Did it result in the death of 3,000 innocent US civilians?
Considering the funds likely would have funded hundreds if not thousands of deaths in Ireland and England it's relatively similar in potential death toll. (And IIRC they did kill a number of people in the bank...)
Over the entire timeframe before the "ceasefire" with the IRA a little over a decade ago they had over 20k deaths attributed to them. Muslims aren't even near catching up at this point.
And to answer that other liberal about the exact number. It was my understanding that it was estimated to be 3,000.
PS - Labeling people as "liberal" because they disagree with the FoxNEWS engendered message is often false or blatantly wrong and serves as nothing but ad hominem even if it had any accuracy when used in a context like that. [Case in point - I've likely voted for more Republicans in my politically active years, than you've been of age to even vote for - and even today with distancing myself from the (R) by taking on an (I) because neo-conservatism isn't what I signed up for - I still vote predominantly for SMART Republicans (Sorry Michele Bachmann - I wouldn't vote for you if I was in your state), when it comes to Democrats I only vote for a few more Democrats than I do Independents/Third Parties. (And a large amount of that is Mikulski since she's had my vote every time she's up for reelection, because frankly she listens to people and will make her will secondary to that of the people - like an elected official is supposed to do)]
PSS - And when it's dealing with lives every number counts - 2752 is the generally accepted number. 250 lives is a big deal to just round up. (And note that 19 of those included in the official count were the hijackers themselves and approx 400 were on the planes although ~100 of them in the Pentagon crash, not sure if the "official 9/11 count" includes that plane as well or not)
Quote from Crashing00 »
Have you BEEN to Auschwitz? I have. Before I went there, the Holocaust was just something abstract to me. Now I know the depths to which mankind will sink, and that it is possible for humans to build and use something the only conceivable purpose of which is to slowly torture and finally kill people on a scale of hundreds of thousands at a time.
Personally, no - however I've seen a few dozen photos and gotten first case accounts from one of the liberators of the camps - my wife's (now deceased) grandfather. He actually appears in a few of the pictures from the liberation in the Holocaust museum including one with a future President of the United States.
Trust me I have a concept of scale and how people have moved on.
Hell, her grandfather after his work in the military there went right to work with ex-Nazi scientists towards improving RADAR after the war was over (specifically in regards to rocketry) and actually learned to respect them reasonably quickly.
Not to mention I've got an entire wing of my family "gone" from the Holocaust if you look at our family tree, since my father's side was Pole and Rom blood. (Not that anyone versed with where names come from should be surprised I've got some ancestors from that part of the world...)
Have you BEEN to Auschwitz? I have. Before I went there, the Holocaust was just something abstract to me. Now I know the depths to which mankind will sink, and that it is possible for humans to build and use something the only conceivable purpose of which is to slowly torture and finally kill people on a scale of hundreds of thousands at a time.
I notice you said "mankind" here and not, for example, "Germans."
I notice you said "mankind" here and not, for example, "Germans."
I think you just won the thread.
This is the double standard. No one here will, as they should not, hold all Germans responsible for the Holocaust, but there are plenty here that would hold another evil event against all Muslims.
This is the double standard. No one here will, as they should not, hold all Germans responsible for the Holocaust, but there are plenty here that would hold another evil event against all Muslims.
Is it because it's likely that more users (who I assume the majority are white US citizens, but there are of course many others, example I'm Canadian) have german blood or know german-blooded people? Empathy, people
Vaclav and Sibtiger get free cookies. :cookie::cookie:
I notice you said "mankind" here and not, for example, "Germans."
I'm sorry, you've lost me. I did say mankind and not Germans. I'm not seeing how anyone has scored a point against me by pointing that out.
I think you just won the thread.
This is the double standard. No one here will, as they should not, hold all Germans responsible for the Holocaust, but there are plenty here that would hold another evil event against all Muslims.
Why did he just win the thread?
Seriously, I hate to have to shift into flame mode, but I'm pretty much getting forced into a corner by people who refuse to even read my position before straw manning me. Are you people illiterate? Read my posts. I do not, never have, and never will hold all Muslims responsible for the 9/11 bombings.
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A limit of time is fixed for thee
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
I'm sorry, you've lost me. I did say mankind and not Germans. I'm not seeing how anyone has scored a point against me by pointing that out.
Why did he just win the thread?
Seriously, I hate to have to shift into flame mode, but I'm pretty much getting forced into a corner by people who refuse to even read my position before straw manning me. Are you people illiterate? Read my posts. I do not, never have, and never will hold all Muslims responsible for the 9/11 bombings.
This is the double standard. No one here will, as they should not, hold all Germans responsible for the Holocaust, but there are plenty here that would hold another evil event against all Muslims.
This is what he meant. Also they get warm :cookie:s from your flames...urm warm cookies.
I'm sorry, you've lost me. I did say mankind and not Germans. I'm not seeing how anyone has scored a point against me by pointing that out.
I AM saying that when a person visits that site they should come away knowing what horrors happened there, what the motivating ideology was (namely, radical Islam), why that ideology allows the most base kind of evil, and that they as a person are responsible for doing their part to make sure it doesn't happen again.
What they shouldn't see is a positive, uplifting, glorifying symbol of the responsible ideology, even though the local advocates of that ideology interpret it differently and are innocent of any wrongdoing.
This pretty much says it all. Even though in the first paragraph you say it was "radical Islam" that was responsible, apparently this group (which is about as far from Al-Qaeda ideologically as you can get while still claiming to be a Muslim) is still a member of the "responsible ideology". You might as well say members of the local Unitarian church aren't allowed near soldier's funerals because of the actions of the Phelps clan.
You're trying to claim you hold some nebulous abstraction of Islam responsible, but simultaneously not the people who follow that religion. If you hold Islam responsible you hold Muslims responsible- the religion IS the people that follow it.
You can't be serious. You think a religion is literally equal to the collection of its followers? Some friendly advice; before you engage in further debate, sign up for night classes, heavy emphasis on logic and philosophy.
This is the double standard. No one here will, as they should not, hold all Germans responsible for the Holocaust, but there are plenty here that would hold another evil event against all Muslims.
Nobody here holds either of those positions. I haven't seen one single solitary person in this entire thread post that all Muslims are responsible for 9/11.
You're doing nothing but burning a straw man. I think it's time for me to walk away from this one. I stayed in this thread for this long because I thought there was room for a rational, intelligent position against the mosque -- a position that doesn't involve hating, punishing, or blaming individual Muslims for the 9/11 attacks. I did my best to articulate that position while being explicitly clear that hating or blaming Muslims was not part of the position or in any way relevant to the position.
I was hoping for a debate, but all I ended up with was a litany of frothing-at-the-mouth multiculturalists attacking a straw man representing a position that NOBODY in the thread has ever articulated.
So, thread over, trolls win, I guess. At least from my point of view.
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A limit of time is fixed for thee
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
Read my posts. I do not, never have, and never will hold all Muslims responsible for the 9/11 bombings.
Do you, in any way, think that Muslims should have to alter their actions, whether due to legal or moral reasoning, as a result of the actions of other Muslims?
The mosque is a symbol of the power and glory of Islam, just as the Confederate flag is a symbol of the power and glory of the Confederacy.
Just because there are members of the Confederacy that never owned slaves, didn't endorse slavery, and were nice people does not mitigate, even one iota, the fact that the Confederate flag is a symbol with pro-slavery implications and that it would be poor taste to plant it in the center of a black community.
