteron is a coward. Amplify that to “scared shitless of the brown people who are obviously all the same and if they’re not they’re liars.” ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-media-ignoring-the-protest-against-the-ground-zero-mosque/542367/207 "2010-06-10T19:24:53Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Conclusion: Valteron is a delusional, paranoid asshole. > > Jesus, you’re a stupid fuck. I must admit, calling someone names is an argument so logical and powerful that I find myself unable to respond. As we say in French, “You haved sewn my lips shut.” I have taken courses in logic in university, but they never taught us the ultimate secret argument of shouting abuse at our opponent and throwing dung like a frustrated monkey in a cage. I have no defense against you. You have mastered me.:rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-media-ignoring-the-protest-against-the-ground-zero-mosque/542367/208 "2010-06-10T19:32:30Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > Amplify that to “scared shitless of the brown people who are obviously all the same and if they’re not they’re liars.” Amazing that you would assume that I am lily-white. No, actually, not amazing. Par for the course I would say. I am a gay, atheist, and partially of African descent. I am darker than a lot of the Muslims I see. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-media-ignoring-the-protest-against-the-ground-zero-mosque/542367/209 "2010-06-10T19:32:55Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > I must admit, calling someone names is an argument so logical and powerful that I find myself unable to respond. And yet you keep yapping. Are you lying to me? 😃 > [@](#): > > As we say in French, “You haved sewn my lips shut.” I suspect this would make the world a better place if literally true. But something would have to be done about your hate-spreading fingers. > [@](#): > > I have taken courses in logic in university, but they never taught us the ultimate secret argument of shouting abuse at our opponent and throwing dung like a frustrated monkey in a cage. You didn’t learn anything in that class. I suspect it isn’t the teacher’s fault, since you’re a fucking simpleton. > [@](#): > > I have no defense against you. You have mastered me.:rolleyes: I don’t generally write detailed rebuttals to prejudiced screeds. A bigot’s shrieks are self-refuting. I’m sorry you’re such a coward. I’m sorry you find yourself allied with the same people who think that gays are wretched and worthless. The company you keep would have you fired, denied housing and in some cases killed. If your opinions mirror the most hateful, angry and pathetic elements of the right, that might be a clue that you need to examine them. ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-media-ignoring-the-protest-against-the-ground-zero-mosque/542367/210 "2010-06-10T19:50:47Z")
Lobohan said: “I’m sorry you find yourself allied with the same people who think that gays are wretched and worthless. The company you keep would have you fired, denied housing and in some cases killed.” First of all, so would most of the Muslims presently living in the west, I suspect. I do not have figures for every country, but unless Britain had the amazingly bad kluck to attract only homophobic Muslims that other countries did not attract, a poll shows that 72% of British Muslims would want to see gays killed or imprisoned. As I also pointed out, there are LGBT sections in groups like the English Defence League who participate in their marches and are fully welcome. You can see pink triangles and raindow flags at these demos. Authors like Bruce Bawer, who wrote “While Europe Slept” and “Surrender - Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom” is openly gay, and his spouse has twice been gay-bashed by Muslim thugs. Straight EDL lads in London have on a number of occasions defended gay people who were being gay-bushed by Muslim youths. Geert Wilders, btw, is fully respectful of gay rights, and recently refused to participate in a film about him because the group producing the film was a homophobic Christian group. Yes, I admit there are homophobic right-wing Christians. But I refuse to accept this moral relativist argument. Even nut jobs like Fred Phelps have not actually demanded the death penalty for gays. At least five Muslim States execute homosexuals, and most of the others have heavy prison sentences. It is like the Nazi sympathizers whose rebuttal concerning the Holocaust is that Canada and the US unfairly imprisoned citizens of Japanese origin during WWII. Like all moral relativism arguments, it is true but ridiculously incomparable. There used to be an bit of dark humour in the 80s that there was nothing like AIDS to make Gonorrhea seem like an old friend you haven’t seen in a long time. I would say there is nothing like Islam to make fundie Christians look tolerable. