Zmirak: Say no to the Ground Zero victory mosque

'Say No to the Ground Zero Victory Mosque.'

Actually, I think I'll say YES to the Ground Zero Victory Mosque!

And what do you think about building the first church in Saudi Arabia?

Islamic Empire, thanks for your comments. I looked it up, and it appears Saudi Arabia actually does have a constituation ... but wait: "Article 1 of the Basic Law of Government stipulates that "God's Book and the Sunnah" are the substantive constitution of Saudi Arabia, being only amended (not changed) by reforms of state organization."

OK, at least it's consistent with their national flag.

How disgusting that Islamacists take full advantages of the rights and privileges afforded to them by our Law. A law they themselves do not respect or would consider a good thing in their own lands!

"Islam could very well be banned as dangerous to state, church, and public welfare"

Islam is so much stronger than your ideals that you see no other recourse but to ban it?

Allhamdullilah.

Such a fear of Allah is the first step to reversion.

Re. Islamic Empire and YusefYK

What else can we expect from the only 'religion' that does not believe in the Golden Rule. And in this context this 'religion' is the diabolical aberration when contrasted with all the other religions.

Islam is so 'strong'? Ha! That it goes into murderous rampages at the mere sight of a cartoon.

Should it be banned? A very difficult question philosophically.

The argument can be made that it should be banned precisely because of its incompatibilty with freedom of speech, expression,and thought.Indeed all the evidence (History) shows that it is diametrically opposed to all FREE inquiry and thinking.

If we in the 'West' (who have evolved beyond abhorrent 7th century savage ethics) believe that the principle of free thought, free speech, and free expression are the highest principles that we believe in, is it necessary for us to allow those who would destroy us and our principles, to use them to do so?

I believe that this is the great dilemma that is facing us.
We have a difficult philosophical time in conceiving the idea that we ought NOT allow those who want us destroy us those principles that we hold so highly.

And I think the only answer may be that while those aforementioned principles are the highest principles, and it is because of the sancrosanctity of these principles that all 'free speech' that would destroy those principles cannot be permitted!
It is not a contradiction to deny free speech to those who want to destroy it.Indeed why would they complain if what they want is the destruction of free speech and expression? We would be granting them what they want in a limited sort of way! .We just choose to eliminate free speech to those who would destroy it.

Perhaps the principle should be "All speech is free except speech which would destroy free speech itself."

This article is so uplifiting! A studied presentation of how the mores and mindset of the GZM proponents are diametrically opposed to the spirit of tolerance that has been raised in the US to incomparable heights. And yes, that means to heights incomparably beyond the heights allegedly reached in La Convivienca.

The so-called "bridge builders" claim that this planned outrage is to be a symbol of reconciliation. In fact they insist that it will be a symbol of reconciliation, and come up just short of saying that we will like it. Forgive me if I view this as more the type of bridge --maybe more of a plank-- that a pirate boarding party might use before subduing a prize at sea, thrown down between the vessels so that the violation can be completed.

If there had been any genuine good will from the Cordoba House people, they would have heard the message long ago: Please not here. Please devote your efforts to reforming the would-be Mohammed Attas. But instead of hearing the people of this country, the people of this country are told that they must allow this insult out of tolerance.

Turning my cheek may be the highest road in many circumstances, but not, if in doing so, I lose my ability to stand up to evil. And I certainly have no right whatsoever allow the cheeks of my children or parents to be slapped by bullies. 9/11 was a day in which tremendous evil was done to thousands of innocents. And the proponents of this mosque, along with so many Moslems, are just so many arrogant bullies. And the harder they press on this issue, the more they inadvertently educate the American public as to what Islam really is all about.

Re. Victory Mosque

At least we have the enemy (Islamic Empire)stating the truth for once. It is as he described it 'A Victory Mosque'.

One can only conclude that the leftwing PC dhimmis must not have been exposed to any study of history if, where, and when they received their education.
History undeniably shows what this Victory Mosque is:
The Dome of the Rock, St. Sophia etc.(too many too list)is the historical evidence to prove this.

How can this be a freedom of religion issue? As I understand it there are over 100 mosques in the NYC area.
It is so obvious what this is, A Victory Mosque and yet these dhimmis are so blind they do not see it!

Or perhaps they are so deluded that they think that they can asppease the totalitarians with their constantly increasing demands. Do they not know anything from history? For Petes sake it was only 70 years ago that we tried appeasement and we all know where that got us.

Aside from all the shady characters and financing etc. of the totalitarians behind building this Victory Mosque the question remains.

"Why the intransigent insistence on building this Victory Mosque at all costs?"

The only rational conclusion is that it is what Islamic Empire says it is. A victory Mosque and for this very reason it cannot be permitted to be built!!

If America will not stand up to totalitariansim who will?
70 years ago the British and French stood up to totalitarianism but apparently it is too late and they are not going to do so this time.

