I am by no stretch of the imagination a fan of Michael Bloomberg. However, I fail to see any element whatsoever in what he said that is "condescending, superior, and hectoring." This is a completely baseless ad hominem attack. He is simply articulating the applicable legal principle that constitutes the essential bottom line in the matter. Such legal principles have precisely the purpose of cutting through the messiness of human affairs, and ensuring a just playing field for all thereby.

The situation is not about freedom of religion. I know of no one who denies the right of the Muslims to build their mosque there, near GROUND ZERO. The question is about the appropriateness of the building such a building at that site. Another question is this: "Where is the money to build the mosque coming from?"

But, for me at least, the broader question is this: Given our nation's belief in the freedom of religion, how should we respond to a religion that does not believe in that freedom? In my opinion the good imam Rauf is cynically exploiting our beliefs, and if the apple is rotten, for Heaven's sake don't put it in the barrel.

Thank You, thank you sir.

Let's see. Bloomberg has stated that mosque opponents are "playing politics" and "don't really care" about ground zero (Daily Show). He's stated that opponents of the project should be "ashamed of themselves" (WOR-AM).

"Simply articulating the applicable legal principle"?

Great essay. This is not about separation of church and state or freedom of religion; to say that it is and then to call anyone who disagrees a bigot is the condescending part. Not to mention offensive. We are not that stupid and we are not bigots. That is why the Bloomberg statement hits a nerve.

,

"Yes, the New York City government is still refusing permission for the Greek Orthodox church destroyed in the attacks of September 11 to rebuild."

Not exactly; the Port Authority declined a land-swap with Saint Nicholas, which remains perfectly free to build on the land it already owns at 155 Cedar Street. Google is your friend, Mr. Bottum.

"And stopped it will be ..."


On what do you base this claim? Certainly nothing in your article! I hope you realize that Park51 enjoys broad public support in Manhattan (which, at the end of the day, is the only locale that matters)?

Regardless of how it is intended, it will be perceived by radical Muslims around the world as a giant monument, in the heart of the beast itself, to their success in attacking America. Indeed, it will be perceived by many Americans that way.

If the point is to oppose radical Muslims, we shouldn't be ruled by their perceptions. What your argument here amounts to is that we musn't give our enemies any reason to say "nah, nah, na nah nah." And if we care about perceptions, it should be those of moderates, who are more likely to become radicalized the more they have reason to think the West doesn't like Islam.

As for what Americans think, Americans are not stupid, and can choose to recognize, if they choose to, that moderate Islam did not attack us.

The self-congratulation in all this is a little hard to take—a kind of belief that, unfolded in full, would betray a vast sense of superiority to both those culturally backward Muslims who must be offered such tolerance and to those culturally backward Americans who must be lectured on tolerance.

Americans who aren't willing to show tolerance are indeed at fault in that respect, but the only one calling moderate Muslims culturally backward is you. Here you descend into the thin-skinned self-pity and unwillingness to empathize with your ideological enemies -- to love them -- that consistently characterizes Gateway Pundit and in do doing shames a once great magazine.

My friend Google reveals that most voters in New York (58%) oppose the building of an Islamic mosque near Ground Zero in New York City.

Church of the East,

Perhaps the statement by Mayor Bloomberg seems more condescending, superior and hectoring to someone familiar with some of his other statements about the project. And he has, indeed, reduced the controversy to a single legal principle concerning separation of church and state. The author and the protesters think that principles other than legal principles should be considered. Mayor Bloomberg dismisses most objections as being motivated by intentions far less noble than his own. To me, that's what is condescending, superior and hectoring.

He has also said that he expects "special sensitivity" toward 9/11 families from the Cordoba Initiative. If he can expect or perhaps even mandate special sensitivity from the Cordoba Initiative and whoever controls the mosque complex in the future, does that not undercut his position concerning a strict separation of church and state? And if he can "expect" them to be sensitive at this location, why couldn't he applaud them for even greater sensitivity if they generously agreed to move the project?

I wonder if the Mayor's expectation of sensitivity has anything to do with the announcement that the Cordoba Initiative may be eligible for government help with funding? If this group accepts public funding arrangements, might the government expect the right to play a role in its "sensitive" future operation? On the other hand, having tied its reputation to completion of this project, maybe the city is just trying to help out with the almost quarter-million dollars in delinquent taxes which the New York Post says are owed on the two buildings intended to be converted into the mosque complex.

How, exactly, does the Cordoba Initiative expect to financially support a 100 million dollar mosque complex in a crowded, mostly non-Muslim commercial area over the long haul?

As Sidney Smith remarked, "A man may persevere in doing what he has a right to do till the Chancellor shuts him up in Bedlam, or till the mob pelts him as he passes."

There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over.

The proposed “Cordoba House” overlooking the World Trade Center site — where a group of islamic jihadists killed over 3000 Americans and destroyed one of our most famous landmarks — is a test of the timidity, passivity and historic ignorance of American elites. For example, most of them don’t understand that “Cordoba House” is a deliberately insulting term. It refers to Cordoba, Spain — the capital of Muslim conquerors who symbolized their victory over the Christian Spaniards by transforming a church there into the world’s third-largest mosque complex.

Today, some of the Mosque’s backers insist this term is being used to “symbolize interfaith cooperation” when, in fact, every Islamist in the world recognizes Cordoba as a symbol of Islamic conquest. It is a sign of their contempt for Americans and their confidence in our historic ignorance that they would deliberately insult us this way.

Those Islamists and their apologists who argue for “religious toleration” are arrogantly dishonest. They ignore the fact that more than 100 mosques already exist in New York City. Meanwhile, there are no churches or synagogues in all of Saudi Arabia. In fact no Christian or Jew can even enter Mecca.

And they lecture us about tolerance.

If the people behind the Cordoba House were serious about religious toleration, they would be imploring the Saudis, as fellow Muslims, to immediately open up
Mecca to all and immediately announce their intention to allow non-Muslim houses of worship in the Kingdom. They should be asked by the news media if they would be willing to lead such a campaign.

We have not been able to rebuild the World Trade Center in nine years. Now we are being told a 13-story, $100 million megamosque will be built within a year overlooking the site of the most devastating surprise attack in American history.

Finally where is the money coming from? The people behind the Cordoba House refuse to reveal all their funding sources.

America is experiencing an Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization. Sadly, too many of our elites are the willing apologists for those who would destroy them if they could.

No mosque.

No self deception.

No surrender.

The time to take a stand is now — at this site on this issue.

Mr. Bottom,

Thank you for this article. I very much enjoyed it.

Build a mosque at ground zero?

"How dare you desecarate the hallowed first ammendment rights to freedom of religion!"

Glen Beck Speaks on the anniversary of Dr. Kings I have a dream speech ?

"How dare this man be allowed to speak his mind on the anniversary and location of such a historic event after calling the president a Racist"

Joe, that's an excellent point. The Right demands sensitivity and courtesy but won't lacks the same.

At the risk of being condescending, I have to say that this is a fascinating issues. Mayor Bloomberg's comments can be dismissed immediately. Separation of Church and State has nothing to do with it. But freedom of religion has everything to do with it, and our national commitment to that and other freedoms is too precious a right to surrender so cheaply.

The folks who object that this mosque is a symbol for Muslims that America lost and Allah won make a very valid point, but not one that we can let invalidate our Constitution. There is a militant tradition in Islam which sees Muslims as Allah's army sent to conquer and subdue the Earth. The bin Laden's are going to believe that doctrine whether this mosque is built or not. We are also going to have many Muslim fellow citizens whether it is built or not. Islam is actually a rather appealing creed in a society with as many and as deep dysfunctions as the West displays today. It will draw converts in addition to the many Islamic immigrants.

But if we sell our Constitution for a mess of porridge, a small orgy of self gratification, how then can we as Americans stand up to our Islamic fellow citizens? It is bad enough that we sent an army to destroy Iraq, and to crown our conquest erected the world's largest embassy in the middle of Bagdad. What does that signify to the Islamic world? Do they see us as bastions of principle and the rule of law? But how much more deeply we can dishonor ourselves in this matter, by disallowing their mosque?

Christianity is a worldview -- in the broadest possible sense of that term -- that opposes Islam in fundamental ways, and those ways will inevitably lead to conflict which our heirs will have to fight. But any action we can take that softens our American image in the Islamic world, that at least does not harden our reputation for opportunism and cynical exploitation, will stand us in good stead on those occasions. Many of the comments here express a recognition of the underlying conflict, for which they cannot be faulted, but the course they urge is precisely the wrong response at this time.

The "...high-liberal technocrat who just doesn’t like the messiness of human interaction." Philip Rieff wrote that the best means available to these technocrats who seek to avoid the messiness of human interaction is to reside exclusively in the realm of high abstraction, sticking one’s head not in sand but in the stratosphere, which is the easiest route to avoiding any commitment of substance leading to substantial resolutions, commitments that get messy, and in this instance a commitment to the many Americans who were traumatized by a military attack by a group naming themselves Muslims on a target that housed the innocent.

Perhaps the day will arrive when a broad coalition of moderate Muslims will be vehement in denouncing Islamic violence that intentionally targets the innocent throughout the world. They might even go so far as to publicly denounce Islamic principles that paint persons of other faiths as the enemy, the same as Christian leaders, in their eventual embarrassment and shame, denounced the history of forced conversion under threat of torture and death. This is certainly part of an American understanding, and I view the Ground Zero mosque construction controversy as a door opening onto a conversation that won’t die over night, but will continue in the American concrete, messy way of politics, not submitting to Bloomberg, Obama and other ascending technocrats who refuse to reside in the real world. This is a teaching moment, and the school shouldn’t be shut down.

If the point is to oppose radical Muslims, we shouldn't be ruled by their perceptions. What your argument here amounts to is that we musn't give our enemies any reason to say "nah, nah, na nah nah." And if we care about perceptions, it should be those of moderates, who are more likely to become radicalized the more they have reason to think the West doesn't like Islam.


Well, let's leave perceptions where they belong. While both Christianity and Islam had their share of violence against non-believers, it seems to me that such acts where rather distortions of Christs's message as contained in the New Testament, as opposed to Islamic treatment of infidels, which is spelled out clearly on the pages of the founding book (Koran) and evidenced by the history of the first years or decades of that faith. I would not care excessively much about sensitivities of moderate Muslims because they represent simply a cafeteria Islam. If they happen some day to long for a 'real deal', they can get radicalized at any time for whatever reason, our tolerance and appeasement or not.

Also the name of the initiative - Cordoba, does not give much hope. Cordoba's Great Mosque is one grand example of Islamic triumphalism. It was built on the rubble of an earlier Visigothic Catholic church. Cordoba at Ground Zero - what do you think it is?

Bloomberg and Obama (and let’s not forget Nancy Pelosi) “rightly insisted on the constitutional principle that government could not intervene, but then they drew the conclusion that the discussion should thus be over.”

Their declaration is reminiscent of the pronouncements of the French ideologues whom Chamfort ridiculed. In his view those worthies redefined fraternity as an expression of the kindly sentiment “Be my brother or I will kill you.” For that witticism Chamfort was arrested.

"Islam is actually a rather appealing creed in a society with as many and as deep dysfunctions as the West displays today. It will draw converts in addition to the many Islamic immigrants."

The Islamists are counting on this. And since conversion from Islam is a crime in Muslim countries, they don't have to worry about losing any ground at home.

"It is bad enough that we sent an army to destroy Iraq, and to crown our conquest erected the world's largest embassy in the middle of Bagdad. What does that signify to the Islamic world?"

9/11 happened before we invaded Iraq. Islamic supremacism has existed since the 7th century.

"Christianity is a worldview -- in the broadest possible sense of that term -- that opposes Islam in fundamental ways, and those ways will inevitably lead to conflict which our heirs will have to fight."

Kicking the can down the road so that our kids have to deal with it is a bad idea in every context.

"But any action we can take that softens our American image in the Islamic world, that at least does not harden our reputation for opportunism and cynical exploitation, will stand us in good stead on those occasions."

No. Softening our image is the last thing we need to do. The strong horse v. weak horse concept was not invented by Osama bin Laden.

Joel Clarke Gibbons said: "But freedom of religion has everything to do with it, and our national commitment to that and other freedoms is too precious a right to surrender so cheaply."

Mr. Gibbons with due respect - I wouldn't say that the 2,700 people who were murdered at Ground Zero constitute a "cheap surrender". It is on that basis that the nearly 70% of Americans object to the GZM.

Build the mosque - no one says they can't. It's about being sensitive to the wishes of people who were directly connected to the deaths of those 2,700 people. It's not about subjugating freedom of religion. It is asking a group of people who, worldwide, demand a level of understanding for their cultural differences and religious requirements that sometimes beggars belief - to extend the same understanding to the friends, family and survivors of the 9/11 atrocity at Ground Zero. To the American people.

The US Constitution sets out to provide freedom of religious conscience. Neither in its purpose nor in its technical operation, does the US constitution seek to provide a self appointed busybody in the person of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf with a right to erect a building, in the style he requires, for the purposes he requires, at a location he requires.

Paladino TV: I'll Stop the Mosque
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLLrd79aOqI

Mar,

The Bible too has words that incite violence. Think of all the Old Testament injunctions to kill and plunder; think of David's delight in violence against pagans; think even of how Christ told his disciples to treat those who rejected them (not violently, but harshly). We today let these words be superseded by other, humane ones.

So too there are words in the Koran that contradict the ones you refer to.

"I would not care excessively much about sensitivities of moderate Muslims because they represent simply a cafeteria Islam. If they happen some day to long for a 'real deal',"

How condescending.

One key data point not discussed above: The proposed location for Cordoba House is not simply NEAR Ground Zero, it is itself a site struck by 9/11 violence, within the blast radius of the WTC attacks and on a site physically struck by falling wreckage from the planes striking the towers.

Imam Rouf himself has called the site "iconic" for its link to 9/11. This is crucial to the perception of the project as an expression of Islamic triumphalism, both for wounded Americans and for militant Muslims.

FWIW, my take at NCRegister.com.

Not St. Nicholas argues for a Manhattan only electorate to determine the GZM issue in these words:

"On what do you base this claim? Certainly nothing in your article! I hope you realize that Park51 enjoys broad public support in Manhattan (which, at the end of the day, is the only locale that matters)? "

This would disenfranchise most of the families of the 9/11 victims. The WTC dead and wounded, whether first responders or WTC workers, largely lived outside of Manhattan. For example, there were two dead from my own suburban parish and 13 from another parish ten miles away from me that I often attended at the time because it was close to my suburban NJ work location.

As to First Responders, the great bulk of them live in the suburbs or in the "Outer Boroughs" (the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island). Manhattan is just too expensive now; even formerly poor areas like Harlem are now being gentrified and consequently priced out of the league of most civil service employees.

Clearly, the victim survivors, the families of the 9/11 dead and the many rescue workers who put sweat equity into the GZ recovery effort in the months following 9/11 have as much right to a say in this question as do Manhattanites whose only connection to the massacre is their current residence on the same island as Ground Zero.

Whether Bloomberg is a hypocrite or not, or being condescending and cynical or not, in saying what he did about religious freedom and the separation of church and state, is logically irrelevant. The point is that he correctly articulated the legal principle that governs the land; and on the basis of that legal principle, Muslims have just as much of a right to build mosques on land they legally procure for that purpose as anyone else. Those who will not allow them this right do not really, in the final analysis, respect the legal principle itself, and are not morally entitled to claim its mantle to secure their own religious freedom.

That is the situation in the United States. What the situation may be in Saudi Arabia or any number of other Muslim countries has no logical bearing whatsoever on rights granted those in the US under the US constitution. In particular, Saudi Arabia never claimed to be a haven of religious freedom, but the US most certainly does. Ironically, anyone in the US who denies the Muslims the right to build their mosque thereby adopts a stance that is in line with the moral and legal principles that govern Saudi Arabia, and abandons the moral and legal principles that govern the United States.

How odd that a Catholic would be so tone deaf to the symbolism of a mosque placed adjacent to what, in the Muslim world, is considered a great Muslim victory over the infidels.

One wonders what Jody would have to say about Pope John Paul instructing a group of nuns who had erected a small chapel adjacent to Auschwitz, where they were doing nothing more than praying innocuously for the souls of those killed in that factory of death. Yet the Pope believed that while praying for the victims of the Holocaust was a worthy objective, it was not appropriate to do so at that particular place; it was offensive to the sensibilities of those who survived, and the families of those who did not. And so the little chapel was closed.

In so doing, the Pope showed a degree of sensitivity and rectitude that the sponsors of the Ground Zero mosque (provocatively named "Cordoba House"--perhaps Hispanics ought to protest this reminder of the Muslim captivity of Spain?) seem to be lacking--intentionally, I might add. Their intention is not reconciliation or repentance, but provocation. Their insistence that the mosque has to be there--and no place else--reinforces that fact.

The muslims have a legal right to build on that site, but they don't have a moral right, nor does their legal right supersede the constitutional right of all those who oppose placing a mosque near Ground Zero to express their opinion and to take every legal avenue in so doing.

At present, given the state of public opinion, I would think the best way of preventing the mosque from being built there rests with the private sector. No contractor should place a bid for the job. Unions should foreswear working on the site. Suppliers should reject offers to provide steel and concrete. Build your mosque, if you want--don't ask us to help you. I suppose it is possible that a Saudi construction company could take the job (ironic if it turns out to be the bin Ladens), using non-unionized Islamic workers (in NYC? Not a chance!), shipping in materiel from outside the United States. But then, of course, the mosque would be revealed for what it is--an attempt to erect a monument to a great Islamic victory, and a memorial to the eight martyrs who gave their lives to smite the infidel.

InfidelHere has his Spanish history exactly backwards. The Cordoba mosque came first. After the 1492 Reconquest the Christians decided to build a Gothic cathedral inside the five acre mosque. The Habsburg Emperor Charles V decried the effort when he saw it. The false hidden premise in Mr. Bottum's argument that the New York mosque should not be built is that somehow all Musllims are complicit in 9/11. You cannot arrive at his conclusion without it.

Churdh of the East (Assyrian): Your position is apparently logical and suicidal.

In effect, you argue that we are duty bound to allow a cancer into an otherwise healthy body. As long as the Muslims in power, such as the good imam Rauf, reject freedom of religion, we are not bound to accept them as equals.

Said another way, we must defend our Constitutional right to freedom of religion, by rejecting those who do not believe in freedom of religion, for they are an affront and menance to our way of life.

Freedom of Religion does not necessitate construction workers building the mosque. The easiest way to prevent it is simply to refuse to build it.

Church of the East, most posters agree that they have the right to build the mosque at a site that they legally procure. The issue is not religious rights or freedoms, the issue is whether they SHOULD build it there and if they insist on building the mosque at Park51 what does that mean? If the construction goes forward does that support or undercut Rauf's claims for bridge building? If construction goes forward Rauf will have caused a scandal in the Catholic sense of the word, meaning that he is a cause of offense to non Muslims thereby reflecting poorly on the Muslim faith in general.

"Whether Bloomberg is a hypocrite or not, or being condescending and cynical or not, in saying what he did about religious freedom and the separation of church and state, is logically irrelevant" If this is the case, why was this the point of your first post? I think that you know that it is very relevant to how the left engages in political discourse. It is not irrelevant since it points to the left's condescending attitude towards anyone who disagrees with them. The left immediately launches into the bigot/racist/xenophobe/islamaphobe mode.

Ann:

If the imam and his backers bought my neighbor's property, they could not legally build a mosque on that site. If they bought Mount Vernon (which is privately owned and could be sold), they would be legally stopped from building a mosque on that site. Ownership of a piece of property does not give one a constitutional right to build whatever one wants to build on it. The state has interests too, and sometimes state interests trump religious interests.

Just as freedom of speech does not allow me to say whatever I want, wherever I want (even if I own the theater I want to say "FIRE" in), freedom of religion does not allow me to build whatever I want, wherever I want (even if I own the property I want to build a mosque on). Freedom of religion is no more absolute than freedom of speech or any of the other freedoms we enjoy.

Certainly the religious freedom of those that wish to build the mosque should be taken into account with utmost seriousness, but it does not automatically trump the state's interest in this (or any other) case. Nor would we want it to.

They have, in fact, a right to be treated better, with more deference, by the government under our constitutional scheme.

True.


If such an institution wishes to be offensively bloody minded, there isn’t—or, at least, there shouldn’t be—much that an American government can do about it.

False.

@Assyrian
Bloomberg [...] correctly articulated the legal principle that governs the land; and on the basis of that legal principle, Muslims have just as much of a right to build mosques on land they legally procure for that purpose as anyone else. Those who will not allow them this right do not really, in the final analysis, respect the legal principle itself, and are not morally entitled to claim its mantle to secure their own religious freedom.

Yes, it is a law of the land. But it only protects against rejection by the government (either by force or by administrative hurdles and harassment) and also against violent rejection by the people. It does not protects against opinions even if harsh and insulting, for those are protected by another sacrosanct law of the land.

How many times it has to be repeated: it's a conflict between the right and decency, not between the right and lawless bigotry.

@Stuart Koehl is rightly recalls a conflict over nuns in proximity of Auschwitz (and it's _decent_ resolution), although that was _absolutely incomparable_ to NYC conflict. Rather imagine building a noisy Bavarian-style bierschtube behind the fence of Auschwitz camp. That'd be more like the Cordoba Mosque.

@Ken
I was specifically and deliberately referring to the New Testament (as founding books of Christianity) to avoid unhelpful and largely irrelevant problem of ethnic violence of the Old Testament. These were not global domination and expansionism-driven events. Judaism never was a missionary religion (Jews weren't really comfortable even with proselytes), and ethnic cleansing instances during the conquest of Canaan were means to preserve the tribal covenant with the One God. David? - that was usual fare of the time in the region. Preservation, and not forced inclusion in the global Ummah, was the reason for most of the violence in the Old Testament.

Christ was harsh at times, you say. Surely, but point me to anything comparable to Koranic precepts of treatment of infidels. Yes, there are verses in Koran like the famous "no compulsion in religion", but these are rather irreconcilable with the way the wars were conducted by Muhammad and his followers, with child rape and bloodshed of Jews, (Arab) Christians and pagans alike.

This leads to my final argument - compare how Christianity and Islam started, add to it complete and indissoluble fusion of religion with any other aspect of individual and political life under Islam and you will find a key to understanding the history that followed, and to the issue of how compliant with the founding books is violence of Christians vs. that of Muslims. That's why I used the term 'cafeteria Muslims' that you found so condescending.

To Ann,

The purpose of my first post was to call attention to the logically irrelevant and otherwise gratuitous nature of J. Bottum's imputation of morally negative motives to Bloomberg. This type of thing, unfortunately, happens a lot in Catholic circles.

If it is really conceded that the Muslims have a constitutional right to build the mosque, then what is all the fuss about? Let them build it, for crying out loud! In this regard, I must also take issue with Bottom's insinuation that the construction of the mosque must be prevented by extra-legal means, if necessary. To compel them not to build it by whatever means is to strip them of their constitutional rights. If the right is granted, and if the Muslims are otherwise operating within the confines within the law, then their freedom to build must not be hindered.

To Edward Alleyn,

I do not accept your assertion that Islam is a "cancer." To say so smacks of an us vs. them/good vs. evil dualism that is quite dangerous. It very easily leads to a fanatical and irrational hatred of whoever constitutes "them." I will be the first to grant that Islam is a religion that is probably of demonic origin (as are all non Judeo-Christian religions), but it does not follow from that that Islamic culture and persons are unqualifiedly evil any more than it follows that Christian persons and cultures are unqualifiedly good, just because they are nominally Christian.

We Christians would do well to take a much closer look at the beams in our own eye, and those of our culture - especially as this concerns sins perpetrated against Muslims - than pointing to the splinter in the eyes of our Muslim brothers and sisters. We would also do well to take a particularly close look at the way in which the Muslim fanaticism that so many on this blog loathe is to a substantial degree the deliberate product of decades of U.S. foreign policy and intelligence work in that region of the world.

Lets talk facts, your piece is based on none. It's sad to see that there can be no intelligent discussion without bigotry getting in the way.

#1- Mayor Pro Mosque Mike- does not listen to his constituents, he went against the majority and got himself around term limits. Secondly, the connection with his deep emotion and connection to the Muslims is coming out- Bloomsberg Media- is in the midst of becoming the exclusive provider of financial news in the middle east with a Hub in Dubai? Hmmm, knew we smelled a rat.
#2- St Nicks- The port authority is the one holding back the greek church, but also the reason they cannot build on the site is that it would have to be built over a bomb proof garage and the Church has no access to the plans for security reasons and cannot design it. They have not negotiated with the church in over a year, so stop kidding yourself.
#3- the majority of NY is for this Mosque? One of the most liberal cities in America has 60% against this mosque and at last weeks rally- we had approx 2,000 anti Mosque protestors and the Pro mosque folk were about 100, maybe 150.

And for those who say if we do not openly let them build it the Radicals have won! What if we do let them build it, will they be upset that they lost? They have us over a barrel and are laughing about it, if this Imam is who he says he is, there is no need for a freedom issue to be made here it is simply about location only. The majority protesting last week, were Firefighters, Cops, first responders and families and concerned citizens like myself that have lived down there for 15 years and watched everything from my apartment that shook when the first plan flew over my house before hitting the first tower.

"InfidelHere has his Spanish history exactly backwards. The Cordoba mosque came first. After the 1492 Reconquest the Christians decided to build a Gothic cathedral inside the five acre mosque."

I think you miss the point: Until the 8th century, Spain was a Christian land, with a long Christian heritage dating back to St. Paul. As they did in the Middle East, the Muslims overran the country and imposed their rule over the Christian population. According to the Qu'ran's division of the world into the Dar al-Harb (world of war) and Dar al-Islam (world of submission), once Muslims conquer and area, subjugate its people and establish Sharia, well, it's part of the Dar al-Islam forever. In the Muslim mind, Spain is still Islamic, and will be ruled by Muslims again, some day.

Calling the new mosque "Cordoba House" is staking out a claim for the United States to some day become part of the Dar al-Islam. Until then, we remain the in the Dar al-Harb. We are all Harbis, and will be, until we become Dhimmis.

Any Muslim who does not believe that, in his heart of hearts, is just not being a good Muslim. And that is what the ongoing Jihad is about.

"If the imam and his backers bought my neighbor's property, they could not legally build a mosque on that site. If they bought Mount Vernon (which is privately owned and could be sold), they would be legally stopped from building a mosque on that site. Ownership of a piece of property does not give one a constitutional right to build whatever one wants to build on it. The state has interests too, and sometimes state interests trump religious interests. "

In Northern Virginia, at least, it is considerably easier to get permission to build a large mosque or Islamic high school than it is to get permission to build even a very modest church--as I have reason to know from personal experience.

Mike M: "The false hidden premise in Mr. Bottum's argument that the New York mosque should not be built is that somehow all Musllims are complicit in 9/11. You cannot arrive at his conclusion without it."

No, not all Muslims. But certainly any Muslim who wants to build a mosque a stone's throw away from where thousands of people were murdered in the name of Islam is either very naive or is complicit in the same type of Islam which motivated the 9/11 attacks.

"InfidelHere has his Spanish history exactly backwards. The Cordoba mosque came first."

No, he has it right. You are leaving out the building of the Great Mosque in Cordoba over a Catholic church. Following the Reconquest, the Mosque was converted into a cathedral. "The siting of the mosque was a gesture of Islamic triumphalism, an architectural manifesto.” Page 4 of Moorish Spain by Richard Fletcher (1992)

Edward Alleyn, do you really need Google to figure out the difference between New York City and New York County (Manhattan)? If so, I'm sure it stands ready to assist you.

http://dnainfo.com/20100701/manhattan/manhattanites-support-mosque-near-ground-zero-poll-finds

Edward Alleyn

"My friend Google reveals"

Does it also reveal the difference between Manhattan (New York County) and New York City?

"As long as the Muslims in power, such as the good imam Rauf, reject freedom of religion"

Do you have a single shred of evidence to that effect? Or are you, in fact, flagrantly violating the Ninth Commandment? We're all waiting with bated breath, I'm sure.

"Said another way, we must defend our Constitutional right to freedom of religion, by rejecting those who do not believe in freedom of religion, for they are an affront and menance to our way of life."

Were you, by any chance, a Vietnam strategist? Your approach to Constitutional liberty reminds me a lot of destroying a village in order to save it.

There is an Anti-Islam tone to almost all of these posts that is really disturbing.

First of all, those who would build the Mosque are American citizens who have done nothing wrong. They haven't attacked anyone. They haven't violated our laws. And for the life of me, I haven't heard of a single actual wrong that they, as individual citizens of this great country, have committed that undermines our country, our freedoms, our liberty, or our values. Did it ever strike anyone as possible that a muslim might prefer to worship in a country such as ours where they are free to do so on their own terms, unbound by a theocratic government that may impose upon them an orthodoxy grounded in political compromise and corruption?

Second, are we really that fragile? Whatever differences in faith may stand between myself and the muslims of this country, I do not feel the least bit intimidated, scared, or threatened by their presence. And if they were to build a community center in my neighborhood I would not object. But the fretting, the fear-mongering, the politicizing that is going on - these reveal a petty meanness in our society that we would be much better without.

Third, to deny the political nature of this controversy and suggest that it is just "democracy" by non-political means is bizarre. The anger is being stoked and stirred by politicians who see it as a wedge issue - it creates an us vs. them paradigm for discussion that cheapens every aspect of our public discussion and puts pressure on those public figures basically inclined towards tolerance to adopt an openly hostile stance against Islam in order to prove their Christian bona fides. Yes, the controversy would still exist without the politicians, but it is disgusting to see them stoking fear and cultivating discord for personal gain. But why should they behave any differently now? This, too, is nothing new under the sun.

And last, people are throwing around a lot of facts about the name "Cordoba" that as far as I can tell came from Fox News. A good historical discussion of Cordoba can be found at:

http://gotmedieval.blogspot.com/2010/08/professor-newts-distorted-history.html

The blog describes Cordoba's several historical incarnations and notes that Christians there generally enjoyed freedom of worship. It quotes twice from the 1917 edition of The Catholic Encyclopedia:

"In 786 the Arab caliph, Abd-er Rahman I, began the construction of the great mosque of Cordova, now the cathedral, and compelled many Christians to take part in the preparation of the site and foundations. Though they suffered many vexations, the Christians continued to enjoy freedom of worship, and this tolerant attitude of the ameers seduced not a few Christians from their original allegiance. Both Christians and Arabs co-operated at this time to make Cordova a flourishing city, the elegant refinement of which was unequalled in Europe."

And then,

"In 962 Abd-er Rahman III was succeeded by his son Al-Hakim. Owing to the peace which the Christians of Cordova then enjoyed [...] the citizens of Cordova, Arabs, Christians, and Jews, enjoyed so high a degree of literary culture that the city was known as the New Athens. From all quarters came students eager to drink at its founts of knowledge. Among the men afterwards famous who studied at Cordova were the scholarly monk Gerbert, destined to sit on the Chair of Peter as Sylvester II (999-1003), the Jewish rabbis Moses and Maimonides†, and the famous Spanish-Arabian commentator on Aristotle, Averroes."

It is distressing to see that the malicious prevarications that pass for talking points among Fox News and the professors of ignorance that it calls commentators seem to have formed an indelible impression on the public discussion of these issues, despite the fact that they have little or no correlation to historical reality. They help to prop up a flawed narrative of Islam that carries the water of the opportunistic conservative political and media cultures, garnering them attention and most of all, making them money.

From the dictionary: "A bigot is a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices, especially one exhibiting intolerance, irrationality, and animosity toward those of differing beliefs. The predominant usage in modern American English refers to persons hostile to those of differing race, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation and religion."

It is hard to characterize the reaction to the Islamic Community Center being built near Ground Zero as anything other than bigotry - at least under the above definition. Calling it bigotry may be somewhat inflammatory - nobody likes to be called a bigot. And the situation hardly needs to be inflamed any more. But I am hard-pressed characterize the current omnipresent anti-Islamic rhetoric as anything other than open hostility to persons of a differing religion - in other words, bigotry.

One more point concerning Edward Alleyn's shameful lies (and yes, I'll call them what they are) about "the Muslims in power, such as the good imam Rauf, reject[ing] freedom of religion." The New York Review of Books just reminded me that the Roman Catholic Church did not embrace religious freedom until 1965 (http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2010/aug/27/catholics-muslims-mosque-controversy).

One wonders if Alleyn might have joined the Know-Nothings of the nineteenth century in similarly declaring of Catholic immigrants, "we are not bound to accept them as equals," since, unlike the members of Park51, they actually supported a religious organization aspiring to theocratic rule. (And the word "equals"? Way to show your hand, Edward.)

Aaron Rasmussen: Yes, there is a very disturbing Anti-Islam tone to almost everything here. It is said to be "Islamic triumphalism" when the Muslims of Cordoba built a mosque at the site of the original Catholic church. What kind of triumphalism was it when a Gothic cathedral was constructed in the middle of the five acre mosque? Not Christian triumphalism? The scent of bigotry here is astoninishing.

Okay, Islam is a religion of peace and intends no harm to anyone.

Still, they HATE Jews and especially Israel, and they persecute Christians.

Currently, according to Open Doors UK, an estimated 100 million Christians face persecution, particularly in the Muslim world, North Korea and the hands of Hindu extremism and Islamic terrorism in India.

Church of the East:

I don't think imputation of morally negative motives to the Mayor is just something done in "Catholic circles". I am not a Catholic, and I have been alarmed by Mayor Bloomberg's imputation of negative motives to just about anyone who opposes the Mosque's location. Debra Burlingame via Ben Smith at Politico:

". . . . . He has the audacity to go out and stump for the mosque all over the media, while at the same time calling other political leaders--who reflect the position of 70% of the public--"shameless" or suggesting they don't really care--like him. We have said over and over that this isn't a challenge to freedom of religion. We are appealing to the mosque developers as a matter of decency. Bloomberg sticks his fingers in his ears; he will have none of it. Instead, he is causing grave injury to 9 /11 family members, while painting this insensitive, arrogant imam as a victim. Mr. Bloomberg is casting himself as a principled champion of the first amendment even as he is telling the rest of us to shut up. The mayor is pulling out all the stops to bully New Yorkers into falling in line with his politically correct nonsense at the last place in America where there should be any pretense about what happened on 9/11. . . . "

You also asked, "If it is really conceded that the Muslims have a constitutional right to build the mosque, then what is all the fuss about?" The fuss is about the cruelty of cooperating with a project which asks people who lost loved ones on 9/11 to watch in silence as a mosque built by a "Cordoba Initiative" rises in place of a building which was abandoned due to damage on 9/11.

Additionally, the fuss is about two-way tolerance. The Constitution grants rights to people other than mosque-builders. Mark Helprin (WSJ): "The Constitution is a marvelous document, and a reasonable interpretation of it means as well that no American can be forced to pour concrete. No American can be forced to deliver materials. No American can be forced to bid on a contract, to run conduit, dig a foundation, or join steel. . . .

A reasonable interpretation of the Constitution means that no American can be forced to cross a picket line in violation of conscience or even of mere preference. Who, in all decency, would cross a picket line manned by those whose kin were slaughtered—by the thousands—so terribly nearby? And who in all decency would cross such a line manned by the firemen, police and other emergency personnel who know every day that they may be called upon to give their lives in a second act?"

Actually, some of the liberal friends of the mosque project HAVE volunteered to replace construction workers, etc. if they refuse to work on the mosque. As Jim Treacher suggests, "Bring popcorn".

Mike M: InfidelHere did not get his Spanish history wrong. The Cordoba Mosque was built on the site of a Visigothic church, in the Muslim tradition of taking over the religious sites of peoples whom they have conquered. The Gothic cathedral came third.

President Obama and Mayor Bloomberg speak for the Federal and the City governments. On September 11th, those governments failed to protect the World Trade Center and its thousands of residents from horrendous deaths. By a rag tag group of Islamists. Perhaps, now, the Mayor and President might exercise more descretion when they advise others.

Mar, thank you for the reply. OT Israel was not going for global domination, that's true, but its needless cruelty cannot be dismissed as mere ethnic aggression. It was aggression at God's command, the text tells us. Neither does its motive -- a good one, yes -- excuse it. OT Jews murdered men, women and children in God's name, just as the Muslims you condemn do today. If you fault Muslim radicals, you must fault Israel. If you think think it intellectually acceptable for Christian's to reject ancient calls to violence, why not the Muslim rejection?