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-media-ignoring-the-protest-against-the-ground-zero-mosque/542367/211 "2010-06-10T20:14:31Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > Amazing that you would assume that I am lily-white. No, actually, not amazing. Par for the course I would say. I am a gay, atheist, and partially of African descent. I am darker than a lot of the Muslims I see. So you have multiple examples of other people historically treating you and yours like you want to treat Muslims now. Is this some kind of revenge fantasy pathology you’re working on here? ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-media-ignoring-the-protest-against-the-ground-zero-mosque/542367/212 "2010-06-10T20:17:32Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > Yes, I admit there are homophobic right-wing Christians. But I refuse to accept this moral relativist argument. Even nut jobs like Fred Phelps have not actually demanded the death penalty for gays. O rly? > **[Christian leader supports death penalty for gays](https://www.thepinknews.com/2009/12/21/christian-leader-supports-death-penalty-for-gays/)** > > A far right Christian group has urged fellow Christians to support Uganda's proposed law that would make homosexuality punishable by death. The law would impose the death penalty on those convicted of having gay sex with a minor or disabled person or... ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-media-ignoring-the-protest-against-the-ground-zero-mosque/542367/213 "2010-06-10T20:18:27Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > So you have multiple examples of other people historically treating you and yours like you want to treat Muslims now. Is this some kind of revenge fantasy pathology you’re working on here? Assuming you know how I “want to treat Muslims now” which is your fantasy contruction, not mine. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-media-ignoring-the-protest-against-the-ground-zero-mosque/542367/214 "2010-06-10T20:22:49Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > Assuming you know how I “want to treat Muslims now” which is your fantasy contruction, not mine. You’ve made it clear want to treat them all like pariahs and that you cannot distinguish between liberal Muslims and fundie Muslims. You’ve made it clear that you believe liberal Muslims are lying to you (your retarded taqqiya post). You’ve ignored any and all descriptors of Muslims who don’t act like your strawman. That’s good enough for me. We’ll go with “they all persecuted me, so now I gotta persecute someone else to feel like Mr. Big Stuff.” Nothing you’ve said has really made me think that’s inaccurate, and I presume most of the thread would agree with me. ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-media-ignoring-the-protest-against-the-ground-zero-mosque/542367/215 "2010-06-10T20:25:42Z")
> [@Hello\_Again](#): > > O rly? > [Christian leader supports death penalty for gays | PinkNews](http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2009/12/21/christian-leader-supports-death-penalty-for-gays/) You are right. After I posted I remembered that the KKK and maybe one or two offbeat Christian groups actually want the death penalty for gays. Once again, the moral relativist argument does not really refuste my position one bit. These groups are a tiny, tiny minority of Christians. In Islam at least five states with a combined population of about several hundred millions have the death penalty, and mosxt of the rest, with a population of maybe another billion, have penalties including long prison terms, lashings, stonings, etc. Obviously, one situation simply counterbalances the other, morally speaking.:rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-media-ignoring-the-protest-against-the-ground-zero-mosque/542367/216 "2010-06-10T20:29:42Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > You are right. After I posted I remembered that the KKK and maybe one or two offbeat Christian groups actually want the death penalty for gays. > > Once again, the moral relativist argument does not really refuste my position one bit. These groups are a tiny, tiny minority of Christians. > > In Islam at least five states with a combined population of about several hundred millions have the death penalty, and mosxt of the rest, with a population of maybe another billion, have penalties including long prison terms, lashings, stonings, etc. > > Obviously, one situation simply counterbalances the other, morally speaking.:rolleyes: I’m sure all those citizens living under Stalin just LOOOVED it so fuzzy huggy much, too. Clearly, all oppressive dictatorships operate with the wholehearted support of their citizens. Every time you type another post you sound dumber. ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-media-ignoring-the-protest-against-the-ground-zero-mosque/542367/217 "2010-06-10T21:12:08Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > You’ve made it clear want to treat them all like pariahs and that you cannot distinguish between liberal Muslims and fundie Muslims. You’ve made it clear that you believe liberal Muslims are lying to you (your retarded taqqiya post). You’ve ignored any and all descriptors of Muslims who don’t act like your strawman. That’s good enough for me. We’ll go with “they all persecuted me, so now I gotta persecute someone else to feel like Mr. Big Stuff.” Nothing you’ve said has really made me think that’s inaccurate, and I presume most of the thread would agree with me. Actually, what you are doing there, Zeriel, is a form of fallacious _ad hominem_ reasoning that is known in French as “prêter des intentions”, or roughly translated, attributing motives to your opponent in order to attack his arguments. It is generally considered an invalid form of argument. It is like saying: “You are against medicare because your father was a liberal Democrat and he also beat you so you are getting even with him by opposing this measure.” I will not bother to dignify it with a response. On the other hand, I have not ignored descriptors of Muslims who have displayed some notions of democracy and liberalism, and I welcome them to the west, but I have taken into consideration that the plural of “anecdote” is not “data”. It would astound me if every one of 1.5 billion Muslims had the same opinion about everything. As I have said over and over, there were no doubt any number of decent, even kind people who were Nazis in the 1930s. After all, at its high point the Nazi Party had 5 million members out of 80 million Germans. Similarly, it was not every man, woman and child in Japan that attacked Pearl Harbour. But when it became a matter of defending ourselves against these agressive entities, we did not declare war on the Nazis or the Japanese militarists. We declared war on Germany and Japan. ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-media-ignoring-the-protest-against-the-ground-zero-mosque/542367/218 "2010-06-10T21:24:19Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > So you have multiple examples of other people historically treating you and yours like you want to treat Muslims now. Is this some kind of revenge fantasy pathology you’re working on here? I said I am gay, atheist and part African (although to be honest the black part is not that visible – I’m kinda “Mediterranean-looking”. So me and mine have been subjected to lynchings, slavery, segregation, firings, beatings, executions, prison, social exclusion, etc. on all three aspects. Would you care to show me where I have proposed that for Muslims? All I have called for is a severe restriction on immigration from Islamic countries in future as well as a GENEROUS refugee program for women, gays, atheists and religious free-thinkers, democrats, religious minorities, apostates from Islam, and anyone else who has reason to fear living under Islamic rule. Read what I have proposed, not what your imagination tells you. ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-media-ignoring-the-protest-against-the-ground-zero-mosque/542367/219 "2010-06-10T21:36:37Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > I’m sure all those citizens living under Stalin just LOOOVED it so fuzzy huggy much, too. Clearly, all oppressive dictatorships operate with the wholehearted support of their citizens. > > Every time you type another post you sound dumber. So how would you explain that 72% of the Muslims in Britain want the dealth penalty of imprisonment for gays? Did the cruel dictators in their countries of origin watch them when they were approached by British pollsters and oblige them to answer that way? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-media-ignoring-the-protest-against-the-ground-zero-mosque/542367/220 "2010-06-10T22:25:28Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > I said I am gay, atheist and part African (although to be honest the black part is not that visible – I’m kinda “Mediterranean-looking”. So me and mine have been subjected to lynchings, slavery, segregation, firings, beatings, executions, prison, social exclusion, etc. on all three aspects. > > Would you care to show me where I have proposed that for Muslims? Well, you haven’t actually said that’s what you want. But we all know that bigots routinely lie about their true motivations, attempting to cloak their genocidal impulses in more palatable terms, until they’re in a position to put them into practice. So, while you can talk about how you don’t want to kill Muslims, we all know that it’s a lie to cover up your long-term plan to round up as many Muslims as you can and shovel them into ovens. [sub][Link provided for the parody impaired.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12556929&postcount=156)[/sub] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-media-ignoring-the-protest-against-the-ground-zero-mosque/542367.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-media-ignoring-the-protest-against-the-ground-zero-mosque/542367.md?page=12)