Same thing with mosques. There are plenty of nice mosque-goers and that was NEVER in dispute. But a mosque is a symbol of power and glory for the bad ones as well as the nice ones.
Consider Muslimism as a whole, as a faith unto itself, without reference to its individual practitioners. Is not a mosque a universal symbol of the power and grandeur of that faith? Do not Sufi, Shia, Sunni, and Binladinist alike make pilgrimages to Masjid al-Haram in Mecca? Even though they disagree on the interpretation of the word of God, they all agree so powerfully on the meaning of the symbol that they are willing to travel millions of collective miles to venerate it.
Very good. Now that we've established that unequivocally, pay very close attention because the following question is the key question that I'm addressing and has been from the very beginning and is plainly obvious to anyone who isn't straw manning me:
Is it, or is it not, in poor taste to flaunt a symbol of the perpretrators of a tragedy in the face of the victims of that tragedy at the very spot where the tragedy occured?
It is only when erecting a symbol of Islam on a site where Islam perpetrated a horrific massacre -- and let me stress again that the fact that all supporters of Islam didn't participate is irrelevant, just as it's irrelevant that not all Confederates mistreated slaves -- that anyone seems to have any beef.
The situations are clearly directly analogous and I don't see any difference. If you don't think a mosque at Ground Zero is in poor taste then you can't rationally think any of these other things are, either. Conversely, if you think any of these things are in poor taste then you are compelled rationally to think the mosque is too.
I find it hard to believe he doesn't see the mental gymnastics we're pointing out. He's showing flexibility to make this mental argument work akin to that of a 13 yr old olympian gymnast.
Outrage at outrageous actions is not surprising, nor is it a form of punishment.
So, you don't think stopping someone from doing something they are normally allowed to do is NOT a form of punishment? Also, how is building what your allowed to build "outrageous?"
And, yes, you ARE being out outraged, and in your outrage, you're needlessly punishing someone.
No, frankly I don't understand the meaning. What does the word "muslimy" mean? If you mean that Mosques are a symbol of the power and grandeur of the Muslim faith, then yes, that is correct. But then you could have just quoted me instead of paraphrasing me.
If you mean absolutely ANYTHING different from that, you are straw manning my position needlessly, since I've been very clear about exactly what I think is the connection between mosques and Muslimism.
Of course it isn't run by moderates. That's my point. If you're going to keep beating me over the head with the old "not all Muslims are suicide bombers" line, then I'll be damned if you're not going to have to face the equally obvious fact that not all Muslims are moderate.
Except the Muslims we are talking about are the moderates. The ones over in Iran aren't building the Mosque.
Actually, I'm willing to concede right now that every single muslim that will ever set foot in that mosque is in fact, nice (which is probably not even true) and it doesn't change my argument, because my argument is not about individual muslims at all. And I'm getting so, so, tired of repeating it to you.
It's about you getting, to use your words, "outraged" over nice people building a building they are allowed to build.
Just because there are members of the Confederacy that never owned slaves, didn't endorse slavery, and were nice people does not mitigate, even one iota, the fact that the Confederate flag is a symbol with pro-slavery implications and that it would be poor taste to plant it in the center of a black community.
Then why do I see them 3 blocks from African American communities all the time?
There are plenty of nice mosque-goers and that was NEVER in dispute. But a mosque is a symbol of power and glory for the bad ones as well as the nice ones.
Well, no, because the "bad" ones HATE the Sufi mosques, as I told you before.
If anything, its an ANTI-bad Muslim symbol. That's why the bad ones want to blow it up.
Non sequitur. Planes aren't an ideology at all, and so couldn't be an ideological cause of 9/11 no matter what.
Its not a non sequitur, SUFISM WAS NOT AN IDEOLOGICAL CAUSE OF 9/11, really, just like planes.
Also, when I did bring up planes, you had not used the term "ideology" yet.
In other words, replacing Islam with Sufism in that sentence is wrong, but replacing Islam with planes in that sentence is not even wrong -- it's logically nonsensical.
Well, when I used "planes" it DID make sense because you did not use "ideology." See?
You shouldn't feel bad. It is not a virtue or requirement of a thought that it be so simplistic that it can be compressed into a single sentence. There's nothing wrong with brevity, but not at the cost of losing content.
Then way was it a "strawman." That's what I don't get. If it was not wrong, if brief, why was it an "obvious strawman?"
What you don't understand is that my argument is not about individual Sufi muslims and individual Sufi muslims are a complete non sequitur here. You are wasting your time talking about them.
Um... except they are, in fact, the Muslims in question. You keep saying "non sequitur" but YOU are the one talking about Muslims in Iran or something.
You can keep pointing out that they had nothing to do with 9/11 and are nice, and I can keep agreeing with you and pointing out how completely and totally irrelevant that is to what I'm saying and we can do it all day long, but it's tiresome.
If your tired, then stop your outrage. Outrage takes lots of effort. You should be directing the effort at the people that deserve it, not these nice people.
False, of course. According to the Literary Terms & Poetry Glossary, tone in writing is "the manner in which an author expresses his or her attitude; the intonation of the voice that expresses meaning. Tone is described by adjectives, and the possibilities are nearly endless. Often a single adjective will not be enough, and tone may change from chapter to chapter or even line to line. Tone is the result of allusion, diction, figurative language, imagery, irony, symbol, syntax, style, and so on."
Ok.... so explain how my tone was "belittling" in that post then, please?
Do you honestly think Shakespeare ought to have peppered Julius Caesar with a little more ":(" so people knew he was articulating a tragedy? Please. You can't even be serious here.
He made people supply their OWN tone. That is how a true author works. Its not MY tone you read, its yours, and if I was a great author, which I'm not, I could make you see the tone I want you to, but I can't, so you see the tone you want to see.
Is not a mosque a universal symbol of the power and grandeur of that faith? Do not Sufi, Shia, Sunni, and Binladinist alike make pilgrimages to Masjid al-Haram in Mecca?
No, really, Al-Qaeda would really be quite pissed off at you saying that. They would say a Sufi Mosque has nothing to do with their faith, not more than a Synagogue.
Even though they disagree on the interpretation of the word of God, they all agree so powerfully on the meaning of the symbol that they are willing to travel millions of collective miles to venerate it.
Ummm... you've not be listening have you? Al-Qaeda has stated that, in their opinion, the Sufi are as bad as the Jews. Really.
pay very close attention because the following question is the key question that I'm addressing and has been from the very beginning and is plainly obvious to anyone who isn't straw manning me:
Well, I hope this next part does not rely on that wrong link you failed to make....
Is it, or is it not, in poor taste to flaunt a symbol of the perpretrators of a tragedy in the face of the victims of that tragedy at the very spot where the tragedy occured?
It is, so it's a good thing the opposite is happening here.
I say that it is, and not only do I say that it is, I say it's blatantly recognizable as such to any sane person in any analogous case, but in this case it degenerates into frothing-at-the-mouth multiculturalism a la Taylor because such attitudes are currently "hip."
No, I agreed with that statement, which is why the Mosque should be built, if nothing else because it would piss of Al-Qaeda.