Yes the Koran prescribes harsh treatment of the infidel in some places, but moderate Muslims point to the places where it proscribes it. Point to Christ's own injunctions, you say? Christ who revered the OT as God's word? I agree that we have a better case against religious violence as Christians than Muslims do, but still, we're both picking and choosing.

"compare how Christianity and Islam started, add to it complete and indissoluble fusion of religion with any other aspect of individual and political life under Islam"

Christianity started in/was built on/ is incomprehensible theologically without violent Judaism. And for the Christian, there is no realm of life in which religious understanding doesn't apply. If radical Muslims are the true keepers of that faith, and the rest are cafeteria Muslims, are theonomists the only true Christians, and the rest of us cafeteria Christians?

Aaron Rasmussen - the problem with tolerance as the ascendant virtue, above prudence and truth, is that this tolerance is enforced culturally with indifference, a now pervasive form of violence, and your indifference towards the victims of 911 is apparent. And in giving a history lesson, you seem adept at avoiding the history that is unfolding. Most everyone on this blog wants as much as you the mutual respect and cooperation that you find at certain times and places in history, and most everyone wants to work towards that, including many Muslims. But working towards it begins in mutual respect, especially in this case a respect for the victims of 911, a subject central to this discussion and curiously missing from your long post.

Islam is not a religion, it's a cult. . Allah is not (a) god, certainly not invented by Muhommed - Allah was one of over 100 arab deities at mecca - before mohammed got rid of all of them except allah - but allah was around long before Muhommed and he is absolutely NOT our Judeo-Christian God. Any cult which offers the choice - convert or die - by beheading usually - that's not my idea of a religion. (2) The separation of
church and state was not intendended to keep government out of religion
but was for the purpose of keeping religion out of government - as was the case in England and one of the reasons why the Plymouth Brethren left England, because they had no FREEDOM OF RELIGION, they were not free to
practice their religion, because the government, in this case the monarchy and
the church of england, objected to their form of Christianity and they were
persecuted for it. Muhommedanism is PRECISELY what the constitution is
protecting us FROM - a THEOCRACY - an insane one at that - in which the tenets
of the so-called religion dictate the tenets of the state - like IRAN, and all the other Islamo-fascist governments around the planet. Their stated objective
is the establishment of "Sharia Law' everywhere - witness what's going on in
the U.K. right now - and the Taliban, of course, oh yummie - wouldn't you love
to live under that insanity?
What surprises me is that they had the temerity to call it "The CORDOBA INITIATIVE" - WHAT are theyattempting to "initiate'? - your clue is the word "Cordoba" - The city in Spain where they planted their initiating FLAG OF TRIUMPH at the beginning of their rampage through Europe - only to be stopped 500 years or so later
at the Gates of Vienna by King Jan of Poland - more power to Him! We need
another King Jan in New York and someone needs to educate Bloomberg
about what separation of church and state really means. The reason it "got your back up" when you heard Bloomberg's words is that your B.S. RADAR
got activated - the man is up to his neck in business (communications) deals
with the middle east. Let them have their mosk - but not over the dead bodies of Americans! Do it somewhere else !

Oh - and Mr. Rasmussen: my impression is that most of the persons who have posted here aren't protesting the construction of an Islamic Community Center as you suggest, but of what can honestly be perceived as a possible "victory mosque", and I suppose you believe in your tolerant view that this is a bigoted perception and therefore not a possibility, nor open for legitimate discussion, which again demonstrates the negation of prudence and truth in bowing to the ascendant virtue of tolerance.

Ken wants us to beat ourselves for not showing tolerance for Islam. Sorry, Ken, keep the whip and flagellate yourself. Americans show plenty of tolerance for Islam. Muslims enjoy religious freedom and the protection of our laws in the US, though a tiny minority. Look how our leaders are always ever so careful to not criticize Islam in toto and qualify our terrorist enemies as the radical fringe of Islam. Look how some of our leaders even deny that Islam has anything to do with foreign and home-grown Muslims' repeated attacks on Americans. Where are the anti-Islam rallies? Where is the anti-Islam KKK? Nowhere; they don't exist. Americans owe nobody an apology; we are plenty tolerant.

But Ken, where's the tolerance the other way? Where's their tolerance for the sacred ground where the twin towers stood? I guess only Judaeo-Christian Americans are required to be tolerant in your book - but not Muslims? Here's what the Pope's "Pacem in Terris" says about minority's reciprocal duty for being received with toleration: "It is worth noting, however, that these minority groups... frequently tend to magnify unduly characteristics proper to their own people. They even rate them above those human values which are common to all mankind, as though the good of the entire human family should subserve the interests of their own particular groups. A more reasonable attitude for such people to adopt would be to recognize the advantages, too, which accrue to them from their own special situation." Muslims have special advantages in the US because of the principle of toleration, which is of Christianity, by Christianity, but for all religions. However, the scimitar doesn't cut both ways; try reading the Bible on a street corner in Medina, Saudi Arabia, Ken, and then report back (if you can).

The principle of toleration for other religions doesn't protect the mosque-builders from justified criticism. They have the constitutional right to build the mosque; we have the constitutional right to call them jerks and bad citizens for doing it (if in fact, the money is coming from fellow citizens).

Aaron Rasumussen: How nice and wonderful it was that the good Moors conquered Christian Spain and then, as YOU say, "compelled many Christians to take part in the preparation of the site and foundations" for the "construction of the great mosque of Cordova". That is what YOU wrote as PROOF that the name "Cordoba" House project on Ground Zero references Islamic liberality. How incredible, that in reciting this 'evidence' of Islamic liberality you do not even see its import points in the opposite direction. Incidentally, the Visigoth church was there before the mosque was built on its ruins, just as the church of Hagia Sophia stood at Constantinople before Muslim conquest and converted into the Ayasofya Mosque. The Visigoths were in Spain long before the Moors. When the Spanish re-took Cordova, the Spanish did RE-build a church.
To see what more liberality this name Cordoba signifies, let us see what Yousef-bin-Tashfyn did at the battle of Zalakah in Spain:
"The slaughter had been frightful. A great lance was planted in the middle of the plain, and Christian heads were heaped round till it disappeared. The skulls were divided between the chief cities of Moorish Spain.... Yousuf took the title of Chief of Believers" (The story of the Christians and Moors of Spain, Charlotte Yonge, 1878, p. 152).
Now, if the present-day backers of this project are "moderate" and do not agree with those who took innocent lives in the name of their common religion at Ground Zero, why could they not have located it any place else in the nation where they could show they disagree with their co-religionists? And why could they not eschew the name Cordoba signifying Islamic conquest, and give it a name reflective of religious liberty and republicanism, like, say, the Ali Abass House/Mosque? Ali Abass was an Iraqi who died heroically, fighting for a free Iraq, and I would be happy to see an Ali Abass mosque established in America by American Muslims who really do believe in America and don't believe in Sharia.
The answer why the mosque builders did not pursue these alternatives is prima facie obvious to anyone but liberals who willfully blind themselves from judging "the other" and who prejudge America before a trial of the mind has taken place. "The other" is always in the right; America is always guilty. Heal thyself; open your eyes. The Islamicists are exploiting YOU to gain their foothold.

Aaron Rasmussen:

"From the dictionary: 'A bigot is a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices, especially one exhibiting intolerance, irrationality, and animosity toward those of differing beliefs. . . . ' "

Sound a lot like Mayor Bloomberg on this issue. Matthew Sheffield on why liberals and conservatives may be talking past each other: http://tinyurl.com/288udxp

Concerning the subject of Cordoba, you seem to be making a rather insulting, unsupported assumption about those commenting here and Fox News. Why the bigotry? The benign, enlightened period of Muslim rule in Cordoba to which you make reference (financed in part by plunder of surrounding kingdoms) did not last. A couple of short pieces by Victor Davis Hanson on the subject:

http://tinyurl.com/233oynu
http://tinyurl.com/2col5sa

"Incidentally, the Visigoth church was there before the mosque was built on its ruins, just as the church of Hagia Sophia stood at Constantinople before Muslim conquest and converted into the Ayasofya Mosque. The Visigoths were in Spain long before the Moors. When the Spanish re-took Cordova, the Spanish did RE-build a church. "

Actually, by the time the Moors showed up, the Visigoths were toast. The Romans under Justinian the Great retook most of Iberia and installed a Roman admininstration. The Arian Gothic Church was superseded by Western Chalcedonian Catholicism, which in turn was suppressed by the Muslims, who reduced the indigenous Celtiberian population (there were never more than a few tens of thousands of Visigoths in Spain) to dhimmitude.

But the point is pretty much the same: the Muslims spread Islam at the point of a sword; there well-known toleration was largely a fiction of Enlightenment anti-Christian polemics, and the eventual domination of all other faiths by Muslims remains a salient objective of Islam.

Of the world's three great monotheistic religions, only Islam promises its followers universal temporal supremacy. Christians are promised a kingdom "not of this world"; Jews are promised a land of their own, tucked into an insignificant corner of the Middle East; but Muslim are promised that they will rule triumphantly over the infidel to the four corners of the world.

Judaism no longer proselytizes; being a Jew is mainly a matter of being born a Jew. Christianity aims to make disciples of all nations, but foreswears forcible conversion. Islam doesn't really care about conversion, it cares about submission. Though Mohammed was down on polytheists, offering them the choice of conversion or death (very enlightened, I'm sure; compare to how the Roman Empire dealt with the problem of paganism), possibly because his Arab followers were just a tad too close to being polytheists themselves, he offered monotheists (how the Persian Zoroastrians qualified is an interesting story) the opportunity to become "tributaries" (dhmmis), paying a special tax and living with certain economic and social disabilities that effectively reduced them to the status of helots. That remains the objective of Islam to this day. Practically every Muslim, by virtue of the tenets of Islam, must adhere to that objective, though they may disagree about the means used to achieve that end.

And therein lies the problem: the antithesis between the promises Islam makes to its followers (temporal supremacy over the infidels) and the present day reality in which the Islamic world is utterly inferior to and dependent upon the secular West. This dichotomy is psychologically unsupportable, and is, ultimately, the cause of the conflict between Islam and the Western world, a conflict that has been in abeyance since the Turks were finally repulsed from the gates of Vienna in 1685, but which is now, through a combination of circumstances, once more upon us. The situation in downtown Manhattan is merely one outpost skirmish in that revived conflict.

Since the problem is not what we, as Americans, Westerners and Christians DO, but who we ARE that is the issue, allowing Imam Rauf (who really does not believe in freedom of religion, because, well, he believes in Sharia; only in the mind of a liberal Westerner could two such antithetical positions be reconciled) to build his mosque will not assuage Muslim feelings, or make them more inclined to leave us alone--rather the opposite: every concession breeds new demands, because the objective is our submission. Thus, there is nothing left to do but to dig in our heels and defend that which we claim to believe. We believe in freedom of conscience, which, paradoxically, means we cannot allow the building of such a massive symbol of intolerance to be erected so close to what is perceived by adherents of a faith that disavows freedom of conscience as the site of one of their great victories.

"Where's their tolerance for the sacred ground where the twin towers stood?"

1) "They" are not militants. They had nothing to do with the destruction of the towers.

2) As I asked someone else on First Things, how and why is that ground sacred? Who or what made it so? And how would a mosque in a community center two very long city blacks away defile it?

I agree that in large part the majority of Americans usually tolerate Islam in a commendable way. But whether Muslims reciprocate isn't the issue. Our wrong added to theirs doesn't make a right.

I have read most- but not every- comment, and have yet to see this simple argument posited: we all know that while "free speech" is a cherished American right, one cannot yell "fire!" in a crowded theater. How is this any different, in situational terms? Both are situations where the exercise of one individual right poses a far greater risk, in a utilitarian sense, to the group as a whole, and while the building of this mosque is not the inflammatory prank that giving false alarm in a crowded theater is, the fact is that it COULD be built elsewhere, at no harm or damage to the constituents. The only fair thing, then, would be for the state to purchase this, and every other site within a similar radius, and make them part of a park dedicated to religious tolerance surrounding the site.

Tim K:

"The only fair thing, then, would be for the state to purchase this, and every other site within a similar radius, and make them part of a park dedicated to religious tolerance surrounding the site."

John Podhoretz made a related argument:

http://tinyurl.com/2wb3xyl

Elizabeth Scalia also presented an interesting view of the contribution of the unfinished 9/11 memorial to this controversy, here at "On the Square".

Personally, I would like any memorial to memorialize the event itself, though religious tolerance would certainly be a theme which could be worked into such a memorial.

"2) As I asked someone else on First Things, how and why is that ground sacred? Who or what made it so? And how would a mosque in a community center two very long city blacks away defile it?"

It was close enough to be hit by the landing gear from one of the planes. That makes it part of Ground Zero.

Why don't you ask yourself why it was so important for Rauf and his group to buy that specific building in 2009 in order to build a mosque?

"It is said to be "Islamic triumphalism" when the Muslims of Cordoba built a mosque at the site of the original Catholic church. What kind of triumphalism was it when a Gothic cathedral was constructed in the middle of the five acre mosque? Not Christian triumphalism? The scent of bigotry here is astoninishing."

That was Christian triumphalism. So what? That somehow excuses building a mosque expressing Islamic triumphalism at Ground Zero 500 years later?

""They" are not militants. They had nothing to do with the destruction of the towers."

Ha! Someone has not been paying attention. But be that as it may, the nuns who were praying outside the gates of Auschwitz were not Nazis and did not send any Jews to the gas chamber; nonetheless, is was insensitive and inappropriate for them to have their chapel where it was, and Pope John Paul II properly and graciously had it removed.

And that's the issue here: where is the grace, where is the propriety? We don't get any--instead, we are treated to arrogance and triumphalism.

"The New York Review of Books just reminded me that the Roman Catholic Church did not embrace religious freedom until 1965 (http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2010/aug/27/catholics-muslims-mosque-controversy)."

Wow. So before 1965: (1) Catholics who converted to another religion were subject to the death penalty; (2) non-Muslims proselytizing in Catholic countries were subject to the death penalty; (3) anyone who insulted Catholicism in a Catholic country was subject to the death penalty; (4) non-Catholics could not bring their holy books or symbols of their religion into Italy; (5) non-Catholics could not build houses of worship in Italy; and (6) non-Catholics were not permitted in Rome. I am surprised I never heard anything about this before.

Not to put too fine a point on this but ... remains of victims of 9/11 have been found in and around other buildings outside of the Ground Zero area. What if remains are found in or around the GZM site.

What then? The remains of victims of 9/11 at Ground Zero may still be waiting to be discovered. So ask yourself - how would you feel if your loved one's remains were found in that place, knowing that a mosque would be built there? A building paying homage to the very religion in whose name your loved one was murdered.

This isn't about religious tolerance, bigotry or racism (that last claim is really beyond the pale as Islam is a religion not a race...but anyway) - it's about what is appropriate in one of the most highly-sensitive places in this country.

It's about extending the same sensitivity to Americans as Americans extend to Muslims in this country.

And speaking as someone who did lose a loved one at Ground Zero on 9/11 - I say build it someplace else. It's wrong to force this on the people of NYC and this country, especially those whose loved ones were slaughtered in that place.

It's just - wrong. It has nothing to do with religion or race or intolerance: It's. Just. Wrong.

Maimonides did indeed "stud[y] at Cordoba" as the Catholic Encyclopedia states. It was his birthplace. As Wikipedia accurate writes, "The Almohades conquered Córdoba in 1148, and threatened the Jewish community with the choice of conversion to Islam, death, or exile. Maimonides's family, along with most other Jews, chose exile."

His experience under Islam informed his "letter to Yemen": "Although we were degraded beyond human endurance [by the Arabs], and had to put up with [their] fabrications, yet we behaved like [the person depicted in Psalm 8:14]: 'But I am a deaf man, I hear not, and I am a dumb man that opens not his mouth.' Similarly, our sages instructed us to bear the prevarications and preposterousness of Ishmael in silence."

The ascent of the Almohades, and their persecutions -- cited by some historians as the inspiration for the Spanish Inquisition-- marked the "closing of the gates of ijtihad," and the end of openness and reason within Islam, and of the crystallization of Shariah, which Rauf wishes to see become the law of the land in the USA.
Is establishing Shariah a "religious" project, as religion was understood by the Framers?

"Did it ever strike anyone as possible that a muslim might prefer to worship in a country such as ours where they are free to do so on their own terms, unbound by a theocratic government that may impose upon them an orthodoxy grounded in political compromise and corruption?"

Yes. Which is exactly why some Muslims have spoken out against the Ground Zero Mosque.

"And if they were to build a community center in my neighborhood I would not object. But the fretting, the fear-mongering, the politicizing that is going on - these reveal a petty meanness in our society that we would be much better without."

Well, I suggest you send Imam Rauf the listings for some potential locations. However, I do not think anything you send him would have the aesthetic qualities he is looking for.

And it is shameful for you to assert that the vast majority of 9/11 families, including a Muslim woman whose mother was on one of the planes, who oppose the Mosque are engaging in petty meanness.

"And last, people are throwing around a lot of facts about the name "Cordoba" that as far as I can tell came from Fox News. "

Richard Fletcher has never worked for Fox News.

And people are certainly aware of the nice (although exaggerrated) aspects of the name Cordoba. That is precisely why the name was chosen. It appeals to the useful idiots in the West, while also giving a signal to the jihadists of Islamic supremacism.

"It is hard to characterize the reaction to the Islamic Community Center being built near Ground Zero as anything other than bigotry"

No. It might be hard for you, but why should you try to actually address the arguments on the other side when you can just label people bigots in an effort to end the discussion?

"It was close enough to be hit by the landing gear from one of the planes."

Er, do you actually think that answers my questions of how and why that ground is sacred? Who or what made it so? And how would a mosque in a community center two very long city blacks away defile it?"

"That makes it part of Ground Zero."

Such a technicality. Now please answer my questions if you can.

"And people are certainly aware of the nice (although exaggerrated) aspects of the name Cordoba."

Most people think of "reech Corinthian leather".

"Such a technicality. Now please answer my questions if you can. "

The building being considered a part of the place where over 2,700 people were killed is a technicality to you?

The overwhelming majority of 9/11 families, including a Muslim woman whose mother was on one of the planes, who oppose the Mosque consider the area sacred. Who are you to tell them they are wrong?

You don't care about the people who were murdered there. Others do. They have the right to express that.

Last I checked, Cordoba was re-conquered from the Muslims and the mosque there was converted back into a cathedral. Why not view Cordoba as a symbol of Islamic impotency? The fact is that Cordoba is a city with a complex history that can mean many things to many people. I am simply not troubled by the use of the name. The main reason that I am not troubled by the use of the name is that I do not see how Islam poses any real threat to the United States. We are a strong country built upon robust democratic institutions which has proven over the centuries that a heterogeneous body politic can function and thrive despite our differences.

Somehow, somewhere, for reasons that I have never heard articulated, the people who are trying to build this Islamic Center are being associated with the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. This assumption is built on the faulty premise that Islam is one giant terrorist organization in which every member can and should be held responsible for the actions of every other member. That is ridiculous. A comparison: The KKK and other white supremacist terrorist organizations justify what they do by spewing a perverted form of christianity which. We don't assume that all of christendom is somehow accountable for all of these nutcases. But that is exactly what people are doing in the case of the Islamic Community Center.

Yes, I feel very bad for the families of those who were killed on 9/11. I can't imagine their loss. But they are being shrouded in a kind of sentamentalism that does them a disservice. Not all of them are against the Islamic Center. Some of them are muslims. Some don't like the Center being where it is, but they don't condone the hatred and harassment that is being expressed towards its founders. And some are disinterested. They are a diverse lot. No doubt the thought of an Islamic Community Center near Ground Zero is bound to produce strong emotions. But emotions can be misleading (I'm sorry if that sounds condescending, but I also believe that it is true) and if the emotion of the situation has led some to equate terrorism with Islam, then I am afraid I must part ways with those views, though hopefully not with the people who hold them. And the terrible pain that must exist in the hearts of those who lost loved ones should not be used as an excuse to justify the mob mentality that has led to the harassment and intimidation of the organizers of the planned Islamic Center.

I am not one of the "blame America first" crowd. I know that we are one of the most tolerant nations in the world. We are a tolerant nation which from time to time sees dramatic instances of intolerance rise up around highly emotional and divisive issues. The fear and hatred towards Islam that has bubbled up in the midst of this debate is one of those dramatic instances. Were people who spoke out against Japanese internment Anti-American? Were people who spoke out against racial segregation or slavery Anti-American?

Imagine if instead of harassing the Cordoba Initiative into giving up their project, they were embraced; the center was adopted by New York as a symbol of our tolerance for others and the fact that we practice what we preach - religious freedom; the leaders of the center held forums with leaders of the Jewish and Christian communities where the relationship between the three religions was discussed; and an example of co-existence and understanding was created. That is the stated goal of the organizers. We can't we join them in helping them achieve that goal?

No, I don't want to end discussion on this topic. It would be nice, however, if it were a productive discussion aimed at cultivating understanding and peace instead of the flame-throwing that is going on in New York, and even at First Things.

@Stuart Koehl:

"Actually, by the time the Moors showed up, the Visigoths were toast. The Romans under Justinian the Great retook most of Iberia and installed a Roman admininstration. The Arian Gothic Church was superseded by Western Chalcedonian Catholicism,"

I'm sorry, I have to stand by Visigoths. Gothic king Reccared (Ricardo) renounced Arianism in 6th c. in favor of the orthodox (Nicean) Christianity, that is they became Catholics (not Roman Catholics, because they didn't live in... Rome). Regretably in early 8th c. Visigithic king Roderic (Rodrigo) lost to the invading Moors and Arabs at Guadalete. Other than that your points are valid.

@Ken

"I agree that in large part the majority of Americans usually tolerate Islam in a commendable way. But whether Muslims reciprocate isn't the issue. Our wrong added to theirs doesn't make a right."

To the contrary - it is an important issue whether Muslims reciprocate, it's a matter of our culture's survival. Lack of resistance is an open invitation, although arguably they don't need any as they are under the imperative of expanding Dar al-Islam. You think we can't be like 'them'? Wait a little - we will BE 'them'.

"The building being considered a part of the place where over 2,700 people were killed is a technicality to you?

The overwhelming majority of 9/11 families, including a Muslim woman whose mother was on one of the planes, who oppose the Mosque consider the area sacred. Who are you to tell them they are wrong?"

We are talking about symbolism here, and when people think of Ground Zero, they think of the towers, not a site two long blocks away. Secondly, by my questions, I am not attempting to show anyone they're wrong to oppose the mosque (although I think they are), but that the description "sacred ground" is fallacious and meaningless. You unwillingness to answer those questions shows that I've succeeded in showing you.

"You don't care about the people who were murdered there. Others do. They have the right to express that."

i haven't questioned anybody's right to free expression, obviously. But free expression isn't always the expression of something wise. As for my supposedly not caring about the people who were killed there (who, being dead, have no feelings one way or the other), fantasizing nasty things about one's ideological opponents is the favorite pastime of extremists on both sides, including extremists on the "Christian" right.

"Last I checked, Cordoba was re-conquered from the Muslims and the mosque there was converted back into a cathedral. Why not view Cordoba as a symbol of Islamic impotency? The fact is that Cordoba is a city with a complex history that can mean many things to many people. "

What matters is what it means to the developers (and I think it is highly unlikely they are using it as a symbol of Muslim impotence) and the 9/11 families.

"Somehow, somewhere, for reasons that I have never heard articulated, the people who are trying to build this Islamic Center are being associated with the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. "

Maybe Imam Rauf making excuses for Al Qaeda has something to do with it. Or maybe the fact that Imam Rauf's book was published by two entities affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Maybe the fact that they are so insistent on building the Mosque there raises some suspicions as well.

"But they are being shrouded in a kind of sentamentalism that does them a disservice. Not all of them are against the Islamic Center. Some of them are muslims. "

The vast majority of them are against it, including at least one of the Muslims.

"But emotions can be misleading (I'm sorry if that sounds condescending, but I also believe that it is true) and if the emotion of the situation has led some to equate terrorism with Islam, then I am afraid I must part ways with those views, though hopefully not with the people who hold them. "

I have to ask again, where do you and Ken get off belittling the feelings of these people? Really, why are your intellectual musings superior to their feelings?

And maybe you can answer a question Ken wouldn't -- Why do you think the developers decided in 2009 to buy that property in order to build a mosque? Why do you think they are insisting it has to be built there?

"Were people who spoke out against Japanese internment Anti-American? Were people who spoke out against racial segregation or slavery Anti-American? "

You are comparing slavery and the Japanese internment to the developers here getting grief for insisting that they have to build a Mosque at a location where almost 2,800 people were murdered by guys screaming "Allah Akbhar" as they slammed planes into the buildings?

"the leaders of the center held forums with leaders of the Jewish and Christian communities where the relationship between the three religions was discussed; and an example of co-existence and understanding was created. That is the stated goal of the organizers. "

If that is their real intent then they should move the building. What is so special to them about that specific location that they need to build there?

@Aaron Rasmussen,

"Last I checked, Cordoba was re-conquered from the Muslims and the mosque there was converted back into a cathedral. Why not view Cordoba as a symbol of Islamic impotency?"

Reconquistadores apparently viewed the Mosque as a sign of Muslim engineering superiority and a useful one, since they did not tear it apart, but retrofitted small part of it with a cathedral chapel. Have you been in Cordoba, Spain? BTW. the Turks weren't that stupid savages either - that simply converted the architectural wonder of the Great Church in Constantinople into the mosque, and ever since mosques were built on that very architectural model.

"The fear and hatred towards Islam that has bubbled up in the midst of this debate is one of those dramatic instances. Were people who spoke out against Japanese internment Anti-American? Were people who spoke out against racial segregation or slavery Anti-American?"

Now you are hitting a too high note. Is anyone calling for the internment of all Muslims? Were the black slaves considered a militant and mortal threat to America? If so they would have been exterminated rather than saught for, purchased, and used as workhorses. Your questions were non-sensical.

Enjoying many of the insightful comments , esp. liked the concise ones by Mr.Koehl , onIslam and on history of Cordoba , how the churches before days of Islam there were heretical ones !

The start of Islam is also very much related to splits in The Church and even the 9/11 incident - the Sacramental Churches of the Thrice Holy, Triune God , split in two ...how we have been given the remedy in The Word ..even the new controversial project 'Park 51 ' could be indicative of how the Pentarchy of the original 5 Patriarcahtes coming together , 'parked' as one , in the arms of a Mother with whom we all identify , could lead to those times when 5 - the two first parents and the Spirit of the Triune God walked in The Garden ..and to the victory of goodness ..we have seen how words at Fatima, to pray much, how that led to some unity and to the miraculous results , under patronage of H.H John Paul 11 !

Thus , our attention on the topics at hand , our deeper stirring to discern truths , what our Father is telling us, on this 9th anniv . , which comes 3 days after we celebrate the Birthday of our Mother ..lands in The East have traditions of how they too were saved , even in this world by intercession of this Mother from powerful sultans - the fasting and prayers of mothers , without a single shot !

Such is how our Father has always wanted us to deal with enemy influenced powers ; even in case of Jews , in O.T times when demonic powers possibly lot more virulent than our times and since the holiness of the Israelites could not always drive them off , they inturn had to resort to killings and destruction of even the possesions of those people often !

Our own recent history in the fall of communism and what heaven can do when we do our share faithfully would give us hope that whatever is the outcome of the decison on the mosque , it need not be taken as a defeat for either side - Islam who also preaches mercy and promise of rewards for right behavior can rejoice if they choose to show mercy to the hurts of this nation and to keep their own people from being pulled into more violence and its effects ; if it gets built , for Christians , it could still be an icon of areas that need repentance leading to more unity !

"Maybe Imam Rauf making excuses for Al Qaeda has something to do with it."

would you please produce a quote? In comments I've seen, he has condemned Obama. It's true he's said that "the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al Qaida has on its hands of innocent non Muslims." But that's very different from excusing Al Qaeda, and whether one defends U.S. policy or not, is probably true.

"Somehow, somewhere, for reasons that I have never heard articulated, the people who are trying to build this Islamic Center are being associated with the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11."

That depends on what you mean by "associated." They themselves have associated their project with 9/11 -- Imam Rauf has called the planned location for Cordoba House "iconic" because of its connection to 9/11 -- and stated that this iconic connection is why he wants to build on this site.

"This assumption is built on the faulty premise that Islam is one giant terrorist organization in which every member can and should be held responsible for the actions of every other member."

Some critics of Cordoba House do seem to assume that. Others do not. If you wish to engage only the weaker argument, that is your privilege.

"Imagine if instead of harassing the Cordoba Initiative into giving up their project, they were embraced; the center was adopted by New York as a symbol of our tolerance for others and the fact that we practice what we preach - religious freedom; the leaders of the center held forums with leaders of the Jewish and Christian communities where the relationship between the three religions was discussed; and an example of co-existence and understanding was created. That is the stated goal of the organizers."

In principle, that might be lovely. However, is there any reason to think that Muslims of a more militant bent will not see Cordoba House as (a) a fitting icon of Islamic triumphalism? (b) A beacon to such individuals coming to America? (c) A fitting place to promote their ideas?

Imam Rauf's wife Daisy has said that a mosque is necessarily open to use by all Muslims regardless of ideology; no Muslim can be excluded or preventing from using a mosque or made to leave one. Is there any reason to think that the we will not one day have, say, the Muslim equivalent of Jeremiah Wright, or worse, God-damning America and trumpeting Islamic triumphalism in an "iconic" mosque built on a site of Ground Zero violence? Isn't it enough to give him space to do so a mile or so away? Do we have to suffer it there of all places?

Sorry, in my post of 11:31 am I meant to write "In comments I've seen, he has condemned _Al Qaeda_."

"would you please produce a quote? In comments I've seen, he has condemned Obama. It's true he's said that "the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al Qaida has on its hands of innocent non Muslims." But that's very different from excusing Al Qaeda, and whether one defends U.S. policy or not, is probably true."

I do not regard, "I do not approve of what Al Qaeda did, but I understand why they did it," as being a condemnation. Saying the US made Al Qaeda do it is making excuses.

With regard to his absurd claim that the US has more innocent Muslim blood on its hands than Al Qaeda, I find it astonishing that you would agree with that. Who blew up the Golden Mosque and triggered the sectarian violence in Iraq? How many acts of barbarism were engaged in by AQI, which led to the Sunni Revival? Who was attacking Iraqis while they were trying to vote? Who has murdered Iraqis as they stood in line to join the army or police? How many Muslims have been murdered by Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan?

"We are talking about symbolism here, and when people think of Ground Zero, they think of the towers, not a site two long blocks away."

The overwhelming majority of the 9/11 families disagree with you. Explain why your view is entitled to more respect than theirs.

"but that the description "sacred ground" is fallacious and meaningless. You unwillingness to answer those questions shows that I've succeeded in showing you."

You have never heard of a battlefield being called hallowed ground? Hallowed means holy or sacred. What would you consider sacred ground? The location where 2,800 people were murdered doesn't do it for you?

"As for my supposedly not caring about the people who were killed there (who, being dead, have no feelings one way or the other), fantasizing nasty things about one's ideological opponents is the favorite pastime of extremists on both sides, including extremists on the "Christian" right."

I am not fantasizing anything. Your answer reveals you don't care about those who were killed since they don't feel anything now. I am talking about the people who do care. Why is your view superior to theirs?

FWIW, I think Brian and Ken are both right about Rauf: As far as I know, he has made excuses for al-Qaeda -- not necessarily excused them, i.e., absolved them from all responsibility, but at least made mitigating statements in the direction of partially excusing their actions -- AND he has also condemned terrorist violence, including al-Qaeda terrorist violence.

Second, Ken, Rauf's own word "iconic" largely correlates with the assessment that the spot is "sacred." If the mosque's planners and opponents agree that the location is iconic, and you don't, perhaps we see something you don't.

"Saying the US made Al Qaeda do it is making excuses."

No one said the U.S. made Al Queda do it, and Rauf condemned Al Queda for doing it. In regards to who has killed more Muslims, if you have reliable figures, post them. What's indisputable is that U.S. sanctions cost many Muslim lives. I don't say the sanctions were wrong, but I believe that loving my enemy begins by trying to understand his feelings, and I understand Rauf's feelings about that.

"The overwhelming majority of the 9/11 families disagree with you. Explain why your view is entitled to more respect than theirs."

Our views are entitled to equal respect. I respect theirs. You don't respect mine. Please practice what you preach, or don't preach.

"You have never heard of a battlefield being called hallowed ground? Hallowed means holy or sacred. What would you consider sacred ground? The location where 2,800 people were murdered doesn't do it for you?"

I've heard the phrase used, but that doesn't mean it's accurate. Answer my questions, which I will not repeat again, and I'll be glad to answer yours.

"Your answer reveals you don't care about those who were killed since they don't feel anything now."

Again, you're fantasizing, presuming the worst about your opponent as a way of dismissing his arguments.

"maybe you can answer a question Ken wouldn't -- Why do you think the developers decided in 2009 to buy that property in order to build a mosque? Why do you think they are insisting it has to be built there?"

I'm posting a response to this again because I think my first was lost. I'll be glad to answer. The imam has said, or his people have said, that they want to serve the neighborhood and that they want the mosque to stand a a symbol of peaceful Islam.

SDG, I certainly agree that the spot is iconic. I think everyone does. But iconic and sacred mean two different things, and sacred carries a far greater weight.

Brian English:

"The overwhelming majority of 9/11 families, including a Muslim woman whose mother was on one of the planes, who oppose the Mosque consider the area sacred."

I would ask where you found that polling data, but suspect i already know the answer.

"Why don't you ask yourself why it was so important for Rauf and his group to buy that specific building in 2009 in order to build a mosque?"

What's to ask? He scooped it up for $4.3 million, about the price of a luxury apartment in lower Manhattan.

You are aware that, when you assume that all Muslim countries are identical in every respect to Saudi Arabia, you only make yourself look silly?

Ken: Properly speaking, iconic is a subset of sacred. To be iconic is to function as a sacred image. Perhaps you might explain what you mean to deny by saying the site is iconic but not sacred.

Sacredness by nature is a matter of degree. The fingerbone of a saint has a holiness of one sort (a first-degree relic); an article of clothing he or she wore has another (second degree), and sacredness can even be transferred from one object to another (third degree). An image of the saint has a holiness of another sort -- it is iconic -- and is also reverenced.

It's the same with domestic sacredness. The urn holding your grandmother's ashes has one kind of domestic sacredness; her wedding ring has another; the wedding photo that has stood on the mantel for 60 years has another (iconic).

And it's the same with civil sacredness. The Statue of Liberty has one kind of sacredness (iconic); Gettysburg and Pearl Harbor have another. Ground Zero has one kind; 51 Park Way, within the blast radius, where the actual plane parts fell, has another, associated sort. It is a lesser sort, like a second or third-degree relic, but it is sufficiently closely associated with Ground Zero (hence the iconic-ness) that to build a mosque there can be regarded as proximate to building on on Ground Zero itself.

"No one said the U.S. made Al Queda do it, and Rauf condemned Al Queda for doing it. "

Rauf in an interview with 60 Minutes:

MR. BRADLEY: Are — are — are you in any way suggesting that we in the United States deserved what happened?


MR. ABDUL RAUF: I wouldn’t say that the United States deserved what happened, but the United States policies were an accessory to the crime that happened.


MR. BRADLEY: O.K. You say that we’re an accessory?


MR. ABDUL RAUF: Yes.


MR. BRADLEY: How?


MR. ABDUL RAUF: Because we have been an accessory to a lot of — of innocent lives dying in the world. In fact, it — in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the U.S.A. ...

"What's indisputable is that U.S. sanctions cost many Muslim lives. "

So Saddam steals the money that was supposed to used to buy food and that is out fault?

"Our views are entitled to equal respect."

You actually believe that? The people who had loved ones murdered at that site are entitled to no more say regarding what goes on there than you do? Really?

"I've heard the phrase used, but that doesn't mean it's accurate. Answer my questions, which I will not repeat again, and I'll be glad to answer yours."

Almost innocent 2,800 people were murdered there in a vicious attack. If you cannot understand why that would make it sacred ground, I don't think anything I say can help you out. Let's approach it this way -- do you think the battlefield at Gettysburg or the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor are sacred ground?

"Again, you're fantasizing, presuming the worst about your opponent as a way of dismissing his arguments."

No, I am dismissing your arguments because they are outrageous. You don't care about those who were killed and you believe you have rights equal to their loved ones in having a say about what goes on at Ground Zero.

"The imam has said, or his people have said, that they want to serve the neighborhood and that they want the mosque to stand a a symbol of peaceful Islam."