America HAS to stand up and defeat totalitarianism!
There is no one else who has the power to do so.
Pray for America to find the strength to defeat this totalitarianism!

The archbishop of New York has compared the controversy over the Ground Zero mosque to that which raged in the 1990s over the Carmelite convent at Auschwitz -- and gently asked the mosque-builders to look for another, less inflammatory site, just as Pope John Paul II moved the convent away from the death camp.
...............

As I have noted above, I consider this piece by John Zmirak to be overall quite excellent. However, I do have a problem with the comparison above—certainly, this writer is not the first to use it.

While I think it showed laudable sensitivity on the part of Pope John Paul II to move the Carmelite convent away from Auschwitz to a—perhaps—more appropriate spot, it is in no way comparable to the proposed triumphalist Ground Zero mosque.

Carmelite nuns were in no way responsible for the hideous slaughter at Auschwitz, nor are Catholics in the habit of building convents at the sites of—well, that really has no comparison in Christian life, in any case.

Here's a new initiative that could be the seed of something very important in time.

It's called the Ground Zero Declaration, which everyone should sign. This could turn out to be the seed of something very important in time.

By signing the Ground Zero Declaration, you join in its request of four things from the Ground Zero Imam (Rauf) and his associates:

1. Rauf and his associates should go through a questionnaire titled "The Qur'an vs. the Constitution: Questionnaire for Muslims seeking free practice of their religion in America." The questionnaire asks ten questions (each of which highlights an aspect of Islamic doctrine that conflicts with U.S. law, the Constitution, and Bill of Rights) and asks Muslims to answer yes or no, as to whether they repudiate each aspect of Islamic doctrine that conflicts with American law and values.

2. Rauf and his associates should sign the "Freedom Pledge". A group of former Muslims is sending The Freedom Pledge to American Muslim leaders and challenging them to sign it. Signing the Freedom Pledge means rejecting Muhammad's statement, "Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him." The Freedom Pledge opposes any physical intimidation or worldly or corporal punishment for apostates from Islam.

3. Rauf and associates should demand that Muslim nations grant non-Muslim religions the same freedom to build houses of worship that America grants Muslims.

4. Rauf and associates should move their planned Islamic Center farther from Ground Zero.

The Declaration then ends by saying that

These simple steps would demonstrate their goodwill, and open the door to a productive dialogue with and about Islam. It would establish a clear distinction between a Reformed Islam that is compatible with American values and a jihadist Islam that seeks to destroy them.

Apart from these steps, we have no reason to believe that the Cordoba House [the Ground Zero Mosque] will in any way be beneficial to American society or inter-faith dialogue. In the shadow of 9/11, the burden of proof is on Imam Rauf to help us understand why we should tolerate an ideology that, at first glance, seems intolerant of everything America stands for.

If he refuses to supply such proof [for example, by carrying out the four actions listed above], then we ask our city, state and federal leaders to judge them by their own standards and give them no more freedom than they are willing to give others. We do not believe a commitment to freedom means giving our enemies the freedom to destroy us.

The choice is theirs.

(my bolding) I like the bolded paragraph a lot, especially since I've read the three documents: the Ground Zero Declaration, "Freedom Pledge", and the Questionnaire: Qur'an vs. the Constitution.

It should be noted that even if a jihadist/sharia proponent lied in answering documents like these, s/he could be held accountable for those lies if exposed. At some point in the future, documents like these could perhaps be given legal force, so that lying in one's answers could be made a crime, leading in some circumstances to loss of citizenship and deportation.

The other value of these documents is that they can reveal where a Muslim really stands on human rights issues. For example, a number of "moderate" American Muslim leaders have refused to sign the Freedom Pledge, and that reveals that the "moderate" Muslims in question are not willing to condemn Islam's death-to-apostates law. That rips off the "moderate" mask and reveals the ugly face beneath for all to see.

And as for the Questionnaire, it's a powerful educational tool for non-Muslims and Muslims alike, because the Questionnaire makes crystal clear a dozen specific ways in which Islamic law and culture are in direct conflict with the most basic American laws and values. I think the Questionnaire could use some more refinement, but it's already a powerful beginning.

Thanks, Gravenimage. I think you missed the rest of what I said about the Carmelite comparison:

The racist anti-Semitism of the Nazis, while it attracted many individual Catholics into its ranks, was firmly condemned and widely resisted by the Church. Indeed, in moving the convent away from Auschwitz, John Paul was bending over backward to show sensitivity for the millions of Jewish victims of the Nazis -- a movement led by apostate Catholics who hated the Church as much as Karl Marx and Leon Trotsky hated the synagogue. Auschwitz was not an atrocity committed by faithful Catholics, in the name of the Faith, in accordance with principles widely accepted by the leaders of the Church. It was a sickening criminal enterprise on the part of hell-bound neopagans, half of them sunk in occultism. Nevertheless, because Nazi anti-Semitism emerged from Christian Europe, and had some causal roots in Christian anti-Judaism, John Paul was right to move the convent; it was the Christian thing to do.