Witness the fact that nobody in this thread has argued that it would not be in poor taste to build a statue that casts Naziism in a positive light at Auschwitz (even though not all Nazis killed Jews or supported killing Jews), nor would anyone sane argue that it would not be in poor taste to build a giant Confederate flag in front of a black church (even though not all members of the Confederacy owned, mistreated, killed, or supported slaves/slavery), nor would anyone sane argue that building a statue commemorating Jackson on a Cherokee reservation would not be in poor taste. (even though Jackson did a lot of nice things not related to the forced relocation of Indians)
Which is why we should put up this ANTI-AlQaeda symbol. A mosque of Sufism to show Al-Qaeda their fear mongering did not work. That religions, and people, can still come together in love, despite the hate Al-Qaeda tried to plant within our hearts.
It is only when erecting a symbol of Islam on a site where Islam perpetrated a horrific massacre -- and let me stress again that the fact that all supporters of Islam didn't participate is irrelevant, just as it's irrelevant that not all Confederates mistreated slaves -- that anyone seems to have any beef.
Wait, hu? I thought your statement showed the... OH, right, your still working off that false part about Al-Qaeda liking Sufism and thinking they are brothers or something.
The situations are clearly directly analogous and I don't see any difference. If you don't think a mosque at Ground Zero is in poor taste then you can't rationally think any of these other things are, either. Conversely, if you think any of these things are in poor taste then you are compelled rationally to think the mosque is too.
I think you've convinced me its in VERY good taste. When you make the correction to that fist part, it all falls into place. You've shown me that the mosque really MUST be built, as a testimony to everything Al-Qaeda is not.
Can you please stop doing me the disservice of behaving as though my position on this issue is in any way conflatable with "hurr durr, all Muslims are evil and directly responsible for 9/11, let's drive them out of the country"?
Because frankly it's insulting and tiresome.
k edit: Up nvm, I missed vvv this vvv part... I guess its over
@Crashing00: I know you feel that people are misrepresenting your position, but they are just trying to point out some of the problems with your position.
For example: You compare a mosque to a Confederate flag.
This is a very poor example. Since the fall of the Confederacy it's flag hasbasically only been a symbol of empowerment for people who believe America belongs to White Christians. A Mosque mainly represents Islam, which is full of countless Ideologies(Most of the peacful). Let's put this logic in reverse.
The flag of Al Qaeda is a Symbol of a group that commited attrocities.
An American Cultural center represents Americans, a group which also commited attrocities.
Therefore there should be no American cultural centers anywhere near places Americans commited Attrocities, that's like putting an Al Qaeda flag next to a neighborhood that's been terrorized by Al Qaeda.
It looks weird when you compare a diverse multifaceted group and a narrowly focused one. Though more subtly than others, you still are encouraging a diverse group to behave as if it is basically the same as a section of that group only because they share the same symbol.
Amugaba, thank you for answering a point I actually made instead of constructing a straw man and wailing away. I really do appreciate that. I wasn't going to post here again but I will now that there seems a person who wants to have a reasonable discussion.
For example: You compare a mosque to a Confederate flag. This is a very poor example.
Yes, the Confederate flag. Let's talk about it, shall we? Because I do think the analogy here is quite crucial.
it's flag hasbasically only been a symbol of empowerment for people who believe America belongs to White Christians.
Firstly, I am assuming that you realize that not *all* members of the Confederacy held or abused slaves. Slaves were a privilege largely of the upper class, and even discounting that, many members of the Confederacy abhorred slavery and were *active* participants in things like the Underground Railroad.
Secondly, I'm assuming that you don't think all members of the Confederacy were white supremacists or Christian supremacists, because, well, it's a matter of record many of them simply weren't.
In fact, many of people in the Confederacy were quite nice people who wanted nothing to do with slavery, White supremacy, Christian supermacy or any of that. They simply happened to be in the Confederacy because of where they lived at the time.
How, then, can one say that a flag of the Confederacy -- under which flag were gathered both the worst and the best kinds of people you'll find anywhere -- is *only* a symbol of white supremacy?
A Mosque mainly represents Islam, which is full of countless Ideologies(Most of the peacful).
Are you suggesting the collection of people in the Confederacy didn't also adhere to countless ideologies, most of them peaceful? Remember what I said above. Most people in the Confederacy were not slave holders or slave abusers. They were just people who happened to live there, guilty of no wrongdoing of any kind. How can you say their flag is a symbol of wickedness but mosques are not?
What's the difference here? You're going to have to tell me because frankly I don't see one and your explanation here hasn't helped me see it.
As it happens, I agree that the Confederate flag is a symbol with associations to slavery. It also has other associatons. Some of them are even positive. But slavery is undeniably one of the associations of that particular symbol.
And by the exact same logic, I have to conclude that mosques are a symbol with associatons to the suicide attacks of 9/11. Mosques also have other associations, some of them positive, but the terrorist attacks of 9/11 are one of the things with which they are associated.
Also, by the exact same logic, I think Christian churches partially represent the horrors of the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Witch Trials.
Also, by the exact same logic, ....
You see where I'm going with this. A symbol becomes associated with evil whenever evil is done under the auspices of the symbol. Even if good people still display the symbol, it doesn't negate the evil associations.
The flag of Al Qaeda is a Symbol of a group that commited attrocities.
An American Cultural center represents Americans, a group which also commited attrocities.
Therefore there should be no American cultural centers anywhere near places Americans commited Attrocities, that's like putting an Al Qaeda flag next to a neighborhood that's been terrorized by Al Qaeda.
I don't really disagree with this. Since you mentioned the Al-Qaeda flag, why don't we simplify the example by going for symmetry and just say "the American flag?" The American flag is a symbol of Americans, who are a group that has indeed committed atrocities. Why do you suppose you see so many people burning it?
The reason why you can sometimes see Muslims burning the American flag is exactly this. They associate our symbol with various horrific things we've undeniably perpetrated in their region, they are (rightly, for all I know) deeply aggrieved by those things, and so they do the only thing they can which is desecrate the symbol to show their revulsion.
Those Muslims surely realize that not all Americans are evil and many Americans strongly oppose our ham handed Middle Eastern bungling. Yet they still burn the flag. Is it because they're unenlightened and blaming the wrong people?
Or is it because they are providing us with a flagrant, if you'll pardon the pun, reminder that our flag is, in fact, irrevocably stained by the atrocities committed under its colors?
I think it's the latter. And just because you and me, as "nice" Americans, might abhor certain things we've done and wish that our country had never perpetrated them, the fact is that all of our well wishes do NOTHING to abnegate the stains of blood that are on our flag. Our country still did those terrible things, even though we as individuals bear no guilt, and in fact hold those acts in revulsion.
Just as, despite the revulsion and well wishing and innocence of the Sufis, nothing they can ever do can wipe the stains of blood off of their symbols.
And I'm delighted you brought this up because I think I might have just reached another QED of my position from a slightly different angle. This little chain of logic just further sharpened my argument. Thank you again for directly addressing one of my points and helping to fulfil the purpose of a debate, which is ultimately to help the participants refine their positions.
Additionally, look, if you expect me to be a hypocrite on this just because we're talking about America, then you've got the wrong guy. Flaunting American atrocities in the face of the victims is every bit as tasteless as flaunting Islamic atrocities in the face of the victims. It's like those shirts the radical Republicans used to make about Gitmo that said "Club Gitmo: Come for the Sun, Stay for the Waterboarding." I thought those shirts were tasteless even when Americans wore them, but can you imagine how -- for lack of a better word -- douchey it would be if we sent each Gitmo detainee home with one of those babies as swag?
