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  • #46
    Originally posted by art View Post
    Freedom of religion in the US should allow the Mosque to be build. If the Government interferes, Then what's next? the right to assembly, freedom of speech? These are the basics fundamentals of human rights in the greatest country in the history of the world.
    Sure, the government shouldn't interfere. How about the people? Do they have a right to refuse?

    Originally posted by art View Post
    We must overlook our predigest of the Muslim religion and not blame them for what some terrorist are doing in the name of their religion.
    We're not prejudiced against muslims in general. Just this one.

    Originally posted by art View Post
    As I recall, Christianity did some horrible things in history but we are not stopping Christians from building churches are we?
    1. When did those "horrible" things happen?
    2. Can you give some examples of those "horrible" things?
    3. What would you say if the catholic church goes into Iraq and Afghanistan and build churches after every single village and city that the US troops had just entered in the name of "multiculturalism?"
    4. How about building a cathedral in Mecca?
    5. How about bringing some bibles into Saudi Arabia?
    Last edited by gunnut; 19 Aug 10,, 18:25.
    "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

    Comment


    • #47
      Originally posted by MIKEMUN View Post
      Mosque supporters beg George W. Bush to come to Obama's rescue
      By: Byron York
      Chief Political Correspondent
      08/18/10 10:02 AM EDT
      (File photo) Former President George W. Bush

      There's a new argument emerging among supporters of the Ground Zero mosque. Distressed by President Obama's waffling on the issue, they're calling on former President George W. Bush to announce his support for the project, because in this case Bush understands better than Obama the connection between the war on terror and the larger question of America's relationship with Islam. It's an extraordinary change of position for commentators who long argued that Bush had done grievous harm to America's image in the Muslim world and that Obama represented a fresh start for the United States. Nevertheless, they are now seeing a different side of the former president.

      "It's time for W. to weigh in," writes the New York Times' Maureen Dowd. Bush, Dowd explains, understands that "you can't have an effective war against the terrorists if it is a war on Islam." Dowd finds it "odd" that Obama seems less sure on that matter. But to set things back on the right course, she says, "W. needs to get his bullhorn back out" -- a reference to Bush's famous "the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!" speech at Ground Zero on September 14, 2001.

      Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson is also looking for an assist from Bush. "I…would love to hear from former President Bush on this issue," Robinson wrote Tuesday in a Post chat session. "He held Ramadan iftar dinners in the White House as part of a much broader effort to show that our fight against the al-Qaeda murderers who attacked us on 9/11 was not a crusade against Islam. He was absolutely right on this point, and it would be helpful to hear his views."

      And Peter Beinart, a former editor of the New Republic, is also feeling some nostalgia for the former president. "Words I never thought I'd write: I pine for George W. Bush," Beinart wrote Tuesday in The Daily Beast. "Whatever his flaws, the man respected religion, all religion." Beinart longs for the days when Bush "used to say that the 'war on terror' was a struggle on behalf of Muslims, decent folks who wanted nothing more than to live free like you and me…"

      For the moment, with Obama failing to live up to expectations, Bush-bashing is over. It's all a little amusing -- and perhaps a little maddening -- for some members of the Bush circle. When I asked Karl Rove to comment, he responded that it means "redemption is always available for liberals and time causes even the most stubborn of ideologues to revisit mistaken judgments." But won't these Bush critics shortly return to criticizing Bush? "This Bush swoon by selected members of the left commentariat is temporary," Rove answered. "Their swamp fevers will return momentarily."

      Bush himself has declined to comment on the mosque affair.

      Read more at the Washington Examiner: Mosque supporters beg George W. Bush to come to Obama's rescue | Washington Examiner
      I thought this picture would be fitting...
      Attached Files
      "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

      Comment


      • #48
        Originally posted by art View Post
        Freedom of religion in the US should allow the Mosque to be build. If the Government interferes, Then what's next? the right to assembly, freedom of speech? These are the basics fundamentals of human rights in the greatest country in the history of the world. We must overlook our predigest of the Muslim religion and not blame them for what some terrorist are doing in the name of their religion. As I recall, Christianity did some horrible things in history but we are not stopping Christians from building churches are we?
        Government officials are actively campaigning for the Mosque and have put its radical Iman on the government payroll in violation of US law. The Mosque will not hold to American values, women will be excluded from parts of it, Jews, Christians, Sikhs, Hindi's and atheist will be denied entry. meanwhile Utah can't have crosses a now universal symbol of a tragic highway death as memorial markers for fallen highway patrolmen.