There are already two mosques nearby, so the neighborhood is being served. Is there any reason the mosque could not stand as a symbol of peaceful Islam at a different location? Why is it so important that it stand there?

SDG, it will be a few hours before I can get back to this interesting argument, but, quickly, while I guess you're technically correct about iconic, I'm not using it that way here. What I meant is that the site is symbolic. I'm not Catholic and don't agree with your second paragraph, although I'm open to persuasion. It might help if you would answer my questions to Brian. Why exactly is Ground Zero sacred? Who or what has made it that way? I think of sacred as "holy," and only God can make something holy.

And stopped it will be, through... the disturbance of the neighbors, or the anger of the protestors, or the refusal of the building contractors.

Sounds like the kind of techniques that kept Segregation strong in the South, and a de facto influence elsewhere. I wonder if it'll take a hundred years before legislation kicks in on this instantiation of 'separate but equal'...

Brian: Briefly, I think Rauf's 60 Minutes comments are provocatively phrased but substantially defensible. The other comments lack adequate context. I think Rauf is slippery and suspicious, but I don't see the slam-dunk case against him here that you seem to.

Ken: The essential concept of holiness or sacredness is set-apart-ness -- religious set-apart-ness in the primary and literal sense, as you say, but we can speak in an accommodated sense of domestic and civil sacredness. An oath of office, for example, stands at the frontier of religious and civil sacredness.

Death is profoundly associated with sacredness. A cemetery is holy ground. A military cemetery, like Arlington, has a sort of national sacredness. So does the site of a notable battle, such as Gettysburg. A site where American blood was shed in an sneak attack mounted by enemies of our nation, such as Pearl Harbor or Ground Zero, is likewise sacred in this civil sense: It is set apart. It belongs to the nation, and we look to the government to safeguard our shared rights to it. It would be an affront to the nation for it to pass into private hands and become a skyscraper or a shopping mall (as in fact I have heard claims that there will be a shopping mall on Ground Zero -- can that really be true???).

51 Park Way is not sacred in the thoroughgoing sense that Ground Zero is, but the association between the two is a meaningful one. It is ground struck by the weapons of the 9/11 terrorists. And this is where we come to the corollary idea of sacrilege. The enemies who attacked us on 9/11 were Muslim members of a Muslim organization fighting for their understanding of Islam. Condemn them how they may (and their condemnation has not always been as ringing as might be wished), the people who want to build at 51 Park Way want to raise a star and crescent flag over ground struck by 9/11 violence. Nothing would please the terrorists more, not to speak of the many sympathetic to the terrorists' actions.

I have a hard time believing that Rauf fails to see why this is objectionable. I think he would like not to see it, I don't think he means to be offensive, but I think he understands. If he is serious about building bridges, he must -- he must -- agree to move elsewhere. Right now he's burning bridges as fast as he can.

"You don't care about those who were killed and you believe you have rights equal to their loved ones in having a say about what goes on at Ground Zero."

Brian English claims to represent the consensus of a group of tens of thousands of people rather cavalierly (and shrilly, and annoyingly). But I think Michael Bloomberg speaks with a little more authority:

"And the family members that I’ve talked to, and I’m chairman of the board of The World Trade Center Memorial, 100% in favor of saying these people who want to build a mosque, can build a mosque ..."

http://www.politico.com/blogs/maggiehaberman/0810/Bloomy_to_Jon_Stewart_Mosque_issue_fades_postNovember.html

Just out of curiosity, Brian, how many of these family members do you actually know?

"Brian English claims to represent the consensus of a group of tens of thousands of people rather cavalierly (and shrilly, and annoyingly). But I think Michael Bloomberg speaks with a little more authority"

Bloomberg is plenty cavalier, and shrill, and annoying: He has repeatedly cast the view of those who oppose the mosque as equivalent to wanting the terrorists to win. This is as self-discrediting, in my view, as Gingrich's Nazi analogy: If you can't engage your opponents without equating them with the Nazi cause or the terrorist cause, you forfeit your moral authority on the subject.

""And the family members that I’ve talked to, and I’m chairman of the board of The World Trade Center Memorial, 100% in favor of saying these people who want to build a mosque, can build a mosque ..."

I have read and seen comments by family members who object to the Mosque, including at least one Muslim. The sister of one of the pilots (whose name escapes me at the moment) has been one of the most vocal critics of the Mosque.

Let me clue you in on something you apparently do not realize -- politicians lie. Or maybe I am being too hard on Bloomberg. He doesn't say how many 9/11 family members he spoke to, so if he spoke to two, and they both wanted the mosque to be built, I guess you could say he was telling the truth.

What it comes down to is, if you think that more than a tiny minority of the 9/11 families want the Mosque built, you are delusional.

If you care, the sister of the pilot is named Debra Burlingame. Or is she just another bigot you and Ken can disregard? She should probably just get over her brother getting his throat slit, right?

@SDG

***"This assumption is built on the faulty premise that Islam is one giant terrorist organization in which every member can and should be held responsible for the actions of every other member."

***Some critics of Cordoba House do seem to assume that. Others do not. If you wish to engage only the weaker argument, that is your privilege.

But if the assumption is not true, then there isn't really a stronger argument, is there? If it is accepted that the Community Center is being built by people who aren't terrorists, had no connection to 9/11, and should not be held responsible for the wrong-doing of the real bad guys, then what is the rationale for opposing the center? It seems like the strongest argument would be if these organizers were actually related to the 9/11 attacks. But they aren't. The rest of the arguments are relatively weak.

The main second tier argument appears to be that it will stand as a symbol of Islamic triumphalism. I just don't buy that as a credible reason. No doubt, there will be some radical Islamists out there that will take it that way, but I don't really care what they think. The world is awash in symbols that stand for different things to different people, and there is no shortage for terrorists to draw upon. I suspect the most potent symbol of all is our military domination of the Islamic world. There is nothing that we can do in the world without raising the ire of someone, and it is our very hegemonic existence which ensures that we will have enemies who see us as a symbolic threat. That isn't a judgmental statement - I think we are a force for good in the world, but that doesn't change the fact that some people will hate us for it. We are our own symbol, for better or for worse, and we can't control how others perceive us. We can only seek to do what is right.

I don't see the Islamic Center as a threat or a symbol of Islamic triumphalism - I see it as an opportunity for increased interfaith communication and cooperation. The greatest threat of all to the terrorist reality is a demonstration that Islam can prosper in a major western democratic society. There is no other way to defeat terrorism. And regardless of how it is perceived in the short-term, the Cordoba Initiative is at least moving in that direction.

And I still fail to see how there isn't a subtext of anti-Islamic sentiment to this whole outcry. Apparently I'm supposed to believe that nobody has a problem with muslims, per se, they just don't like them in this particular spot. Gee, doesn't that sound familiar. I don't have anything against black people, I just don't want them living in my neighborhood. I don't have anything against jews, I just won't go into business with one of them. I don't have anything against Mexicans, I just don't like my daughter dating them. I don't have anything against Muslims, they just shouldn't be allowed to defile our holy sites with their presence. These attitudes seem all of a piece to me, and no one has been able to explain how they are not.

@mar:

***Have you been in Cordoba, Spain?

No, I have not. I admit I am pretty ignorant about the architecture in Spain. I would love to go to Cordoba and see it. And I am guilty of relying on some secondhand knowledge, which at times can result in my feeling smarter than I perhaps really am. :-)

@Brian English:

***You actually believe that? The people who had loved ones murdered at that site are entitled to no more say regarding what goes on there than you do? Really?

Yes, I do believe that. (I'm not the one who originally said it, but I agree with it). The world is not a giant hierarchy of pain, where those at the top, who have suffered the most, are entitled to some kind of moral privilege over those of us lower down the scale. We all count equally. No one should be excluded from the debate, no one's opinions are beyond reproach or entitled to deference. I don't belittle any of their feelings. It's not my intent to belittle anyone. But the debate on this issue should not end when they have spoken. The people closest to an emotional situation will tend to have a more emotional reaction to it than people who view it from a distance. That is not a bad thing. Their connection to the site gives them an important perspective, but it is not the only valid perspective. To suggest that their perspective carries some sort of moral superiority is too easy a way out of the debate.

"MR. ABDUL RAUF: I wouldn’t say that the United States deserved what happened, but the United States policies were an accessory to the crime that happened."

That sounds bad, but he also said "Explaining is not justifying. I want people to understand the things that have fueled terrorism, because if we address them, that's how we eliminate terror." And he also said "We condemn terrorists. We recognize it exists in our faith, but we are committed to eradicate it."

"What's indisputable is that U.S. sanctions cost many Muslim lives. "

-- So Saddam steals the money that was supposed to used to buy food and that is our fault? --

I'm referring to U.S. sanctions instituted in 1991. Like all ideologues, you seem capable of seeing things only in black and white. I have not said it was our fault -- sometimes there are no good options. I have said I can understand Rauf's feelings.

"The people who had loved ones murdered at that site are entitled to no more say regarding what goes on there than you do? Really?"

Blocking that mosque won't bring back their loved ones, and while their feelings are entitled to great consideration, they stem from misapprehensions about Rauf and about Islam in general. And there are other important factors to be taken into consideration, as you know.

"Almost innocent 2,800 people were murdered there in a vicious attack. If you cannot understand why that would make it sacred ground, I don't think anything I say can help you out."

You're still dodging.

"Is there any reason the mosque could not stand as a symbol of peaceful Islam at a different location? Why is it so important that it stand there?"

The more important the ground, the more potent the symbols that stand there.

SDG, I appreciate the reply, but I think holiness and sacredness are related to the divine, and so does the dictionary. In the two dictionaries I checked, your definition comes in at # 5. The sort of reverence you are talking about is very real of course, but it is not holiness. It refers not to the divine or worship or service of the divine. So as I have been getting at in my questions to Brian, to refer to Ground Zero, as rightfully strong as our feelings about it are, as sacred, is unjustifiable. On behalf of some, it's probably sloppy thinking, a term they've heard that comforts them but that they haven't thought through. For others, the term is rhetoric. You probably fall into neither camp, but I suspect you're in the great minority.

"It belongs to the nation, and we look to the government to safeguard our shared rights to it. It would be an affront to the nation for it to pass into private hands and become a skyscraper or a shopping mall"

I agree.

"the people who want to build at 51 Park Way want to raise a star and crescent flag over ground struck by 9/11 violence. Nothing would please the terrorists more, not to speak of the many sympathetic to the terrorists' actions."

I'm sorry, but "over" is simply incorrect, although perhaps you mean symbolically. Except for more attacks, nothing would please the terrorists more, I'm sure. But if we're fighting for freedom, should we let the terrorists dictate our actions? It is also a fact that if this mosque is blocked, radicals will use that as an illustration, wrong as it would be, that America really does hate Muslims. But if we allow it, moderates will see it as confirmation that we respect Islam and do believe in freedom of religion, and what better insurance against radicalization is there?

"I have a hard time believing that Rauf fails to see why this is objectionable. I think he would like not to see it, I don't think he means to be offensive, but I think he understands."

I do too. I just think he wants to use the mosque to overcome the objections behind the objections by showing people moderate Islam.

Brian English:

"Let me clue you in on something you apparently do not realize -- politicians lie."

And yahoos on the Internet take segments of FOX News as logical justifications for imputing opinions, inevitably their own, to tens of thousands of people. Given the choice, I'll take the politicians, thank you very much.

"He doesn't say how many 9/11 family members he spoke to"

If you had any business in this debate, you would know enough about the composition of the Memorial Foundation to realize how ludicrous your statement is.

"What it comes down to is, if you think that more than a tiny minority of the 9/11 families want the Mosque built, you are delusional."

Again with the yahoos and the FOX News. Do you have anything remotely resembling a basis for this claim? You certainly haven't presented it here yet.

"She should probably just get over her brother getting his throat slit, right?"

Well, her feelings certainly don't trump the First Amendment, if that's what you mean. And if you dislike religious freedom that much, you can always move to a range of countries that don't have it.

Aaron Rasmussen:

How would you feel about building a mosque physically on Ground Zero? Or, failing that, directly across the street in full view?

If you wouldn't have a problem with both or possibly with one of those proposals, then it would seem you are consistent but may lack the relevant human sensibilities about symbolically significant sites where momentous things have happened. If you would have a problem with either or both, could you explain why?

Regarding anti-Islamic subtext: I suppose in any broad objection to or defense of anything, popular prejudices of one kind or another will make themselves felt. However, if this were essential to the very principle of opposition, how would you explain the phenomenon of American Muslims opposed to the mosque? Will you trot out some condescending self-loathing Muslim stereotype, or something?

FWIW, I live in an area with a fairly high Muslim population. I also live in New Jersey about 20 minutes from Ground Zero (without traffic). I have lived next door to Muslims, played with my children at the local playground with Muslim parents and their children, etc. A friendly exchange with a Muslim neighbor can fill me with warm multiculti fuzzies for hours or even days, depending on the exchange. Nothing makes me happier than peacefully coexisting with all kinds of others. I have no problem with any mosques in my backyard, as the idiom goes. If you want to impute ill motives to me because I consider Ground Zero to be invested with a particular sort of civil sacredness, and because I agree with Imam Rauf in regarding the blast radius around Ground Zero and especially a sites of falling plane wreckage as symbolically proximate to Ground Zero, that's your lookout. I like to try to understand people I disagree with.

Here's all I need to know:
Imam Rauf wrote a book that, in the English edition, was titled "What's Right with Islam Is What's Right with America." But this same book, when released in the Arab-speaking world, was titled (in Arabic): "A Call tor Prayer from the World Trade Center Rubble: Islamic Dawa [proselytism] from the Heart of America Post-9/11."

Rauf and his backers know that not only are Americans ignorant of history and of Islamic history in particular, but there are also very, very few of us who speak Arabic and keep up with Arabic media.

Ken,

"SDG, I appreciate the reply, but I think holiness and sacredness are related to the divine, and so does the dictionary. In the two dictionaries I checked, your definition comes in at # 5."

I think holiness and sacredness are related to the divine too, and said so. Fifth definitions are non-meanings?

"The sort of reverence you are talking about is very real of course, but it is not holiness."

If you agree that "reverence" is a suitable word, then to quibble about whether the quality that elicits such reverence is suitably called "sacredness" or something else seems to me unprofitable. I'm happy to go with any word you like -- "iconic" is sufficient for me -- with the proviso that national feelings of reverence are at issue.

"I'm sorry, but 'over' is simply incorrect, although perhaps you mean symbolically."

How is "over" incorrect? Perhaps you didn't read my sentence carefully enough. 51 Park Way was indeed struck by 9/11 violence. That's why it's iconic, both to Imam Rauf and to me, and why national feelings of reverence are relevant.

"But if we're fighting for freedom, should we let the terrorists dictate our actions? It is also a fact that if this mosque is blocked, radicals will use that as an illustration, wrong as it would be, that America really does hate Muslims. But if we allow it, moderates will see it as confirmation that we respect Islam and do believe in freedom of religion, and what better insurance against radicalization is there?"

Will moderate Muslims see it that way? Including moderate Muslims who oppose the mosque? Or will many Muslims, moderate and otherwise, see it as confirmation that the American people (who nearly a decade later still haven't managed to honor the site of the worst terrorist attack on their nation's soil with suitable rebuilding) are decadent, divided, oblivious, and lacking in political will to act in their own interests? Worse, will that perception be wrong?

"I just think he wants to use the mosque to overcome the objections behind the objections by showing people moderate Islam."

I agree that that is one pitch for the mosque that Rauf cares about. But Rauf is a self-described "bridge builder" with many constituencies and many conversation partners -- some moderate, others not so much. Although I think that Rauf is sincere in opposing extremism and violence, he can be evasive about the crimes of Islamic groups and regimes, plausibly because he does not want to burn bridges with people who would respond poorly to more forthright criticism of Islamic groups and regimes. In a word, although he (I believe) opposes extremism and violence, Muslims who do not oppose extremism and violence are within the pale of his bridge-building efforts. For individuals like that, an iconic mosque built on a site of 9/11 violence would plausibly have another significance. And Rauf does tend to tailor his message to the audience. I have no particular reason to think that Rauf would actually talk up Cordoba House as a mosque de triomphe. I also have no particular reason to think that he would discourage a supportive Muslim who liked to think of it that way from doing so. It is easy for bridge builders to let different constituents see different selling points in the same project. It's a win-win. (Cf. Kathy from Kansas's point above. Different audience = different message.)

And like I said above:

"Imam Rauf's wife Daisy has said that a mosque is necessarily open to use by all Muslims regardless of ideology; no Muslim can be excluded or preventing from using a mosque or made to leave one. Is there any reason to think that the we will not one day have, say, the Muslim equivalent of Jeremiah Wright, or worse, God-damning America and trumpeting Islamic triumphalism in an 'iconic' mosque built on a site of Ground Zero violence? Isn't it enough to give him space to do so a mile or so away? Do we have to suffer it there of all places?"

Aaron Rasmussen--
Have you actually READ the Qur'an?
If so, are you familiar with the Muslim hermeneutic of abrogation (meaning that chronologically earlier suras are abrogated, or overruled, by later suras--i.e., the "peaceful" suras from the Mecca period are abrogated by the war-commanding, bloodthirsty verses of the Medina period).

Fortunately for us, millions of Muslims around the world are indeed "moderate." But that is only because they are NOT living out the commands of the Qur'an.
It's analogous to the millions of American Catholics who, despite the teachings of their own religion, use contraception and get abortions. They are disobeying the clear teaching of the Catholic faith.
But the analogy is pretty imperfect--for, after all, the Church does not command Catholics to go out and kill, enslave, or convert at the point of a sword, all non-Catholics!

Here's the key difference: Catholics who use contraception, or Christians who commit murder, are DISOBEYING the teachings of their faith. Whereas a Muslim who kills as many Jews and Christians as possible is OBEYING the Qur'an!

@SDG:

***How would you feel about building a mosque physically on Ground Zero? Or, failing that, directly across the street in full view?

I would not support building a mosque physically on Ground Zero, but not because it was an Islamic mosque. I also would not support building a church or a synagogue there. Why? Because it ought to be a memorial that is non-denominational, open and inviting to all people, as a tribute to the tragic deaths of people of a variety of faiths. It should not be controlled by, nor should it exclude, people of a particular faith.

With regard to directly across the street in full view, I simply think that the rules ought to be the same for EVERYONE, and not different for muslims than for christians, jews, buddhists, bankers, tailors, pornshops, hot dog vendors, clothing stores, taverns, you name it. Nobody is protesting any of these things. They are only protesting the muslim development in that area. If we wish to enforce a zone of purity around Ground Zero then let's throw out everyone. But if we aren't going to throw out everyone then we shouldn't single out the one religion that we don't like and harass those people only. Some may say that this attitude makes me insensitive but it is the only FAIR and JUST way to do it. Otherwise, it is just religious intolerance in the guise of sentimentalism.

***Regarding anti-Islamic subtext: I suppose in any broad objection to or defense of anything, popular prejudices of one kind or another will make themselves felt. However, if this were essential to the very principle of opposition, how would you explain the phenomenon of American Muslims opposed to the mosque? Will you trot out some condescending self-loathing Muslim stereotype, or something?

I don't believe that anti-Islamic sentiment is essential to the very principle of opposition. But I do believe that it is the anti-Islamic sentiment, stoked and churned by the political demagoguery, that has raised this to a fever pitch. I believe that if this wasn't an Islamic Center at issue, but a $100 million shopping mall, then a few people would grumble, mutter "what a disgrace" under their breath, and move on. As it stands, there is a "popular prejudice" (to use your phrase) against Islam that has made itself felt. As you are correct to point out, maybe I shouldn't be so quick to impute ill-motives to those that I am arguing against. But though I have been duly (and justly) chastened by you for imputing it to individuals, I stand by the assertion that there is A LOT of anti-Islamic sentiment that is being thrown around in the debate. It may not be essential to opposition, but it has been central to the tone and the framing of the public discussion. It ought to be identified and criticized instead of rationalized and justified.

I won''t try to speak to the motives of the American Muslims opposed to the mosque. They are a diverse community. I would be surprised if there weren't some who opposed the mosque, just like there are some 9/11 families who support the mosque. It's a big world with lots of people, every one of them complex.

Aaron Rasmussen: Your 10:33 post is interesting. You make some good points.

I do not believe that the opposition to this mosque complex comes primarily from people who think that "Islam is one giant terrorist organization in which every member can and should be held responsible for the actions of every other member." But the world is plagued at this time by a number of Muslim groups which use terrorist tactics. They affect people's thoughts and behavior more than peaceful Muslims do.

Most Americans are aware of take-overs of mosques in Western countries, including the U.S., by extremist elements, including some who promote terror. And regardless of the intentions of the Cordoba Initiative, the more extreme elements of Islam would be attracted to the idea of this mosque at Ground Zero. And they would apparently be welcome there, according to Daisy Khan. You say that you don't care what they think. I would prefer that they not have a forum to promote their version of Islam from the site of a building damaged on 9/11.

You said, "I don't see the Islamic Center as a threat or a symbol of Islamic triumphalism - I see it as an opportunity for increased interfaith communication and cooperation. The greatest threat of all to the terrorist reality is a demonstration that Islam can prosper in a major western democratic society. There is no other way to defeat terrorism. And regardless of how it is perceived in the short-term, the Cordoba Initiative is at least moving in that direction."

This is a lovely goal. But I don't have a great deal of confidence that this mosque complex would be the way to promote the prosperity of Islam in our democratic society without dramatically changing that society. I believe that Imam Rauf is interested in a "Sharia Index" - an index of how close Western countries comes to compatibility with Sharia law.

And his message to Western audiences is different from the one he gives in Muslim countries. Andy McCarthy: "Feisal Abdul Rauf is the imam behind the 'Cordoba Initiative' that is spearheading plans to build a $100 million Islamic center at Ground Zero, the site where nearly 3,000 Americans were killed by jihadists on 9/11. He is also the author of a book called 'What’s Right with Islam Is What’s Right with America.' But the book hasn’t always been called that. It was called quite something else for non-English-speaking audiences. In Malaysia, it was published as 'A Call to Prayer from the World Trade Center Rubble: Islamic Dawa in the Heart of America Post-9/11 '
'
. . . Dawa, whether done from the rubble of the World Trade Center or elsewhere, is the missionary work by which Islam is spread. . . .In truth, Islam is a comprehensive political, social, and economic system with its own authoritarian legal framework, sharia, which aspires to govern all aspects of life. . . . .

Imam Rauf is very good at working an audience. But if he would answer questions concerning how he would reconcile the theoretical feel-good statements he makes to Western audiences (for example, concerning similarities between the Constitution and the philosophical musings of a famous Muslim scholar) with the brass tacks of the Koran and Islam's legal codes, maybe more people would be willing to "embrace" his project. The danger is that this would get him into trouble with more fundamentalist or extremist proponents of Islam. Many of these would not look kindly on inter-faith dialogue.

Perhaps an argument could be made that keeping this complex near Ground Zero would prompt people to pay ongoing attention if its "message" changed to one that started to imperil the basic tenets of our society. I am still concerned, however, that it would become a magnet for the more aggressive proponents of Islam at its proposed location. Imam Rauf's book was apparently published in the U.S. by affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood which actively promote Hamas, for example.

"And yahoos on the Internet take segments of FOX News as logical justifications for imputing opinions, inevitably their own, to tens of thousands of people. Given the choice, I'll take the politicians, thank you very much."

You actually believe that virtually all of the 9/11 families want the Mosque built? Other than the statement by your pal Mayor Mike, do you have anything to support that? I'll accept links to CNN and MSNBC.

"If you had any business in this debate, you would know enough about the composition of the Memorial Foundation to realize how ludicrous your statement is."

Look at exactly what Bloomberg says. He doesn't say he spoke to every family. He just says the ones he spoke to supported the Mosque. Explain why the composition of the Memorial Foundation somehow changes that.

"Again with the yahoos and the FOX News. Do you have anything remotely resembling a basis for this claim? You certainly haven't presented it here yet."

You can find the opposition of the 9/11 families all over the internet. Other than the Bloomberg press release disguised as a news story, do you have anything to support your absurd claim that 100% of the 9/11 families support the building of the Mosque?

"Well, her feelings certainly don't trump the First Amendment, if that's what you mean. And if you dislike religious freedom that much, you can always move to a range of countries that don't have it."

People who cite the Constitution in support of their argument should really read the Constitution first. The First Amendment prohibits actions by the government. It has NOTHING to do with private individuals like Debra Burlingame and the other 9/11 families. It is their First Amendment right to speak out against the Mosque. If you dislike freedom of speech that much, you can always move to a range of countries that don't have it.

"We all count equally. No one should be excluded from the debate, no one's opinions are beyond reproach or entitled to deference. I don't belittle any of their feelings. "

I agree that no one should be excluded from the debate, but we part company on whether the views of the 9/11 families should be accorded greater weight.

Why don't we turn things around? Suppose all of the 9/11 families supported the Mosque. Do you actually think you would be arguing opponents of the Mosque had equal standing to the 9/11 families? I doubt that very much.

"Their connection to the site gives them an important perspective, but it is not the only valid perspective. To suggest that their perspective carries some sort of moral superiority is too easy a way out of the debate."

The moral superiority of their position does not end the debate, but it does make your position more difficult to support. Sorry about that, but I think that is what most people believe.

"A Call tor Prayer from the World Trade Center Rubble: Islamic Dawa [proselytism] from the Heart of America Post-9/11."

If a German priest or pastor had written a book in 1946 entitled ""A Call tor Prayer from Auschwitz: Evangelism from the Heart of Germany Post-World War II," would Jews be correct in assuming it to be Naziism in disguise?

"I'm referring to U.S. sanctions instituted in 1991. Like all ideologues, you seem capable of seeing things only in black and white. I have not said it was our fault -- sometimes there are no good options. I have said I can understand Rauf's feelings."

Yes, those are the sanctions that Rauf is referring to, but him removing Saddam from the picture in order to score points with the jihadists says a great deal about him.

"Blocking that mosque won't bring back their loved ones, and while their feelings are entitled to great consideration, they stem from misapprehensions about Rauf and about Islam in general. And there are other important factors to be taken into consideration, as you know."

What are these other important factors? Rauf wanting to show the world "moderate" Islam? He may have the best intentions in the world, but his efforts have been an abysmal failure. The fact that he is so insistent that the Mosque has to be built there definitely justifies the misapprehensions about Rauf.

"You're still dodging."

No, it is just that your insistence that God has to issue a press release designating ground as sacred before you will consider it sacred really does not give us anything further to discuss on this point. Roughly 99.9% of the people don't have that strict a definition, so I am pretty comfortable that most people understand what I mean when I say 9/11 is sacred ground.

"The more important the ground, the more potent the symbols that stand there."

EXACTLY!

Aaron,

"With regard to directly across the street in full view, I simply think that the rules ought to be the same for EVERYONE, and not different for muslims than for christians, jews, buddhists, bankers, tailors, pornshops, hot dog vendors, clothing stores, taverns, you name it."

Certainly the rules ought to be the same for "EVERYONE," i.e., for every class of *people*, Muslims as well as Christians, Jews, Buddhists, etc. NOBODY -- Muslim or otherwise! -- should get to build a mosque at 51 Park Way.

Conversely, if Muslims wanted to build a clothing store or a tavern, I suspect few would object. The problem is not *who* they are (Muslims), but *what* sort of establishment want to build.

The idea that the rules ought to be the same for all sorts of *establishments* -- clothing stores, taverns, pornshops -- bears of course no relationship to reality. Because Joe the developer can build a clothing store on Lot A, it does not follow that Bill gets to put a tavern on Lot B or that Fred gets to put a pornshop on Lot C. What America do you live in? Ever been to 42nd Street?

Your language seems to imply some sort of abstract idealism in which neighborhoods are neutral spaces without living communities, and that what people want and how leaders lead has no bearing on what a neighborhood is allowed to look like. That's not true of any neighborhood I know, let alone the neighborhood around a site like Ground Zero (the very name of which implies the epicenter of a larger affected area that is morally as well as physically proximate).

A mosque is different from a clothing store or a tavern -- and for that matter from a Christian church or a synagogue. For one thing, judging from the careful language at the Park51 website, non-Muslims may not even be allowed to enter the mosque (as opposed to Park51's recreational facilities, 9/11 memorial, etc.).

For another, judging from comments from Daisy Khan, Muslims of all types may have equal right of access ("You can't stop anyone who is a Muslim despite his religious ideology from entering the mosque and staying there"; only if it were not a mosque can you "control who gets to use it"). If a Muslim extremist -- or a white supremacist, or any other hate-monger -- came into a tavern and started mongering hate, he could be thrown out.

Thirdly, while I don't much care if militant-sympathetic Muslims in the Middle East chortle with victory at the thought of a mosque in New York on a site struck by 9/11 violence, I very much care if such a location becomes a beacon to such people coming here. Judging from the way Kathy from Kansas says Rauf's message is being hawked in Arabic, that seems not unlikely.

Hate-mongers have free speech rights just like anyone else, but there is a particular kind of indecency that is really rubbing salt in the wounds of suffering people. It's bad enough that Fred Phelps and his hate-mongering Westboro Baptist Church church exist, but for them to carry "Thanks God for dead soldiers" signs to the funerals of soldiers is a special class of inhumanity. Muslim hate-mongering in the vicinity of Ground Zero would be a similar sort of indecency.

I am not saying that Rauf is a hate-monger, although I think he is a "bridge builder" to hate-mongers. But rubbing salt in the wounds of suffering people can be done in all sorts of ways. I often drive past a large billboard proselytizing for Islam ("ISLAM: You deserve to know! The message of Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad - 1-877-WhyIslam - WhyIslam.org"). Where it is, it is protected free speech. Visible from Ground Zero, it would be an egregious provocation. It doesn't matter if the people running it are the nicest people in the world. Location matters, and in the vicinity of Ground Zero Islamic proselytism is a touchy business, as sensitive Muslims should be the first to recognize.

That is the human reality, with or without anti-Muslim prejudice. What should be done about that human reality is another matter.

I said that a pro-Islamic billboard visible from Ground Zero would be a provocation. A pro-Catholic billboard would not be. However, in order to block the pro-Islamic billboard it might be necessary to block all religious messaging on billboards visible from Ground Zero.

With respect to a $100 million facility, OTOH, all bets are off. There are all sorts of legitimate ways a community and community leaders can work to implement the will of the people on that level.

Brian English:

"You actually believe that virtually all of the 9/11 families want the Mosque built? ... do you have anything to support your absurd claim that 100% of the 9/11 families support the building of the Mosque?"

No, Brian. YOU are the one claiming (in your own words) that "the vast majority of 9/11 families ... oppose the Mosque," and that "The overwhelming majority of 9/11 families ... who oppose the Mosque consider the area sacred." (And of all the straw men I have ever encountered, yours rank among the silliest and most transparent.)

Barring some comprehensive, scientific poll, which I happen to know has not occurred, I'm astute enough to realize I have no idea how 9/11 family members feel about Park51, or much of anything else.

Moreover, simple human decency (not to mention Christian ethics) would prevent me from using other people's tragedy and falsely claiming to speak on their behalf to score cheap political points.

"I think holiness and sacredness are related to the divine too, and said so. Fifth definitions are non-meanings?"

In this case I think the fifth meaning as it's being used here trades on, and intentionally or unintentionally depending on who's using it, serves as a Trojan horse for the first.

"If you agree that "reverence" is a suitable word, then to quibble about whether the quality that elicits such reverence is suitably called "sacredness" or something else seems to me unprofitable. I'm happy to go with any word you like -- "iconic" is sufficient for me -- with the proviso that national feelings of reverence are at issue."

I suppose in saying reverence I'm falling prey to the same illogical convention I'm opposing. "Respect" would be a better word. I respect the feelings of those who grieve. I don't think their feelings are holy, or that tragedy hallow the ground upon which it occurs. And as others have pointed out, there are unsavory businesses on the same ground: a sex shop and a strip club, and a "9-11 Christian Center at Ground Zero" planned by the lovely Bill Keller (from Salon: "To get a sense of where Keller is coming from, consider his project's website, which calls Islam a religion of "hate and death" whose adherents will go to hell. It also says: "Islam is a wonderful religion... for PEDOPHILES!"). If a mosque defiles that ground, where is the outrage over these establishments, the latter of which is the kind of thing that makes radical Muslims hate us.

"How is "over" incorrect? Perhaps you didn't read my sentence carefully enough. 51 Park Way was indeed struck by 9/11 violence. That's why it's iconic, both to Imam Rauf and to me, and why national feelings of reverence are relevant."

My mistake. Still, as I've said, the towers themselves are what most people think of when they think of 9/11, and there is no intention to raise a star and flag over that ground to symbolize Muslim triumph.

"Will moderate Muslims see it that way . . . Or will many Muslims, moderate and otherwise, see it as confirmation . . ."

I think we can appeal to people's best, or to their worst.

"I just think he wants to use the mosque to overcome the objections behind the objections by showing people moderate Islam."

I agree that that is one pitch for the mosque that Rauf cares about. But Rauf is a self-described "bridge builder" with many constituencies and many conversation partners -- some moderate, others not so much. Although I think that Rauf is sincere in opposing extremism and violence, he can be evasive about the crimes of Islamic groups and regimes, plausibly because he does not want to burn bridges with people who would respond poorly to more forthright criticism of Islamic groups and regimes. In a word, although he (I believe) opposes extremism and violence, Muslims who do not oppose extremism and violence are within the pale of his bridge-building efforts. For individuals like that, an iconic mosque built on a site of 9/11 violence would plausibly have another significance."

Plausibly, yes, but that mindset is precisely why he's trying to build bridges to them. Should Jesus not have dined with sinners?

"And Rauf does tend to tailor his message to the audience. I have no particular reason to think that Rauf would actually talk up Cordoba House as a mosque de triomphe. I also have no particular reason to think that he would discourage a supportive Muslim who liked to think of it that way from doing so."

What about what you just wrote above, that he's a bridge builder who "is sincere in opposing extremism and violence"? No doubt Rauf sometimes somewhat tailors his words towards audiences hostile to what he really believes. Political actors have to do that. The important issue to me is what he really believes and wants to accomplish.

"Imam Rauf's wife Daisy has said that a mosque is necessarily open to use by all Muslims regardless of ideology; no Muslim can be excluded or preventing from using a mosque or made to leave one. Is there any reason to think that the we will not one day have, say, the Muslim equivalent of Jeremiah Wright, or worse, God-damning America and trumpeting Islamic triumphalism in an 'iconic' mosque built on a site of Ground Zero violence?"

Is there any indication that "use" means more than "worship"? How likely is it that a preacher of peace would lend his building to a preacher of hate?

Note to Joe Carter: Thanks for posting all these posts, but my response this morning to SDG has not gone through.

--------------
Brian English wrote:
"Rauf wanting to show the world "moderate" Islam? He may have the best intentions in the world, but his efforts have been an abysmal failure. The fact that he is so insistent that the Mosque has to be built there definitely justifies the misapprehensions about Rauf."

Er, why have his efforts been a failure so far? Because guys like you insist on clinging to your "misapprehensions" about him. Look at what you wrote -- when is a misapprehension ever justified? Perhaps you meant "misgivings."

"your insistence that God has to issue a press release designating ground as sacred before you will consider it sacred really does not give us anything further to discuss on this point."

It's not God that has to justify your use of the word, it's you that has to explain why you think God thinks of it that way.

"The more important the ground, the more potent the symbols that stand there."

EXACTLY! ---

So let's have a symbol that radical Islam is not true Islam, and that true Islam is a religion of peace.

"Er, why have his efforts been a failure so far? Because guys like you insist on clinging to your "misapprehensions" about him. Look at what you wrote -- when is a misapprehension ever justified? Perhaps you meant "misgivings."

No, because 71% of the people in the country are guys like me. If he is really trying to build understanding, he is doing a miserable job.

And I meant that Rauf's behavior has converted what you consider misapprehensions into justified apprehensions. Do you really believe he is convincing anyone of his moderate approach to Islam with his intransigence on the location of the Mosque?

"It's not God that has to justify your use of the word, it's you that has to explain why you think God thinks of it that way."

I would not attempt to explain what God thinks. What I can explain is that virtually every human being but you understands what is meant when Ground Zero is referred to as sacred ground.

"So let's have a symbol that radical Islam is not true Islam, and that true Islam is a religion of peace. "

(1) If moderate Islam had nothing to do with 9/11, why would it want to be connected to Ground Zero in any way?