It looks weird when you compare a diverse multifaceted group and a narrowly focused one. Though more subtly than others, you still are encouraging a diverse group to behave as if it is basically the same as a section of that group only because they share the same symbol.
I'm having trouble parsing this paragraph. I'm assuming you are calling Muslims diverse and multifaceted and the Confederacy narrow and focused. If so I think you are just wrong. Certainly the Confederacy was both diverse and multifaceted. And even if you disagree with that, you can substitute "American flag" for "Confederate flag" -- since as you've pointed out America has itself committed atrocities -- and surely you can't say America isn't diverse and multifaceted.
I'm also going to assume you don't seriously think I'm suggesting Sufis should behave like Binladenists (i.e. engage in suicide bombing and terrorism) which is what your second sentence literally means. I'm pretty sure you didn't really mean that, and we were off to such a good start with no straw manning that I'd like to keep it that way.
Apart from that, I'm not encouraging anyone to do anything. I'm just pointing out the reasons why it's in poor taste to build a mosque there. It's not like any decision maker is ever going to hear my arguments and even if they did, how they proceeded would be completely up to them. We've already established that they are well within their rights to build it anyway.
The Confederacy was formed because slavery was to be banned.
The formation of the Confederacy was an infinitely more nuanced event in history involving a huge confluence of political trends. I don't deny slavery was a big term in the equation but you are making the issue way more simplistic than it was.
I could equally well say that Islam was formed to unite a disparate people under a single regime which then proceeded forthwith to launch unprovoked and bloody wars of conquest on its neighbors. That's the absolute truth as far as it goes, but I left a lot of important stuff out, didn't I?
So now that we've both set up straw men, whose straw man is better? I say both of these straw men are pretty evil and so I claim that your straw man fails to create a distinction between the sides of this analogy.
The Confederacy waged war over the right of white men to keep black slaves.
Islam waged war many times, including at its inception, for reasons as stupid, but not limited to, the fact that that their neighbors did not accept Islam, to capture ground labeled arbitrarily as "holy," and so forth. So both adherents of Islam and Confederates would happily wage wars for invalid reasons. Again, failure to create a distinction.
The Confederate flag is to this day used primarily by racists.
I'll admit you have me on this point. You could say that the Confederate flag has become a racist symbol because it's almost exclusively racists who continue to use it, and so people have no memory of the non-racist implications of the symbol. Whereas Muslims who are not radicals continue to build mosques, so non-evil instances of that symbol still abound. I don't deny this. You have successfully created a distinction.
Fortunately Amugaba came along and posted something that made me think about this some more, and in the course of so doing I found another example, namely the American flag, that circumvents this distinction. (See above.)
There is no comparison between this flag and a world-spanning religion
Firstly, yes there is, you have made three such comparisons yourself in your own post. Secondly, in my argument it's the flag and the mosque that are being analogized, not the flag and the religion itself. A subtle but important distinction.
nor is there comparison between this flag and a community centre that just so happens to have a prayer area for the aforementioned world-spanning religion.
Yes, I have heard, to use a Mike Myers-ism, that the "Mosque at Ground Zero" is neither a mosque nor at ground zero. As an objective matter, this eliminates the issue, as it shows that the media kerfuffle is the result of a misconception over what exactly is being constructed and where.
I acknowledged this earlier in the thread, but I thought the debate was still well worth having in the hypothetical. So frame my comments as if they actually were building an actual mosque actually on top of actual Ground Zero, because that's where the interesting issues come to the forefront.
You're really stretching your arguments trying to find a valid reason for why it would be bad taste to not consider over a billion people all essentially the same.
Ahh, so you're one of the straw man brigade after all. I had forgotten, and your prior post was actually pretty reasonable. Forget I replied. I'm sorry, but I can't engage with people who deliberately misrepresent my position in the face of my own statements.
My position is what I say it is. I am the first, last, and only authority on what I believe. Unless I specifically say that I consider all billion Muslims to be the same, you may not impute that opinion to me. As it happens, that's not something I would ever say, because I adhere to a definition of the word "same" that prevents distinct human beings from being the same even if they have some things in common, but that's wide of the point.
You may -- and I encourage you to do so -- engage with anything I've actually said, agree or disagree, as it's all on the record right here in black and white. And I'll be happy to reply to that. But you can't expect to be taken seriously if you are going to rewrite all of my opinions for me. Why don't you just debate yourself if you're going to play both sides anyway?
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A limit of time is fixed for thee
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
My position is what I say it is. I am the first, last, and only authority on what I believe. Unless I specifically say that I consider all billion Muslims to be the same, you may not impute that opinion to me. As it happens, that's not something I would ever say, because I adhere to a definition of the word "same" that prevents distinct human beings from being the same even if they have some things in common, but that's wide of the point.
Actions (or positions in this case) speak louder than words - you may have even convinced yourself that your mental gymnastics is logical, but considering the jumps in logic that you have to make in this case based on the data you have given us regarding your position, the only sensible explanation is some degree of prejudging. [which of course is the grammatical source of another word, prejudice]
Skipping steps in logic along the line of making a judgment call regarding a people is the absolute definition of prejudging and as such prejudice.
And before you start claiming you're not "judging anyone" or some equal nonsense - what is the result of a judgment? Giving people a different criteria to live under, often punishment, but sometimes just a small tweak to how someone lives.
Personally, I'd recommend seeing a psychologist - the level of angst and core causes that make people skip steps in logic has only led to trouble in my own life and the lives of the many people I was responsible for hiring and firing over my working years when it's been left unresolved for any length of time.
Fortunately regarding this specific event I was able to go from the "Wow, that's terrible" to a level of catharsis pretty quickly since I got to see the massiveness of what happened so it wasn't some abstract concept. (For those newer in here, or those that have forgotten - my cousin's fire company came up on Day 3 to start helping recovery, and I took two weeks off to come with them to be a "Go-Fer" and otherwise help them outside of direct recovery - nothing heroic, but I helped the heroes get things done indirectly) Previous to that however, I'd been going through the stages of grief over the issue - but that really helped me resolve my feelings to a rational level quickly, it feels like to me that you're still stuck partway through, which is terrible to hold onto for so long.
Sorry, my last post was kind of jumbly
@ Confederacy: I know the Confederacy was multifaceted, that's why I said "since the fall of the Confederacy". I feel confident saying that about 99% of groups who have used the flag as a symbol since the fall have been white supremacists. The meaning of the flag as a symbol has changed drastically from when it was first created. Its current meaning seems to be the one you invoked when comparing it to the NY mosque. This I have a problem with. The flag is now recognized worldwide as a symbol of hate, mosques are not. This is why people have gotten so offended by your analogy, and feel like you believe that all muslims are terrorists. When you say a mosque(increadibly diverse meanings) is just like a Confederate Flag (Well recognized symbol of hate), people are going to think you percieve Islam as a religion of hate.
It's true that symbols don't shed meanings they aquire, but should we perceive all of a symbol's meaning equally in every instance? Is a symbol equally stained by all meanings it obtains? Sure Muslims burn the American flag, but it's a different circumstance, they are focusing the American flag into symbol of American Imperialism. During their protest it has that meaning because those who employ the symbol(The Angry Muslims) wish for it to have that meaning. In the case of the NY center, the owners want it to symbolize peace and understanding, why should I dredge up the other meanings of the symbol when it seems pretty obvious (Them being Sufis and all) that they are serious? Why should they respect the wishes of people who percieve a very narrow(and recent meaning) of thier symbol when, the owners have been explicit about thier intentions? On the other hand, the Confederate flag has been consistently used as nothing more than a symbol of white supremacy for over a century, it pretty reasonable to assume that outside of a historical reference, a person employing this symbol can be linked to racist ideologies in some way.