        So what were you saying about government?

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        • #49
          Yes, GW, we do...:-)
          "They want to test our feelings.They want to know whether Muslims are extremists or not. Death to them and their newspapers."

          Protester

          Comment


          • #50
            Originally posted by art View Post
            we are not stopping Christians from building churches are we?
            Uhmmm...actually, Yes, we are. Proposed churches all over the country have been stopped in their tracks when they posed zoning or traffic problems, or when neighbors objected. It doesn't usually happen, though, because people building churches are generally very tuned in and sensitive to the feelings of the community. I've seen it many times. (Helped build a few in my day.)

            Also, didn't you hear about the Pope discouraging some Nuns from building a convent at Auschwitz, out of respect for the Jewish (and others) sensitivities?
            sigpicUSS North Dakota

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            • #51
              Originally posted by gunnut View Post
              I thought this picture would be fitting...
              As the Bush presidency wound down, I was hopeful that the disaster his presidency was would be over. He was pro-government, big debt and anti-freedom. Now I know he was simply the oven pre-heating.

              Comment


              • #52
                Originally posted by zraver View Post
                As the Bush presidency wound down, I was hopeful that the disaster his presidency was would be over. He was pro-government, big debt and anti-freedom. Now I know he was simply the oven pre-heating.
                Oh yeah, I thought his domestic policies were atrocious except for the tax cuts. I always thought he spent too much money. He partnered with Ted Kennedy to write that "no child left behind" federal take over of local education. And I stated before Obama was elected that he would outspend Bush by a country mile. I have vastly misunderestimated Obama's ability to overspend and overreach.
                "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

                Comment


                • #53
                  Originally posted by 7thsfsniper
                  Please read the following before voting in the poll!

                  I think there is already threads on this, but I mainly wanted to take a poll on this subject.
                  It has been established that it is perfectly within our constitutional rights to practice any religion you like in this country.

                  You also have an obvious right to build a house of worship within the boundaries of the law(building and zoning codes).

                  Now to the mutiple questions....

                  Would building a Mosque at the proposed site near ground zero be appropriate?

                  Would it hurt the muslim population in defining itself as a religion of tolerance and sensitivity?

                  I have heard many American Muslims speaking out against the construction of this particular mosque and would be interested what international and American muslims here think on this.
                  I found out a bit more about it, and I don't see anything wrong with it; its not exactly at Ground Zero.

                  And as for second question, I'm going to be very honest, despite risking sounding offensive, but you're talking about Islam here. Yes, the religion does give examples of tolerance, but at the end of the day, the stated goal is to "spread the message" i.e. convert the world as Islam is the only true path, and all other people have either strayed off the true path (if they are "people of the book", i.e. people of the Abrahamic religions) or are quite simply led by the devil himself (if they are polytheists, atheists, or just anything other than Abrahamic). Really not too different from the evangelical Christians, but far more organized and a far better base of funding. So, all this talk of people proposing to open up gay bars and what not in retaliation to this Mosque; well that idea is just another bad joke, it actually reinforces the Muslim's beliefs about others and wins the Mosque more brownie points among their worshipers. And this is America, the land of open market competition, so what kind of competition are gay bars to religious centres?? That money is better spent on opening up a Church or something, and "educating" or "re-educating" the people in the area; that is the only real reply to such a centre; all this talk of "tolerance" and what not is really a bad joke. Infact, I'm still laughing at the comment on the other thread about this mosque being "Sufi-ish"; its being built at a cost of a $100 million, and most likely the funding can be traced back to the Saudis or other Arab states, the states responsible for funding the massacre of Sufis worldwide. This mosque is anything but Sufi-ish but a centre of influence and expansion for the Islamic ideology. Nothing Sufi about it.
                  Last edited by Tronic; 19 Aug 10,, 19:02.
                  Cow is the only animal that not only inhales oxygen, but also exhales it.
                  -Rekha Arya, Former Minister of Animal Husbandry

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                  • #54
                    Well, we wouldn't be arguing over all this were it not for the 2nd Amendment of our Constitution. Without it, the Islamic center would now be looking for a site in Hoboken.

                    The center's board was incredibly insensitive to how the public would react in light of 9/11. Or, was it? In our fight against Islamic terrorism, we have often criticized Islamic countries and Islamic fundamentalists for their intolerance and on occasion held up our system as an example of religious toleration. Now this. It may be fanciful to imagine that this whole flap was purposely designed by our enemies in the Islamic world to put us to the test. It really doesn't matter because either way we're showing the world that are not as tolerant as we claim. The other side of this is that it gave us an opportunity to contrast our way to that in some Muslim countries, like Saudi Arabia, where religious intolerance is built into the system. But we appear to squandering the opportunity...