(2) Daisy Khan has already admitted that they cannot bar any Muslims from using the Mosque, so how can you possibly believe that Islamists would not use it for their own purposes?

Aaron - more thoughts on your 10:33 post:

"Imagine if instead of harassing the Cordoba Initiative into giving up their project, they were embraced; the center was adopted by New York as a symbol of our tolerance for others and the fact that we practice what we preach - religious freedom; the leaders of the center held forums with leaders of the Jewish and Christian communities where the relationship between the three religions was discussed; and an example of co-existence and understanding was created. That is the stated goal of the organizers. We can't we join them in helping them achieve that goal?"

As Elizabeth Scalia pointed out here last week, the ham-handed handling of this issue by American leadership and the press has just about ended any possibility that a majority of people will embrace this project at its intended location. Much of the hostile reaction to the project has been based on exclusionary, dismissive and inaccurate rhetoric directed toward the project's opponents by American leadership. Imam Rauf has been pretty much silent through this controversy. It might be time for the Cordoba Initiative and its affiliates to re-group and re-focus on their own stated goals, and perhaps to consider moving their complex as a sign of their good will and tolerance.

Years ago, when Dennis Prager hosted a radio program called "Religion on the Line" in Los Angeles, he started an "Institute for Ethical Monotheism" after the first plane hijackings by Muslims (before they started flying planes into buildings). He had the simple, limited goal of getting Muslim, Christian and Jewish leaders to agree that killing or otherwise injuring innocent people in the name of their respective religions was abhorrent. I think that Prager would be open to sharing his experiences in this endeavor with serious proponents of the Cordoba Initiative. Maybe he could steer them around some potential pitfalls.

And concerning inter-faith dialogue, I am afraid that many people hearing plans for such dialogue think first of the Archbishop of Canterbury's announcement that he is open to the idea of establishing Sharia law in parts of the UK.

Brian, I think I've directly or indirectly addressed most of what you have to say in your latest post. But again, it's rather ironic that you complain that Rauf isn't making peace with you guys when you're the ones insisting on not making peace with him.

Daisy Rauf has said: "We’ve decided to own the tragedy of 9/11 and we’ve heard and felt [the families of the 9/11 victims] pain and we’re extending ourselves. We want to repair the breach and be at the front and center to start the healing. A world full of hatred and suspicion and ignorance is not going to serve anyone’s interest."

"(1) If moderate Islam had nothing to do with 9/11, why would it want to be connected to Ground Zero in any way?"

See above. They want to say, 'we Muslims mourn this tragedy and want the world to know that terrorism no more represents true Islam than Naziism represents Christianity.' And the more you oppose them, the more they see it as necessary to say that, and to say it will it will have maximum symbolic value. She has said: "That it's so close to the tragedy, that its close proximity is very symbolic for the fact that we really want to reverse what happened on 9/11." She has also said: "No one should be asked to leave their neighborhood. This is our neighborhood and we’ve been part of it for 27 years. Our opponents are not from this neighborhood…We were shut down for four weeks after 9/11. The sad part was that we felt victimized like everyone else in New York because it was our city that was attacked but we were never given permission to mourn."

"(2) Daisy Khan has already admitted that they cannot bar any Muslims from using the Mosque, so how can you possibly believe that Islamists would not use it for their own purposes?"

I haven't been able to find this quote, but as I said to SDG, I can't believe a moderate imam would allow radicals to come in and preach contrary to his own reason for building the mosque. By "use," if that's the word she used, she must have meant "worship," as in "anyone will be free to worship Allah with us."

@KarenT:

I appreciate the points you make, though I draw some different conclusions.

***He is also the author of a book called 'What’s Right with Islam Is What’s Right with America.' But the book hasn’t always been called that. It was called quite something else for non-English-speaking audiences. In Malaysia, it was published as 'A Call to Prayer from the World Trade Center Rubble: Islamic Dawa in the Heart of America Post-9/11 '***

The fact that a book is published under different titles in different countries is not surprising or alarming to me. I believe that is relatively common in the publishing industry and I don't ascribe any devious intent to it. Nobody has alleged that the content of the book is any different depending on the country where it is sold - only the title. And though I have not read the book personally, I have looked up the reviews of it online and read many of them in order to get a taste of the book's contents. Here is a link to the book on Amazon.com where the majority of the reviewers describe it positively.

http://www.amazon.com/Whats-Right-Islam-Vision-Muslims/dp/0060582723

I'm sure that it can and will be picked apart by some. But overall it appears that it is trying to spread an important message: American democratic capitalism is not antagonistic to Islam; Islam is not antagonistic to American values.

Andy McCarthy makes a big deal about the use of the word "Dawa" in the Indonesian title of the book: 'A Call to Prayer from the World Trade Center Rubble: Islamic Dawa in the Heart of America Post-9/11'.

One mainstream Islamic view of Da'wah is as follows: "Da'wah in Arabic means to invite. Essentially, da'wah has two dimensions: external and internal. External da'wah is to invite non-Muslims to Islam and teach them about Islamic beliefs and practices. Internal da'wah is to teach Muslims about aspects of Islam"

So for somebody writing a book that is aimed at both an external and an internal audience, Da'wah is the perfect word to use. It is an invitation to learn more about Islam.

Andy McCarthy makes it sound like Da'wah is nothing more than the first step in a process which ends with forced conversion to Islam. This is the worst, most extreme interpretation that can be placed on the word. Arabic and English are difficult languages to translate back and forth. Many Arabic words can be translated in multiple ways and are, in fact, given multiple meanings in the Qu'ran itself. The possibility of misunderstanding is great, and there are people like Mr. McCarthy who seem to promote misunderstanding and, in fact, get rich off of it.

So which interpretation should we give the word Da'wah in the context of Mr. Rauf's book? How about the interpretation that is consistent with both the message of the book and the goals of the Cordoba Initiative: an invitation to both Muslims and Americans to learn more about the compatibility of Islamic and American values, namely democratic capitalism.

This is an example of how the worst of all possible interpretations is being placed on every single word uttered by Mr. Rauf. The same tactic is being used with regard to the use of the city of Cordoba. There is no indication that Mr. Rauf ever intended the use of the historical image of Cordoba as a symbol of Islamic triumphalism. But that doesn't keep those bent on fear-mongering and obstruction from placing that interpretation on it. You cannot have a dialogue if everything that you say, every move that you make, is going to be taken in exactly the wrong way.

And that may be one reason (though I am only speculating here) why he hasn't come out and spoken publicly about this yet. The environment is so hot that just about anything he said would be taken the wrong way. Give this a couple of weeks, or a month, and I doubt it will be so hot. Maybe I am wrong, but the media has already turned some of its attention away and the politicians have gotten most of what they needed from the fracas. Without them involved it may be possible for a rational discussion to take place somewhere.

I agree that at some point he needs to speak. Bridge-builders have to be able to communicate. But to do so right now would be like trying to build a bridge in the middle of an artillery barrage.

Ken, if "respect" is the strongest word you can conjure for the feelings you have in relation to Ground Zero -- or the "feelings" of those who lost loved ones there -- then I would have to wonder (meaning no disrespect) whether you don't suffer from something like the sort of atrophied humanity that Lewis described in "Men Without Chests" in The Abolition of Man. (If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.)

One shows respect in a museum or a nice restaurant. At a place like Gettysberg, Pearl Harbor or Ground Zero, more is called for. There is a time and place for respect, and there is a time and place for goosebumps, for solemnity and awe, for an inner genuflection to the numinous. "That man is little to be envied," says Johnson (quoted in The Abolition of Man), "whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona." Even if you don't know what Marathon or Iona are, that line should at least threaten to give you goosebumps. It's human nature.

I am perfectly willing to join in common cause to oppose other objectionable projects in the immediate vicinity of Ground Zero. While I'm blackly amused by the proposal to respond to the Cordoba House project by building a gay bar across the street catering to gay Muslim men, such a war of attrition winds up giving those with the least human feeling veto rights over those with more human feeling. It ought not to be that way. We ought to be able to stand up and insist on a reasonable balance of individual rights and community rights, especially in the vicinity of a site like Ground Zero. That's why God created zoning laws and the like.

Yes, we can appeal to people's best or to their worst -- and we need to recognize that sometimes people do both, and Rauf is one of those people. I have repeatedly said I think Rauf is legitimately opposed to terrorism, but I also think that Ross Douthat is right to say "he does seem like the kind of person who makes excuses for sinister figures, and curries favor with them, and bobs and weaves where their crimes are concerned, all in the name of dialogue and evenhandedness. And that seems like sufficient grounds for criticism and mistrust."

You say "So let's have a symbol that radical Islam is not true Islam, and that true Islam is a religion of peace." I understand that is the line of the pious moderate Muslim, and I'm perfectly willing to grant him his conviction. But it's not a sentiment that has much persuasive power for the reasonably objective outside observer. It is possible to arrive at a reasonably objective statement of what "true Catholicism" is if you start with the premise that the Pope and the Magisterium define what true Catholicism is. What "true Islam" is is much harder to define, and whether it is a "religion of peace" is an eminently contestible question.

You say "that mindset is precisely why he's trying to build bridges to them." You know that, do you? To speak too confidently about a figure like Rauf -- one way or the other -- strikes me as wishful thinking. My own statements about him are tentative and non-dogmatic for a very good reason: I don't think very many people are in a good position to say with confidence exactly what Rauf is about and why.

"Should Jesus not have dined with sinners?"

Um. Jesus looked sinners in the eye and said "Go and sin no more." Jesus said of Herod, "Tell that fox what I have to say." Jesus called the Pharisees and scribes hypocrites and broods of vipers to their face. I would very much like to know what Rauf has said -- actually said, not just FAQs on his website and so forth -- that exhibits that kind of forthrightness about the people Rauf deals with.

"Is there any indication that 'use' means more than '"worship'? How likely is it that a preacher of peace would lend his building to a preacher of hate?"

It is a difficult question because in context Daisy Khan was actually denying that the mosque would be a mosque. She said it was necessary to call it a "prayer space" since this would allow them to control who used it. However, the Cordoba Project website and Park51 website both call it a "mosque," and one of them uses the terms synonymously. See my blog post for more (you will also find documentation for other quotations I've used):

http://www.ncregister.com/blog/cordoba-house-1

"But again, it's rather ironic that you complain that Rauf isn't making peace with you guys when you're the ones insisting on not making peace with him."

If they moved the mosqe, there would be peace. Rauf already had a mosque in a building a short distance away. Could that not be renovated and enlarged? Why the obsession with building at Ground Zero?

Over on the Daily Caller site, two moderate Muslims explain why, from a Muslim perspective, Rauf is at fault here:

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, has said that the building of this mosque is ‘fitna,’ a religious term meaning mischief-making, which is severely frowned upon in Islam. “‘Fitna’ is anything that causes chaos in society,” he said. “This mosque is causing chaos, it is causing ‘fitna’ and that is not the Islamic thing to do … This is ‘fitna’ and ‘fitna’ is wrong.”

Tarek Fatah, founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, agreed saying that ‘fitna’ is an ethical and moral issue that ought not be taken lightly. “If a step taken by an individual causes disharmony then it is ‘fitna.’ [The mosque] has caused so much pain. There are many mosques already in New York, nobody has ever opposed a mosque, if there is opposition to a mosque on grounds of hatred I would be the first to confront it. But over here it is a matter of sensitivity and there is no residential community even near the community center.”


"We want to repair the breach and be at the front and center to start the healing."

They are approaching it the wrong way if that is their real goal. Perhaps Imam Rauf could start building bridges by concentrating on repairing the slum apartment buildings he owns in New Jersey?

""No one should be asked to leave their neighborhood. This is our neighborhood and we’ve been part of it for 27 years."

They did already have a mosque a short distance away, so why do they need to build this new mosque at Ground Zero on property they only purchased in 2009?

Brian English:

"If they moved the mosqe, there would be peace."

Now that's a good one. Can we assume that you are in favor of building mosques in Sheepshead Bay, Staten Island, and everywhere else across the country they have faced opposition?

"Rauf already had a mosque in a building a short distance away. Could that not be renovated and enlarged? Why the obsession with building at Ground Zero?"

A better question would be, why YOUR obsession with it. Because if they built four blocks away from "Ground Zero," rather than two (and yes, it is more than two), you'd be totally cool with it, right?

But more importantly, are we in agreement that your prior claims, that that "the vast majority of 9/11 families ... oppose the Mosque," and that "The overwhelming majority of 9/11 families ... who oppose the Mosque consider the area sacred," were shameful lies with absolutely no justification? I would hate for that question to be lost in the shuffle.

SDG, The Abolition of Man is indeed a great book, and I'm moved by the suffering of the victims' loved ones just like anyone else.

"One shows respect in a museum or a nice restaurant. At a place like Gettysberg, Pearl Harbor or Ground Zero, more is called for. There is a time and place for respect, and there is a time and place for goosebumps, for solemnity and awe, for an inner genuflection to the numinous. "That man is little to be envied," says Johnson (quoted in The Abolition of Man), "whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona." Even if you don't know what Marathon or Iona are, that line should at least threaten to give you goosebumps."

I know Marathon and Iona, and sure Ground Zero gives me goosebumps. But again, I don't see where the numinous (yes I remember the word from Lewis) enters into it here. Murder does not literally hallow ground, and a mosque for peaceful Muslims would not defile hallowed ground anyhow.

"such a war of attrition winds up giving those with the least human feeling veto rights over those with more human feeling. It ought not to be that way. We ought to be able to stand up and insist on a reasonable balance of individual rights and community rights, especially in the vicinity of a site like Ground Zero. That's why God created zoning laws and the like."

I agree. It's not that I don't understand the feelings of those who are opposed. It's that I think those feelings are based on faulty thinking.

"What "true Islam" is is much harder to define, and whether it is a "religion of peace" is an eminently contestible question."

True a far as it goes, but I look at the majority of Muslims, who have nothing to do with terrorism. And in this case, the Iman, as you say, is opposed to terrorism.

"You say "that mindset is precisely why he's trying to build bridges to them." You know that, do you?"

I look at his actions and see no reason not to take him at his word. Even the State Department takes him at his word, and pre-Obama/Clinton if I'm not mistaken.

"Should Jesus not have dined with sinners?"

-- Um. Jesus looked sinners in the eye and said "Go and sin no more." Jesus said of Herod, "Tell that fox what I have to say." Jesus called the Pharisees and scribes hypocrites and broods of vipers to their face. I would very much like to know what Rauf has said -- actually said, not just FAQs on his website and so forth -- that exhibits that kind of forthrightness about the people Rauf deals with. --

Perfectly reasonable, but again, I'm sure the State Department knows.

"It is a difficult question because in context Daisy Khan was actually denying that the mosque would be a mosque. She said it was necessary to call it a "prayer space" since this would allow them to control who used it. However, the Cordoba Project website and Park51 website both call it a "mosque," and one of them uses the terms synonymously."

I looked at your blog post. Again, I can see your initial concern, but it sounds to melike Khan is clarifying.

"If they moved the mosqe, there would be peace. Rauf already had a mosque in a building a short distance away. Could that not be renovated and enlarged? Why the obsession with building at Ground Zero?"

I've explained the "obsession." And there would also be peace if you dropped your objections. It takes two to tangle.

"Fitna’ is anything that causes chaos in society,” he said."

This mosque is causing controversy, not chaos, obviously.

"Tarek Fatah, founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, agreed saying that ‘fitna’ is an ethical and moral issue that ought not be taken lightly. “If a step taken by an individual causes disharmony then it is ‘fitna.’ [The mosque] has caused so much pain. There are many mosques already in New York, nobody has ever opposed a mosque, if there is opposition to a mosque on grounds of hatred I would be the first to confront it. But over here it is a matter of sensitivity and there is no residential community even near the community center.”"

I think this is a reasonable objection, except that much of the opposition is in fact surely rooted in hatred. I'm not talking about you or SDG, but we can see it exists. Rauf and Khan have even had death threats.

"They did already have a mosque a short distance away, so why do they need to build this new mosque at Ground Zero on property they only purchased in 2009?"

I assume because this space is larger and allows them to do more things.

Let me say finally that it may do more harm than good at this point for Rauf to go ahead and build there (if he ever raises the money). But that's because too many people begin with hostility (and here I can only guess you may well fall into this category, given your tone) and cling to their suspicions. That's a second tragedy.

Aaron Rasmussen, your post of 11:50pm strikes me as very largely reasonable, with the exception of the last two paragraphs. To propose that the reason Rauf has not spoken in the last several weeks is that the "environment is so hot that just about anything he said would be taken the wrong way," and that while "bridge-builders have to be able to communicate ... to do so right now would be like trying to build a bridge in the middle of an artillery barrage" strikes me as nonsense, and the exact opposite of the truth. The longer he delays, the worse the situation becomes. Rauf is burning through good will and even potential good will that will take far longer to rebuild.

At the very least, Rauf could try to stem the tide by throwing a few preliminary remarks out there along lines like these: "We appreciate the concerns on all sides in this very sensitive situation. We recognize that some people of good have sincere concerns about the location of Cordoba House. We hope they will understand that our intentions have always been the opposite of giving offense. We also know that many Muslims have real concerns about our freedoms being respected and about the threat of anti-Islamic feeling being stirred up, and we hope that non-Muslims of good will are concerned about these things too. There are real concerns on both sides. None of us has all the answers. We want to reach out to those who have concerns and try to resolve this in whatever way best serves the common good."

Best move after that: agreeing to move the mosque half a mile away.

"And there would also be peace if you dropped your objections."

Then it appears we are at an impasse.

"I think this is a reasonable objection, except that much of the opposition is in fact surely rooted in hatred. "

Upon what do you base that statement? There are two mosques within 1.5 miles of Ground Zero. If hatred was at work here, why weren't those forced to shut down after 9/11? The location is the issue here.

"I assume because this space is larger and allows them to do more things. "

Are the pool, the movie theater, etc., worth all of this, especially if the motivation is to heal the wounds from 9/11?

"Let me say finally that it may do more harm than good at this point for Rauf to go ahead and build there (if he ever raises the money). "

We finally agree.

"But that's because too many people begin with hostility (and here I can only guess you may well fall into this category, given your tone) and cling to their suspicions. That's a second tragedy. "

Even giving Rauf the benefit of the doubt with regard to his motivations, it was a bad idea to begin with, and it is an even worse idea now.

Ken: Just to be clear, when I said "Even if you don't know what Marathon or Iona are" I meant the proverbial you, not you personally.

The word "numinous" is something short of "holy." Numinous, IIRC, was the word Lewis used for the category that elicits dread or awe, as before a ghost. The night sky is numinous to those with eyes to see. So, in different ways, are a nuclear missile, a grey whale, the catacombs.

You say Ground Zero gives you goosebumps (and perhaps you would agree with Coleridge that the waterfall is not merely pretty, but sublime?). Why do you then shift into trousered-ape mode and go on "Murder does not literally hallow ground"? Would you also agree that the Atlantic Ocean is only so many million gallons of cold salt water? And that the Statue of Liberty is not a religious artifact, so it cannot be "desecrated" if e.g., we put a burkha on it, or knock its head off? All one loses in these brisk assessments is one's humanity (or a piece of it).

"True a far as it goes, but I look at the majority of Muslims, who have nothing to do with terrorism."

Is that the definition of a "religion of peace"? Rejecting terrorism? If you reject terrorism but are fine with killing apostates, is that a "religion of peace"? Also, as regards terrorism, while the majority of Muslims may have nothing to do with it, that still leaves an open question to what extent sympathy for terrorism and terrorists permeates global Islamic culture.

"I look at his actions and see no reason not to take him at his word. Even the State Department takes him at his word, and pre-Obama/Clinton if I'm not mistaken."

Saying "Even the State Department" is not unlike saying "Even Bloomberg" or "Even Oprah." The State Department's track record and aura of authority is not exactly awe inspiring.

"Again, I can see your initial concern, but it sounds to melike Khan is clarifying."

But clarifying what? She says it's "not a mosque," while both the Cordoba Intitiative website and Park51 website say it is a mosque. Who's clarifying what?

"Now that's a good one. Can we assume that you are in favor of building mosques in Sheepshead Bay, Staten Island, and everywhere else across the country they have faced opposition?"

People objected on Staten Island to a convent being converted into a mosque. I have no idea what the opposition in other places was based upon, but you conclude they are based upon bigotry. In light of the fact that there are mosques all over this country, including two within 1.5 miles of Ground Zero, your compulsion to see Islamaphobia behind every tree is probably not based upon reality.

"A better question would be, why YOUR obsession with it. Because if they built four blocks away from "Ground Zero," rather than two (and yes, it is more than two), you'd be totally cool with it, right?"

Finding a building that wasn't hit by the landing gear from one of the hijacked planes would be a good start.

"But more importantly, are we in agreement that your prior claims, that that "the vast majority of 9/11 families ... oppose the Mosque," and that "The overwhelming majority of 9/11 families ... who oppose the Mosque consider the area sacred," were shameful lies with absolutely no justification?"

Upon what do you base that assertion? Other than Mayor Mike's preposterous claim that all of the 9/11 families support the mosque, do you have anything that comes close to refuting my statements?

SDG:
"You say Ground Zero gives you goosebumps (and perhaps you would agree with Coleridge that the waterfall is not merely pretty, but sublime?). Why do you then shift into trousered-ape mode and go on "Murder does not literally hallow ground"? "

I'm a stickler for precision, because as I said, the idea that GZ is holy (hallowed) is unsupportable, but opponents use it anyhow. It is one thing to have strong feelings about that space, but we should be clear about its nature. And again, peaceful Islam does not defile it.

"If you reject terrorism but are fine with killing apostates, is that a "religion of peace"?"

Rauf and Co. are not fine with killing apostates.

"Also, as regards terrorism, while the majority of Muslims may have nothing to do with it, that still leaves an open question to what extent sympathy for terrorism and terrorists permeates global Islamic culture."

The mosque is not intended to honor any part of Islamic culture wherein terrorism or the murder of apostates may be viewed sympathetically, but to facilitate and display to the world peaceful Islam which opposes it, and has been hurt by it.

"The State Department's track record and aura of authority is not exactly awe inspiring."

You don't think they listen to every word he says on his travels on their behalf?

"She says it's "not a mosque," while both the Cordoba Intitiative website and Park51 website say it is a mosque. Who's clarifying what?"

I think the following statement from your article makes clear that the builders of the mosque intend to bar Muslims not in sympathy with Rauf and Kahn's aims.

“We insist on calling it a prayer space and not a mosque, because you can use a prayer space for activities apart from prayer. You can’t stop anyone who is a Muslim despite his religious ideology from entering the mosque and staying there,” said Imam Rauf’s wife and partner, Daisy Khan, who runs the American Society for Muslim Advancement, from an office housed on the Upper West Side’s famed Riverside Church. “With a prayer space, we can control who gets to use it.”

Ken,

"I'm a stickler for precision, because as I said, the idea that GZ is holy (hallowed) is unsupportable, but opponents use it anyhow."

Hallowedness is not a quality that lends itself to precision. As for supportability, while the way people actually use language is not an infallible guide, as Lewis says elsewhere language has a way of avenging itself on those who ignore it. You can say if you like that every baseball fan who talks about the sport's hallowed records, hallowed halls, hallowed traditions and hallowed ground is abusing language, as is every tour guide at Gettysburg or Pearl Harbor who has used such language, etc., etc., but either way it's not like this use of the word was some cynical conceit invented by Charles Krauthammer as a weapon against the mosque. And at the end of the day we still need a way to talk about how people feel at Gettysburg and Ground Zero, as well as how they feel about baseball.

"Rauf and Co. are not fine with killing apostates ... The mosque is not intended to honor any part of Islamic culture wherein terrorism or the murder of apostates may be viewed sympathetically, but to facilitate and display to the world peaceful Islam which opposes it, and has been hurt by it."

Your train of thought seems to have jumped tracks. The question we started out with was whether "true Islam" was a "religion of peace." I pointed out that this was an eminently contestable question, and you agreed while at the same time appealing to "the majority of Muslims, who have nothing to do with terrorism." As a buffer to the question of whether "true Islam" is a "religion of peace," this seemed to me a rather reductive standard -- but now you seem to be settling for the more reductive question of whether Rauf & Co Islam (as opposed to "true Islam") is a religion of peace, and "the majority of Muslims" seem to have dropped out of the picture.

"You don't think they listen to every word he says on his travels on their behalf?"

I really have no idea, and doubt you do either. Either way, the State Department does what it does for the reasons that it has, and whether it brings the right questions to the right big picture can be a crap shoot. The State Department finds Rauf useful in particular strategic goals that it has. That doesn't tell me much.

"I think the following statement from your article makes clear that the builders of the mosque intend to bar Muslims not in sympathy with Rauf and Kahn's aims."

I think it's clear that's the message Daisy Rauf wanted to convey on that occasion. That she specifically says that for this reason it is NOT a mosque -- and the official websites of her husband's organization and the project contradict her -- raise legitimate questions about reliability and credibility. The only plausible stance I can see based on the information at hand in that regard is guarded neutrality. Confident conclusions would seem to reflect wishful thinking.

SDG:
"Hallowedness is not a quality that lends itself to precision. As for supportability, while the way people actually use language is not an infallible guide, as Lewis says elsewhere language has a way of avenging itself on those who ignore it. You can say if you like that every baseball fan who talks about the sport's hallowed records, hallowed halls, hallowed traditions and hallowed ground is abusing language"

What can I say, I think something is either holy or it isn't. :-) And I don't think baseball fans are abusing the language; I think they're speaking metaphorically, reaching for the strongest metaphor they can think of to indicate their love. Because everyone knows Fenway Park isn't literally holy (Wrigley Field maybe), the metaphor is harmless.

"Your train of thought seems to have jumped tracks. . . ."

You're confusing me, probably because I confused you. I agree that people argue about what true Islam is, and whether it's a religion of peace. But most Muslims are peaceful, and believe true Islam to be peaceful. That is especially so in this country. And that is the Islam this mosque is meant to serve.

"I really have no idea, and doubt you do either. Either way, the State Department does what it does for the reasons that it has, and whether it brings the right questions to the right big picture can be a crap shoot. The State Department finds Rauf useful in particular strategic goals that it has. That doesn't tell me much."

The department's strategic goal is to present a peaceful face to radical Muslims and those in danger of being radicalized. That being their goal, and the stakes being so high, I have no doubt that they monitor what he says.

"I think it's clear that's the message Daisy Rauf wanted to convey on that occasion. That she specifically says that for this reason it is NOT a mosque -- and the official websites of her husband's organization and the project contradict her -- raise legitimate questions about reliability and credibility. The only plausible stance I can see based on the information at hand in that regard is guarded neutrality. Confident conclusions would seem to reflect wishful thinking."

The Cordoba Initiative site says the building is "to include a space for interfaith dialogue," and "will serve as a platform for multi-faith dialogue. It will strive to promote inter-community peace, tolerance and understanding locally in New York City, nationally in America and globally." Etc.

Does that sound like a place they'd let radicals preach from? I think Kahn probably really is tailoring her words to her audiences: the Muslims who want to pray, and others who worry the space will be used for malign purposes. Again, purpose is what's at issue here, not what the space is technically. Oh, now I see the Cordoba site also says "Strictly speaking, it will not be a “mosque,” although it would have a prayer space on one of its 15 floors." And the Park51 sites mentions "a September 11th memorial and quiet contemplation space, open to all."

"Upon what do you base that statement? There are two mosques within 1.5 miles of Ground Zero. If hatred was at work here, why weren't those forced to shut down after 9/11? The location is the issue here."

I understand your thinking, but I think the symbolic location, the publicity given this particular mosque, and the very fact that it will be new, have brought out latent hatred in some -- have fired it and given it an easy, "respectable" outlet -- and produced it in others. There are those death threats, after all.

"What can I say, I think something is either holy or it isn't. :-) And I don't think baseball fans are abusing the language; I think they're speaking metaphorically, reaching for the strongest metaphor they can think of to indicate their love. Because everyone knows Fenway Park isn't literally holy (Wrigley Field maybe), the metaphor is harmless."

And I think this is incorrect and inattentive to how language is actually used and how human sensibilities actually work.

Again, the root idea of holiness is "set-apart-ness." Calling Fenway Park "hallowed ground" means that it is not simply private property that can be disposed of without further ado like any other private property. It is property to which countless Red Sox fans have a moral claim. It is part of their patrimony, their tradition, their heritage. It is something that has been passed down from father to son. In an odd way, their fierce ownership is bound up in the shared pain of Red Sox fans through so many decades of World Series humiliation: Generations of Sox fans have purchased Fenway Park with their tears. Whoever owns it has a sort of sacred trust to administer the site on behalf of this patrimony.

Then there is the holiness of, say, a Buddhist or Hindu shrine, which is holy to the Buddhists or the Hindus, though not to the rest of us. It is holy because it is set apart, and even though its set-apart-ness does not belong to our social context, human empathy demands some level of respect for the reverence of another, and so e.g. we observe silence, or take off our hat.

Sacredness can exist in an archaeological context, if the patrimony in question is that of the history of human civilization. Say, the Taj Mahal. If someone knocked it down to build a theme park, or altered it substantially in order to put in a parking garage, or even just installed a bunch of billboards all over it, the world outcry of sacrilege would be universal. You can call this a "metaphor" if you like, but the analogy is based on a real connection, not a mere imaginative leap.

Then there is the greater and more formidable holiness of death, of graveyards, of battlefields. Unlike baseball or the Taj Majal, death is something we didn't invent and can't control; it represents a greater kind of holiness, because here the hand of God is at work, and we go to meet him.

A dead body is set apart. While our loved one lived, he belonged to himself and to us; now that he is dead, his body is suddenly out of our control. Yet the authorities who step in and take charge of it do so on our behalf: If they sell his parts to researchers, there will be hell to pay.

A graveyard is hallowed ground if ever there was such a thing. To enter it is like entering church. It isn't a place you go for a picnic. This is not altogether out of deference to other mourners. The obligation to bury the dead is one that we owe, ultimately, to ourselves; we are less human if we fail to show our respect to the dead by burying them, and the constraints on our behavior we feel in a graveyard are an extension of that obligation to show respect for the dead. The graveyard belongs to all of us; someone owns the title, but it is a sacred trust.

An important battlefield is like this, but combined with the patrimony of the nation; it is sacred to us not just as human beings and members of a local community, but as Americans.

Ground Zero is hallowed in a sense much like this. It is set apart as the site of the worst single terrorist attack in American history. The chagrin that we feel over the disgraceful state of the site after all these years is recognition that we have failed to honor the dead in the way that our own humanity deserves. The site belongs to all of us. It is set apart, for which holy is another word.

You can reject all this if you like. It's a human thing; one gets it, or not.

"I agree that people argue about what true Islam is, and whether it's a religion of peace. But most Muslims are peaceful, and believe true Islam to be peaceful."

Which brings me back to my question about being against terrorism but being okay with killing apostates. Are you saying that most Muslims are against killing apostates, or that they are "peaceful" in spite of not being against killing apostates?

"Oh, now I see the Cordoba site also says 'Strictly speaking, it will not be a “mosque,” although it would have a prayer space on one of its 15 floors.'"

That is new. It wasn't there two weeks ago when I wrote my blog series. There is even a possibility that they changed it because of my critique (I sent it to them). Thanks for pointing it out.

"I understand your thinking, but I think the symbolic location, the publicity given this particular mosque, and the very fact that it will be new, have brought out latent hatred in some -- have fired it and given it an easy, "respectable" outlet -- and produced it in others. There are those death threats, after all."

There are always unstable people who can get set off by well-publicized events, who then call-in death threats or engage in some other type of bizarre behavior. However, I think too many of the supporters of the mosque try to dismiss the anger as prejudice against Muslims when it is actually anger against certain Muslims (Rauf, Khan and Company) who are engaged in an action (building a mosque at Ground Zero) that people find to be wildly offensive.

Mosque supporters insist that the only way you can legitimately disapprove of the mosque is if you prove that Rauf and Khan have direct connections to Al Qaeda. That is nonsense. Rauf and Khan may have the best of intentions, but well-intentioned people end up being unintentionally offensive all the time.

The facts are, that since 9/11, there have been remarkably few anti-Muslim attacks in this country (and some well-documented cases of fake attacks as well). If someone believes this country is inherently anti-Muslim, they should try to explain why each year there are about ten times as many attacks on Jews as there are on Muslims.

SDG says:
"Again, the root idea of holiness is "set-apart-ness."

Yes, but set apart for what? Not just anything. Not as a memorial to victims. To God. Everything that you wrote about places being cherished and set apart, graveyards especially, I agree with. I just don't believe they're holy. The time and occasion of death are in God's hands, but that doesn't mean death or the place of death itself is holy. That simply doesn't follow logically. I think you're confusing a proper reverence in the sense of honoring and memorializing with holiness. But again how would a mosque to peaceful Islam defile it if it were? It's not enough to say that the victim's families, or some of them, would feel it defiled. Feeling something doesn't make it so. Note here that I'm not arguing that this is reason enough alone for Rauf to build, and as I said to Brian, if he can't make peace, perhaps he shouldn't (though that would be a tragedy, and would make the country look bad to many Muslims).

"The chagrin that we feel over the disgraceful state of the site . . ."

Why hasn't this chagrin translated into opposition to the sleazy shops and offensive "Christian" church? That's a double standard at least, and evidence of bigotry on the part of some.

"You can reject all this if you like. It's a human thing; one gets it, or not."

I don't reject it, as I've tried to say. I just call it by a different name.

"Are you saying that most Muslims are against killing apostates?"

Yes.

Ken, I see that you used the word "reverence" again, despite your earlier rejection of that language and your clarification of what you mean by that term.

The bottom line for me is that your restrictive use of "holy/sacred/reverence" language is contrary both to common human usage and experience across cultures as well as to the dictionary. You can call applications to graveyards and the like "metaphors" if you like, but calling them metaphor does not pull the teeth from the words. Metaphors have teeth. Metaphors are lions.

Whatever you want to call it, sacredness in this sense is an intersubjective reality rooted in culture and patrimony. A Hindu shrine is sacred to the Hindus because the Hindus consider it sacred, and if wearing shoes inside is a sacrilege, then it is, and all the logic chopping in the world makes no difference. If you wear shoes inside, then you may have done so in ignorance or you may be standing up for some principle or other, but you aren't building bridges, and that's just the way it is. The feeling -- the obligation -- of reverence that you feel in a graveyard, or before a dead body, weighs upon you whether you jib at words like "reverence" and "sacredness" or not.

The objection that if nobody objected to the Park 51 mosque, why then it would be unobjectionable, may be true in a trivial, tautologous sense. In the same way, if no one were scandalized by the Church holding a public funeral Mass for a well-known mafioso, then doing so would not be scandalous. Canon law provides that such funerals should be avoided unless there is no danger of scandal (e.g., if the funeral were held somewhere where no one was aware of the individual's public life of sin). I have heard stories of people who objected to scandalous funerals being held, only to be told that no one need be scandalized since the funeral is permitted as long as there is no danger of scandal. Which is true, but no answer to someone actually taking scandal.

If someone sets up a volleyball tournament in a graveyard every weekend, and cannot understand why people object, you cannot make him see what he doesn't see. The funeral home director who sells body parts on the black market has a significant rational case that his actions cause material benefits without materially harming anyone, but he is a monster.

Or consider this (far from exact) example. If some IRA splinter group had bombed some major London landmark and killed thousands (which never happened), and then shortly afterward (before a proper memorial on the site was even complete) an Irish Catholic group wanted to build a major Irish Catholic cultural center complete with Masses in Irish across the street, or on a site damaged by the bombing, no one would be surprised if Londoners widely took umbrage. (This, even though the IRA was never religious, mostly Marxist-atheist, and though such a bombing would be universally condemned by Church leadership from the Pope on down in a way that global Islam has not and cannot condemn the 9/11 attacks.)

What should be done about it is a secondary question. My main burden is simply that those taking offense are not doing so gratuitously.

"Are you saying that most Muslims are against killing apostates?"
"Yes."

FWIW, Wikipedia says:

"In Islamic law (sharia), the consensus view is that a male apostate must be put to death unless he suffers from a mental disorder or converted under duress, for example, due to an imminent danger of being killed. A female apostate must be either executed, according to Shafi'i, Maliki, and Hanbali schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), or imprisoned until she reverts to Islam as advocated by the Sunni Hanafi school and by Shi'a scholars.[17]

"A minority of medieval Islamic jurists, notably the Hanafi jurist Sarakhsi (d. 1090),[12] Maliki jurist Ibn al-Walid al-Baji (d. 494 AH) and Hanbali jurist Ibn Taymiyyah (1263–1328), held that apostasy carries no legal punishment.[18] Some contemporary Islamic Shafi`i jurists, such as the Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa,[5][6] some Shi'a jurists such as Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri,[7] and some jurists, scholars and writers of other Islamic sects, have argued or issued fatwas that either the changing of religion is not punishable or is only punishable under restricted circumstances, but these minority opinions have not found broad acceptance among the majority of Islamic scholars.[8][9][10][11]"

What evidence do you have for your view?

