"You can build a mosque at ground zero when we can build a synagogue in Mecca."

[metapunditedgy]

Protest sign shown on the front page of CNN. So much stupidity compressed into one little space.

Who is "we"? Americans? Christians? Jews?

Is the WTC cite really the equivalent of "Mecca" for "us?" Does our religion center around the financial center of New York City?

Is our religion or nationality defined by a symbol of violent aggression and terrorism? Is that our "Mecca"?

After all the criticism leveled against Islamic nations, are we saying that our religious tolerance will be defined by *their* level of tolerance?

When we "export democracy," what are we sharing with the world? Are our Constitution and freedoms really just nothing but a different flavor of intolerance?

If "we" build a synagogue in Mecca, will we publicly condemn all the violence that is (or has been) carried out in the name of our religion and/or nation?

Etc.... the stupid continues, I just got tired of thinking about it.

[sandnsea]

1. We're not Saudi Arabia, that's the entire point

of the US Constitution.

[stevedeshazer]

34. I agree.

[Enrique]

41. lol at the irony

all these patriotic 'merkins looking to Saudi Arabia for guidance. :patriot:

[malaise]

2. I dare them to try that shite with the Vatican

which would be the appropriate comparison. I didn't know the WTC was the religious center of the Jewish religion.
Lock up these lunatics - somebody- anybody - they're fucking crazy.

[The Magistrate]

8. Indeed, Ma'am: Looking Forward To the Lutheran Chapel Beside St. Peter's....

Can see no reason to allow the building of a Catholic church here till one can be found....

[malaise]

18. Correct SIr

:hi:

[Kerrytravelers]

3. Your brain could go in circles for hours trying to make sense of their nonsense.

Your brain will hurt. Don't bother.

[Hissyspit]

4. CNN? It's been posted here.

Fallacious all over the place and sloganeering.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Rhiannon12866]

7. Stupidity from the uninformed is hardly anything new...

[Xenotime]

42. Argh! The unsophisticated nature of freeptards makes me sick.

[Rhiannon12866]

43. It's also hugely embarassing...

But this article actually made me LOL... :D

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8998375&mesg_id=8998375

[Radical Activist]

9. The more appropriate analogy would be building synagogue at the location of a terrorist attack

that was carried out by Jews. It should be easy to find one in Palestine. In fact, I'm sure it has already been done.

[DailyGrind51]

10. When Saudi Arabia becomes the 51st state, we can have one!

[Ruby the Liberal]

11. Does our religion center around the financial center of New York City? You tell me:

That was 2008. Praying over the golden bull.

[metapunditedgy]

13. Who was doing that? Do you have a reference? That's very interesting. n/t

[Ruby the Liberal]

16. Reminds one of Baal, no?

I just googled images for "prayer wall street bull" as I don't have a way of loading up a pic. The first link that came up about it was from Wonkette: http://wonkette.com/403920/jesus-people-pray-that-false-idol-will-save-gods-economy

Many many other references out there from various POV.

[dflprincess]

14. I think I saw that scene in "The 10 Commandments"

right before Charlton Heston smashed the tablets.

[Ruby the Liberal]

17. Yep. It made my blood run cold when I saw it back in 2008.

[Vinca]

12. Since the hijackers were Saudis, I would hope the anti-mosque

crowd refuses to use or buy anything connected to the petroleum industry.

[Marr]

15. "We" are not a Christian state, and "they" are American citizens.

So this bigoted bullshit doesn't make any sense.

[Boojatta]

19. "Does our religion center around the financial center of New York City?"

You may have stumbled onto something there.

[metapunditedgy]

23. Thanks... I had that "stumbling" feeling myself as I wrote it... n/t

[notesdev]

29. I had the same thought

If extra-terrestrials were analyzing us objectively, they could be forgiven for concluding just that. Is an ATM really all that different from a confessional?

[dipsydoodle]

20. That is one sick analogy.

:(

[malaise]

22. Sick is a kind word

That was the rant of an unbelievably ignorant bat shit crazy lunatic.

[obxhead]

21. It's a stupid statement, not an argument. The Constitution

does not apply in Mecca.

This is a Constitutional issue.

[TheKentuckian]

24. Mecca isn't in America or you certainly could

[starroute]

25. The "sacred ground" part is what gets me

I keep wondering about these "hallowed ground" or "sacred ground" descriptions being applied to the WTC site.

The idea of sacred ground was initially a religious one -- probably going back to the days when the sites of temples were carefully determined through feng shui or following the meanderings of cows or whatever method was considered best to trace out the earth energies.

As that sort of practical knowledge was lost, a more superstitious form of the concept came to be applied to any area around a church -- for example, the old principle that a suicide could not be laid to rest but had to be buried outside the churchyard.

And when even that degree traditional of religious awareness vanished, the idea took on a more secular meaning. Lincoln saying in the Gettysburg Address, for example, "We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract."

The Battle of Gettysburg was both a great victory and one marked by tragic loss of life, and Lincoln's words were not misplaced. But in retrospect, I can't help feeling he set us on a very slippery slope, bringing us to the point where now any place that lots of people were killed can be considered "hallowed."