]My last sentence was a poor way of saying that you feel that in this situation any muslim sect should behave as if they were a fundamentalist sect i.e. move thier building. If they were a fundamentalist sect I would also believe that moving thier mosque is the right thing to do because they are too aligned with radical Islam for thier building to be in good taste. However, I don't think it's fair to expect the same action from any other muslim sect.
Oh, I just realized you want to have a theoretical debate about a mosque built On ground zero. I feel there is no debate, I believe 99% of people would find that inconsiderate and offensive. We can still debate symbology if you like
What, that they refused to be intimidated or bullied by religious bigotry? I applaud them for that. You don't get to hold off tolerance of religion to whenever it's convenient for you, you don't get to confine people who are different from you to only sectors where you are comfortable.
Although, I will say the mosque name is an unfortunate decision. I'm not sure what the thought process was behind that.
Jews and Christians lived in the Caliphate of Cordoba under Muslim domination and were allowed to practice their faiths in exchange for extra taxes ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhimmi ), their legal rights were beneath those of Muslims.
I do not call that religious tolerance.
And? You can use a name as an indicator of the ideals within something rather than just the dark elements unless you've got some preconceived prejudice.
Or are you a goofball that hears something about the Christian faiths and immediately leap to Salem and the Crusades?
Do you honestly think it's a bad thing for them to try to take the existing name and "Do it right this time"? Seriously?
Heck from the above link you were responding to here's a wonderful quote from their FAQ:
So what will happen at this community center? The community center will meet the needs of all New Yorkers with six programmatic areas:
1. Culture and Arts - 500-seat auditorium, exhibition)
2. Education - Lecture hall, conference rooms, library, classrooms,)
3. Social Cohesion,(cooking classes, senior citizens space, child care, banquet hall)
4. Religion + Healing - Muslim prayer space, Contemplation and reflection area, 9/11 victims memorial
5. Global Engagement - Mapping studies on trends in the Muslim world, resources on good governance and principles of liberal democracy, women’s empowerment issues, youth development, countering religious extremism.
6. Recreation - pool, gym, medical education and wellness program.
Wow, that sounds completely like the old use of the Cordoba name to me...
Huge kudos for the link BTW, Mad Mat - I went from "agreeing legally but didn't think it was a wise location choice" to completely supporting it now that I'm better informed of their intentions.
What, that they refused to be intimidated or bullied by religious bigotry? I applaud them for that. You don't get to hold off tolerance of religion to whenever it's convenient for you, you don't get to confine people who are different from you to only sectors where you are comfortable.
this is one of those rare times where you and i see eye to eye. as a lifelong resident of NYC, and an american who believes that the freedoms in the constitution must apply equally to all, i fully support their right to build the community center.
in my extensive discussions on this topic (which all took place on facebook), i've come to the conclusion that the overwhelming majority of people who are against this don't know any muslims personally. i always recommend to people who argue against the rights of the builders to actually sit down and have a discussion with a muslim person about their religion and its tenets and beliefs.
for the record, i received two "threats" from friends of friends during my facebook conversations. one woman accused me of building bombs for the terrorists in my basement and to not be surprised when the cops show up at my door. the other person, the husband of a woman i went to elementary school with, called me every name in the book; when i then called him "a shining example of christ," he informed me that, as a devout catholic, he would "hunt me down" himself! (i repiled: "yes, because jesus would hunt down - terrorize! - people who disagreed with him.")
Although, I will say the mosque name is an unfortunate decision. I'm not sure what the thought process was behind that.
Mad Mat pointed it out correctly (i think i read the same article, but my subsequent research did nothing but confirm this to be accurate).
for the record, "cordoba house" is possibly the name of part of the building, perhaps the mosque. the group behind the building uses the name "cordoba initiative," but the building itself apparently will be named some variant of "park 51" - i've seen all variations, including ones with no space between name and number, so the exact final name isn't clear. from what i understand, the building itself will occupy the land covering the addresses from 45-51 on park; the group owns the land on 45 and 47 (the old burlington coat factory store), while 49 and 51 are currently leased by con edison (local electric utility) until 2077. it's not been made clear what, if any, arrangement has been made for use of the space, or, at the least, the address alluded to by the building name.
i haven't read the whole thread (totally tl;dr), but i want to point out something i feel is relevant. there are presently two mosques within twelve blocks of the WTC site (the closer one is four blocks away). both mosques are one-room establishments that regularly have to turn away attendees due to lack of space. clearly, one of the reasons this mosque is being built is due to community demand for a larger space. also, real estate in lower manhattan - especially down around ground zero - is already incredibly well developed, and any attempt to move them will likely effectively defeat the purpose of having a large mosque for the community, as it will likely be too far removed from the community to serve its intended purpose. there are already large mosques in manhattan - i know for certain of one up on east 96th street.
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Because you made whatever conclusion you wanted to make without bothering to look into the situation past what was convenient for you.
It could very well be an insult, I don't know, just like this group could very well be a group that we wouldn't want building a mosque at 9/11, I don't know. But I feel that we know by assessing the situation, not reading whatever we want into it.
Like, I would like the group to address the choice of name now because I can see why that's a controversial choice of name. But notice the difference, I'm not presuming anything, and I'm not shutting them out and refusing to listen.
Considering the funds likely would have funded hundreds if not thousands of deaths in Ireland and England it's relatively similar in potential death toll. (And IIRC they did kill a number of people in the bank...)
Over the entire timeframe before the "ceasefire" with the IRA a little over a decade ago they had over 20k deaths attributed to them. Muslims aren't even near catching up at this point.
PS - Labeling people as "liberal" because they disagree with the FoxNEWS engendered message is often false or blatantly wrong and serves as nothing but ad hominem even if it had any accuracy when used in a context like that. [Case in point - I've likely voted for more Republicans in my politically active years, than you've been of age to even vote for - and even today with distancing myself from the (R) by taking on an (I) because neo-conservatism isn't what I signed up for - I still vote predominantly for SMART Republicans (Sorry Michele Bachmann - I wouldn't vote for you if I was in your state), when it comes to Democrats I only vote for a few more Democrats than I do Independents/Third Parties. (And a large amount of that is Mikulski since she's had my vote every time she's up for reelection, because frankly she listens to people and will make her will secondary to that of the people - like an elected official is supposed to do)]
PSS - And when it's dealing with lives every number counts - 2752 is the generally accepted number. 250 lives is a big deal to just round up. (And note that 19 of those included in the official count were the hijackers themselves and approx 400 were on the planes although ~100 of them in the Pentagon crash, not sure if the "official 9/11 count" includes that plane as well or not)
Personally, no - however I've seen a few dozen photos and gotten first case accounts from one of the liberators of the camps - my wife's (now deceased) grandfather. He actually appears in a few of the pictures from the liberation in the Holocaust museum including one with a future President of the United States.
Trust me I have a concept of scale and how people have moved on.
Hell, her grandfather after his work in the military there went right to work with ex-Nazi scientists towards improving RADAR after the war was over (specifically in regards to rocketry) and actually learned to respect them reasonably quickly.