This is somewhat off topic, but it speaks to the culture war that is, I think, behind the opposition to the mosque. A short examination of mainstream reporting on Muslim and non-Muslim religious issues will confirm that the problem is not limited to school texts.

The following is from http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/09/back-to-school.html

"A few days after Jesus had died on the cross and been buried, his apostles claimed that they had seen and talked with him. They believed that Jesus was indeed the messiah and had risen from the dead, or been resurrected." -- Global History and Geography: The Growth of Civilization, by Henry Brun, Lillian Forman and Herbert Brodsky, Amsco School Publications, Inc., 2008. P. 143

"Muhammad was the messenger of Allah." -- Global History and Geography: The Growth of Civilization, by Henry Brun, Lillian Forman and Herbert Brodsky, Amsco School Publications, Inc., 2008. P. 182

----------

"After the death of Jesus, his followers proclaimed that he had risen from death and had appeared to them. They believed Jesus to be the Messiah (anointed one)..." -- World History by Jackson J. Spielvogel, McGraw Hill Glencoe, 2008. P. 170

"The revelations of Allah (God) to Muhammad are written down in the Quran, or holy book of Islam." -- World History by Jackson J. Spielvogel, McGraw Hill Glencoe, 2008. P. 210

----------

"The authors of the Gospels believed Jesus was the son of God..." -- The Western Heritage Ninth Edition, by Donald Kagan, Steven Ozment and Frank M. Turner, Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007. P. 161

"[Muhammad] began to receive revelations from the angel Gabriel, who recited God's word to him at irregular intervals." -- The Western Heritage Ninth Edition, by Donald Kagan, Steven Ozment and Frank M. Turner, Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007. P. 200

Brian English:

"Other than Mayor Mike's preposterous claim that all of the 9/11 families support the mosque, do you have anything that comes close to refuting my statements?"

Apparently you do not understand how information is shared among civilized people. You have made a statistical claim; it is your responsibility, and yours alone, to substantiate it or acknowledge your blatant dishonesty. Make it good or stand down.

SDG says:
"A Hindu shrine is sacred to the Hindus because the Hindus consider it sacred"

Yes, but is it sacred to God? Is it sacred in reality? Again, I agree that proper respect should be shown for the dead and for people's feelings toward where the dead lie. But the more important the subject, the more important that we choose our words carefully.

"The objection that if nobody objected to the Park 51 mosque, why then it would be unobjectionable, may be true in a trivial, tautologous sense."

I don't know why you think I'm making that objection. Perhaps it's because I noted to Brian that it takes two to tangle, and either side could make peace. But the question I keep asking and not getting answer to is how a mosque would defile a sacred site.

"If some IRA splinter group had bombed some major London landmark and killed thousands (which never happened), and then shortly afterward (before a proper memorial on the site was even complete) an Irish Catholic group wanted to build a major Irish Catholic cultural center complete with Masses in Irish across the street, or on a site damaged by the bombing, no one would be surprised if Londoners widely took umbrage.

I think that analogy fails because the IRA was far more popular -- incomparably more popular -- among Irish Catholics than Al Queda and the like are among Muslims, American Muslims especially.

"What should be done about it is a secondary question. My main burden is simply that those taking offense are not doing so gratuitously."

You know, I don't even blame objectors for some initial feeling of anger. What I say is that the heart should be ruled by the head.

"Are you saying that most Muslims are against killing apostates?"
"Yes."

"What evidence do you have for your view?"

The fact that that the killing of apostates is not widely practiced (when is the last time we've heard of it), and that, more generally, Sharia law applies or applies fully in relatively few Muslim countries, and that there are elements within Islam who, with scholarly backing, oppose it, and are particularly popular in the West.

"Apparently you do not understand how information is shared among civilized people. You have made a statistical claim; it is your responsibility, and yours alone, to substantiate it or acknowledge your blatant dishonesty. Make it good or stand down."

Anyone who has been paying even casual attention to this issue knows that the vast majority of the 9/11 families oppose the Ground Zero Mosque. Do all? No, and that is why I used the terms "virtually all" and "the vast majority" instead of "all" and "100%".

You have adopted Mayor Bloomberg's claim that 100% of the 9/11 families support the Mosque. Your claim is absurd on its face. Either provide some evidence to support it beyond Bloomberg's nonsense or get lost.

"The fact that that the killing of apostates is not widely practiced (when is the last time we've heard of it), and that, more generally, Sharia law applies or applies fully in relatively few Muslim countries,"

Well, to begin with, a death sentence usually tends to inhibit a practice it is aimed at. When you combine that with the death penalty for non-Muslims proselytizing in Muslim lands (some Christian Evangelicals were murdered a few years ago for this in Turkey) you are not going to have many cases of conversion.

However, the Italian-Muslim journalist who was baptized by the Pope a few years ago is still in hiding. A man was actually sentenced to death in Afghanistan for converting, but was allowed to leave the country because his conversion was evidence that he was "mentally ill." There was a woman in England who had to go into hiding after her conversion because of death threats. And we just recently had the case of the Ohio girl who fled to Florida after converting to Christianity in fear that her parents would kill her.

"Sharia law applies or applies fully in relatively few Muslim countries, and that there are elements within Islam who, with scholarly backing, oppose it, and are particularly popular in the West."

I cannot think of any Muslim majority countries, outside of those in the Balkans, where it does not. Specifically with regard to the death penalty for apostasy, the "moderate" view, which is advocated by Imam Rauf's spiritual mentor, is that Muslims who convert only have to be executed if they make their conversion public. If they keep it private, they just have to be ostracized.

"This is somewhat off topic, but it speaks to the culture war that is, I think, behind the opposition to the mosque."

I think this is an element in it. Tolerance should be a two-way street.

Brian, I'll grant you that harsh penalties deter most people, but that's just a very few examples you have there, and Afghanistan hardly counts in this debate. Rauf is not attempting to set up a little Afghanistan in lower Manhattan. Which is the real point -- Sharia law has nothing to do with this proposed center.

As for how widespread Sharia law actually is -- which, again, has nothing to do with whether Rauf should build his mosque -- see "Confusion between Sharia and customary law" in wikipedia.

General comments: It is interesting that this comment thread has morphed from a discussion of Mayor Bloomberg to the true nature and perceived nature of the Cordoba Initiative project.

WSJ has a symposium up on "moderate Islam" which may be interesting to some.

http://tinyurl.com/2ebznku

SDG: Thanks for your blog series. It is balanced and gave me insight.

Ken: Victor Davis Hanson thinks that Imam Rauf is a brilliantly cynical rascal who foresaw the divisions his project would cause in this country. That he would fail to foresee this is almost unbelievable to many people. Which leads to much suspicion, especially when he then goes silent.

Because of some of the things you have written, I am starting to believe that maybe the Imam actually did not understand that his project would become a lightning rod for controversy. Although well-traveled and cosmopolitan, he may have been "cocooned" in progressive circles and in the world of diplomacy where people see the UN as a vehicle for progress and understanding. Dennis Prager talks about the odd "provincialism" of cosmopolitan progressives which leads them to believe that no educated person of good will could have views which conflicted with theirs.

Perhaps the people around Imam Rauf are so used to dismissing the views of, say, American conservatives that they just fail to consider them at all. And the idea of outlawing criticism of religion (specifically Islam) seems to be under discussion in the UN. Which makes the current criticisms and questions about Imam Rauf seem beyond the pale to some who inhabit his world. A few clues to a progressive mind-set which may have led Imam Rauf to believe that there would be little important opposition to this project:

" ' The more important the ground, the more potent the symbols that stand there.'

EXACTLY! ---

So let's have a symbol that radical Islam is not true Islam, and that true Islam is a religion of peace. "

The idea that this complex, with a movie theater, swimming pool and "prayer space" would serve as a potent, well-accepted symbol of the peace of "true Islam" seems incredibly naive to me. Even though this idea is very appealing. The strength of the memories (and I would add, the visual imagery) connected to this place also lead some prominent Muslims to oppose the location of this complex.

Opposition by prominent Muslim scholars in Egypt includes objection to the permanent connection between Islam and 9/11 plus the idea that this project is a "Zionist plot". Which could be a natural assumption, given the progressive Christian and Jewish backing for this project.

Frankly, one of the reasons the location of this project distresses me is that I can easily imagine a radical Islamist attacking this very high-profile, "iconic" complex or its proponents in the future. There have been numerous attacks on worshipers in mosques overseas for perceived lack of doctrinal purity. We don't need more grief at or around Ground Zero.

On the other hand, the project is supported by Hamas and affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood. I can't say why. But it bothers me. Did Imam Rauf foresee rejection by "establishment" Muslim scholars and acceptance by proponents of terror tactics? Many of Rauf's critics would have predicted this.

You quoted the Imam's wife: "They want to say, 'we Muslims mourn this tragedy and want the world to know that terrorism no more represents true Islam than Naziism represents Christianity.' And the more you oppose them, the more they see it as necessary to say that, and to say it will it will have maximum symbolic value.

She has said: "That it's so close to the tragedy, that its close proximity is very symbolic for the fact that we really want to reverse what happened on 9/11."

She has also said: "No one should be asked to leave their neighborhood. This is our neighborhood and we’ve been part of it for 27 years. Our opponents are not from this neighborhood…We were shut down for four weeks after 9/11. The sad part was that we felt victimized like everyone else in New York because it was our city that was attacked but we were never given permission to mourn.' "

From these quotes, I see suggestions of the provincialism mentioned above. And the naive, but touching, conviction that they can "reverse what happened on 9/11" in people's minds. Plus the concentration on therapeutic religion which is common in progressive circles, in "we felt victimized like everyone else in New York because it was our city that was attacked but we were never given permission to mourn." From whom did they need permission to mourn?

The connection with Riverside Church gelled my thoughts. Many of the themes in Imam Rauf's work would be very similar to those espoused by the Christians at Riverside Church. Why would he need to "build bridges" to Christians outside the progressive churches?

Aaron: Thanks for your response. I guess it's time for someone to read his book. Perhaps one reason that many tend to interpret what Imam Rauf says in negative ways is that he seems to be trying harder to "build bridges" with organizations known to support terror tactics than with Americans outside the Progressive Intellectual Set. Allowing two such groups to publish his book becomes worrisome to people who perceive that they have been summarily labeled as xenophobic bigots and dismissed.

I did watch a fascinating video in which Imam Rauf discusses his book. In the video, he reveals his discovery of common themes in the Declaration of Independence and the thoughts of an important Muslim philosopher. I can see how people would decide that he is a fount of intriguing, sophisticated happy-talk before Western audiences, and a suspiciously unknown quantity before Muslim audiences. For example, when he mentions equality of men and women, there is cognitive dissonance between the stories people hear about the treatment of women in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia and what the Imam says are the philosophical underpinnings of Islam. What does he say in countries where equality of women seems to be far from reality? Most people don't have any clue, but they suspect from his past statements that he is probably i more "diplomatic" than forthright.

Because of the theoretical similarities he sees in the philosophies behind America and Islam, he deems America "Sharia-compliant". The idea of a "Sharia index" for Western countries rankles, especially when people see brutality justified by Sharia in certain countries or the demands made by Muslims in Europe (closing streets for Friday prayers, forcing cancelations of regional wine and sausage festivals, "no-go" areas for police, etc).

Imam Rauf's idea of Sharia in America may not place such demands on the larger society. But how would the casual observer know that? And how would other Muslims interpret a favorable "Sharia Index"? What would his views mean in other Western countries? Did the Imam expect to be accepted as the leader of an iconic symbol of the reversal of 9/11 with no questions by the larger American society?

He is rather charismatic. But sometimes charismatic people get themselves into trouble over the long haul by being charismatic and surrounding themselves with people charmed by their charisma.

Karen T writes:
"WSJ has a symposium up on "moderate Islam" which may be interesting to some."

Thanks for posting that. I'll take a look at it.

"Victor Davis Hanson thinks that Imam Rauf is a brilliantly cynical rascal who foresaw the divisions his project would cause in this country. That he would fail to foresee this is almost unbelievable to many people. Which leads to much suspicion, especially when he then goes silent."

My first response to this is to ask why conservatives are always so darn suspicious. My second is to ask what Hanson thinks Rauf's motives would be then.

"Perhaps the people around Imam Rauf are so used to dismissing the views of, say, American conservatives that they just fail to consider them at all."

I think both Left and Right usually dismiss each other's views as beyond the pale. Do you disagree?

"The idea that this complex, with a movie theater, swimming pool and "prayer space" would serve as a potent, well-accepted symbol of the peace of "true Islam" seems incredibly naive to me."

What is it about those elements of the complex that strikes you as inimical to peace? It's supposed to be a community center, for pete's sake.

"Opposition by prominent Muslim scholars in Egypt includes objection to the permanent connection between Islam and 9/11 plus the idea that this project is a "Zionist plot". Which could be a natural assumption, given the progressive Christian and Jewish backing for this project."

Jeepers, the Jews are to blame when they oppose militant Islam, and to blame when they support moderate Islam. I suggest that First Things may a Muslim front group. Give me a minute and I'll come up with a reason why.

"Frankly, one of the reasons the location of this project distresses me is that I can easily imagine a radical Islamist attacking this very high-profile, "iconic" complex or its proponents in the future."

There is that legitimate concern, and then there is the concern that rejecting the center will also bring Islamist wrath.

"On the other hand, the project is supported by Hamas and affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood. I can't say why."

Good public relations, perhaps. And likewise, Rauf wants to be a bridge builder to other Muslims as well.

"From these quotes, I see suggestions of the provincialism mentioned above. And the naive, but touching, conviction that they can "reverse what happened on 9/11" in people's minds. Plus the concentration on therapeutic religion which is common in progressive circles, in "we felt victimized like everyone else in New York because it was our city that was attacked but we were never given permission to mourn." From whom did they need permission to mourn?"

Naive, yes, if you think she means she can literally reverse all the damage. I, on the other hand, just assume she's reasonably sensible and just means she hopes to help with the healing. It's as if shes saying, "see most of us really don't hate you, and your pain is our pain." But objectors are too suspicious to believe it. And that suspicion>hostility can be very pleasurable, can't it? I ask again, why has there been no outcry against the sex shops and against (quoting from Salon) " the launch this Sunday of the $8 million "9-11 Christian Center at Ground Zero," created by a pastor who assails Muslims as pedophiles and gay people as perverts and who has a history of trying to profit from political controversies. The pastor, internet evangelist Bill Keller, is starting services this Sunday at a site just two blocks away from the former World Trade Center site"?

" I'll grant you that harsh penalties deter most people, but that's just a very few examples you have there, and Afghanistan hardly counts in this debate."

What about the ban on proselytizing? And isn't the fact that Muslim countries have these laws, regardless of how often they have to be enforced, a real problem? And why doesn't Afghanistan count? This took place under the "Westernized" government in power now, not the Taliban.


"-- Sharia law has nothing to do with this proposed center."

Are you aware of Imam Rauf's Sharia Index project?

"see "Confusion between Sharia and customary law" in wikipedia. "

Yes, I am well aware of the claim that the harsher elements of sharia are often claimed to be Arab customs, not an actual part of Islam. However, since these elements are based upon verses in the Quran and canonical Hadithas, and are also found in non-Arab Muslim countries, I do not find the argument convincing.

Ken,

"Yes, but is it sacred to God? Is it sacred in reality?"

"In reality" is a slippery phrase. What I am saying is precisely that sacredness or set-apart-ness is polyvalent. It takes different forms and can be used in different senses. "Holiness" is not a word that univocally means "set apart by God."

In the most absolute sense, only God himself is holy, since God is wholly set-apart or other in a sense that applies to nothing else in existence.

In a secondary sense, God sets apart for himself aspects of his creation. This secondary sense turns out to subdivide into multiple senses. For example, God's people are holy because they are set apart, and are called to an additional sort of holiness of behavior that is inapplicable to the holiness of e.g. holy artifacts like the ark of the covenant or the accouterments of the tabernacle). Additionally, certain people may be holy in a sense above and beyond the holiness of God's people, and this too comes in different flavors. For instance, there is the temporary holiness of the man consecrated by a Nazirite vow, and the more enduring holiness of the Levites.

Note that while the holiness of the people, the land and the Levites was all God's prerogative, the choice to take a Nazirite vow is a man's own choice. God provides the rules, but a man chooses to consecrate himself in this way or not.

I don't know whether an exhaustive search of all instances of consecration or making-holy in the Bible would turn up any instances of things being consecrated or declared holy by man's own initiative without special divine provision. I do know that many Christians unhesitatingly use the language of holiness for things and people that we have consecrated to God on our own initiative.

The line is not always easy to draw. Holy Communion, of course, is holy by God's own provision, not ours. Jesus told us to celebrate communion, so we have his provision for that. But when we do so, we must use e.g. some particular cup or chalice to hold the wine. The cup is thus used for God's service by God's provision. In that moment, certainly, the chalice fulfills a sacred function. Although there is no divine law that says we can't then turn around and use the same chalice to swig Dr. Pepper or Guinness, almost anywhere you go churches of all stripes will have vessels that are used solely for communion. They may or may not call them holy vessels, but in fact they are set apart for holy use. Certainly Catholics and Orthodox would not hesitate to call them holy vessels.

Likewise, Catholics and Orthodox easily speak of a host of other things and people that we have consecrated to God's service on our own initiative: church buildings, vestments, holy water, holy medals, holy images, holy cards, consecrated religious, etc. You asked above "Are they sacred to God?" They are set apart for God by his people. I call that sacred. We can call it a tertiary sort of holiness, if you like.

Then there's the whole business of relics. The holiness of the saints themselves, of course, is a holiness conferred by God. And it has been God's prerogative to perform miracles through relics of the saints, e.g., bringing to life the dead man who came into contact with Elijah's bones, and healing people through handkerchiefs coming from the apostles. If God chooses to work through a handkerchief to perform a miracle of healing, and if this becomes known so that people carry handkerchiefs away from the apostles for the express purpose of transmitting God's healing power, are the handkerchiefs holy? Not in the same sense as the saints themselves, of course. Who are in turn not holy in the same sense as God himself!

The Sabbath was holy because it was set apart by God. The New Testament contains glimmers that Christians had begun to observe the Lord's Day on the first day of the week. Is Sunday a holy day? It is set apart for God's service, not without some sort of indication in sacred scripture, but without any evident divine command.

Then there are things that are set apart on human initiative, but in some way in fulfillment of a moral precept and in a way that is not separate from religion or piety. The duty to honor the dead and to return their bodies to God in a suitable way is a duty we have before God. Burying the dead is one way of discharging this duty, and a way with scriptural warrant. To regard graveyards as no different from any other plot of land might not be intrinsically immoral, but extrinsically nearly all cultures that bury their dead consider our duty regarding the dead to entail setting apart the places where they are buried.

This sort of set-apart-ness crops up all over the place. Marriage is sacred because God says so. My wedding ring is set apart as a symbol of my sacred union to my wife. For me to casually sell my wedding ring at a garage sale tomorrow, or toss it away, would be a scandalous and shameful act -- not intrinsically, because God has commanded otherwise, but extrinsically, because of the intersubjective meaning conferred on my ring, meaning not determined by me and which is not mine to alter at will.

It is possible to mistake one kind of sacredness for another, or to be mistaken about the sacred significance of something in some other way. A straightforward example would be Mecca, which is set apart in Muslim belief for God's service, but which is not in any way affiliated with God's actual actions in history and which is in fact set apart in a way and a context that is contrary to His will. Here we reach a decisive break: Mecca is holy to the Muslims, but it is not holy to God. We can call this illusory sacredness, and a Christian could meaningfully say that Muslims regard Mecca as sacred through it is not in fact (i.e., to God).

A more complicated case would be the Temple mount, which is sacred to the Jews. This is ultimately rooted in God's own choice, but the situation is complicated by their error in not recognizing Jesus as the fulfillment of the Temple and God's desire in our day to be worshiped not on one mountain or another but in spirit and in truth. One might not want to say that the Temple mount is not sacred at all, but we can say that the Jews of today are mistaken about the sacredness of the Temple mount.

Then there are things that are "set apart" by custom, culture and heritage, and recognized as such, from the Taj Mahal to the canons of baseball. The language of "hallowed" and "sacred" is used here as well, in a metaphorical sense we can say, or an analogical one, I'm not sure it makes much difference. Then again, the Taj Mahal is the architectural expression both of a man honoring his dead wife and of his love for his wife. In a way, it combines the sacredness of burying the dead with that of a wedding ring. I could make an argument for baseball too, but my gosh, I've spent too much time here already.

At any rate, the sacredness of Ground Zero is closest to that of a graveyard or a battlefield. It is set apart in a way that is culturally necessary, not arbitrary; we cannot disavow its set-apart status without ceasing to be who we are. Whether by metaphor or analogy, it is sacred ground.

"But the question I keep asking and not getting answer to is how a mosque would defile a sacred site."

How would weekly volleyball tournaments defile a sacred site? If the head isn't getting the memo from the chest then I'm not sure how to help.

Does it help to ratchet up the offense? Can you see why people physically at Ground Zero might reasonably feel affronted to look up and see a pro-Islam billboard like the one I described earlier, or to be accosted (politely of course) on the way into and out of the memorial by a Muslim street apologist handing out tracts? When even Bloomberg says it's reasonable to ask for sensitivity, can you see that there's something to be sensitive ABOUT?

A major Islamic center with the star and crescent flying over ground hit by airplane parts on 9/11 conveys an inescapable subtext of triumphalism in an intersubjective framework that neither you nor I nor Rauf owns or is able to change at will. It's true that ON OUR SIDE the World Trade Center was not our Temple or our church or our Hagia Sophia, but TO OUR ENEMIES it -- along with the Pentagon and the White House or the Congress or whatever else they were trying to hit -- was probably in a way the analog in godless America to the churches and temples in religious cultures that gave way to mosques.

Saying "Should we care what the terrorists would have thought, or what terrorist sympathizers in the Arab world may think?" isn't much less pointless than saying "Of course what Aunt Mabel would have wanted isn't really a consideration at her funeral since she's dead and doesn't care now." We can't help thinking and caring about it because we're human beings.

Bottom line: If something is offensive enough to enough people, then it's offensive, even if Vulcan-style cogitating on the matter yields unsatisfying results. While it may sometimes be necessary for the sake of a principle of conscience that cannot be sacrificed to give offense to many people, this does not appear to be one of those times.

"I think that analogy fails because the IRA was far more popular -- incomparably more popular -- among Irish Catholics than Al Queda and the like are among Muslims, American Muslims especially."

Um, wow. That seems an outrageously incredible take, except for the last three words. Not to mention the other disanalogies I pointed out which all make the Irish Catholic center in London FAR LESS offensive: the IRA were "Catholic" only by heritage, not by practice or conviction; the entire Catholic world from the Pope down would condemn such an act as utterly antithetical to Catholicism in a way that the Muslim world has not and cannot condemn 9/11; not to mention the fact that the crushing weight of Catholic moral tradition would back up the Pope and the rest of the Catholic world in a way that the weight of Muslim tradition does not clearly back up peaceful Muslims who condemn violence.

Are you actually claiming that an Irish Catholic center at or near the site of a London IRA bombing would be MORE problematic than an Islamic center at or near Ground Zero? Because if you are, then I think there may not be much point in discussing any further.

"You know, I don't even blame objectors for some initial feeling of anger. What I say is that the heart should be ruled by the head."

That's a half truth, which taken in isolation produces men without chests. The other half is that the heart has its reasons whereof reason knows nothing -- and that much, at least, reason can and should know. Certainly making decisions based on purely rationalistic considerations as if we were only heads and not hearts is an inhuman -- in fact, an irrational -- way to live.

"The fact that that the killing of apostates is not widely practiced (when is the last time we've heard of it)"

If apostates are not killed largely because they are closeted, that is not a compelling argument. I would like to see representative evidence of apostates living openly in Muslim majority countries uncontroversially not being killed before being convinced.

"How would weekly volleyball tournaments defile a sacred site? If the head isn't getting the memo from the chest then I'm not sure how to help."

I'm sorry, but by that absurd logic nothing should be built on that entire site at all except for a memorial. And _still_ I get no answer as to why you guys aren't up in arms about the sex shops and the church by the hateful pastor.

"Can you see why people physically at Ground Zero might reasonably feel affronted to look up and see a pro-Islam billboard like the one I described earlier, or to be accosted (politely of course) on the way into and out of the memorial by a Muslim street apologist handing out tracts?"

I can see two adequate reasons. One, they don't understand that the beliefs that spurred those extremists to hit those towers are anathema to most Muslims. Two, they don't want to know or don't care, and are bigots. You keep talking about feelings -- their feelings are directed towards the wrong target.

"A major Islamic center with the star and crescent flying over ground hit by airplane parts on 9/11 conveys an inescapable subtext of triumphalism"

Again, that would be so to our enemies, and to our enemies alone. Let's not let their feelings, of all things, dictate our policy. Let's be bigger than they are and live up to our highest ideals, welcoming the (relative) stranger. Let's not base policy on making sure no one can laugh at us. Let's show people with eyes to see that there is nothing to laugh at.

"I think that analogy fails because the IRA was far more popular -- incomparably more popular -- among Irish Catholics than Al Queda and the like are among Muslims, American Muslims especially."

"Are you actually claiming that an Irish Catholic center at or near the site of a London IRA bombing would be MORE problematic than an Islamic center at or near Ground Zero?"

I'm really not interested in considering it and arguing it in depth. My point was that Irish Catholics by and large supported the IRA.

"You know, I don't even blame objectors for some initial feeling of anger. What I say is that the heart should be ruled by the head."

That's a half truth, which taken in isolation produces men without chests. The other half is that the heart has its reasons whereof reason knows nothing -- and that much, at least, reason can and should know. Certainly making decisions based on purely rationalistic considerations as if we were only heads and not hearts is an inhuman -- in fact, an irrational -- way to live.

You've got ahold of this Lewis metaphor and you seem determined to to fit me into it. The heart has its reasons

At the end of my last post I'd meant to write

You've got ahold of this Lewis metaphor and you seem determined to to fit me into it. The heart has its reasons, yes, which in fact reason can discover. But in any case, here's what the heart should say to the head: "love your neighbor. Forgive him. And if he asks you to go one mile with him, go another."

"Are you aware of Imam Rauf's Sharia Index project?"

Yes, "it evolves around the right balance between institutions of political power and authority and institutions of religious power and authority, and whether the modern nation state Muslims live in should be a secular or religious (i.e. Islamic) State?"

Rauf lives in a non-Muslim state, where Sharia is not law. I think that's a clue to his own answer.


"I am well aware of the claim that the harsher elements of sharia are often claimed to be Arab customs, not an actual part of Islam. However, since these elements are based upon verses in the Quran and canonical Hadithas, and are also found in non-Arab Muslim countries, I do not find the argument convincing."

The pertinent question is not what you think true Islam is, it's what those who practice it think it is.

"Rauf lives in a non-Muslim state, where Sharia is not law. I think that's a clue to his own answer."

He is definitely a man with some big plans.

"The pertinent question is not what you think true Islam is, it's what those who practice it think it is."

What is your point? Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, who Imam Rauf calls “the most well-known legal authority in the whole Muslim world today,” believes that apostates from Islam should be executed if they make their conversion publicly known. Apparently, that is part of Islam, not a some type of Arab custom. Are you okay with that?

"How would weekly volleyball tournaments defile a sacred site? If the head isn't getting the memo from the chest then I'm not sure how to help."
"I'm sorry, but by that absurd logic nothing should be built on that entire site at all except for a memorial."

The point wasn't logic, absurd or otherwise, but intuition, which is how people generally recognize desecration -- or don't. The heart, not the head. As for your reductio, the pieces to answer it are all on the table.

"And _still_ I get no answer as to why you guys aren't up in arms about the sex shops and the church by the hateful pastor."

What exactly do you mean by "up in arms"? I haven't taken any action against Cordoba House. All I've done is enter a discussion that I saw muddled on both sides by too much heat and not enough light and try to bring some clarity. Among other things, I've defended the thesis that it is reasonable to oppose the mosque against people saying the opposite. I'm against sex shops and hate churches too, but nobody is telling me I'm a bad person for being against them, so I haven't felt the need to defend that thesis at length.

"I can see two adequate reasons. One, they don't understand that the beliefs that spurred those extremists to hit those towers are anathema to most Muslims. Two, they don't want to know or don't care, and are bigots."

Good gosh. You actually mean to say that only ignorance or bigotry could explain a visitor to the Ground Zero memorial finding it inappropriate for someone to hand him a pro-Islam tract on his way out of the Ground Zero memorial?????? I'm sorry, I'm just at a loss to wrap my head around how anyone could say that. (On this accounting, Bloomberg's comments about "sensitivity" would seem to be much ado about nothing. We don't usually call for sensitivity to bigots.)

It must be wrapped up with your determination to see the terrorists as motivated by beliefs that are "anathema to most Muslims." FWIW, according to recent Pew data, as of 2005 suicide attacks against civilians was considered justifiable "often or sometimes" by large percentages of Muslims in Morocco (56%), Jordan (49%), Lebanon (49%), Pakistan (29%), Indonesia (26%) and Turkey (24%).

Although those numbers are trending down, as of 2006 opposition to suicide attacks against civilians as "never" justified was NOT the majority view in Jordan (11%), Lebanon (33%) or Pakistan (46%). In Indonesia and Turkey, fully 2/3 in 2006 said terrorist violence was "never" justified. In Morocco, opinions reversed sharply in a short time, from majority support for terrorism to strong opposition (79% opposition vs. 13% support).

In sum, even in the more terrorist-unfriendly countries substantial minorities -- 13% to 15% -- still support terrorist violence against civilians. To say nothing of the much larger percentages or even majorities who support terrorism in the more terrorist-friendly countries, and the minorities who actually oppose it.

I would be interested in whatever evidence you might cite for your claim that the terrorists' motivating beliefs are "anathema to most Muslims."

""A major Islamic center with the star and crescent flying over ground hit by airplane parts on 9/11 conveys an inescapable subtext of triumphalism"
"Again, that would be so to our enemies, and to our enemies alone."

Clearly false. Many Americans immediately apprehended exactly the same subtext based on nothing more than the words "mosque near Ground Zero." That's the nature of intersubjective frameworks: We all participate in them, but no one controls them.

"You've got ahold of this Lewis metaphor and you seem determined to to fit me into it."

Not necessarily you personally, but it does seem to me (I could be wrong) to be in the tenor of your arguments here.

"But in any case, here's what the heart should say to the head: 'love your neighbor. Forgive him. And if he asks you to go one mile with him, go another.'"

So if I ask Rauf to move his mosque a mile, he should move it two miles?

I would be happy to forgive Rauf, if I had anything against him. I would be happy to go with him one mile or two; I would be happy to buy him lunch and, heck, in principle I would literally swing a hammer on an honest-to-God mosque in an appropriate spot. (Building it. Not wrecking it!)

But I'm also called to love all my neighbors, including those whom I believe are right to object to the mosque. Supporting Rauf over their legitimate objections would be failing in love toward them.

Victor Davis Hanson thinks that Imam Rauf is a brilliantly cynical rascal who foresaw the divisions his project would cause in this country. That he would fail to foresee this is almost unbelievable to many people. Which leads to much suspicion, especially when he then goes silent.

"My first response to this is to ask why conservatives are always so darn suspicious."

One answer from VDH - they don't feel that they have the luxury to pursue utopian dreams. Page 2 here:
http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/america—behind-the-mosque/

"My second is to ask what Hanson thinks Rauf's motives would be then." You can read what he says below. Maybe Rauf will come back to calm the controversy as the "healer". Just a guess.
http://tinyurl.com/2col5sa
http://tinyurl.com/2fnfzzr

"I think both Left and Right usually dismiss each other's views as beyond the pale. Do you disagree?" Maybe Charles Krauthammer comes closer - Conservatives tend to think individual liberals are stupid, inexperienced or misguided and liberals tend to think individual conservatives are evil (even though conservatives themselves call Republicans the "stupid party"). In any case, the pervasiveness of liberal or progressive thought in education, professional associations, the media, etc. makes it hard for conservatives to "dismiss" liberal or progressive thought. They live with it every day.

The idea that this complex, with a movie theater, swimming pool and "prayer space" would serve as a potent, well-accepted symbol of the peace of "true Islam" seems incredibly naive to me.

'What is it about those elements of the complex that strikes you as inimical to peace? It's supposed to be a community center, for pete's sake.'

I did not say they were inimical to peace. I was referring to the overly-optimistic, utopian nature of early statements concerning the complex. There is nothing "iconic" about swimming pools and movie theaters, yet the complex was initially presented as a powerful iconic symbol of peace.

'Jeepers, the Jews are to blame when they oppose militant Islam, and to blame when they support moderate Islam. . . . "

Agreed. The point is whether Imam Rauf was prepared to "build bridges" with these prominent establishment Muslim scholars after consulting with Jews and Christians concerning his project.

Frankly, one of the reasons the location of this project distresses me is that I can easily imagine a radical Islamist attacking this very high-profile, "iconic" complex or its proponents in the future.

"There is that legitimate concern, and then there is the concern that rejecting the center will also bring Islamist wrath."

Agreed. This was really a risky idea however it turns out.

From these quotes, I see suggestions of the provincialism mentioned above. And the naive, but touching, conviction that they can "reverse what happened on 9/11" in people's minds. Plus the concentration on therapeutic religion which is common in progressive circles, in "we felt victimized like everyone else in New York because it was our city that was attacked but we were never given permission to mourn." From whom did they need permission to mourn?

"Naive, yes, if you think she means she can literally reverse all the damage. I, on the other hand, just assume she's reasonably sensible and just means she hopes to help with the healing. It's as if shes saying, "see most of us really don't hate you, and your pain is our pain." But objectors are too suspicious to believe it. And that suspicion>hostility can be very pleasurable, can't it? "

Again, the point is the grandiosity or utopianism behind the statement, not the sincerity of her sentiment. I think it is naive even though I don't think she believes she can literally reverse the damage. "Hoping to help with the healing" would have been a much more reasonable statement. I am not suspicious or hostile concerning that statement. I just don't think she's being realistic. Why do you suspect that I would find pleasure in her pain? Do you think conservatives are necessarily motivated by hostility? Why the bigotry?

"I ask again, why has there been no outcry against the sex shops and against (quoting from Salon) " the launch this Sunday of the $8 million "9-11 Christian Center at Ground Zero," created by a pastor who assails Muslims as pedophiles and gay people as perverts and who has a history of trying to profit from political controversies. The pastor, internet evangelist Bill Keller, is starting services this Sunday at a site just two blocks away from the former World Trade Center site"?"

I had no clue that this jerk was planning to open up this so-called "Christian Center at Ground Zero". Is he trying to profit from the political controversy surrounding the mosque, or was this in the works earlier? Is he trying to test the Mayor's resolve concerning "separation of church and state" or something? Seems really stupid and counter-productive to me. And somewhat dangerous.

Concerning the sex shops, I expect that conservatives would much prefer more dignified surroundings. The delays in the Ground Zero memorial have allow the area to deteriorate. But the "powers that be" are not making a big deal over supporting constitutional rights to sex shops at Ground Zero. And nobody associates sex shops with the searing images of 9/11.

Brian English:

"Anyone who has been paying even casual attention to this issue knows that the vast majority of the 9/11 families oppose the Ground Zero Mosque."

I give up. If you think that whatever media-selected sample of opinions you have encountered adequately expresses the consensus of a group of tens of thousands of people (most of whom have never been asked for their thoughts), you are a fool; if not, you are an unrepentant liar, as anyone who has been paying even casual attention to this exchange can attest by now. Either way, your false claim to adequately represent their opinions is a shameful one.

"You have adopted Mayor Bloomberg's claim that 100% of the 9/11 families support the Mosque."

No, his statement was that 100% of the 9/11 families he, personally, had met, in his capacity as chairman of the Memorial Foundation, supported his position. I asked you some time ago just how many you knew, but, by now, am beyond hoping for an answer, and feel reasonably sure that my own guess is an accurate one.