The World Trade Center was not a battleground. It was not a place where anyone "gave their lives that that nation might live." It was not turned into a cemetery for the fallen and is not their final resting-place. Nothing at all happened there for Americans to be proud of.

This suggests to me that it isn't really being treated as "sacred ground" so much as a continuing irritant and source of anger and humiliation. That sort of thing also has a long -- and overwhelmingly barbaric -- history, but it's nothing to emulate. It has to do not with healing but with vengeance and the perpetuation of ancient hatreds.

There used to be a word for this sort of thing -- "revanchism," which was applied to the French determination to get back at the Germans for their humiliation in the Franco-Prussian War. That determination was one of the major causes of World War I -- and thus, by extension, of World War II.

Revanchism is the kind of low-level pseudo-religious cult that crops up when a real desire for peace and understanding is lost. It makes a mockery of any genuine idea of the sacred. And by even allowing the forces of darkness to describe the WTC site as "sacred" -- out of some sort of fear that we might be pilloried if we suggest it isn't -- we are setting ourselves up for exactly that kind of descent into barbarism.

[metapunditedgy]

27. Interesting. Some of the most conservative denominations in the USA are actually

opposed to icons, symbolism, or "sacred ground/things". (For example, megachurches often have the aesthetics of an auditorium rather than a cathedral.) Maybe the desire for sacred objects gets diverted....

[anarch]

37. might be hallowed ground to those whose religion demands mass sacrifice

It's hard to think of a more substantial transformation of consciousness than the sudden death of several thousand people all in one place...if you're some kind of Satanist or something, that probably makes that location a holy place.

I find it sort of appropriate that people who see the sites of the attacks of 9/11, which are after all the sole justification for the last ten years of U.S. foreign policy, as being somehow desecrated by the presence of an edifice intended to be a center of education and peaceful devotion, also tend to be the most vociferous proponents of bare aggression and jingoism when it comes to our interactions with other nations. The right wing has damn near made a religion out of violence and intolerance...the rantings of their favorite talking heads are sure focused on ratcheting up the hatred, at any rate...I think it makes perfect sense for these people to react as they have to the incursion of what they've been indoctrinated to see as the enemy into the area of their sacrificial alter.

Oops, did I just equate the right wing with human-sacrificing Satanists? Sorry 'bout that.

But really, what could be more appropriate for the WTC site, which is undeniably symbolic, than a facility intended to be a place of learning and sharing of knowledge? And hey, it'll have a gym too, which can only be a good thing...people should exercise more. If anything, there should be a whole bunch of places like this built around the area.

[Canuckistanian]

26. It's a sign of defeat, really

It says that America can't even rise to the level of an intolerant theocracy.

I find it depressing.

[metapunditedgy]

28. Don't let it get you down. What it really says is that some sign-holders

*wish* that America would be an intolerant theocracy.

Of course, it looks like the intolerants are winning right now, but that's partly because they've wrapped the whole issue in a WTC flag. Outside of a few blocks in Manhattan, mosques are still being built.

[Angry Dragon]

32. That may very well be true

but my question has always been which religion are they wanting to base this theocracy on??

The christians can't even come to a consensus .....

A thought just came to mind ......... What ever the President's religion is, that is the religion of the country and then all religious buildings that are not that one religion have to be destroyed ......... should make some heads spin ..... and everyone has to worship that religion ..........

[stray cat]

30. The conservative anti-abortion society being built next to George Tillmans house is ok as well

its private property and constitutional

[metapunditedgy]

31. Wow, I must have somehow missed the blanket news coverage on that one... n/t

[coti]

33. Another question- who is "you"?

Do these people actually think they're talking to somebody?

[Jim Lane]

35. The protestor's sign should've credited the source: Benito Mussolini

There will be a mosque in Rome, the Fascist ruler said, only when a Roman Catholic church is permitted in Mecca.

Il Duce's political analysis was reported in this New York Times story in 1989: .

[metapunditedgy]

36. That's awesome. (Esp. WTC as "Rome.") Has that quote made it into the news stories? n/t

[MilesColtrane]

44. The bigots have found their real life Il Douche in Palin.

The same morons who quote a fascist in the name of freedom will happily pull the lever for her in 2012.

[jmowreader]

38. Let's see now...

1. It's not a mosque, it's a gym.

2. It's not at Ground Zero, it's around the corner and two quarter-mile-long blocks down the street. It'd be easier to "walk past the 'mosque' every day" from Ground Zero if it was in New Jersey.

And 3. I have no problem with using taxes on churches--especially ones who build graven idols and denigrate other faiths--to subsidize a tax cut for everyone. (And if you go through the record of my postings, you'll see I've got a fairly good track record of being against tax cuts of any kind.) I had to subsidize Big Butter Jesus and all these preachers screaming about mosques on Ground Zero through higher taxes on my income, and I'm tired of doing it.

[derby378]

39. I thought the sign said "when we can build a McDonald's in Mecca"

Oh, well. Same level of stupidity.

[parkia00]

40. Exactly! But what I find incredible

is the same arguments being parroted here on DU by some members. You expect that from idiot narrow minded right wingers, but here?