Not to mention I've got an entire wing of my family "gone" from the Holocaust if you look at our family tree, since my father's side was Pole and Rom blood. (Not that anyone versed with where names come from should be surprised I've got some ancestors from that part of the world...)
Re: People misusing the term Vanilla to describe a flying, unleash (sometimes trample) critter.
I notice you said "mankind" here and not, for example, "Germans."
Hah, good catch - and exactly the type of distancing that has happened with those horrors that I was referring to.
Excellent catch, Sib.
Re: People misusing the term Vanilla to describe a flying, unleash (sometimes trample) critter.
This is the double standard. No one here will, as they should not, hold all Germans responsible for the Holocaust, but there are plenty here that would hold another evil event against all Muslims.
Is it because it's likely that more users (who I assume the majority are white US citizens, but there are of course many others, example I'm Canadian) have german blood or know german-blooded people? Empathy, people
Vaclav and Sibtiger get free cookies. :cookie::cookie:
I'm sorry, you've lost me. I did say mankind and not Germans. I'm not seeing how anyone has scored a point against me by pointing that out.
Why did he just win the thread?
Seriously, I hate to have to shift into flame mode, but I'm pretty much getting forced into a corner by people who refuse to even read my position before straw manning me. Are you people illiterate? Read my posts. I do not, never have, and never will hold all Muslims responsible for the 9/11 bombings.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
This is what he meant. Also they get warm :cookie:s from your flames...urm warm cookies.
[Mafia Stats] Mafia MVP: 1/3 Basic #29,Co-[CCMV]
You're trying to claim you hold some nebulous abstraction of Islam responsible, but simultaneously not the people who follow that religion. If you hold Islam responsible you hold Muslims responsible- the religion IS the people that follow it.
You can't be serious. You think a religion is literally equal to the collection of its followers? Some friendly advice; before you engage in further debate, sign up for night classes, heavy emphasis on logic and philosophy.
Nobody here holds either of those positions. I haven't seen one single solitary person in this entire thread post that all Muslims are responsible for 9/11.
You're doing nothing but burning a straw man. I think it's time for me to walk away from this one. I stayed in this thread for this long because I thought there was room for a rational, intelligent position against the mosque -- a position that doesn't involve hating, punishing, or blaming individual Muslims for the 9/11 attacks. I did my best to articulate that position while being explicitly clear that hating or blaming Muslims was not part of the position or in any way relevant to the position.
I was hoping for a debate, but all I ended up with was a litany of frothing-at-the-mouth multiculturalists attacking a straw man representing a position that NOBODY in the thread has ever articulated.
So, thread over, trolls win, I guess. At least from my point of view.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
You said all of this.
[Mafia Stats] Mafia MVP: 1/3 Basic #29,Co-[CCMV]
Re: People misusing the term Vanilla to describe a flying, unleash (sometimes trample) critter.
And, yes, you ARE being out outraged, and in your outrage, you're needlessly punishing someone.
Well, since I don't I guess I'm not. Good.
Except the Muslims we are talking about are the moderates. The ones over in Iran aren't building the Mosque.
It's about you getting, to use your words, "outraged" over nice people building a building they are allowed to build.
And all it represents. So, even if I get offended by its link to slavery, you get to have it.
Then why do I see them 3 blocks from African American communities all the time?
No, because with mosques people are trying to STOP them from being built.
Well, no, because the "bad" ones HATE the Sufi mosques, as I told you before.
If anything, its an ANTI-bad Muslim symbol. That's why the bad ones want to blow it up.
Its not a non sequitur, SUFISM WAS NOT AN IDEOLOGICAL CAUSE OF 9/11, really, just like planes.
Also, when I did bring up planes, you had not used the term "ideology" yet.
Just like Democracy. Democracy is also a ideology.
Well, when I used "planes" it DID make sense because you did not use "ideology." See?
Well, good, then stop hurting nice people with your outrage.
Then way was it a "strawman." That's what I don't get. If it was not wrong, if brief, why was it an "obvious strawman?"
Clearly not, or else you would not be using your outrage to punish.
Um... except they are, in fact, the Muslims in question. You keep saying "non sequitur" but YOU are the one talking about Muslims in Iran or something.
If your tired, then stop your outrage. Outrage takes lots of effort. You should be directing the effort at the people that deserve it, not these nice people.
Ok.... so explain how my tone was "belittling" in that post then, please?
He made people supply their OWN tone. That is how a true author works. Its not MY tone you read, its yours, and if I was a great author, which I'm not, I could make you see the tone I want you to, but I can't, so you see the tone you want to see.
Nor did the sufi as a whole.
You keep saying that the people that have EVERYTHING to do with what we are talking about have NOTHING to do. THEY are the Muslims in question.
Why stop there? Can I do that for all mankind too?
No, really, Al-Qaeda would really be quite pissed off at you saying that. They would say a Sufi Mosque has nothing to do with their faith, not more than a Synagogue.
Ummm... you've not be listening have you? Al-Qaeda has stated that, in their opinion, the Sufi are as bad as the Jews. Really.
Um.. no, no we did not. Mainly because its very wrong.
Well, I hope this next part does not rely on that wrong link you failed to make....
It is, so it's a good thing the opposite is happening here.
No, I agreed with that statement, which is why the Mosque should be built, if nothing else because it would piss of Al-Qaeda.
Which is why we should put up this ANTI-AlQaeda symbol. A mosque of Sufism to show Al-Qaeda their fear mongering did not work. That religions, and people, can still come together in love, despite the hate Al-Qaeda tried to plant within our hearts.
Wait, hu? I thought your statement showed the... OH, right, your still working off that false part about Al-Qaeda liking Sufism and thinking they are brothers or something.
Yeah, that's still not true.
I think you've convinced me its in VERY good taste. When you make the correction to that fist part, it all falls into place. You've shown me that the mosque really MUST be built, as a testimony to everything Al-Qaeda is not.
kedit: Up nvm, I missed vvv this vvv part... I guess its over
Ah dammit, Sibtiger did? Can someone still come in second? Or am I too late?
For example: You compare a mosque to a Confederate flag.
This is a very poor example. Since the fall of the Confederacy it's flag hasbasically only been a symbol of empowerment for people who believe America belongs to White Christians. A Mosque mainly represents Islam, which is full of countless Ideologies(Most of the peacful). Let's put this logic in reverse.
The flag of Al Qaeda is a Symbol of a group that commited attrocities.
An American Cultural center represents Americans, a group which also commited attrocities.
Therefore there should be no American cultural centers anywhere near places Americans commited Attrocities, that's like putting an Al Qaeda flag next to a neighborhood that's been terrorized by Al Qaeda.
It looks weird when you compare a diverse multifaceted group and a narrowly focused one. Though more subtly than others, you still are encouraging a diverse group to behave as if it is basically the same as a section of that group only because they share the same symbol.
Yes, the Confederate flag. Let's talk about it, shall we? Because I do think the analogy here is quite crucial.
Firstly, I am assuming that you realize that not *all* members of the Confederacy held or abused slaves. Slaves were a privilege largely of the upper class, and even discounting that, many members of the Confederacy abhorred slavery and were *active* participants in things like the Underground Railroad.
Secondly, I'm assuming that you don't think all members of the Confederacy were white supremacists or Christian supremacists, because, well, it's a matter of record many of them simply weren't.