                    I don't like any of the outcomes here, but I like least of all any that paints us as hypocrites.
                    To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

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                    • #55
                      Originally posted by JAD_333 View Post
                      I don't like any of the outcomes here, but I like least of all any that paints us as hypocrites.
                      No one is telling them they can't practice their religion or have a cultural center. It is the location they picked and the man running it that is a problem.

                      Comment


                      • #56
                        Originally posted by zraver View Post
                        Government officials are actively campaigning for the Mosque and have put its radical Iman on the government payroll in violation of US law. The Mosque will not hold to American values, women will be excluded from parts of it, Jews, Christians, Sikhs, Hindi's and atheist will be denied entry. meanwhile Utah can't have crosses a now universal symbol of a tragic highway death as memorial markers for fallen highway patrolmen.
                        This is one of the better comments... LMAO

                        Comment


                        • #57
                          Originally posted by highsea View Post
                          I'm not interested in what Bush or any other republican politician has to say about the mosque. Hopefully they'll have the sense to keep their mouths shut from here out.

                          The dems have stepped in it, let them extract themselves. Let every question on the mosque from the media be directed to, and answered by dems. Repubs can sit back in silence while the dems backpedal from Obama's statement. The public will be listening.

                          If the repubs let themselves get sucked in by the media into this debate, it will be spun as an anti-first amendment position, like Rosie's trying to do.

                          Repubs need to stay on message and keep their focus on the economy. That's what will defeat dems in November.
                          Ironic I read this today.

                          Gene Healy: 'Mosque' debate is a red herring | Washington Examiner

                          Basically, this is a distraction meant to get tea Partiers to focus on this rather than make actual commitments to cut goverment since they tend to be so unpopular if you are in the middle class because that's where the $ go.

                          This is worth a read not a skim from Ali Soufan a somewaht well known FBI Interrogater in forbes magazine hardly a liberal bastion
                          Commentary
                          The National Security Mosque
                          Ali Soufan, 08.18.10, 12:40 PM ET


                          The furor over the proposed Islamic cultural center and mosque near Ground Zero makes me think back to one of the most important lessons I learned from al Qaeda terrorists I interrogated--that they have a warped view of America. To them--and this they get from Osama Bin Laden's rhetoric--the U.S. is a country at war with Islam and Muslims, and so they had a duty to fight us.

                          While I was serving on the frontlines I found that this distorted view of America was common among ordinary Muslims too, and it was only by correcting this image did we encourage locals to help our investigations and turn against al Qaeda. Our efforts were helped by public statements, like from President Bush in the days after 9/11, declaring that America was at war with al Qaeda and not with Islam. I was in Sana, Yemen, on that day, and I remember our military and law enforcement group feeling encouraged that our leadership understood how to frame our battle.

                          But while we started off on the right note in dealing with the Muslim world, our leadership soon demonstrated that they failed to understand that our war against al Qaeda was not just a military fight, but an asymmetrical battle for the proverbial hearts and minds of Muslims across the world too. We should have been highlighting that al Qaeda has killed thousands of Muslims and blown up dozens of mosques around the world. But instead we failed to appreciate the importance of rebutting al Qaeda's propaganda and of turning ordinary Muslims against the terror network.

                          When we eventually did this, we had great successes. As commander in Iraq Gen. Petraeus reached out to local Sunni groups and convinced them that al Qaeda was their enemy and America their friend. That led to a remarkable turnaround in our fortunes in Iraq. He is now trying to do the same in Afghanistan. Just this weekend Meet the Press reported that when Gen. Petraeus learned that the Taliban attacked a mosque near the border with Pakistan, he ordered it to be publicized among the local population.

                          There are many reasons for supporting the Muslim community's right to build a cultural center and mosque on private property, not least of all the First Amendment of the Constitution guaranteeing freedom of religion. But from a national security perspective, our leaders need to understand that no one is likely to be happier with the opposition to building a mosque than Osama Bin Laden. His next video script has just written itself.

                          The potential damage to our national security is not only to our work abroad, but at home too. Today in America we are facing an increased threat of homegrown terrorism. While Bin Laden couldn't find a single American-Muslim to be part of the 9/11 plot, today, thanks to mixture of poor (and even harmful) leadership within the American-Muslim community and failed strategies from our government in dealing with the threat, some young Muslims are finding themselves increasingly isolated and marginalized--and are becoming easy prey for radicals.