Brian English, Joe -- and Not Saint Nicholas, despite his unnecessarily inflammatory rhetoric -- are right. Your claim was sweeping and repeatedly made. You need to have something better to back it up, or you need to retract it. Personally, I suspect you overstated your case and should backtrack accordingly.

Thanks, SDG. For the record, Joe and NSN are one and the same (me). Too many online nicknames, not enough attention span; better to stick with the real one, I think.

" If you think that whatever media-selected sample of opinions you have encountered adequately expresses the consensus of a group of tens of thousands of people"

Putting aside the fact (which you try to discount by asserting it is media-selected) that the family members who have spoken out are heavily opposed to the Mosque, since 70% of Americans in general oppose the Mosque, you seriously believe that the 9-11 families are not at least at 70% opposition, with the likelihood being that the opposition is much higher in that group that had its loved ones murdered?

What I find shameful is that you are sitting here trying to claim that Bloomberg is right about 100% of the families are in favor of the Mosque when you acknowledge the media is filled with statements by family members opposing the Mosque.

"No, his statement was that 100% of the 9/11 families he, personally, had met, in his capacity as chairman of the Memorial Foundation, supported his position. I asked you some time ago just how many you knew, but, by now, am beyond hoping for an answer, and feel reasonably sure that my own guess is an accurate one. "

And as I pointed out to you, Bloomberg didn't say whether he had spoken to two families, five families, ten families, or one-hundred families in arriving at his 100% claim.

Since I am capable of reading and hearing, I do not have to actually interview people in person to understand their opinions. Once again, I am confident in my position that the overwhelming majority of the 9/11 families oppose the Mosque. Have you come up with anything other than Bloomberg's self-serving statement to refute my view?

JC/NSN: YW.

If I had read more carefully, I might have added the qualification that BOTH of your handles engaged in unnecessarily inflammatory rhetoric ... and if I had thought about it, I might have guessed you might be one and the same. You are right on the substantial point but there are better ways to correct someone, even someone who resists correction, than throwing around charges of "blatant dishonesty" and "fool" / "unrepentant liar" dilemmas.

"Brian English, Joe -- and Not Saint Nicholas, despite his unnecessarily inflammatory rhetoric -- are right. Your claim was sweeping and repeatedly made. You need to have something better to back it up, or you need to retract it. Personally, I suspect you overstated your case and should backtrack accordingly."

I did not realize this board operated under junior-high debate team rules.

In any event, I stand by my statement based on everything I have read, heard and watched regarding this issue. If I had claimed that I did a scientific poll of all the 9/11 families and that is how I arrived at my conclusion, that would be a different matter.

One can express conclusions based on knowledge combined with common sense. If Joe/Not Santa Claus or you have anything that shows my conclusion is incorrect, let me see it. Denying it is correct because I cannot produce a poll of all the 9/11 families is ridiculous. Come up with some substantive proof.

"Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, who Imam Rauf calls “the most well-known legal authority in the whole Muslim world today,” believes that apostates from Islam should be executed if they make their conversion publicly known. Apparently, that is part of Islam, not a some type of Arab custom. Are you okay with that?"

Nothing I've said should make you even have to wonder if I'm okay with that.

Good grief, Brian. Now you sound as much like a space alien as Ken finding it hard to fathom why anyone but the bigoted or ignorant could possibly be offended by a big Islamic proselytism billboard visible from Ground Zero.

Your high-school debate team is laughably off the mark. It is green, juvenile debaters who make sweepingly authoritative statements about "the vast majority" of this or that without having real evidence. Hard-headed grown-ups experienced in the give and take of ideas qualify their statements appropriately with clauses like "Everything I've seen suggests that..." or "I think I can safely conclude that..."

Incidentally, I also agree with JC/NSN that such sweepingly authoritative declarations about What the Families Want is not only presumptuous, but shameful in leveraging the grief of others in defense of a proposition without actually knowing their views. If you feel that their grief merits respect, you should start by showing some yourself.

P.S. The reason that hard-headed grown-ups experienced in the give and take of ideas qualify their statements appropriately is that they've learned to do so from the repeated experience of realizing that what they thought they knew wasn't so after all. When people brashly assert conclusions drawn from impressionistic evidence as if they were established facts on the ground, and only dig in their heels when called on it, it does makes one wonder if they have sufficient experience in the give and take of ideas to have learned lesson one, their own fallibility.

"Your high-school debate team is laughably off the mark. It is green, juvenile debaters who make sweepingly authoritative statements about "the vast majority" of this or that without having real evidence. Hard-headed grown-ups experienced in the give and take of ideas qualify their statements appropriately with clauses like "Everything I've seen suggests that..." or "I think I can safely conclude that..."

We are not having a formal debate here. That was the point of my reference. If it makes you and Joe feel better, I hereby amend all of my statements above to include your qualifying language.

Now that we have that settled, do you or Joe have anything to refute my position beyond Mayor Mike's self-serving statement?

"Incidentally, I also agree with JC/NSN that such sweepingly authoritative declarations about What the Families Want is not only presumptuous, but shameful in leveraging the grief of others in defense of a proposition without actually knowing their views. If you feel that their grief merits respect, you should start by showing some yourself. "

So unless I do a survey of everyone who lost a family member on 9/11 to determine what their position position is, I cannot express my view on what the majority position is, regardless of how many statements I have read or interviews I have watched? Sorry Steve, you are the one who sounds like the space alien now.

SDG says:
"How would weekly volleyball tournaments defile a sacred site? If the head isn't getting the memo from the chest then I'm not sure how to help."
"I'm sorry, but by that absurd logic nothing should be built on that entire site at all except for a memorial."

The point wasn't logic, absurd or otherwise, but intuition, which is how people generally recognize desecration -- or don't."

Perhaps you should be a little less certain. I don't think either healthy group recreation or piety desecrates anything.

"And _still_ I get no answer as to why you guys aren't up in arms about the sex shops and the church by the hateful pastor."

"I'm against sex shops and hate churches too, but nobody is telling me I'm a bad person for being against them, so I haven't felt the need to defend that thesis at length."

I, for one, am certainly not telling you your a bad person, but if it's desecration you guys are concerned about, it's strange that vice has not upset you like Muslim piety has.

"I can see two adequate reasons. One, they don't understand that the beliefs that spurred those extremists to hit those towers are anathema to most Muslims. Two, they don't want to know or don't care, and are bigots."

"Good gosh. You actually mean to say that only ignorance or bigotry could explain"

One doesn't have to be ignorant not to understand. I don't understand the opponents' feelings in your opinion. Are you therefore presuming I'm ignorant? That's a rhetorical question you needn't answer unless you want to. My point is that people can look at all the facts and misunderstand them, giving too much weight to some and too little to others.

"I would be interested in whatever evidence you might cite for your claim that the terrorists' motivating beliefs are "anathema to most Muslims."

From the Christian Science Monitor in 2007: "Those who think that Muslim countries and pro-terrorist attitudes go hand-in-hand might be shocked by new polling research: Americans are more approving of terrorist attacks against civilians than any major Muslim country except for Nigeria.

The survey, conducted in December 2006 by the University of Maryland's prestigious Program on International Public Attitudes, shows that only 46 percent of Americans think that "bombing and other attacks intentionally aimed at civilians" are "never justified," while 24 percent believe these attacks are "often or sometimes justified."

Contrast those numbers with 2006 polling results from the world's most-populous Muslim countries – Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria. Terror Free Tomorrow, the organization I lead, found that 74 percent of respondents in Indonesia agreed that terrorist attacks are "never justified"; in Pakistan, that figure was 86 percent; in Bangladesh, 81 percent.

. . . . .

"Terror Free Tomorrow's 20-plus surveys of Muslim countries in the past two years reveal another surprise: Even among the minority who indicated support for terrorist attacks and Osama bin Laden, most overwhelmingly approved of specific American actions in their own countries. For example, 71 percent of bin Laden supporters in Indonesia and 79 percent in Pakistan said they thought more favorably of the United States as a result of American humanitarian assistance in their countries – not exactly the profile of hard-core terrorist sympathizers. For most people, their professed support of terrorism/bin Laden can be more accurately characterized as a kind of "protest vote" against current US foreign policies, not as a deeply held religious conviction or even an inherently anti- American or anti-Western view."

""A major Islamic center with the star and crescent flying over ground hit by airplane parts on 9/11 conveys an inescapable subtext of triumphalism"
"Again, that would be so to our enemies, and to our enemies alone."

Clearly false. Many Americans immediately apprehended exactly the same subtext based on nothing more than the words "mosque near Ground Zero." That's the nature of intersubjective frameworks: We all participate in them, but no one controls them."

Did they apprehend it or did they choose to think of it that way? Is the glass half empty or half full? We participate in groupthink, but we step back, evaluate that thinking, and think for ourselves.

"But in any case, here's what the heart should say to the head: 'love your neighbor. Forgive him. And if he asks you to go one mile with him, go another.'"

So if I ask Rauf to move his mosque a mile, he should move it two miles?"

As I said to Brian, it may well be time for Rauf to throw in the towel, but that would be a second tragedy. Far better for you folks, the actual Christians here, to be gracious.

But I'm also called to love all my neighbors, including those whom I believe are right to object to the mosque."

If they're right, that's your duty, certainly. IF.

Karen T, you make some excellent points, and thanks for the links. I'll concentrate on what I disagree with.

"I think both Left and Right usually dismiss each other's views as beyond the pale. Do you disagree?" Maybe Charles Krauthammer comes closer - Conservatives tend to think individual liberals are stupid, inexperienced or misguided and liberals tend to think individual conservatives are evil (even though conservatives themselves call Republicans the "stupid party"). In any case, the pervasiveness of liberal or progressive thought in education, professional associations, the media, etc. makes it hard for conservatives to "dismiss" liberal or progressive thought. They live with it every day."

I think of Krauthammer as pretty cynical about liberals, but I don't read him regularly. But by "dismiss" I mean try to take seriously in the sense of not automatically presuming the people who hold them are, for example, "stupid or inexperienced," or "evil."

"I did not say they were inimical to peace. I was referring to the overly-optimistic, utopian nature of early statements concerning the complex. There is nothing "iconic" about swimming pools and movie theaters, yet the complex was initially presented as a powerful iconic symbol of peace."

Swimming and watching movies are peaceful activities that Muslims and non-Muslims both enjoy. One of the things that helps to break down fear deriving from ignorance, as I think you'll agree, is close proximity. "You mean that raghead likes movies too?"

From these quotes, I see suggestions of the provincialism mentioned above. And the naive, but touching, conviction that they can "reverse what happened on 9/11" in people's minds. Plus the concentration on therapeutic religion which is common in progressive circles, in "we felt victimized like everyone else in New York because it was our city that was attacked but we were never given permission to mourn." From whom did they need permission to mourn?"

I think she meant that as Muslims their own mourning was never recognized. The center is a way of being more fully part of the city that mourned and still mourns -- of both acting a part of it and being seen as a part of it. I think in part they're asking for (and clearly not getting) deeper acceptance, and a symbol of it.

"Again, the point is the grandiosity or utopianism behind the statement, not the sincerity of her sentiment. I think it is naive even though I don't think she believes she can literally reverse the damage. "Hoping to help with the healing" would have been a much more reasonable statement.

It may be grandiosity or simple naivete, I don't know.

" I am not suspicious or hostile concerning that statement. I just don't think she's being realistic. Why do you suspect that I would find pleasure in her pain? Do you think conservatives are necessarily motivated by hostility? Why the bigotry?"

I think you misunderstood me or read too quickly. I don't read you as hostile or mean-spirited or bigoted. I wrote "It's as if she's saying, "see most of us really don't hate you, and your pain is our pain." I also think that any ideology attracts good people, and also people looking to excuse their own attitudes or behavior by hiding behind ideological principles. The licentious or lazy have a great friend in liberalism. Bigots have a friend in conservatism.

Brian,

"So unless I do a survey of everyone who lost a family member on 9/11 to determine what their position position is, I cannot express my view on what the majority position is, regardless of how many statements I have read or interviews I have watched?"

Anyone is free to express his views on anything -- in a manner in keeping with the actual state of his knowledge. The language you used did not sound like you were expressing "views," but facts. Views such as you describe might be expressed by saying something like "From all the statements and interviews I've seen, it seems clear to me that..."

To ascertain a fact, it is not necessary that you yourself do a survey of everyone. It is necessary that someone (e.g., a reputable journalistic source or polling firm) undertake a systematic effort to document the actual views of 9/11 families in such a way as to provide a basis for comprehensive knowledge. In the absence of such an effort, sweeping and definite language implying comprehensive knowledge should not be used.

This is not debate team rules; this is the eighth commandment (as Catholics reckon). It is also the lesson of sheer experience. Anyone who engages in the exchange of ideas makes mistakes. Things that seem obvious, even self-evident, turn out to be crashingly wrong. Anyone who has been knocked down enough times (God knows I have) learns to try to avoid going out too bumptiously on limbs. And if he does make the mistake of doing so, when challenged he is willing to backtrack and reexamine where he is.

The only people who have not learned this lesson, I think, are the young and those insufferable souls who have never been wrong, so far as they know.

Ken,

"Perhaps you should be a little less certain. I don't think either healthy group recreation or piety desecrates anything."

Perhaps sacrilege would be a better word than desecrate. A soccer game in a graveyard is a kind of sacrilege. By this I don't mean that God is offended in a direct way, but that people who care about the graveyard as a graveyard are offended, and rightly so. It is an affront to the meaning of the graveyard within the intersubjective framework by which the graveyard (and the system of social rules around it) discharges our general duty before God to honor the dead. (And to that extent God is offended after all.)

"I, for one, am certainly not telling you your a bad person, but if it's desecration you guys are concerned about, it's strange that vice has not upset you like Muslim piety has."

Given your non-objection to the billboard and street evangelist tract proposals, your perception of strangeness is unsurprising to me. I'm not sure the worldview gap between us can be bridged by any effort I'm prepared to undertake at this point.

"One doesn't have to be ignorant not to understand. I don't understand the opponents' feelings in your opinion. Are you therefore presuming I'm ignorant? That's a rhetorical question you needn't answer unless you want to."

I'll take this as my bad: What you said was "I can see two reasons," but I took as if you had said "There are (only) two reasons." On the latter accounting, it would seem hard to avoid the conclusion that I must be ignorant or bigoted ... but since that's not what you said, never mind. Anyway, Mike Bloomberg says that my view of Cordoba House is tantamount to wanting the terrorists to win.

The claim you cite from the CSM is indeed provocative, and I don't dismiss it out of hand. It is disturbing how many Americans defend the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for instance.

Outside of a WWII context, though, I confess I find it very hard to believe that Americans in any significant numbers (I'm thinking single digits, hopefully low single digits) would actually approve of e.g. American forces in the Middle East targeting non-combatants. I notice though that the poll term seems to be "civilians," not "non-combatants." Could this be because American troops often face non-uniformed opponents? Is it because of such "civilians" that a significant chunk of Americans seem to be okay with "targeting civilians"? I wonder what the poll results would be if we used the word "non-combatants." (I would say "innocents," but I suppose you'd get an argument from al-Qaeda supporters about the "innocence" of the 9/11 victims, or at least most of them.)

Here is another data point. In 2006, according to the Pew poll, confidence that "Osama bin Laden will do the right thing in world affairs" rides high ("a lot" or "some") in Jordan (61%), Pakistan (52%), Indonesia (36%) and Morocco (26%). Bin Laden's "no confidence" numbers in these countries range from as little as 9% (Indonesia) to as much as 40%. (Bin Laden's lowest numbers were in Lebanon, where 62% had no confidence and 15% had "not too much.")

I suspect that actual support for terrorism (bracketing WWII) is essentially negligible among Americans (including American Muslims, to be fair) and much higher in Muslim-majority countries.

OTOH, the numbers from TFT regarding positive responses to American humanitarian actions are gratifying.

"Did they apprehend it or did they choose to think of it that way? Is the glass half empty or half full? We participate in groupthink, but we step back, evaluate that thinking, and think for ourselves."

"Groupthink" occurs when the limited perspective of a particular group causes them not to see the larger picture, to fail to account for perspectives outside their own group. The mark of groupthink is that you'd have to be a member of the group for the limited thinking to make sense; other groups would not think that way.

Is the idea of a major Islamic landmark on a site of 9/11 violence as a triumphalist monument a notion that would only occur to a certain kind of blinkered American insulated from other perspectives? Or is it something that would make perfect sense to the non-Americans people flying the planes and to the non-Americans who support them?

If the latter, then it's not "groupthink," it's a healthy understanding of intersubjectivity and shared symbols across cultural divides.

"Perhaps sacrilege would be a better word than desecrate. A soccer game in a graveyard is a kind of sacrilege. By this I don't mean that God is offended in a direct way, but that people who care about the graveyard as a graveyard are offended, and rightly so. It is an affront to the meaning of the graveyard within the intersubjective framework by which the graveyard (and the system of social rules around it) discharges our general duty before God to honor the dead. (And to that extent God is offended after all.)"

Both volleyball and worship are healthy activities, and as such I see them as honoring the dead by living. It would be one thing if the site was half an acre and was to be completely devoted to one or the other with no memorial for the dead. But the site is huge and there will be a memorial. Does the whole thing need to be a memorial? Should the part that's not memorial be left empty? How is volleyball (your example) worse than an arts center, retail shops, and a residential tower and hotel, all of which are planned for the site? What do you think _is_ acceptable there?

"I, for one, am certainly not telling you your a bad person, but if it's desecration you guys are concerned about, it's strange that vice has not upset you like Muslim piety has."
Given your non-objection to the billboard and street evangelist tract proposals, your perception of strangeness is unsurprising to me. I'm not sure the worldview gap between us can be bridged by any effort I'm prepared to undertake at this point."

What a dodge!

"Mike Bloomberg says that my view of Cordoba House is tantamount to wanting the terrorists to win."

I see and have essentially made his point myself: the terrorists win, in a sense, when we let them dictate our actions and constrain our freedom. I just take issue with that imputation of motive, that beyond ridiculous "want."

"Here is another data point."

Ugh. ;-) It's just data. And "price points" are just prices. In regards to what Americans think about killing civilians, it's one thing to countenance what the U.S. military euphemistically "collateral damage," and

And I know what groupthink is, thanks. My point is that we have to try to escape it, and that in your case, there are other ways to view that mosque than from the perspective of Muslim triumphalism.

" The language you used did not sound like you were expressing "views," but facts. Views such as you describe might be expressed by saying something like "From all the statements and interviews I've seen, it seems clear to me that..."

Now you are just playing with semantics. Why would anyone assume my statements were based upon anything other than my own observations? I think most people would anticipate that if I had done a poll of all the 9/11 family members, I would have said, "I did a poll and 93.4% of the 9/11 families oppose the mosque." I do not think people would just automatically assume I conducted a poll when I say the vast majority of the 9/11 families oppose the mosque.

"And if he does make the mistake of doing so, when challenged he is willing to backtrack and reexamine where he is."

But you and Joe have challenged me with nothing. In the absence of a comprehensive poll of the 9/11 families, we can only go on our own observations and, in this istance, the polls showing 70% of Americans oppose the mosque. I have read or heard very few 9/11 family member who support the mosque (and you can be sure the MSM has been looking high and low for them). Far more family members have issued statements opposing the mosque, and I think that it is a reasonable assumption that the level of opposition is at least the 70% found in the general public, and is likely to be much higher.

Ken, some thoughts:

"I think both Left and Right usually dismiss each other's views as beyond the pale. Do you disagree?" ... But by "dismiss" I mean try to take seriously in the sense of not automatically presuming the people who hold them are, for example, "stupid or inexperienced," or "evil."

I think many on the Right tend to look at the policy first and its proponents (other than politicians, etc) second. Because many of them were, at one time, on the Left. They do tend to assume that politicians on the Left find convenient ways to increase their own power through compassionate policies. But as for everyday proponents of liberal or progressive policies, I think that conservatives are willing to concede that they usually have good motives. Though they may assume that those who hold certain liberal views are lacking in wisdom. They do often wish that they could get liberals and progressives to look more closely at the likely long-term consequences of their programs and policies. Thomas Sowell is the go-to guy for this concept, particularly with regard to economic policies. He can be a little feisty. Don't take it personally.

The mosque issue is atypical because the left seems to be uncharacteristically unresponsive to the feelings of a "victim group". However, the invective being directed at the Right by the mainstream Left is characteristic of the assumptions about the Right from the Left on other issues. Dennis Prager has examples. Note that he is not including classical liberals in the "Left" here:

http://tinyurl.com/2dnzvgv

Conservatives are used to being characterized in this way. I think these particular statements are more damaging to Muslims than to conservatives.

I guess Krauthammer is pretty unpopular on the Left:

http://tinyurl.com/26gnj6e

I think he has a towering intellect, but if you find him too cynical, you might want to try listening to Dennis Prager on the radio in discussion with liberals. His columns are stark and bare-boned compared to his best conversations with those who have other views, in my opinion. He stresses "clarity over agreement". He's on the radio at the same time as Rush Limbaugh in many markets, http://www.krla870.com/ or you can get podcasts and limit your listening to segments which particularly interest you. Do you regularly read other commentators on the Right?

"Swimming and watching movies are peaceful activities that Muslims and non-Muslims both enjoy. One of the things that helps to break down fear deriving from ignorance, as I think you'll agree, is close proximity. 'You mean that raghead likes movies too?' "

How many people in America do you think consider Muslims to be "ragheads"? And how would people who think Muslims are "ragheads" find out that they were watching movies in an Islamic Center, after the publicity died down?

Maybe things are different in the Big City, but in our little town, the Muslims, primarily from Yemen and Punjab, are pretty much part of the community. Though we have had some fights between fourth-grade boys about whether Mexican or Arab culture is superior. (One Yemeni boy described to me a fantasy "movie" in which Arabs killed Mexicans with machine guns. When I asked why the Arabs and Mexicans would be fighting, he couldn't say). Multiculturalism at work. Muslim store owners in a nearby town celebrated conspicuously after 9/11 (their vendors refused to supply them for a while). A couple of years ago, a Muslim man in our town was picked up by the FBI in an elaborate money-laundering scheme involving funneling money to a terrorist organization. But even that didn't seem to cause much of a stir. The schools were locked down because someone phoned in a bomb scare after 9/11. Homeland Security conducts training exercises here due perceived terrorism risks in this area. So this is the kind of backward place that people on the Left might expect to find significant anti-Muslim sentiment. But I just don't see it. Maybe the Left can gin some up by calling everyone anti-Muslim bigots.

From whom did they need permission to mourn?

"I think she meant that as Muslims their own mourning was never recognized. The center is a way of being more fully part of the city that mourned and still mourns -- of both acting a part of it and being seen as a part of it. I think in part they're asking for (and clearly not getting) deeper acceptance, and a symbol of it."

There must be better ways to become more fully a part of the city. Volunteering in community projects with others, etc. That's how it works around here. Not so sure how they would get a symbol of deeper acceptance, though. I'm not sure that I would be comfortable about someone designing a "symbol of acceptance" for me if I were in an analogous situation.

Sorry if I misread your statement about suspicion of her motives.

"The licentious or lazy have a great friend in liberalism. Bigots have a friend in conservatism."

I don't object to generalizations of this type, but I'm not sure that this one exactly fits at this particular time in history. The world is a complex place, and political actions have surprising unintended consequences over the years. I don't have time to fully expound on this idea right now, though. Maybe I can catch you later.

Ken, to clarify, the volleyball/soccer game I envisioned was not at Ground Zero, in some hypothetical sports space. I wouldn't necessarily have any principled problem with that either. I was talking about people going into an ordinary cemetery and setting up a game on top of the plots, just for the heck of it, like it was any park or vacant lot.

Regarding dodges, groupthink and meaningfully shared symbols: Hey, when you pull out the reductios and the other person shows every sign of grasping all nettles, what can you do? The billboard and the street proselytizer were meant to be the ham-fisted obvious cases. I think most people, perhaps even Imam Rauf, would recognize the problem there. If you don't, I'm not sure how to up the ante again. Maybe a relica of the Kaaba on Ground Zero? But even then, while you've agreed that we want to protect everyone's rights to Ground Zero and so a monument to one particular religion would be unsuitable, I can't see that you would regard it as "offensive" per se. Why would a replica of the Kaaba make anyone think of what happened on 9/11?

There are lots of ways of thinking of lots of things. God created all the fingers on our hands and there are lots of ways that we can think about all of them, but if I flip you the bird there is one way of thinking about fingers that will probably come to your mind.

There are lots of ways of thinking about mosques that do not involve Islamic triumphalism or terrorism, but it just so happens that in the immediate vicinity of Ground Zero there is this 13.4 million square-foot empty space that when you look at it kind of makes you think a lot about Islamic terrorism. At least, it does a lot of people.

Right there in that spot, people do think about the terrorists and how they looked at the world. Right there in that spot, a big Muslim billboard would unavoidably make people think how happy they (and people who think like them) would be to see that billboard smiling down at their handiwork. Even if one tried to put a positive spin on it and think "Hey, our freedom proves them wrong!" ... well, I dunno about you, but at best I could only hope to persuade myself it was a win-win, which would feel kind of pyrrhic.

I can, I think, understand being Jewish and going to Auschwitz and not wanting to see a giant cross from a Carmelite monastery. The Carmelites, of course, had nothing to with the Holocaust; on the contrary, Carmelites died at Auschwitz. But it still makes sense to me. I have a hard time imagining a moderate Muslim not understanding Americans at Ground Zero not wanting to see a star and crescent. But then I have a hard time imagining non-Muslim Americans not understanding it either, yet here you are.

Regarding the terrorists "winning" and "constraining our freedom": This seems to me profoundly silly. It takes a heap of will power and imagination to wrap the necessity of any particular building going up on any particular lot in Manhattan in the mantle of deep concern for the unconstrained exercise of Our Freedoms. There are ten thousand reasons why ten thousand buildings cannot be built on ten thousand lots in New York City, and ten thousand developers who would like it to be otherwise. I have already said I would have no problem personally helping to build a mosque in a suitable location. The First Amendment would not crumble or even slightly shudder if Rauf's mosque turned out to be a fifteen-minute walk from Ground Zero instead of two blocks.

Regarding "data points": Thanks for that, I'll bear it in mind. I'm not sure how you meant to end that last sentence, but it sounded generally like it might turn out to be the sort of sentence I might write myself ...

***Brian: You are straw-manning. I very clearly said I did not expect you to have done your own poll. To keep going on in that same vein after you've been answered is ... well, what would you call it?

My issue is about words; it is not therefore "semantics." (Just like not everything that involves groups and thinking is "groupthink.") By words we tell the truth or distort it. Dismiss the importance of words as "semantics" and you wind up saying things like "It depends on what the meaning of is is."

Yes, there is an important difference between repeatedly asserting something like "The vast majority of this is that" (which does imply something along the lines of someone having done a study that you've seen) and saying something like "From everything I've seen it seems obvious that the vast majority of this is that" (since in fact you are not aware of any such study).

You also misunderstand the nature of challenge. Challenge does not mean "Here is why you are wrong." That is refutation, not challenge. Challenge means "On what basis do you say that?"

"You also misunderstand the nature of challenge. Challenge does not mean "Here is why you are wrong." That is refutation, not challenge. Challenge means "On what basis do you say that?"

And I have explained the basis for my statements several times. The burden of persuasion now shifts to you and Joe to refute my statements. The fact that you and Joe have nothing to come back with indicates you never had a good faith basis for the challenge in the first place.

"The fact that you and Joe have nothing to come back with indicates you never had a good faith basis for the challenge in the first place."

Wow. Just ... wow. I was going to explain just how wrong the thinking here is, but ... well, what would be the point? The picture is clear enough by this point, for those with eyes to see.

"Wow. Just ... wow. I was going to explain just how wrong the thinking here is, but ... well, what would be the point? The picture is clear enough by this point, for those with eyes to see.

Yes, it is clear. Joe/Not Santa Claus tried to shut down any discussion of what the 9/11 families think about the Ground Zero Mosque by making an appeal to authority, relying on the hideous Mayor of New York's disingenuous statement that was meant to convey to people the idea that the 9/11 families were 100% in favor of the Mosque.

I refused to back away from my position because I failed to see any merit in Joe's absurd argument that I had no business arguing this point since I had not personally spoken to any of the 9/11 families, and therefore had to defer to Mayor Mike, who spoke to at least two apparently.

In a world where we have computers, televisions and radios, having to meet in person with someone is no longer necessary to find out what they think. In addition, the polls that have been done show that Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to the Mosque. Do you and Joe seriously believe that the 9/11 families hold the opposite position (in spite of their the public statements being heavily opposed to the Mosque) and 70% of them are in favor of it?

Joe then decided to resort to name-calling, the final refuge of someone losing an argument. You, inexplicably, decided to join the fray on Joe's side.

And I still wait for either one of you to come forward with any evidence that reveals that you had a good faith basis for challenging my assertions regarding the 9/11 families being overwhelmingly opposed to the Mosque.

I leave it to those who have been reading the comments on this board to decide who was right here. As for you and Joe, I could not care less what either one of you thinks.

"Ken, to clarify, the volleyball/soccer game I envisioned was not at Ground Zero, in some hypothetical sports space. I wouldn't necessarily have any principled problem with that either. I was talking about people going into an ordinary cemetery and setting up a game on top of the plots, just for the heck of it, like it was any park or vacant lot."

Well, sorry, but the analogy fails completely. There are no tombstones at Ground Zero, the space should be used both for the sake of the neighborhood and to honor the memory of the victims, and nobody's building a mosque there just for the heck of it.

"while you've agreed that we want to protect everyone's rights to Ground Zero and so a monument to one particular religion would be unsuitable,"

You must be thinking of someone else. If someone wants to build a church or synagogue there, fine. Rauf isn't stopping them, and they shouldn't stop him. Rauf's exercising his right doesn't stop anyone else from exercising theirs.

"I can, I think, understand being Jewish and going to Auschwitz and not wanting to see a giant cross from a Carmelite monastery."

The Pope was right to call that off, and Rauf should probably call off his own building. But that's from their side, and doesn't relieve us of our own responsibility to love our neighbor. In the case of the Jews, they remember a couple of thousand years of persecution at the hands of Christians, and I as a Christian would hardly presume to tell them not to be so sensitive. But I feel free to speak to my own people, and we American Christians have not suffered that long history.

Regarding the terrorists "winning" and "constraining our freedom"

I'm not talking about the First Amendment but about the spirit of the First Amendment. And Bloomberg's "winning" is on the same level as your use of the word. He sees them winning if the mosque is stopped. You see them winning if it goes up.

Karen T writes:
"But as for everyday proponents of liberal or progressive policies, I think that conservatives are willing to concede that they usually have good motives."

I wish I could agree, but maybe I listen to too much Limbaugh and Hannity, and a local guy who's just as predictably petty about our Democratic Congressman. The Left just wants power, they lie about everything, they're ignorant of history, they're hateful to their opponents . . . hey, they sound just like Sarah Palin!

"The mosque issue is atypical because the left seems to be uncharacteristically unresponsive to the feelings of a "victim group". "

Well, the Right was not the target on 9/11, and the Left suffered just as much.

"However, the invective being directed at the Right by the mainstream Left is characteristic of the assumptions about the Right from the Left on other issues."

Sure, the Left is just as nasty.

If Prager stresses "clarity over agreement," I'll have to check him out.

"How many people in America do you think consider Muslims to be "ragheads"? And how would people who think Muslims are "ragheads" find out that they were watching movies in an Islamic Center, after the publicity died down?"

Who knows, but if the center is built, the press is sure to report on it and how well it's faring in the neighborhood.

"As for you and Joe, I could not care less what either one of you thinks."

I get irritated too, and sometimes wish I'd used a softer tone, but it's so depressing to read something like that on a Christian blog. As far apart as we all are in perspective, we're still fellow members of the Body of Christ, and we can always learn something from each other.

"Well, sorry, but the analogy fails completely."

No no. Not an analogy -- at least, not an attempted parallel of any kind. Just an illustration of a general principle. If someone doesn't get why the soccer game in the graveyard is objectionable, I don't know that I can explain it. Likewise if someone doesn't get why an Islam billboard above Ground Zero is objectionable. But there's no further analogy or parallel. Both are a matter of intuition and intersubjectivity ... a matter of the chest. Ultimately, one gets it or not. I think most people get it.

"You must be thinking of someone else. If someone wants to build a church or synagogue there, fine."

Just to be clear, I meant actually on Ground Zero itself. But you're right, I was thinking of Aaron Rasmussen's statement that Ground Zero space "should not be controlled by, nor should it exclude, people of a particular faith." If you disagree, then again I have no further brief.

"The Pope was right to call that off, and Rauf should probably call off his own building."

The more relevant question is whether it was it reasonable of the Jewish groups to ask the Carmelites to leave? While you have a point (one I made myself in my blog post series) that what we as Americans endured on 9/11 was utterly incommensurate to the Jewish experience in the Shoah and of antisemitism in general, there is the countervailing point that a cross is not a crucifix, whereas a star and crescent is a star and crescent.

"And Bloomberg's 'winning' is on the same level as your use of the word. He sees them winning if the mosque is stopped. You see them winning if it goes up."

Not sure why you're bringing Bloomberg up again. My beef there (from my earlier post) was the same as yours: the imputation of motive. My point in my most recent post was substantial and on the merits, not directed at Bloomberg. I think we agree that nobody in this discussion should be saying that to disagree on this issue is tantamount to "wanting the terrorists to win." It's like saying "When you say that you remind me of HITLER!" That's not how I roll.

BTW, by my lights your equanimity in this combox has been generally admirable. Inspired by your soft reply, let me say that I care what Brian thinks ... and since I doubt anything else I might add at this point would be helpful, I'll let it go at that.

"I get irritated too, and sometimes wish I'd used a softer tone, but it's so depressing to read something like that on a Christian blog. As far apart as we all are in perspective, we're still fellow members of the Body of Christ, and we can always learn something from each other."

I meant just on the specific issue we have been going back and forth on, not everything.

"BTW, by my lights your equanimity in this combox has been generally admirable. Inspired by your soft reply, let me say that I care what Brian thinks ... and since I doubt anything else I might add at this point would be helpful, I'll let it go at that."

As I indicated to Ken, I was referring to the specific issue we have been going back and forth on. I certainly care what you think about other matters. For instance, over on your blog I posted a link to an article written by a Muslim professor that I thought was relevant to the discussion there.

But as for everyday proponents of liberal or progressive policies, I think that conservatives are willing to concede that they usually have good motives.

"I wish I could agree, but maybe I listen to too much Limbaugh and Hannity, and a local guy who's just as predictably petty about our Democratic Congressman. The Left just wants power, they lie about everything, they're ignorant of history, they're hateful to their opponents . . . hey, they sound just like Sarah Palin!"

I agree that conservatives can be hard on liberal politicians and on those who make their living by pushing liberal causes. Local talk show hosts can be particularly bombastic. Hannity I often find irritating. Rush I find interesting and entertaining, but I can see how his satire could get to some people. Limbaugh doesn't generally characterize the average-joe liberal as evil - though he may say something about "skulls full of mush". Related quote: "If a man is not a socialist in his youth, he has no heart. If he is not a conservative by the time he is 30 he has no head" -- Georges
Clemenceau, Former French Prime Minister and one-time radical.

The mosque issue is atypical because the left seems to be uncharacteristically unresponsive to the feelings of a "victim group".

"Well, the Right was not the target on 9/11, and the Left suffered just as much. "

I am not referring to the Right when I talk about a victim group. I am talking about the vocal opponents of the location of the mosque among those closely affected by 9/11.

The invective being directed at the Right by the mainstream Left is characteristic of the assumptions about the Right from the Left on other issues.

"Sure, the Left is just as nasty."

Actually, they are pretty nasty - toward the Right. Can you find similar quotes from mainstream conservative commentators on this issue comparable in personal venom to the quotes from the Left which Prager assembled?

"If Prager stresses 'clarity over agreement,' I'll have to check him out."

Give him some time. Sometimes the topics he picks are not interesting to me. In the old days, his theme was that he would discuss anything but "architecture, poetry and gardening". But then he found some interest in those topics, too. Now his program is more structured, with more guests. He has a "male-female hour", an "ultimate issues hour" and a "happiness hour" every week. In LA, he also once did a "Religion on the Line" program, so he is conversant with many religious issues. He takes calls on random issues the last hour of the week.

If you want to expand your horizons further, you might check out the short links at Instapundit (Reynolds is a libertarian - not a conservative). Might be a bit rowdy and sarcastic for your taste, but he's a generally cheerful person and it would be a quick window into how other people are thinking.