In fact, many of people in the Confederacy were quite nice people who wanted nothing to do with slavery, White supremacy, Christian supermacy or any of that. They simply happened to be in the Confederacy because of where they lived at the time.
How, then, can one say that a flag of the Confederacy -- under which flag were gathered both the worst and the best kinds of people you'll find anywhere -- is *only* a symbol of white supremacy?
Are you suggesting the collection of people in the Confederacy didn't also adhere to countless ideologies, most of them peaceful? Remember what I said above. Most people in the Confederacy were not slave holders or slave abusers. They were just people who happened to live there, guilty of no wrongdoing of any kind. How can you say their flag is a symbol of wickedness but mosques are not?
What's the difference here? You're going to have to tell me because frankly I don't see one and your explanation here hasn't helped me see it.
As it happens, I agree that the Confederate flag is a symbol with associations to slavery. It also has other associatons. Some of them are even positive. But slavery is undeniably one of the associations of that particular symbol.
And by the exact same logic, I have to conclude that mosques are a symbol with associatons to the suicide attacks of 9/11. Mosques also have other associations, some of them positive, but the terrorist attacks of 9/11 are one of the things with which they are associated.
Also, by the exact same logic, I think Christian churches partially represent the horrors of the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Witch Trials.
Also, by the exact same logic, ....
You see where I'm going with this. A symbol becomes associated with evil whenever evil is done under the auspices of the symbol. Even if good people still display the symbol, it doesn't negate the evil associations.
I don't really disagree with this. Since you mentioned the Al-Qaeda flag, why don't we simplify the example by going for symmetry and just say "the American flag?" The American flag is a symbol of Americans, who are a group that has indeed committed atrocities. Why do you suppose you see so many people burning it?
The reason why you can sometimes see Muslims burning the American flag is exactly this. They associate our symbol with various horrific things we've undeniably perpetrated in their region, they are (rightly, for all I know) deeply aggrieved by those things, and so they do the only thing they can which is desecrate the symbol to show their revulsion.
Those Muslims surely realize that not all Americans are evil and many Americans strongly oppose our ham handed Middle Eastern bungling. Yet they still burn the flag. Is it because they're unenlightened and blaming the wrong people?
Or is it because they are providing us with a flagrant, if you'll pardon the pun, reminder that our flag is, in fact, irrevocably stained by the atrocities committed under its colors?
I think it's the latter. And just because you and me, as "nice" Americans, might abhor certain things we've done and wish that our country had never perpetrated them, the fact is that all of our well wishes do NOTHING to abnegate the stains of blood that are on our flag. Our country still did those terrible things, even though we as individuals bear no guilt, and in fact hold those acts in revulsion.
Just as, despite the revulsion and well wishing and innocence of the Sufis, nothing they can ever do can wipe the stains of blood off of their symbols.
And I'm delighted you brought this up because I think I might have just reached another QED of my position from a slightly different angle. This little chain of logic just further sharpened my argument. Thank you again for directly addressing one of my points and helping to fulfil the purpose of a debate, which is ultimately to help the participants refine their positions.
Additionally, look, if you expect me to be a hypocrite on this just because we're talking about America, then you've got the wrong guy. Flaunting American atrocities in the face of the victims is every bit as tasteless as flaunting Islamic atrocities in the face of the victims. It's like those shirts the radical Republicans used to make about Gitmo that said "Club Gitmo: Come for the Sun, Stay for the Waterboarding." I thought those shirts were tasteless even when Americans wore them, but can you imagine how -- for lack of a better word -- douchey it would be if we sent each Gitmo detainee home with one of those babies as swag?
I'm having trouble parsing this paragraph. I'm assuming you are calling Muslims diverse and multifaceted and the Confederacy narrow and focused. If so I think you are just wrong. Certainly the Confederacy was both diverse and multifaceted. And even if you disagree with that, you can substitute "American flag" for "Confederate flag" -- since as you've pointed out America has itself committed atrocities -- and surely you can't say America isn't diverse and multifaceted.
I'm also going to assume you don't seriously think I'm suggesting Sufis should behave like Binladenists (i.e. engage in suicide bombing and terrorism) which is what your second sentence literally means. I'm pretty sure you didn't really mean that, and we were off to such a good start with no straw manning that I'd like to keep it that way.
Apart from that, I'm not encouraging anyone to do anything. I'm just pointing out the reasons why it's in poor taste to build a mosque there. It's not like any decision maker is ever going to hear my arguments and even if they did, how they proceeded would be completely up to them. We've already established that they are well within their rights to build it anyway.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
The formation of the Confederacy was an infinitely more nuanced event in history involving a huge confluence of political trends. I don't deny slavery was a big term in the equation but you are making the issue way more simplistic than it was.
I could equally well say that Islam was formed to unite a disparate people under a single regime which then proceeded forthwith to launch unprovoked and bloody wars of conquest on its neighbors. That's the absolute truth as far as it goes, but I left a lot of important stuff out, didn't I?
So now that we've both set up straw men, whose straw man is better? I say both of these straw men are pretty evil and so I claim that your straw man fails to create a distinction between the sides of this analogy.
Islam waged war many times, including at its inception, for reasons as stupid, but not limited to, the fact that that their neighbors did not accept Islam, to capture ground labeled arbitrarily as "holy," and so forth. So both adherents of Islam and Confederates would happily wage wars for invalid reasons. Again, failure to create a distinction.
I'll admit you have me on this point. You could say that the Confederate flag has become a racist symbol because it's almost exclusively racists who continue to use it, and so people have no memory of the non-racist implications of the symbol. Whereas Muslims who are not radicals continue to build mosques, so non-evil instances of that symbol still abound. I don't deny this. You have successfully created a distinction.
Fortunately Amugaba came along and posted something that made me think about this some more, and in the course of so doing I found another example, namely the American flag, that circumvents this distinction. (See above.)
Firstly, yes there is, you have made three such comparisons yourself in your own post. Secondly, in my argument it's the flag and the mosque that are being analogized, not the flag and the religion itself. A subtle but important distinction.
Yes, I have heard, to use a Mike Myers-ism, that the "Mosque at Ground Zero" is neither a mosque nor at ground zero. As an objective matter, this eliminates the issue, as it shows that the media kerfuffle is the result of a misconception over what exactly is being constructed and where.
I acknowledged this earlier in the thread, but I thought the debate was still well worth having in the hypothetical. So frame my comments as if they actually were building an actual mosque actually on top of actual Ground Zero, because that's where the interesting issues come to the forefront.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
Good viewing
Both dealing with the issue.
Ahh, so you're one of the straw man brigade after all. I had forgotten, and your prior post was actually pretty reasonable. Forget I replied. I'm sorry, but I can't engage with people who deliberately misrepresent my position in the face of my own statements.
My position is what I say it is. I am the first, last, and only authority on what I believe. Unless I specifically say that I consider all billion Muslims to be the same, you may not impute that opinion to me. As it happens, that's not something I would ever say, because I adhere to a definition of the word "same" that prevents distinct human beings from being the same even if they have some things in common, but that's wide of the point.
You may -- and I encourage you to do so -- engage with anything I've actually said, agree or disagree, as it's all on the record right here in black and white. And I'll be happy to reply to that. But you can't expect to be taken seriously if you are going to rewrite all of my opinions for me. Why don't you just debate yourself if you're going to play both sides anyway?