The 9/11 attacks, by contrast, were conducted by Muslims practicing the tactic of suicide bombing -- which is widely accepted by leaders of orthodox Islam . . . for instance, by the sponsors of the Ground Zero mosque, who have over and over again refused to denounce the terror tactics of Hamas. Just last week, when Hamas shot dead four civilians (including a pregnant woman), Ground Zero mosque founder Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf would not condemn the attack. This is no surprise; Rauf's close ally, the leading Islamic "civil rights" organization in America, is the Council on American-Islamic Relations. CAIR was named by the U.S. government as an un-indicted co-conspirator in a massive scheme to smuggle money to Hamas -- which proudly conducts suicide attacks, just like those on 9/11, against civilians in Israel. Now these groups, which have no problem with murdering civilians who get in their way, want to follow the Muslim tradition of building enormous, triumphalist mosques on the sites of great Islamic victories. It is the Muslim thing to do.

First off "Islamic Empire" is obviously an American conservative radical posing as a Muslim. The small minority American Muslims have been very quiet during this whole post-9/11 thing and during this mosque thing for one reason and one reason only. They are scared. They should be, their kids are harangued as terrorists. I know a whole bunch of Latinos that are teased for even looking Muslim. I know a Muslim that changed his name to a European name because at airports he was always being stopped. They aren't secretly plotting the next 9/11 (as a whole that is), they are trying to live their lives without the weight of the scary majorities and larger minorities that discriminate against them. Its sad to see Irish, Blacks, and Catholics pick on Muslims in this country. They were not looked upon so favorably before and now some of them join the bigots. Perhaps figuring that they are now immune to the tyranny of the majority. They may be right, they are today immune, they will probably remain so. Its is still wrong however to pick on the smaller group.

Take a look at these Quinnepiac poll numbers from July, 1, 2010 in NYC only:
"Opposition to the mosque is 56 - 31 percent among white voters, 45 - 34 percent among black voters and 60 - 19 percent among Hispanic voters. Opposition among religious groups is 66 - 22 percent among Jews, 66 - 24 percent among white Catholics and 46 - 36 percent among white Protestants."
- http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1302.xml?ReleaseID=1473

It seems that Latinos, Jews, white Catholics, and skinheads are in agreement here against the mosque. Saddens me that religions and races are taking sides. Xenophobia seems to hit certain groups more than others. I am happy to see that white Protestants seem to be more moderate (by that I mean more evenly divided). What I found more interesting was the education split:

"24a. Do you support or oppose this proposal?
No College 56% oppose 24% support
College 48% oppose 37% support"

Extrapolating the Quinnn. data you could reasonably guess that the profile most in opposition might be something like:
55+ aged no college conservative republican Hispanic Catholic or Jew woman in Staten Island who does not know any Muslims personally, with an unfavorable opinion of Islam, and that thinks that this is an insult to 9/11 victims families.

Supporting would be:
18-34 aged college liberal democrat black Protestant (maybe Baptist) man in Manhattan who knows a Muslim personally, with a favorable opinion of Islam, that understands that this will foster understanding and teach people that not all Muslims are terrorists.

I didn't make up any of these profiles traits. They only come from the questions asked by the poll. That includes the business of fostering understanding that not all Muslims are terrorists (that was question 25). These traits may not all together produce the extremes in opinion, but they should get somewhat close to the extremes.

By the way, yes there are Hispanic Jews. I've met a few. There are even some vegetarian Hispanics, oddballs but they exist. ;-) kidding

What is interesting in studying the poll numbers is that the issue of whether you see this as an insult to 9/11 families or not is pivotal (I know its a duh). I do not see it as an insult, which shapes my opinion greatly. Those that see it as an insult oppose the mosque 93%. Those that think it will foster understanding, as I do, support the mosque 68%. I think its a shame that some 9/11 families feel insulted, maybe its most, I am not sure, but I don't think they should. I would like to assuage their concern that this is an affront to them. It is not, in my opinion. It is not an offense, it is an olive branch. The 10 to 20 Muslim 9/11 victims families certainly should feel insulted. I can't see how this could be seen in any way other than that. I would like to see a poll of whether people think this controversy is in effect insulting Muslim 9/11 victims families. I apologize to them on the behalf of the rest of us, even if the rest doesn't appreciate that. Jesus says to open your heart to those that hurt you and show dignity in the face of humiliation. Sorry guys.

By the way, this is a local issue, most do agree. In Manhattan only, 46% support, 35% oppose, 16 don't know. I am from Manhattan and I say that all you 55+ aged, no college, conservative republican, Hispanic, Catholic or Jew women should go worry about your local school's PTA and mind your own damn business.

Here is a comment on the Ground Zero mosque from the National Post: http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/Harassment+hostility+healing+harmony/3498553/story.html