How many people in America do you think consider Muslims to be "ragheads"? And how would people who think Muslims are "ragheads" find out that they were watching movies in an Islamic Center, after the publicity died down?

"Who knows, but if the center is built, the press is sure to report on it and how well it's faring in the neighborhood."

This prospect doesn't cause you any apprehension at all? Murphy's Lsw comes to my mind.

On a different topic, I've glanced through some of the discussion with Brian on this thread. I trust that you would have sense enough not to use a "dog with a bone" approach to an intellectual argument with someone from an honor-based culture like, say, Muslim Egypt. Has it occurred to you that Brian might be from a slightly different intellectual culture than your own?

One of the observations which Dennis Prager makes is that people who have a considerable amount of modern liberal education are likely to demand studies (or in this case, polls) before they will accept evidence. Sometimes to the extent that they will lose touch with their own reason and common sense. For example, many on the Left would not accept common-sense observations that there are inborn psychological differences between the sexes until sophisticated brain studies demonstrated such differences. Because such observations were in conflict with the "gender is a social construct" doctrine. Newsweek trumpeted the surprising news: "Men and Women are Different!" I don't know that the more liberal comments here indicate that people have reached that point, but it may be a danger. People with other perspectives may not accept the assumption that studies are necessary in order to come to reasonable conclusions.

Concerning the feelings of 9/11 families about the mosque complex, I don't know what motive a liberal organization might have for conducting a poll, and a conservative organization might be loathe to subject these families to an intrusive poll. Debra Burlingame made the interesting point that because Mayor Bloomberg heads up the organization in charge of the 9/11 memorial, families who oppose his pet issue could lose their influence in planning the memorial. Yet many still go public with such opposition. I don't particularly care about the fine semantics of the discussion above. But perhaps an attitude of interest in the different approaches to the acceptability of various types of evidence might help reduce frustration.

"I don't particularly care about the fine semantics of the discussion above. But perhaps an attitude of interest in the different approaches to the acceptability of various types of evidence might help reduce frustration."

Very good point. I am a lawyer, so I will state what I believe to be the facts based on the evidence I have. If challenged, I explain the evidence and let the judge or jury decide if my evidence is adequate to support the position I stated.

Karen T writes:
"I agree that conservatives can be hard on liberal politicians and on those who make their living by pushing liberal causes. Local talk show hosts can be particularly bombastic. Hannity I often find irritating. Rush I find interesting and entertaining, but I can see how his satire could get to some people. Limbaugh doesn't generally characterize the average-joe liberal as evil - though he may say something about "skulls full of mush"."

Liberals say conservatives are selfish, greedy liars, and conservatives say liberals are stupid liars who hate America (and Limbaugh is no exception). Few AM political radio talk show hosts (perhaps Prager is the rare exception) have any integrity on the air, in my opinion. They pick and choose their facts, and they blast the other side for what their own people do, never criticizing their own. In essence, they're professional liars themselves. And speaking of liars, we have a world class one on our hands now with Sarah Palin, and I keep looking for the conservative Christian leader or writer or blogger to say so, and to say, "let's have some integrity and back away from her."

"I am not referring to the Right when I talk about a victim group. I am talking about the vocal opponents of the location of the mosque among those closely affected by 9/11."

You have a point then, although -- I haven't been reading the argument about how many families oppose or support the mosque -- supporters do exist. The Left has had other, valid concerns. The question is how to balance them all.

"Actually, they are pretty nasty - toward the Right. Can you find similar quotes from mainstream conservative commentators on this issue comparable in personal venom to the quotes from the Left which Prager assembled?"

You may have read too quickly. Certainly they are nasty to the right, as I said above. I don't feel like hunting for nasty quotes, but the whole birther/he's-a-Muslim nonsense surely springs from bigotry towards both Obama and towards Muslims (so what if he was?).

"This prospect doesn't cause you any apprehension at all? Murphy's Lsw comes to my mind."

"I trust that you would have sense enough not to use a "dog with a bone" approach to an intellectual argument with someone from an honor-based culture like, say, Muslim Egypt. Has it occurred to you that Brian might be from a slightly different intellectual culture than your own?"

I'm not sure if you're speaking to me, but I'm afraid I don't know what a dog with a bone argument is.

"Liberals say conservatives are selfish, greedy liars, and conservatives say liberals are stupid liars who hate America (and Limbaugh is no exception)."

Well, my view would be a little more nuanced than that. And I think that there's a difference in how people "on the other side" who are not in the public eye are treated by the Right and Left.

"Few AM political radio talk show hosts (perhaps Prager is the rare exception) have any integrity on the air, in my opinion. They pick and choose their facts, and they blast the other side for what their own people do, never criticizing their own. In essence, they're professional liars themselves."

So, when Rush Limbaugh announces that he doesn't have to be balanced because "I am balance" (balance to the mainstream media) his bias constitutes professional lying. But when members of the mainstream media pick and choose their facts, blast the other side for what their own people do, and avoid criticizing their own whenever possible, while pretending to be "impartial", that's NOT professional lying? I'm talking about the news here. Not opinion pages/programs.

On the subject of AM political radio talk show hosts, Neal Boortz' website was recently recommended in a blog I follow. I've never listened to him, but he set up a fund, in dead seriousness, for donations to keep the liberal answer to conservative talk radio, Air America, on the air. To lessen the chances that the government will try to shut down talk radio. Air America struggles financially in part because it's message overlaps the mainstream media's to a great extent. We get Pacifica Radio here, but that's kind of an anachronism.

"And speaking of liars, we have a world class one on our hands now with Sarah Palin, and I keep looking for the conservative Christian leader or writer or blogger to say so, and to say, 'let's have some integrity and back away from her.' "

I'm not sure how we got on the subject of Sarah Palin. I don't follow her closely, and I'm more likely to read what the Left says about her than what she says. So I'm not sure what kinds of lies you're talking about.

"The whole birther/he's-a-Muslim nonsense surely springs from bigotry towards both Obama and towards Muslims (so what if he was?)."

I don't much care about the "birther " thing. But I don't think all of it "surely springs" from bigotry. For a person who has written two autobiographical books, Obama certainly still seems like a mystery to lots of people. Including many on the Left. Some of people's uncertainty about him may come from the Obama camp deliberately withholding information which most presidents don't. And then there's the uneasiness about whether it's a good or evil thing to say his middle name. Seems to depend on the circumstance. People don't know what to think. Why is he such a man of mystery? Wasn't this supposed to be the most transparent administration ever?

From a comment to the second link: "I would also posit that there are THREE “camps” of thought that get lumped into the “birther” category.. . .

The third is where I would put myself – a person:1) who wonders why it is so difficult for Obama to provide an actual Birth Certificate; and2) who sees a connection between the lack of details and secrecy regarding Obama’s birth and the lack of details and secrecy about so much else of Obama’s life – his connections to Ayers, his grades in college, the papers he published, the lectures he taught, etc.
I don’t think Obama was born in Kenya or any other place other than Hawaii.
But I find it outrageous and ridiculous that we know more about Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber than we know about Obama."

http://tinyurl.com/2ax2nfm
http://tinyurl.com/2d86l59

I trust that you would have sense enough not to use a "dog with a bone" approach to an intellectual argument with someone from an honor-based culture like, say, Muslim Egypt. Has it occurred to you that Brian might be from a slightly different intellectual culture than your own?

I'm not sure if you're speaking to me, but I'm afraid I don't know what a dog with a bone argument is.

From your comment to Brian, I thought you knew why he had gotten frustrated. I think of a "dog with a bone" approach as one in which someone holds onto a single point which he thinks he "owns" with such single-mindedness that he misses other important things happening in an interaction. I couldn't even stand to read the whole exchange.

Brian: You say you're a lawyer? So you state what you believe to be the facts based on the evidence? And if challenged you explain the evidence? But because Joe and I, without offering contrary evidence for a counter-thesis, asked you what evidence you had for your thesis, that was evidence of bad faith on our part? Because we should have had contrary evidence before asking you for your evidence?

What sort of law do you practice?

KarenT says:
"Well, my view would be a little more nuanced than that. And I think that there's a difference in how people "on the other side" who are not in the public eye are treated by the Right and Left."

What's that?

"So, when Rush Limbaugh announces that he doesn't have to be balanced because "I am balance" (balance to the mainstream media) his bias constitutes professional lying.

By mainstream, I guess you mean ABC, NBC, and CBS news? How many people watch these anymore? Limbaugh talk about balance, but the loudmouths on both sides actually present themselves as alternatives to the mainstream. Not a show that goes by that they, liberals too, don't bash the mainstream -- why would their adoring audiences watch what they've been so thoroughly indoctrinated into hating? So the loudmouths on both sides have a responsibility to their audiences to actually be "fair and balanced," but of course if they were, they'd be less entertaining and have much smaller audiences. But they're shaping an audience that's ignorant, enraged, and incapable of rational debate.

"But when members of the mainstream media pick and choose their facts, blast the other side for what their own people do, and avoid criticizing their own whenever possible, while pretending to be "impartial", that's NOT professional lying? I'm talking about the news here. Not opinion pages/programs.""

I can talk about what I know. I rarely watch the big three networks, but it's my impression that their bias is indisputable, though far less blatant than AM radio. For example they cover scandals having to do with Democrats. Ad when you factor in the Sunday morning shows, the bias disappears. I do listen to NPR and watch PBS, which are always labeled liberal. NPR shows some bias, most often in their straight (or not so straight, rather) reportage, but PBS always has guests on both sides of an issue.

"On the subject of AM political radio talk show hosts, Neal Boortz' website was recently recommended in a blog I follow. I've never listened to him, but he set up a fund, in dead seriousness, for donations to keep the liberal answer to conservative talk radio, Air America, on the air. To lessen the chances that the government will try to shut down talk radio. Air America struggles financially in part because it's message overlaps the mainstream media's to a great extent. We get Pacifica Radio here, but that's kind of an anachronism."

Boortz is a misanthrope with a pleasant veneer. I can't help but liking him but feeling sorry for him at the same time. But Air America is off the air, so . . . weren't we just talking about talk show hosts lying? It's true that at least some of its hosts continue on, under what financial arrangements I don’t know. But while their point may overlap with that of the mainstream more often than the conservative view does, they are often highly critical of it. I'm not well-informed on where the Fairness Doctrine stands in Congress now, but conservatives exaggerate the chances of it passing, for obvious reasons. TIME wrote the following in early 2009: "Both sides are likely overstating the doctrine's import. Even if it were to return, liberals would have a hard time co-opting the Fairness Doctrine to limit conservative talk radio to the degree they might like. The FCC has never applied the Fairness Doctrine to a talk radio host, nor does the regulation force stations to give equal time for every perspective. Further, the point might be moot without support from the Oval Office — which the doctrine does not currently enjoy. "As the President stated during the campaign, he does not believe the Fairness Doctrine should be reinstated," a White House spokesman said Feb. 18."

"I'm not sure how we got on the subject of Sarah Palin. I don't follow her closely, and I'm more likely to read what the Left says about her than what she says. So I'm not sure what kinds of lies you're talking about."

You might google "odd lies of Sarah Palin," "Barracude tnr," or the new Vanity Fair piece, "Sarah Palin: The Sound and the Fury," by a guy who describes himself a having a lot in common with Palin -- Christian, from a small town -- and favorably disposed towards her as he went to research the story. Now he says there is nothing too small for her to lie about, something that's been plain since before the election.

"I don't much care about the "birther " thing. But I don't think all of it "surely springs" from bigotry. For a person who has written two autobiographical books, Obama certainly still seems like a mystery to lots of people. Including many on the Left. Some of people's uncertainty about him may come from the Obama camp deliberately withholding information which most presidents don't. And then there's the uneasiness about whether it's a good or evil thing to say his middle name. Seems to depend on the circumstance. People don't know what to think. Why is he such a man of mystery? Wasn't this supposed to be the most transparent administration ever?"

Sorry, but you could be reading from a talk show host script there. Where are your specifics? What don't we know about Obama that makes it plausible he was foreign born? And why in the world could it be a bad thing to say "Hussein," as if everyone with Hussein as one of their names is evil? But wait, the real issue that I've seen is that contrary to convention -- no one would say George W. Bush if his father hadn't been president too, and no one says Barrack H. Obama -- the Right calls him by his full name in order to stir up latent ignorance and bigotry.

From a comment to the second link: "I would also posit that there are THREE “camps” of thought that get lumped into the “birther” category.. . .

"The third is where I would put myself – a person:1) who wonders why it is so difficult for Obama to provide an actual Birth Certificate; and2) who sees a connection between the lack of details and secrecy regarding Obama’s birth and the lack of details and secrecy about so much else of Obama’s life – his connections to Ayers, his grades in college, the papers he published, the lectures he taught, etc."

Here are the facts about the birth certificate. You won't read them on Gateway Pundit:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2009/jul/01/obamas-birth-certificate-final-chapter-time-we-mea/
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

"From your comment to Brian, I thought you knew why he had gotten frustrated. I think of a "dog with a bone" approach as one in which someone holds onto a single point which he thinks he "owns" with such single-mindedness that he misses other important things happening in an interaction."

Thank you for clarifying.

"But because Joe and I, without offering contrary evidence for a counter-thesis, asked you what evidence you had for your thesis, that was evidence of bad faith on our part? Because we should have had contrary evidence before asking you for your evidence?"

Joe's position, which you joined in, was that since I had not spoken to all of the 9/11 families directly I had no ability to challenge Bloomberg's ludicrous statement of 100% support for the Mosque by the 9/11 families. I explained what I based my statements on. Joe had a right to claim my evidence was insufficient. What he did not have a right to do was call me a liar.

It is certainly acceptable to ask someone for the evidence that supports their position, but before you call someone a liar, asserting their position is knowingly false, you had better have some evidence showing what they said was in fact knowingly false. Judges and juries tend to have a very negative response to that kind of gamesmanship.

And I am primarily a commercial litigator.

Thanks for clarifying, Brian. I agree with you on one point: As I said from the beginning, Joe was out of line calling you a liar. But you are out of line on a number of counts. Among these, even now you continue to ascribe to Joe and to me a ridiculous claim that neither of us ever asserted -- that in fact I have repeatedly and pointedly denied saying, to the point of pointing out that you were strawmanning -- namely, that we would only accept your claim if you had directly spoken to all the 9/11 families. Your insistence on beating this strawman baffles me. If this were a scene in a TV courtroom drama (a good one, like "Murder One"), the judge would be sustaining my objections without even hearing rationales. Also, you had no call to accuse me or Joe of being in bad faith for challenging the basis of your claims, especially since I distanced myself from the beginning from Joe's name-calling. I venture to point this out again because I still harbor some hope that the outcome will be good for both of our souls and perhaps those of others reading the exchange. If you disagree with my reading here and don't feel that you owe me an apology, I have nothing to add.

"Among these, even now you continue to ascribe to Joe and to me a ridiculous claim that neither of us ever asserted -- that in fact I have repeatedly and pointedly denied saying, to the point of pointing out that you were strawmanning -- namely, that we would only accept your claim if you had directly spoken to all the 9/11 families."

Go back and read Joe's comments. He most certainly was saying that my position could be rejected out of hand since I had not spoken to any of the 9/11 families, while Bloomberg had spoken to some unspecified number who were 100% in favor of the Mosque.

"I have repeatedly and pointedly denied saying, to the point of pointing out that you were strawmanning -- namely, that we would only accept your claim if you had directly spoken to all the 9/11 families. Your insistence on beating this strawman baffles me."

As I indicate above, that was no strawman with regard to Joe. With regard to you, I was trying to get you to state what your position actually was: "No, you had to speak to X% of families before I accept your view." I still have yet to hear why my assertions were inaccurate.

"If this were a scene in a TV courtroom drama (a good one, like "Murder One"), the judge would be sustaining my objections without even hearing rationales. "

No. THe judge would be saying something along the lines of, "If you claim he is misstating your position, what is your actual position?"

"Also, you had no call to accuse me or Joe of being in bad faith for challenging the basis of your claims, especially since I distanced myself from the beginning from Joe's name-calling."

And once I explained the basis for my position (statements and interviews from family members and the polls that showed overwhelming opposition in the country at large) the burden shifted to you and Joe to explain why I was wrong. Instead you (not Joes who stuck to his silly objection) claimed I was trying to leverage other people's grief in support of my argument, which you stated was "shameful." Since the discussion was about the Ground Zero Mosque, how could you possibly address the subject without talking about the grief of the 9/11 families?

Your fall-back position, insisting that I had not qualified my statements sufficiently, is bizarre in the context of a comment box. This is not a formal debate.

In addition, lawyers do not use qualifying language in opening or preliminary statements (which are the closest things to comments I can think of). You state what you believe the evidence shows. I am still waiting to see any evidence that my statements were wrong.

Brian, I am interesting neither in scoring debate points nor in commercial litigation, but rather in calling 'em as I see 'em. You have lied, and continue to lie, very transparently, throughout the course of this exchange. If being called a "liar" as a result hurts your feelings, I don't think the blame lies with me.

Moreover, the particular form of dishonesty in which you are engaged, falsifying other people's pain to bolster your own political position, strikes me as a particularly odious one. It is, I think, considerably further along than plagiarizing a term paper or shoplifting a candy bar, both eminently virtuous by comparison.

"You have lied, and continue to lie, very transparently, throughout the course of this exchange. If being called a "liar" as a result hurts your feelings, I don't think the blame lies with me."

Apparently, you do not understand what a lie is.

"Moreover, the particular form of dishonesty in which you are engaged, falsifying other people's pain to bolster your own political position, strikes me as a particularly odious one."

Do you have one shred of evidvence to support your claim that my statements are lies? Either put up or shut up.

What I find particularly odious is people like you and Mike Bloomberg claiming that the families of the 9/11 victims are overwhelmingly in favor of this Mosque, when even a casual observer of the situation knows they are overwhelmingly opposed to it. You are making assertions that you know are not the truth. That is what we call a lie.

As I stated, I have nothing further to add. God bless you all.

Ken - a few responses:

DIFFERENCES IN HOW LEFT AND RIGHT VIEW 'THE OTHER'

I can address your question partially here, with regard to the treatment of ordinary citizens:

"One could argue that conservatives and libertarians are prone to similarly negative views about the public–particularly when it votes for politicians loathed by the Right–however, it seems to me that when such sentiments are expressed, they tend to proceed more from disappointment than the fulminations against the public one regularly sees expressed by liberals (the supposed movement “for the people”).

The reason for this rhetorical disparity is that conservatives and libertarians seem to have a much better grounding in the idea that they have a political ideology. Liberals lack this sense, believing their ideology to be literally incommensurable to other ideologies. To oppose liberalism is thus not only intellectually incorrect, it is also an affront to common decency."
http://tinyurl.com/33r5ew2

A few recent examples of the actions the Left considers to be justified, in light of the Right's perceived inhumanity, in roughly reverse chronologicsl order below. Let me know if you want more links:

1. The mosque issue:

http://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/21685691685
http://tinyurl.com/3yz8d4n

2. Tea-party infiltrators trying to make Tea Party activists seem extreme, racist or nutty
3. Television commentators calling Tea Party activists "teabaggers"
4. False charges of racism against tea party activists repeated for months in mainstream newspapers and on TV as if true.
5. Throwing eggs at Tea Party busses in Nevada
6. Union thugs beating Kenneth Gladney for being an "Uncle Tom"
7. Using donation records to harass and, occasionally, destroy the ability of small-time Proposition 8 supporters to make a living.
8. Terrorism directed at people traveling to the 2008 Minnesota Republican Convention
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/03/025942.php?format=print

For deeper insight into the origin of some of the differences between today's Right and Left: http://tinyurl.com/2fet3hu

TALK RADIO, LEFTY OPINION SHOWS

"Not a show that goes by that they, liberals too, don't bash the mainstream -- why would their adoring audiences watch what they've been so thoroughly indoctrinated into hating."

That's some pretty strong language there, Ken. "indoctrinated into hating?" One study showed that these types of shows generally tend to confirm previous convictions rather than to change opinions. I didn't save the link.

Over the years, I have heard one really specific call to violence on a radio talk station - a call to murder border agents, made during a protest broadcast by Pacifica. As I recall, no such murders followed the protest. Would it have been better if only attendees at the protest knew that a call to violence had been made? Since this view seemed to be shared by others at the protest, why would I want sentiments like this to "go underground"?

I know what you mean about liberals (well, leftists) bashing the mainstream along with conservatives. Pacifica Radio is always talking about "censorship" in the mainstream. But I don't expect "fair and balanced" from Pacifica. If you made Pacifica "fair and balanced" it would disappear from the air. How would that advance my knowledge about what is going on in Berkeley? How can I better understand why the big-government socialists and the anarchists get along so well together, while hating conservatives, if I never hear their views? What motivates such seemingly-suicidal groups as "Queers for Palestine"?

I don't know about watching the Major 3 network news shows, but why wouldn't a Rush Limbaugh listener be interested in reading the occasional Paul Krugman piece in its natural habitat?

"So the loudmouths on both sides have a responsibility to their audiences to actually be 'fair and balanced.' "

I disagree about the responsibility to be "fair and balanced", as long as they make their biases clear. This is one of those cases in which the impossible task of meeting everyone's definition of "fair and balanced" would severely restrict liberty.

"But they're shaping an audience that's ignorant, enraged, and incapable of rational debate. "

Oh, my. "Ignorant, enraged, and incapable of rational debate?". Speaking personally, I am more likely to feel angry and "incapable of rational debate" after watching Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer or Henry Waxman speak than after listening to Talk Radio. In fact, the more thoughtful hosts provide ways to process and "gel" rational arguments into less anger and more resolve to act. I probably haven't listened to more than half an hour of Rush in the past couple of months, but even when I listened more, I never felt "enraged" or "incapable of rational debate". Even once.

Pew Research Center on the "ignorance" of Limbaugh's audience vs. network news audiences: http://tinyurl.com/6knn6k

"Internet news sources, National Public Radio, news magazines, and Rush Limbaugh's radio show have the best educated audiences, with each of these having at least 36% of their regular readers and listeners having graduated from college. "

"Attention to the news is strongly associated with knowledge levels, but some news audiences know considerably more than others. Overall, 35% of the public was classified as having a high level of knowledge - on average, 18 correct answers out of the 23 total questions. Half or more of the audiences for six media sources scored this high: the comedy news shows and major newspaper websites (54% in the high knowledge group), the NewsHour (53%), National Public Radio (51%) and Rush Limbaugh's radio show (50%). Regular readers of news magazines were not far behind (48%).

By contrast, the regular audiences for many other sources scored no higher than the sample average. The audiences for morning news (34% high knowledge), local TV news (35%), Fox News Channel (35%), blogs (37%), and the network evening news (38%) were not significantly different from the norm for the whole sample (35%). The audiences for CNN, internet news sites such as Google and Yahoo, local newspapers, and TV news organization websites scored slightly higher (41%-44% high knowledge)."

"The fact that a particular news source's audience is very knowledgeable does not mean that people learned all that they know from that source. As noted earlier, some news sources draw especially well-educated audiences who are keenly interested in politics. Because of their education and life experiences, these individuals have more background information and may be better able to retain what they see in the news, regardless of where they see it."

"Similarly, the news-hungry public tends to visit many outlets. . . . "
MAINSTREAM MEDIA BIAS

You seem to be even-handed is assessing the bias in various news sources. My issue with bias is not that it exists, but whether or not people try to hide it, or are unaware of their own bias.

It might be helpful for you to know that conservatives and libertarians often feel outnumbered when asked to be guests on TV. And they often feel that their remarks are edited unfairly. Glenn Reynolds, a libertarian law professor who goes on TV, recommends never agreeing to a television interview unless you have a written agreement that you can make your own recording of the interview and that you can release it on the internet if you believe that your comments were edited unfairly.

When I think of the "mainstream media", I think of "legacy media" as well as some of the newer media with influence "inside the beltway". I think first of the New York Times, Washington Post and news wires. Then of other major papers, news magazines and journals which are read in Washington and by "opinion leaders". Then of network and cable TV, then of the more influential lefty blogs. It's sort of a loose definition for me.

I can look up some stuff on unconscious media bias, subtle (hidden) media bias and brazen media bias if you want.

SARAH PALIN

Like I said, I don't really follow Palin closely. I think I'll wait for some of the dust to settle before condemning her.

http://tinyurl.com/26ot5nt

BIRTHERISM

I don't much care about the "birther " thing. But I don't think all of it "surely springs" from bigotry. For a person who has written two autobiographical books, Obama certainly still seems like a mystery to lots of people. Including many on the Left. Some of people's uncertainty about him may come from the Obama camp deliberately withholding information which most presidents don't. And then there's the uneasiness about whether it's a good or evil thing to say his middle name. Seems to depend on the circumstance. People don't know what to think. Why is he such a man of mystery? Wasn't this supposed to be the most transparent administration ever?

"Sorry, but you could be reading from a talk show host script there. Where are your specifics? What don't we know about Obama that makes it plausible he was foreign born? "

"From a comment to the second link: "I would also posit that there are THREE “camps” of thought that get lumped into the “birther” category.. . .

'The third is where I would put myself – a person:1) who wonders why it is so difficult for Obama to provide an actual Birth Certificate; and 2) who sees a connection between the lack of details and secrecy regarding Obama’s birth and the lack of details and secrecy about so much else of Obama’s life – his connections to Ayers, his grades in college, the papers he published, the lectures he taught, etc.' "

I don't have time to rummage through links to pieces on the incurious attitude of the press about Obama during the campaign, press boosterism, plans posted on Journolist to "change the subject" from Reverend Wright to the purported racism of some random conservative, or the efforts to hide information which would normally be available to the public (Woods Fund records in a public library, for example). This seems off-topic here. I can dig them up later if you need them.

This information does nothing to make it more plausible that Obama was foreign born. I just raises general suspicions that he's hiding something. It makes people distrust him, sort of like you distrust Sara Palin. If you read closely, you will notice that the person who categorized himself as a "birther" because we know so little about Obama DID NOT believe that he was foreign born. You might say it was sort of a protest position, I guess.

Question: Did either of the links I provided cause you to consider reasons other than bigotry for "birtherism"?

IS OBAMA A MUSLIM?
"And why in the world could it be a bad thing to say "Hussein," as if everyone with Hussein as one of their names is evil? . . . -- the Right calls him by his full name in order to stir up latent ignorance and bigotry."

I am aware of a few cases in which someone on the Right emphasized his middle name during the campaign in a bad way. However, the Obama campaign also switched positions on what he should be called from time to time. No matter where the confusion came from, it makes people uneasy about what to call him. And might not some on the right have started using his middle name when HE started using it again?

What is latent ignorance?

Most people pay far less attention to politics than you or I do, but they catch some things here and there. Might some of the suspicion that Obama might be a Muslim come from his unbelievable, changing statements about Reverend Wright? From his bows to Saudi royalty? An old, admiring NYT report that he does the "call to prayer" in a perfect Arabic style? Or from policies like these?
http://tinyurl.com/24koh47

In any case, Obama's falling poll numbers in the Arab world should help people understand that he's not a Muslim.
http://tinyurl.com/24663fa

KarenT says:
"To oppose liberalism is thus not only intellectually incorrect, it is also an affront to common decency."

If I had a nickel for every time I've heard Boortz and Hannity sneer at people educated in public schools . . .
I see no rhetorical disparity at all.

"A few recent examples of the actions the Left considers to be justified,"

I think your first mistake here is that the Left is not monolithic, and many disapprove of the sort of things you've listed. Show me a liberal who publicly sanctions violence.

2. Tea-party infiltrators trying to make Tea Party activists seem extreme, racist or nutty

Both asides characterize each other this way.

3. Television commentators calling Tea Party activists "teabaggers"

I first heard that phrase on First Things. What tv commentators? How many? And for a fan of Rush Limbaugh, what's so scandalous about a put down of a nickname? I've heard the gay sex theory -- or rather, I had to look it up -- and I think it's off the wall. For one thing, the Left approves of gay sex, and would not use it to mock.

4. False charges of racism against tea party activists repeated for months in mainstream newspapers and on TV as if true.

You guys have hardly proved they're false, and as I said, it stands to reason they're mostly true.

6. Union thugs beating Kenneth Gladney for being an "Uncle Tom"
7. Using donation records to harass and, occasionally, destroy the ability of small-time Proposition 8 supporters to make a living.
8. Terrorism directed at people traveling to the 2008 Minnesota Republican Convention

Scott Roeder, Stephen Tyrone Johns, white supremacists, the "Patriot" movement, the big uptick in gun sales after Obama was elected, a couple of nuts bringing guns to rallies, Palin putting target sights around the names of Democrats, a Tea Party activist cutting the gas lines at what he thought was a Democratic U.S. representative (which could have caused an explosion) . . .

Again, there are extremists on both sides.

"That's some pretty strong language there, Ken. "indoctrinated into hating?" One study showed that these types of shows generally tend to confirm previous convictions rather than to change opinions.

Sure, they also confirm prejudices. But I didn't hear people calling Obama a socialist/facist America-hater until Beck and the boys started saying so. Listen to any conservative AM host argue with a liberal caller and you'll hear either bemused disdain or sneering anger.

"How can I better understand why the big-government socialists and the anarchists get along so well together, while hating conservatives, if I never hear their views?"

The talkers all have the ability, if they would only use it, to air their views while at the same time acknowledging and grappling with strong arguments from the other side. I'm not saying every political show should be "fair and balanced" -- I'm saying that they shouldn't say they are when they aren't, in so doing deluding listeners who prefer disdain and black and white thinking to charity and intellectual exercise. I'm saying that AM political talk radio is popular because people prefer not to have to think through their positions, and I don't care how many studies say the listeners on average are intelligent, you only have to hear the fawning callers repeating the hosts silly formulations to know many are not. Or at least choose not to be. Those shows are echo chambers.

"I don't know about watching the Major 3 network news shows, but why wouldn't a Rush Limbaugh listener be interested in reading the occasional Paul Krugman piece in its natural habitat?"

I'm sure some do. Many others feel no need to, having been told the columns aren't worth the time. That's my point. Tell people the other side is wrong and why -- don't tell them they're wrong because every thing they say is dumb or a lie.

"I disagree about the responsibility to be "fair and balanced", as long as they make their biases clear. This is one of those cases in which the impossible task of meeting everyone's definition of "fair and balanced" would severely restrict liberty."

See above. And responsibilities don't restrict liberty anyhow, they call people to their better selves.

"the more thoughtful hosts"

Who are they, in your opinion? And please don't say Beck, whose ignorance of history is well-documented.

"I probably haven't listened to more than half an hour of Rush in the past couple of months, but even when I listened more, I never felt "enraged" or "incapable of rational debate". Even once."

He's on 15 hours a week. Do you think the legions of people who listen to hours of his vitriol and mockery each week can resist his sway entirely, or even want to? You're a conservative: doesn't violence and sex on television corrupt many viewers and influence behavior? Then why wouldn't rhetoric have an effect? We all know that bad company has a bad effect.

"Pew Research Center on the "ignorance" of Limbaugh's audience vs. network news audiences: http://tinyurl.com/6knn6k"

Note the study that FOX viewers are much more likely to think Saddam helped bring down the towers, we found WMD in Iraq, etc.

"Like I said, I don't really follow Palin closely. I think I'll wait for some of the dust to settle before condemning her."

Well, you can't rightly condemn her or praise her unless you know something about her. Read those sources, if you want to know the truth. Someone on your side ought to lead, or at least speak out. She was your candidate in 2008, and she likely wants to be on top of the ticket this time. In any case, she's identified with you. Repudiate her.

"http://tinyurl.com/26ot5nt"

Those are minor corrections. And read the article and you'll see that people are afraid to go on the record criticizing Palin, because she takes revenge (something we've seen elsewhere). So I expect some to back off what they told the reporter. Read the other pieces and you'll see that what the latest one says is of a piece with them. And then just watch her on TV for clues to her offstage personality. The article is entirely believable.

'The third is where I would put myself – a person:1) who wonders why it is so difficult for Obama to provide an actual Birth Certificate; and 2) who sees a connection between the lack of details and secrecy regarding Obama’s birth and the lack of details and secrecy about so much else of Obama’s life – his connections to Ayers, his grades in college, the papers he published, the lectures he taught, etc.' "

I posted links to show that his birth certificate has been produced and verified. His connections to Ayers (which are well known, it's just that the Right wishes they were stronger, and so pretends they're unclear), and the rest above in no possible sane way suggest he wasn't American-born. Ayers has done honorable work for years -- so the unfair guilt by association tack is even more ridiculous --, even receiving a Citizen of the Year award from Chicago. Obama worked on education reform proposals with him, alongside a prominent Republican or two. What in the world could possibly be wrong with that? What is wrong with Obama receiving his support? The man wasn't even really a terrorist as we know them today anyhow. Who did he kill? No one. Why? Because he took care to scare but not kill.

"This information does nothing to make it more plausible that Obama was foreign born. I just raises general suspicions that he's hiding something."

Like Bush with his draft and driving records? Were you guys upset about that?

"It makes people distrust him, sort of like you distrust Sara Palin."

First of all, the Palin analogy is bogus. There are no allegations that Obama shares her personality flaws or has the kind of record she has that has flowed from them. Read the articles. Neither do people without a grudge or an agenda distrust people because they put their best foot forward and don't tell everything about themselves, and that's presuming -- which I'm not -- that he's actively hiding anything. Tell us all _your_ foibles. Anyhow, why should he have to release that info? Whose business is it? He wrote two books about himself and his political philosophy.

"Question: Did either of the links I provided cause you to consider reasons other than bigotry for "birtherism"?"

No.

"I am aware of a few cases in which someone on the Right emphasized his middle name during the campaign in a bad way. However, the Obama campaign also switched positions on what he should be called from time to time. No matter where the confusion came from, it makes people uneasy about what to call him. And might not some on the right have started using his middle name when HE started using it again?"

They still use "Hussein" sometimes, and there is no reason to do so because he rarely does -- I haven't heard it. We know why they do it. And we know why he doesn't. And both reflect shame on the Right.

"What is latent ignorance?"

The modifier was supposed to apply to bigotry, or whatever else was in that sentence. Bad (hasty) writing on my part.

"Might some of the suspicion that Obama might be a Muslim come from his unbelievable, changing statements about Reverend Wright? From his bows to Saudi royalty? An old, admiring NYT report that he does the "call to prayer" in a perfect Arabic style? Or from policies like these?"

Emphatically no (and I don't find his backing away from Wright after Wright's meltdown at all blameworthy). Not for half way intelligent people not looking for excuses to dislike him. And again, what if he was a Muslim? The people with the suspicion betray bigotry.

Brian English:

"Do you have one shred of evidvence to support your claim that my statements are lies?"

It's impossible to prove that a made-up statistic is untrue when there is no basis for any statistical claim whatsoever, as is the case here. Do you understand that? THERE IS NO BASIS FOR ANY STATISTICAL CLAIM WHATSOEVER. No survey; no poll; NOTHING. That certainly doesn't make your false claims honest ones. I could as easily posit that an overwhelming majority of 9/11 families support sharia law in the USA (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrypdueIJew), on the basis that no evidence proving my equally unfounded claim wrong currently exists.

"What I find particularly odious is people like you and Mike Bloomberg claiming that the families of the 9/11 victims are overwhelmingly in favor of this Mosque, when even a casual observer of the situation knows they are overwhelmingly opposed to it."

Wow - two lies in one sentence. You've already had multiple people explain to you why your first claim here is a gross misreading of Bloomberg's statement, and I'm afraid I lack the patience to repeat our clarifications again. As for this "even a casual observer" business - I pity your poor clients.

At any rate, you have had your say, I have had mine, and any interested party can read our exchange and arrive at their own conclusions. Barring something of actual substance from you - which is to say, an unprecedented breakthrough - I do not anticipate contributing to this thread again.

"Do you understand that? THERE IS NO BASIS FOR ANY STATISTICAL CLAIM WHATSOEVER. No survey; no poll; NOTHING."

I did not make a statistical claim ("77.3% of the 9/11 families..."). I said an overwhelming majority. Based upon public statements by 9/11 families opposing the Mosque, as compared with the few statements supporting the Mosque, that is an accurate statement. When you combine that with the polls showing 70% of Americans oppose the Mosque, I do not see how you could reject my statement. Do you seriously believe that most of the 9/11 families favor the Mosque?

" I could as easily posit that an overwhelming majority of 9/11 families support sharia law in the USA (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrypdueIJew), on the basis that no evidence proving my equally unfounded claim wrong currently exists."