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
Actions (or positions in this case) speak louder than words - you may have even convinced yourself that your mental gymnastics is logical, but considering the jumps in logic that you have to make in this case based on the data you have given us regarding your position, the only sensible explanation is some degree of prejudging. [which of course is the grammatical source of another word, prejudice]
Skipping steps in logic along the line of making a judgment call regarding a people is the absolute definition of prejudging and as such prejudice.
And before you start claiming you're not "judging anyone" or some equal nonsense - what is the result of a judgment? Giving people a different criteria to live under, often punishment, but sometimes just a small tweak to how someone lives.
Personally, I'd recommend seeing a psychologist - the level of angst and core causes that make people skip steps in logic has only led to trouble in my own life and the lives of the many people I was responsible for hiring and firing over my working years when it's been left unresolved for any length of time.
Fortunately regarding this specific event I was able to go from the "Wow, that's terrible" to a level of catharsis pretty quickly since I got to see the massiveness of what happened so it wasn't some abstract concept. (For those newer in here, or those that have forgotten - my cousin's fire company came up on Day 3 to start helping recovery, and I took two weeks off to come with them to be a "Go-Fer" and otherwise help them outside of direct recovery - nothing heroic, but I helped the heroes get things done indirectly) Previous to that however, I'd been going through the stages of grief over the issue - but that really helped me resolve my feelings to a rational level quickly, it feels like to me that you're still stuck partway through, which is terrible to hold onto for so long.
Re: People misusing the term Vanilla to describe a flying, unleash (sometimes trample) critter.
@ Confederacy: I know the Confederacy was multifaceted, that's why I said "since the fall of the Confederacy". I feel confident saying that about 99% of groups who have used the flag as a symbol since the fall have been white supremacists. The meaning of the flag as a symbol has changed drastically from when it was first created. Its current meaning seems to be the one you invoked when comparing it to the NY mosque. This I have a problem with. The flag is now recognized worldwide as a symbol of hate, mosques are not. This is why people have gotten so offended by your analogy, and feel like you believe that all muslims are terrorists. When you say a mosque(increadibly diverse meanings) is just like a Confederate Flag (Well recognized symbol of hate), people are going to think you percieve Islam as a religion of hate.
It's true that symbols don't shed meanings they aquire, but should we perceive all of a symbol's meaning equally in every instance? Is a symbol equally stained by all meanings it obtains? Sure Muslims burn the American flag, but it's a different circumstance, they are focusing the American flag into symbol of American Imperialism. During their protest it has that meaning because those who employ the symbol(The Angry Muslims) wish for it to have that meaning. In the case of the NY center, the owners want it to symbolize peace and understanding, why should I dredge up the other meanings of the symbol when it seems pretty obvious (Them being Sufis and all) that they are serious? Why should they respect the wishes of people who percieve a very narrow(and recent meaning) of thier symbol when, the owners have been explicit about thier intentions? On the other hand, the Confederate flag has been consistently used as nothing more than a symbol of white supremacy for over a century, it pretty reasonable to assume that outside of a historical reference, a person employing this symbol can be linked to racist ideologies in some way.
]My last sentence was a poor way of saying that you feel that in this situation any muslim sect should behave as if they were a fundamentalist sect i.e. move thier building. If they were a fundamentalist sect I would also believe that moving thier mosque is the right thing to do because they are too aligned with radical Islam for thier building to be in good taste. However, I don't think it's fair to expect the same action from any other muslim sect.
Oh, I just realized you want to have a theoretical debate about a mosque built On ground zero. I feel there is no debate, I believe 99% of people would find that inconsiderate and offensive. We can still debate symbology if you like
You use the word "Strawman" quite a lot, but I've asked you, 4 times at this point, why you feel this: Was a "obvious stawman" you claimed it was.... or why I was "belittling" like you claimed it was... but you've yet to say way.
If it's not too much trouble, could you?
What, that they refused to be intimidated or bullied by religious bigotry? I applaud them for that. You don't get to hold off tolerance of religion to whenever it's convenient for you, you don't get to confine people who are different from you to only sectors where you are comfortable.
Although, I will say the mosque name is an unfortunate decision. I'm not sure what the thought process was behind that.
And? You can use a name as an indicator of the ideals within something rather than just the dark elements unless you've got some preconceived prejudice.
Or are you a goofball that hears something about the Christian faiths and immediately leap to Salem and the Crusades?
Do you honestly think it's a bad thing for them to try to take the existing name and "Do it right this time"? Seriously?
Heck from the above link you were responding to here's a wonderful quote from their FAQ:
Wow, that sounds completely like the old use of the Cordoba name to me...
Huge kudos for the link BTW, Mad Mat - I went from "agreeing legally but didn't think it was a wise location choice" to completely supporting it now that I'm better informed of their intentions.
Re: People misusing the term Vanilla to describe a flying, unleash (sometimes trample) critter.
in my extensive discussions on this topic (which all took place on facebook), i've come to the conclusion that the overwhelming majority of people who are against this don't know any muslims personally. i always recommend to people who argue against the rights of the builders to actually sit down and have a discussion with a muslim person about their religion and its tenets and beliefs.
for the record, i received two "threats" from friends of friends during my facebook conversations. one woman accused me of building bombs for the terrorists in my basement and to not be surprised when the cops show up at my door. the other person, the husband of a woman i went to elementary school with, called me every name in the book; when i then called him "a shining example of christ," he informed me that, as a devout catholic, he would "hunt me down" himself! (i repiled: "yes, because jesus would hunt down - terrorize! - people who disagreed with him.")
Mad Mat pointed it out correctly (i think i read the same article, but my subsequent research did nothing but confirm this to be accurate).
for the record, "cordoba house" is possibly the name of part of the building, perhaps the mosque. the group behind the building uses the name "cordoba initiative," but the building itself apparently will be named some variant of "park 51" - i've seen all variations, including ones with no space between name and number, so the exact final name isn't clear. from what i understand, the building itself will occupy the land covering the addresses from 45-51 on park; the group owns the land on 45 and 47 (the old burlington coat factory store), while 49 and 51 are currently leased by con edison (local electric utility) until 2077. it's not been made clear what, if any, arrangement has been made for use of the space, or, at the least, the address alluded to by the building name.
i haven't read the whole thread (totally tl;dr), but i want to point out something i feel is relevant. there are presently two mosques within twelve blocks of the WTC site (the closer one is four blocks away). both mosques are one-room establishments that regularly have to turn away attendees due to lack of space. clearly, one of the reasons this mosque is being built is due to community demand for a larger space. also, real estate in lower manhattan - especially down around ground zero - is already incredibly well developed, and any attempt to move them will likely effectively defeat the purpose of having a large mosque for the community, as it will likely be too far removed from the community to serve its intended purpose. there are already large mosques in manhattan - i know for certain of one up on east 96th street.
The MirroCube - 420 card Mirrodin themed cube
And if I've offended you, I'm sorry, but maybe you need to be offended. But here's my apology and one more thing...
Because you made whatever conclusion you wanted to make without bothering to look into the situation past what was convenient for you.
It could very well be an insult, I don't know, just like this group could very well be a group that we wouldn't want building a mosque at 9/11, I don't know. But I feel that we know by assessing the situation, not reading whatever we want into it.
Like, I would like the group to address the choice of name now because I can see why that's a controversial choice of name. But notice the difference, I'm not presuming anything, and I'm not shutting them out and refusing to listen.