                          When demagogues appear to be equating Islam with terrorism, it's making young Muslims unsure about their place in the country. It bolsters the message that radicalizers are selling: That the war is against Islam, and Muslims are not welcome in America. As a Muslim-American, I know that isn't true. Whatever some rabble-raising politicians say about one mosque doesn't trump what America really stands for--the values enshrined by our constitution that guarantee equality and freedom for all, whatever your race, religion or creed.

                          Young American-Muslims need to focus on comments by leaders like Mayor Bloomberg, whose stand on the issue exemplifies the very best in American leadership: educating people and standing up for the values of our Constitution, rather than playing on fear and ignorance.

                          It is because of the principles enshrined in our constitution that thousands of American-Muslims, like Americans from all races and religions, volunteer to serve our country in the military, intelligence and law enforcement communities. The Pledge of Allegiance, ending "one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all," is a constant reminder that America is worth fighting for.


                          --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                          To those politicians now saying a mosque can't be built near Ground Zero, I would like them to take a walk through Arlington Cemetery and learn the names and stories of American-Muslims who have died in service to our country. They should also learn a bit more about the victims of 9/11, such as Mohammad Salman Hamdani, a Muslim-American who was a New York City Police cadet and paramedic. When he saw smoke coming from the Twin Towers he ran to assist, where he died helping victims.

                          Another Muslim who died in the World Trade Center was Mohammad Chowdhury who was working at Windows on the World to support his pregnant wife and daughter. He never made it home that day, and his son born 48 hours later never knew his father. Al Qaeda didn't differentiate between Muslims and other Americans when it hit the Twin Towers--and neither should we.

                          Ali Soufan was an F.B.I. supervisory special agent from 1997 to 2005. He is the president and CEO of The Soufan Group, an intelligence consultancy.

                          Follow Forbes Opinions on Twitter
                          Reading Unbound: The Forbes Booked Blog


                          So, all that work to prevent the hunt for and opposition to Terrorists who use passages as obscure as Leviticus( how to sell your daughter into slavery) from the Koran to justify their murder from painting this into a holy war on Islam have now left the building? We make sure the moslem world knows when the terrorists bomb Mosques for a reason. Protesting freedom of religon is not something to win hearts and minds or assimilate newcomers. Mosques are being protested across the country. Yet, in the midst ofd this you call for Republicans to remain silent? This is an issue that matters or it's a distraction. If it's the second then those making it so put party above country. If it's the first then how could you call for Republican silence?



                          I'd love to hear what Shek has to say about this myself. I've noticed and belive at times you remain silent rather than disagree. Silence is aquisence as 6 million jewish souls can attest to.
                          Where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost.”
                          ~Ronald Reagan

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                          • #58
                            Originally posted by zraver View Post
                            No one is telling them they can't practice their religion or have a cultural center. It is the location they picked and the man running it that is a problem.
                            Seriously, you need to read up on him on some non idealogue sites. He was first sent to preach we are not at war at Islam and our respect for the religon by Bush. If you are anti Islam just say so. If you say you aren't at least point to someone of the religon you support if not this very tolerant man.
                            Where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost.”
                            ~Ronald Reagan

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                            • #59
                              Originally posted by gunnut View Post
                              I thought this picture would be fitting...
                              He had omg muslims giving and saying services about 911 less than a month afterwards. What I do miss is him saying this isnt a war on Islam. Can you imagine God forbid if Obama had Imans saying 911 sericies in 9/2001?
                              Where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost.”
                              ~Ronald Reagan

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                              • #60
                                Originally posted by zraver View Post
                                No one is telling them they can't practice their religion or have a cultural center. It is the location they picked and the man running it that is a problem.
                                You are absolutely right. Unfortunately, it amounts to the same thing. What some are saying in effect is, "your religion is Islam; since people who practice your religion caused the death of thousands of people 2 blocks away, you are equally to blame and all of Islam is to blame. Therefore, it is an insult for you to build a facility near this spot." Look, we can't hide from the truth here. Denying these people the right to build a facility where we would allow other religions to build is a direct attack on their religion and their right to practice it. Of course, public sentiment is a different matter. People have every right to object, but none to obstruct.

                                Some people say this center will be used as a symbol of Islam's victory over the US. I think just opposite will happen; it will become the symbol of America's love of freedom and commitment to law.
                                To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

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