Why don't you go read some of the statements by the 9/11 families so that you have some idea of what you are talking about? Why don't you go down to some of the firehouses that responded to the 9/11 attacks, where they still have the pictures up of those they lost that day, and explain your little theory to them. I am sure the response you will get will be eye-opening.

Even the few 9/11 families who do not oppose the Mosque are certainly not enthusiastic about it, while many of those opposed are vehemently opposed. You hiding behind the lack of comprehensive poll of the 9/11 families is childish.

"Wow - two lies in one sentence. You've already had multiple people explain to you why your first claim here is a gross misreading of Bloomberg's statement,"

You aren't counting your multiple screen names as more than one person, are you?

And Bloomberg made his ridiculous statement for the same reason you raised it here -- to shut down discussion on the issue because "100%" of the 9/11 families he spoke to supported the Mosque. It is clear that Bloomberg intentionally omitted the number of families he spoke to in an attempt to give his statement more authority than it deserved.

"As for this "even a casual observer" business - I pity your poor clients."

Why would my clients be prejudiced by my ability to see the truth when it is staring me in the face, and my refusal to rely on statements by slimy politicians to make untenable arguments?

"I do not anticipate contributing to this thread again."

Promise?

Brian, the New York Times just came out with a little indirect statistical support for you observations:

"The reason we know that two-thirds of New Yorkers oppose the Ground Zero mosque is that the New York Times asked them."

Not 9/11 families, but still - only 27% of New Yorkers want the mosque built in the proposed location. Taranto comments:

http://tinyurl.com/25n98m9

Ken - catch you in a while. Too much to process right now.

"Brian, the New York Times just came out with a little indirect statistical support for you observations:"

In addition to the NYT poll showing 67% of New Yorkers oppose the Mosque, a CBS poll shows 71% opposition nationwide. An earlier CNN poll had put nationwide opposition at 68%.

I'm looking forward to it, Karen.

"7. Using donation records to harass and, occasionally, destroy the ability of small-time Proposition 8 supporters to make a living."

I read the following in an email from my Democratic Congressman: "just today, a prominent Republican staffer published the home addresses of Tom's campaign staff -- inviting the same kind of dangerous attack that took place earlier this year."

And here's a piece from Salon on how some 9/11 widows feel about the mosque:

http://www.salon.com/life/life_stories/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2010/09/07/we_are_not_experts_on_park_51&source=newsletter&utm_source=contactology&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Salon_Daily%2520Newsletter%2520%2528Not%2520Premium%2529_7_30_110

Ken, thanks for the Salon article. In addition to giving a voice to some of the diversity among 9/11 survivors, it also highlights the media's role in exacerbating these controversies. (I also appreciate her "We're not experts" angle.) I'm against Cordoba House, but I'm also against a lot of the bomb-throwing that's been done in the name of opposing it. Certainly, plastering smoking towers on the sides of buses in the name of honoring the victims and their families seems a perverse and misguided approach.

That "We're looking for family members who think the mosque is a bad idea" business is so true. As a film critic in the Christian press, I was contacted by CNN back when Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven was opening. They were looking for someone to come on one of their shows representing a Christian point of view. I was told beforehand by publicists that CNN was looking for Christian voices who were outraged about the film. When CNN called, they asked me one question: Are you outraged? I answered as honestly as I could: Well, outrage is a strong word; I have objections and concerns, but I also feel that Scott's efforts are partly honorable and partly flawed. I never heard from them again. A friend of mine, also a film critic in the Christian press, had exactly the same experience. I don't know who they ultimately got their outrage from, but certainly they wrote the story first and found the witnesses afterward.

SDG, your CNN story is sad but not surprising. I wish you could find a mainstream media outlet to publish it, but then most probably use the same tactics.

FWIW, I'm also blogging now on the whole Qur'an burning controversy and other examples of "blasphemy advocacy."

http://www.ncregister.com/blog/politics-of-blasphemy

Ken, a few comments as I have time. I'll try to concentrate more on themes related to the Mosque issue, like characterizations of bigotry, etc:

First, though, was I right or was I right? Imam Rauf returns to heal our divisions. Dennis Prager points out that he's back to references to"Cordoba", indicating increased confidence:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/08/opinion/08mosque.html?_r=1

Incidentally, Prager had some interesting comments on Jewish holy days and wisdom the third hour today.

DIFFERENCES IN HOW LEFT AND RIGHT VIEW 'THE OTHER'

To oppose liberalism is thus not only intellectually incorrect, it is also an affront to common decency.

"If I had a nickel for every time I've heard Boortz and Hannity sneer at people educated in public schools . . .
I see no rhetorical disparity at all."

Comment: To me, sneering at people educated in public schools would relate to intellectual issues, but does not seem to say anything about lack of "common decency" in liberal views. And I do not think first of talk show hosts when I think of typical personal conservative responses to neighbors with liberal views.

On a political note, there's Howard Dean's boilerplate characterization of the Republican Party. Doing exactly what he's accusing the other side of doing:

http://tinyurl.com/2dqec92

A few recent examples of the actions the Left considers to be justified,

"I think your first mistake here is that the Left is not monolithic, and many disapprove of the sort of things you've listed. Show me a liberal who publicly sanctions violence."

I'm afraid I was being sarcastic in both the heading concerning views about "the other" and the statement above - just reflecting some of the language I read from some lefties. Of course The Left is not monolithic. And while most on the Left do not condone violence, violence by the Left is far less likely to be highlighted in the news, and less likely to elicit condemnations from prominent people on the Left. Where was the big multi-day splash and investigation in the news about the beating of a black man in a wheelchair by union thugs at a political gathering? Or the dangerous violence at the Minnesota Republican Convention?

The "No Enemies to the Left" idea among liberalss is not monolithic, either. But it still contributes to differences in the responses of Right and Left. The Right has been better at marginalizing their crazies in recent years. Though the past few months, there are signs of a shift, with politicians on the Left more willing to criticize bad behavior on the "activist" Left.

2. Tea-party infiltrators trying to make Tea Party activists seem extreme, racist or nutty

"Both asides characterize each other this way. "

Comment: I'm talking about fraud - posing as members of the Tea Party or compiling videos using signs carried by and words spoken by infiltrators. And Pelosi generalized actions of the loonies, including the LaRouche followers, as characteristic of the entire movement. Which encourages the fakery, even by attorneys, etc. There were 2000 signatories to this guy's website:
http://tinyurl.com/y7d33kx

ThinkProgress (which I think is one of the Soros-funded sites) produced a little video featuring three different kinds of fraud:
http://tinyurl.com/374nu2t

Why hasn't Pelosi distanced herself from this kind of activity, since she is so keen on characterizing Tea Party activists as racist or potentially violent? And why this incitement if she was so scared of them?
http://tinyurl.com/2bx2cxj

3. Television commentators calling Tea Party activists "teabaggers"

I first heard that phrase on First Things. What tv commentators? How many? And for a fan of Rush Limbaugh, what's so scandalous about a put down of a nickname? I've heard the gay sex theory -- or rather, I had to look it up -- and I think it's off the wall. For one thing, the Left approves of gay sex, and would not use it to mock.

Comment: I've heard it mostly on clips from MSNBC, with scattered mentions by guests on other channels. We're talking about a "nickname" denoting a rather unusual sexual practice. Sometimes the term is intentionally accentuated in a mocking way. And don't think that just because the Left approves of gay sex, they wouldn't use a mostly-gay practice to mock others. Keith Olberman characterizes Ann Coulter as a transexual. And then there's the jokes about blue-haired ladies with no teeth.

Out of time.

KarenT: FWIW, according to a new Park51 blog post just posted today, Park51 remains the name of the community center:

http://blog.park51.org/

Other content on the site indicates that Cordoba House is PART OF Park51: "Cordoba House will be a center for multifaith dialogue and engagement within Park51s broader range of programs and activities."

http://blog.park51.org/?page_id=16

So it seems not to be a matter of names changing back and forth.

Although there doesn't appear to be a name change, it does look like the messaging from Park51 / Cordoba House has significantly changed / clarified yet again.

The clear message from the sponsors is now that (a) not only will there will be no "mosque," (b) there will be separate prayer spaces for Muslims, for Christians and for Jews, as well as a common prayer space for all faiths.

This VERY significantly mitigates the objections I've been raising (and if this had been the messaging all along, instead of the official websites for Park51 and the Cordoba Initiative calling it a "mosque," I would have taken a different line from the beginning).

Of course it's possible to doubt Rauf's sincerity, but as I've said from the beginning that is an ugly charge and should not be made without significant proof. At this point I'm inclined to take Rauf at his word and basically withdraw my objections to the Park51 / Cordoba House project.

NRCC Press Aide Tweets Home Addresses Of Virginia Dem's Staffers:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/07/nrcc-press-aide-tweets-staffers-home-addresses_n_708379.html

Karen, you seem to feel that the Left is more unfair to the Right than the Right is to the Left. Most on the Left feel the opposite. I feel that both views are fantasies.

I'm sorry you haven't responded to the Palin articles -- when the subject is political nastiness, she's a high profile offender. I'm still waiting for a conservative Christian to have the courage and integrity to take her on.

Ken: While compromising anyone's privacy is nasty business, you seem to be comparing apples and oranges. On the one hand, "Hey! All-y'all who think Prop 8 is bigotry! Here's the personal information of the bigots who supported it and denied marriage equality to loving same-sex couples!" On the other hand, "This representative is a carpetbagger! Look, here's the personal information of the out-of-state people he employs!" Are both equally invitations to reprisals against the two groups of people? Really?

Beginning to blog my latest thoughts on new developments on the Cordoba House project:

http://www.ncregister.com/blog/cordoba-house-no-mosque

SDG, I don't think it's apples and oranges. More like "bigots" and "America-hating socialists/fascists." Is the one supposed state of mind any more of an incitement than the other?

Bear in mind as well that awhile back someone mistook this congressman's brother's home for the congressman's, and slashed his gas line, which could have caused an explosion. If I was one of those staffers, I'd be calling the cops and praying for my family's safety.

Ken, whatever violence may have been aimed in the direction of Perriello himself, I take it for granted that (a) hostility toward the class "Prop 8 backers" is hotter, more immediate and broader based than hostility toward the class "staffers of Tom Perriello," and also that (b) publicly releasing private information about members of the first class pursuant to nothing is a more overtly hostile act than publicly releasing private information about the second class pursuant to a political critique of Perriello. The nastiness quotient seems not really comparable, though I agree it's a matter of comparing two evils.

"I take it for granted that (a) hostility toward the class "Prop 8 backers" is hotter, more immediate and broader based than hostility toward the class "staffers of Tom Perriello,"

I disagree. And in regards to B, both Prop 8 supporters and Perriello staffers are political actors. Plus it's P's brother who has suffered actual violence. And how is publishing info about his staff a political critique?

Ken, did you read your own link? The point seems clear to me, but I really don't think it's worth hashing out further. Draw your own conclusions.

And now Rauf, on Larry King last night, says that moving the site of Cordoba House away from Ground Zero could inflame radical Muslims abroad and threaten American lives. Which seems to me to tread dangerously close to a subtle form of terrorism in itself: threatening others with violence against innocents in order to achieve one's own ends. It also suggests that the site's proximity to Ground Zero IS important to radicals, suggesting that it IS seen as a "victory mosque."

Whether or how that should influence our actions is another question. For instance, it might be the case that a site seen by radicals as a victory mosque could become a rallying point and bring such Muslims there.

"Which seems to me to tread dangerously close to a subtle form of terrorism in itself: threatening others with violence against innocents in order to achieve one's own ends"

Sheesh, how sunk into your own world view and unable to comprehend anyone else's can you get? I heard Jim Wallis tonight saying he's always known Rauf to be sincere in wanting reconciliation. All Rauf is doing there is stating the obvious. He has no power to stop the radicals.

"it might be the case that a site seen by radicals as a victory mosque could become a rallying point and bring such Muslims there.'

I hope so. Rauf is just the guy they need to hear to show them the error of their ways. It's not that they think he wants to build a "victory mosque." They can read his actual views for themselves you know. It's that when they see us rejecting even moderate Islam, they'll think we really do hate them.

But never mind. Fight, fight! Suspect Islam for Jesus! I'll say it again: by and large in the political realm, the Religious Right needs to be born again.

"Sheesh, how sunk into your own world view and unable to comprehend anyone else's can you get?"

Your latest response suggests to me that you might ask yourself the same question. What does Rauf's sincerity, which I have affirmed over and over, have to do with whether or not he's overplayed the terror card here? Indeed, it's his very sincerity that inclines him to do so. He's on a mission from God and he knows it. The stakes are enormous. If he wins, the world wins; if he loses, the world loses. What's bad for him is bad for everyone.

"But never mind. Fight, fight! Suspect Islam for Jesus! I'll say it again: by and large in the political realm, the Religious Right needs to be born again."

And on that friendly note, it looks like communication has broken down entirely, since it's obvious to me that after ten zillion comments (and various links to my blogging), you're shadow-boxing with some point of view other than mine. Cheers.

"What does Rauf's sincerity, which I have affirmed over and over, have to do with whether or not he's overplayed the terror card here?"

OK, you've acknowledged that he's sincere, but then you suggest he is also -- or is almost, I can't tell -- "threatening others with violence against innocents in order to achieve one's own ends." When I say sincere the corollary to that he's a decent guy, not a manipulator. But again, why isn't it clear to you that what he's saying is true, that radicals (whom he has no control over) might use this issue as an excuse to recruit more radicals, and as further incitement to hit NYC again?

"And on that friendly note, it looks like communication has broken down entirely,"

I was probably too hard on you, and if so I apologize. But your suspicion seems far stronger than the facts merit.

Thanks for your moderate reply, Ken. It's refreshing to disagree reasonably with someone, especially on a charged topic like this one.

"When I say sincere the corollary to that he's a decent guy, not a manipulator."

Is ANYONE "not a manipulator"? I try not to be, with imperfect success.

I think Rauf sincerely advocates moderate Islam, sincerely opposes extremism, sincerely condemns terrorism. I think he is sincerely in favor of dialogue and engagement.

I also think that as a bridge builder with dialogue partners all over the map he has a tough job description, one that calls him to be many things to many people. I suspect that he negotiates the challenges with something less than perfect integrity. I think he can be a somewhat ambiguous, slippery character, one who sometimes says the right things for the right reasons, but who also sometimes says the right things for the wrong reasons and the wrong things for the right reasons.

I believe Rauf when he says he didn't see the controversy coming, and that if he had he never would have chosen that location. I also understand he's between a rock and a hard place now. I suspect he would like to move if he could couch it as a bridge-building move rather than a tail-between-the-legs retreat. He doesn't want to lose face in the Muslim world. And extremist voices opposing Cordoba House in strident, anti-Islamic terms are making it harder on him.

All of that makes sense. But sometimes when the stakes are high enough, people are tempted to overstate the stakes, to overplay their hand. Rauf genuinely deals with situations in which things going one way or another could directly impact the terrorist cause. That's a card that can be legitimately played, but it may be tempting to overplay it when the stakes are high enough.

I also think sometimes people who spend their head in one particular world all the time sometimes see things too much through that one lens. I've seen it in exorcists (some, not all) who are sincere in wanting to combat evil spirits but come to see demons under every dishrag. And there may be (I don't at all mean this in an overly critical way) a touch of messianic grandeur in it too.

At any rate, somewhere between "Do this or the terrorists have won!" and "Do this or the terrorists will strike!" there has to be a large middle ground where the terrorists aren't the issue -- and pushing issues in that middle ground toward either extreme, especially when you're invested in the outcome, can look ugly.

"Burning Qur'ans could provoke extremist violence" is well within reasonable "Do this and the terrorists strike!" territory. "Move Cordoba House a half dozen blocks and the terrorists strike!" seems to me at best a dodgy stretch, especially from someone invested in the project. At the very least, it was another rhetorical blunder ill calculated for its effect on even semi-sympathetic American listeners (which I consider myself). If Rauf had said "The anti-Islamic tone of some of the protests could provoke extremist violence," I wouldn't have a problem with that.

"It's refreshing to disagree reasonably with someone, especially on a charged topic like this one."

Yes it really is, and I should not have given way to exasperation last night. You've explained your thinking about Rauf very well, and I'm not sure I have much more to say. I'm sure we both pray for peace and wisdom on all sides, keeping in mind in particular tomorrow, 9/11, and the Florida pastor who might not burn those Korans after all.

Amen and amen!

Ken, a few more thoughts:

SARAH PALIN

"Well, you can't rightly condemn her or praise her unless you know something about her. Read those sources, if you want to know the truth. Someone on your side ought to lead, or at least speak out. She was your candidate in 2008, and she likely wants to be on top of the ticket this time. In any case, she's identified with you. Repudiate her."

Comment: I think you're the only person I know who has identified her with me. The viciousness toward this woman, the loony Andrew Sullivan obsession, etc. have really put me off "investigating" her. There are thousands of people trying to destroy her credibility right now. The Vanity Fair guy is planning to release a book before the election, I think. More people are coming out with versions of events which differ from his. If this information is legitimate, the Dems will make a huge deal of it before the election. Right now, people are contesting some things he wrote. http://tinyurl.com/24zdpgw

No one cares what I think about Sarah Palin, except you. I have other priorities. And the repudiation business cuts both ways. Will you repudiate Obama for his really flagrant lie, "If you like your insurance, you'll be able to keep it"? He knew that this would not be possible under his plans.

How about the probability that he lied in "Dreams from my Father"? I realize this is not "mental illness" type lying. More along the lines of trying to portray himself as an archetypal progressive. But still. And he announced that he had fictionalized names in the book. Which makes it hard to check up on the accuracy of most of the other interactions described in the book.
http://tinyurl.com/6h8gqo

I'll keep an open mind to the possibility that Palin is a deranged person who intimidates all her friends and associates if you'll keep an open mind to the possibility that we may not understand Imam Rauf's ultimate motives or how well his bridge-building works.

POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND INTIMIDATION

8. Terrorism directed at people traveling to the 2008 Minnesota Republican Convention

"Scott Roeder, Stephen Tyrone Johns, white supremacists, the "Patriot" movement, the big uptick in gun sales after Obama was elected, a couple of nuts bringing guns to rallies, Palin putting target sights around the names of Democrats, a Tea Party activist cutting the gas lines at what he thought was a Democratic U.S. representative (which could have caused an explosion) . . .

Again, there are extremists on both sides."

Comment: Most recent ORGANIZED political violence comes from the Left. This could change a little in the future with Andrew Breitbart's expositions on how to use the Left's tactics against it. Some people could take things too far. I agree that there are nuts on both sides. But the attention paid to violence in the media tends to downplay any relationship to the left and play up any relationship to the right.

Your specifics:

A. Scott Roeder I can understand you placing on the right.

B. The murderer of Stephen Tyrone Johns was clearly not associated with today's American right. Who's indoctrination led you to believe he was on the Right?: "He believes that “socialism represents the future of the west,” and that the Bush administration was behind 9/11 — putting him firmly in the camp of the left, not the right."

http://tinyurl.com/2boxgpx
More:
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/79880/
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/79860/
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/79843/

Off-subject, but nice: Hopeful signs from Muslims:
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/001229/

C. "white supremacists, the "Patriot" movement"

As noted in the case os Stephen Tyron Johns' murderer, not all white supremacists are on the Right politically. And where is the recent equivalent organized, actual violence by white supremacists or the "Patriot Movement" compared to SEIU and ANSWER - which are NOT "nut cases"?

The Left has a greater tendency to pin responsibility for nuts on their political opponents than does the Right. Though the Right does hold the media responsible for its biased reporting in this regard.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/03/025960.php

D. " the big uptick in gun sales after Obama was elected"

Why do you call this "extremism"? Liberal echo chamber?

Eric Holder talked about more gun control. People wanted to buy guns and ammo while they still could:
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/27683/
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/71469/

And then there are reasons like this:
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/75449/

E. "a couple of nuts bringing guns to rallies"

Yea. Just ask MSNBC. The guns were signs of "racial overtones" and "hate groups" opposed to a black man in the presidency. MSNBC illustrated the menace of racist anti-black hate groups with a fraudulently cropped video of a black man wearing guns at a rally. Listen to the commentators speaking Orwellian words over images of a black man (who would know?) wearing guns.

http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/83738/
http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/PHXBeat/60504
http://tinyurl.com/npcf8w

Did you hear solemn condemnation of MSNBC from all the other media outlets?
CNN didn't hide the man's race, so why so little attention on the MSNBC fraud?
http://tinyurl.com/ryurb3

Media used to be better at policing their own.
http://www.aim.org/publications/aim_report/1993/03a.html

E. "Palin putting target sights around the names of Democrats,"
Obama: ""if they bring a knife, we'll bring a gun."
I don't take either of these as incitements to violence.

F. "a Tea Party activist cutting the gas lines at what he thought was a Democratic U.S. representative (which could have caused an explosion) . . ."

Are you certain that a Tea Party Activist cut the lines? Has the perp been caught? The guy who made a death threat against Eric Cantor was an anti-Semitic Obama supporter. Did you read or hear that trumpeted in the news?
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/96660/

Double standards:
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/96700/
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/96724/
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/96630/

- "Again, there are extremists on both sides."

But the extremism on the Left doesn't get as much coverage in national news. Or it may be presented in a manner which obfuscates political leanings of the violent parties (or their organizers, in the case of ANSWER). Investigations are lacking. This is especially true in cases which involve organized hostility and violence:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/11/024966.php?format=print

Reader comments concerning the incident described above, from Istapundit:

“I am sure that Eric Holder will act swiftly – just like he has in St. Louis.”

" 'Of course, this would be a racist hate crime if the situation in Ft. Lauderdale had been reversed. It would be all over the MSM nonstop. Olbermann’s head would explode. The violence and the resort to foul name calling (‘teabaggers’) demonstrates the complete moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the left. I expect more of this, particularly since there will be no prosecution of these thugs.' You know, the Fred Phelps gang seems to manage to file a lot of lucrative lawsuits over the violent reactions of those they protest against, with the help of on-the-scene video. That’s their real business, by some accounts. Perhaps the Tea Party movement ought to try the same. It shouldn’t be all that hard to identify the folks involved and sue them, and the organizations they’re affiliated with. It would be nice if some friendly public interest lawyers would help out."

And a union official who advises union members to pray for the death of the Governor in New Jersey gets support from superiors:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkuTm-ON904&feature=player_embedded

There seems to be disproportionate violence and hostility toward black conservatives. Did you hear about this incident, with burns to a candidate for office, in the national news?
http://tinyurl.com/yeldz4k

"At this point in the campaign, office workers with the Hillsborough County Sheriff have tallied 90 reports of vandalism against cars with Republican campaign bumper stickers, and 7 such incidents against cars with Democrat bumper stickers. Other incidents include the systematic and widespread vandalism or theft of Republican campaign signs"

Most recent ORGANIZED political violence is coming from the Left. But you don't get that impression from Nancy Pelosi.

The Left has "controlled the narrative" most of the time in recent history. Evan Thomas was so confident of the dominance of liberals in the media that he thought the MSM would give Kerry/Edwards a 15 point "bump" in the election beyond the efforts of the Democratic campaign. http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/46850/ He later revised this estimate downward.

TALK SHOWS
No time to get into this in detail. You aren't going to find a totally fair, impartial talk show host in the real world. However, I think you might find Dennis Prager a little different from many others. A couple of old segments - free online:

Tim Russert dies, WMD in Iraq
http://tinyurl.com/2apgz8v

Dennis debates Arianna Huffington
http://tinyurl.com/28n8pko

Have a good weekend. I second your statements about tomorrow.

"No one cares what I think about Sarah Palin, except you."

I meant to say "your side," i.e the religious right. Yes there are a lot of people who speak very ill of her, and the more I see, the more I think she deserves it.

"And the repudiation business cuts both ways. Will you repudiate Obama for his really flagrant lie, "If you like your insurance, you'll be able to keep it"? He knew that this would not be possible under his plans."

I criticize Obama for it, yes. But while I believe he's a Christian, he has never been the Christian Left's candidate _as a Christian_. We have never identified him as one of our own, and he has not presented himself as one us. That's the difference.

"How about the probability that he lied in "Dreams from my Father"? I realize this is not "mental illness" type lying. More along the lines of trying to portray himself as an archetypal progressive. But still. And he announced that he had fictionalized names in the book. Which makes it hard to check up on the accuracy of most of the other interactions described in the book."

He may have exaggerated, I don't know. But anyone who thinks he couldn't have had a big Wall Street career if he'd wanted one isn't living on planet Earth. Compare his choosing to serve in a low status, low pay capacity before he went to law school to Palin's quitting the governership where she had great power to do good, supposedly so she could serve Alaska better (have you heard anything on that front since?), and cashing in. And everyone fictionalizes names in books these days, it's an accepted literary technique as long as you're up front about it.

I'll keep an open mind to the possibility that Palin is a deranged person who intimidates all her friends and associates"

Don't keep an open mind. Read the articles with the evidence.

"if you'll keep an open mind to the possibility that we may not understand Imam Rauf's ultimate motives or how well his bridge-building works."

I'm willing to change my mind, sure.

It's late -- I'll read the rest of what you've written later.

Karen wrote:
“Most recent ORGANIZED political violence comes from the Left.”

Could you give examples, please.

“This could change a little in the future with Andrew Breitbart's expositions on how to use the Left's tactics against it. Some people could take things too far. I agree that there are nuts on both sides.”

You agree that there are nuts on both sides but you think still apparently think Andrew Breitbart is a trustworthy news source and the Left has “tactics” the Right has not yet stooped to. Please now. Repeat after Paul: all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. :-)

“The guy who made a death threat against Eric Cantor was an anti-Semitic Obama supporter. Did you read or hear that trumpeted in the news?”

Yes.

“The violence and the resort to foul name calling (‘teabaggers’) demonstrates the complete moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the left.”

First of all, that doesn't follow logically for reasons I'm sure you don't need me to explain. Secondly, repeat after Paul: all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

I'm sorry, but I'm not going to read any further.

Muslims and Islam Were Part of Twin Towers’ Life:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/11/nyregion/11religion.html?src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB

"Opponents of the Park51 project say the presence of a Muslim center dishonors the victims of the Islamic extremists who flew two jets into the towers. Yet not only were Muslims peacefully worshiping in the twin towers long before the attacks, but even after the 1993 bombing of one tower by a Muslim radical, Ramzi Yousef, their religious observance generated no opposition

“We weren’t aliens,” Mr. Abdus-Salaam, 60, said in a telephone interview from Florida, where he moved in retirement. “We had a foothold there. You’d walk into the elevator in the morning and say, ‘Salaam aleikum,’ to one construction worker and five more guys in suits would answer, ‘Aleikum salaam.’ ”"

"Moreover, the prayer room was not the only example of Muslim religious practice in or near the trade center. About three dozen Muslim staff members of Windows on the World, the restaurant atop the north tower, used a stairwell between the 106th and 107th floors for their daily prayers."

"Fekkak Mamdouh, an immigrant from Morocco who was head waiter, attended a worship service just weeks after the attacks that honored the estimated 60 Muslims who died. Far from being viewed as objectionable, the service was conducted with formal support from city, state and federal authorities, who arranged for buses to transport imams and mourners to Warren Street.

There, within sight of the ruins, they chanted salat al-Ghaib, the funeral prayer when there is not an intact corpse.

“It is a shame, shame, shame,” Mr. Mamdouh, 49, said of the Park51 dispute. “Sometimes I wake up and think, this is not what I came to America for. I came here to build this country together. People are using this issue for their own agenda. It’s designed to keep the hate going.”"

Hold it, Ken.

Concerning organized political violence, I gave the example of an ANSWER-organized protest in which members of the Left attacked members of the Right. And unprovoked violence by members of the SEIU who had been send to "keep peace" at a town hall. There's also the anti-globalists, just off the top of my head.

The guy who attacked Eric Cantor: Glad to hear you heard about his political leanings in the mainstream media. Often doesn't happen when someone leans toward the Left. This is a hopeful sign of change.

Where did I say that Andrew Breitbart was a "trustworthy news source"? He paid a heavy price in credibility for posting the Sherrod tape cut off just after she started to talk about her "redemption". Both on the Right and Left. He talked about Sherrod's "basic humanity" in the accompanying text, but most people didn't report on that. He was focused on the NAACP audience response, but the Left mostly skipped that, too.

It was political theater which mirrored what often happens in attacks from the other side. Using Alinsky tactics. Many conservatives are intensely uncomfortable with these tactics. But that's what works in today's politics. Unfortunately. Some less-than-ideal responses below:

http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/103323/
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/103705/
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/103494/
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/103724/
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/103480/
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/103406/
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/103545/
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/104137/
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/103915/
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/103777/

I did not say that there were tactics to which the Right had not stooped. But some tactics have been more frequently used on the Left than on the Right in recent years. This is now changing, as "being nice" has not worked. The Andrew Breitbart kerfuffle has illuminated some unfair tactics. Which I hope will make them less useful in the future. Though Breitbart talks about Alinsky tactics in explaining how to use the Left's tactics against it, it is possible that some people on the Right could extrapolate this to organized violence, as well. Unfortunately. Hope it doesn't happen.

It's a rough world out there. I know nothing about Bill Whittle's religious leanings. I think he may be more libertarian than conservative. But perhaps this piece may help you to understand some of the nastiness you see coming from the Right:

"Saul Alinski wrote a book called Rules for Radicals. Hillary Clinton wrote about it in her senior’s thesis. And if Hillary Clinton learned from it, Barack Obama taught from it: the term community organizer was coined by Alinski and was the centerpiece of his theory that the socialization of America could best be accomplished from within the system since Americans were alert to revolutions forced upon them from the outside.

One of the Rules for Radicals is Make the enemy live up to his/her own book of rules. Think about the genius of that. Just let that sink in. When a Republican has an ethics scandal, it’s “hypocrisy” and “double standards” and all the rest. But when a Clinton or a Pelosi or a Charley Rangel or a Chris Dodd or a Barney Frank or a William Jefferson has an ethics scandal, no one bats an eye. Why? Because of course they’re immoral! They’re Democrats.

Alinski could see that moral people have to be held to moral standards when immoral people do not. We’d better learn a lesson from this, right quick. . .

. . . if we do lose to these kind of tactics, there will be no more decent people left in politics. . . "

http://tinyurl.com/29e7qso

Far from the ideal. But a mutual agreement to ratchet down the hostility may be necessary in U.S. politics. Most of the country hoped that President Obama would help bring this about.

Karen,

I'd never heard of ANSWER until you mentioned them, and I'm not sure why you cite them or the SEIU, since you seems to agree that some on the Right have stooped as low as some on the Left.

"Where did I say that Andrew Breitbart was a "trustworthy news source"? He paid a heavy price in credibility for posting the Sherrod tape cut off just after she started to talk about her "redemption". Both on the Right and Left. He talked about Sherrod's "basic humanity" in the accompanying text, but most people didn't report on that. He was focused on the NAACP audience response, but the Left mostly skipped that, too."

You didn't call him that, but you mentioned his "expositions." My point is that the guy has no credibility now. Anything he said would have to double-checked for accuracy, just as you mistrust, for good reason in some cases, media sources whose principals lean left. I'm glad to hear that he paid a price on the Right. I hope so. And talk of "basic humanity" or not, he smeared her. There wasn't a thing wrong with NAACP members' responses. She told of story of how a white guy she was trying to help tried to tell her in so many words that _he_ was really in charge. They recognized racial patronization all too well, and they responded to it. Fortunately the story didn't end there.

I first heard of Alinsky, or first focused on him -- I still haven't read him -- when Elizabeth Scalia accused me of Alinsky tactics on her blog. My point is that you guys get these notions in your heads (on a local site a guy accused me of disagreeing with him on the Civil War because I'd been educated in government schools, never mind that he had no idea where I've been educated) that you think explains every liberal thought or action. Are you sure everyone you think was using Alinsky tactics has even read him?

Did Alinsky have anything on Machiavelli, and breathes there an American politician of rank who hasn't read The Prince? And whose side was Lee Atwater on? What about Rove, or whoever it was that smeared McCain so viciously in South Carolina on W's behalf in 2000? The Left didn't invent or perfect dirty tricks, I don't who has shown or could show that the Left has been dirtier recently -- the Left would of course say the opposite --, and the notion that the Right is now getting worse because they're being forced to keep up is just fantasy. It beggars common sense and the beginning of spiritual wisdom, i.e. that we all share the same base nature.

And I'm sorry, but I'll read quotes you cite, but not 10 whole links.

"the term community organizer was coined by Alinski and was the centerpiece of his theory that the socialization of America could best be accomplished from within the system since Americans were alert to revolutions forced upon them from the outside."

Never mind his political aims, it's Alinsky tactics you guys always accuse us of using as well. But what could possibly be wrong with that tactic?

"One of the Rules for Radicals is Make the enemy live up to his/her own book of rules."

So Saul Alinsky was the first guy to say, "if you're opponent's a hypocrite, say so"? Because that's the illogic behind your argument. You're using what I like to call the Hitler-yelled-at -his-kids argument. Hitler yelled at his kids, so if you yell at yours, you're a Nazi too.

"Think about the genius of that. Just let that sink in. When a Republican has an ethics scandal, it’s “hypocrisy” and “double standards” and all the rest. But when a Clinton or a Pelosi or a Charley Rangel or a Chris Dodd or a Barney Frank or a William Jefferson has an ethics scandal, no one bats an eye. Why? Because of course they’re immoral! They’re Democrats."

I have never ever seen that. I can't remember what Pelosi is supposed to have done, but the other's scandals have been well covered, and not excused.

"Alinski could see that moral people have to be held to moral standards when immoral people do not."

I'll bet he never said that or meant it, but you guys have merely interpreted him that way.

> a mutual agreement to ratchet down the hostility may be necessary in U.S. politics. Most of the country hoped that President Obama would help bring this about.

So did you all shout down Limbaugh when he said "I hope he fails"? Obama's agenda has been more progressive than moderates expected, in part because the economy forced his hand, but the Right never gave him a chance and never intended to.

Ken, a few responses:

"I'd never heard of ANSWER until you mentioned them, and I'm not sure why you cite them or the SEIU, since you seems to agree that some on the Right have stooped as low as some on the Left."

I cited ANSWER and the SEIU because they ORGANIZED actions which resulted in violence from the Left. You asked for examples. ANSWER is far-left. They are involved in organizing many lefty protests, etc. I made a distinction between organized violence (I should have said organized actions resulting in violence by several people) and violence by weirdos. I also talked about a DIFFERENCE IN FREQUENCY of violence by the Right and Left in recent years. I don't have any handy statistics on US political violence but here are some from Europe, where the Social Democracy model being pushed by the current administration is more established. Perhaps we can plan better to avoid similar domestic incidents here in the future:

Convictions/acquittals for terrorism charges in Europe in 2009, where the right wing really does have racist tendencies :

Islamist - 89
Left Wing - 39
Right Wing - 1
Separatist - 268 (mostly in Spain, France and Ireland)
Not specified - 11

http://tinyurl.com/2uf2ryy

Where did I say that Andrew Breitbart was a "trustworthy news source"? . . .

"You didn't call him that, but you mentioned his 'expositions.' "

What didn't I call him on? By "expositions", I meant his detailed explanations of the Alinsky methods he uses against the Left. This helped people on the Right understand many of the tactics being used against them.

"My point is that the guy has no credibility now. Anything he said would have to double-checked for accuracy, just as you mistrust, for good reason in some cases, media sources whose principals lean left. "

I agree that it's a great idea to fact-check Breitbart. His new sites tend to have articles of uneven quality. The sites have a sort of "tabloid" feel in my opinion, and often are heavy on opinion. And much of the content seems amateurish and impulsive. It may improve over time if he gets more resources.

"I'm glad to hear that he paid a price on the Right. I hope so. And talk of "basic humanity" or not, he smeared her. There wasn't a thing wrong with NAACP members' responses. She told of story of how a white guy she was trying to help tried to tell her in so many words that _he_ was really in charge. They recognized racial patronization all too well, and they responded to it. Fortunately the story didn't end there."

I have no reason to doubt, at this point, Breitbart's story that he had received the clip as it was first shown and that he had rushed to post it while press attention was on the NAACP's plan to officially smear the Tea Party movement. He warned them that if they did not retract the smears they had already made and proceeded with their plan for a resolution officially smearing the Tea Party, he would release a tape he had. So while Sherrod was smeared, I can't say that this was Breitbart's intention. The NAACP criticized the audience, too, based on the clip he posted. It would have been far less embarrassing for everyone, including Breitbart, if he had checked out the entire tape first.

"I first heard of Alinsky, or first focused on him -- I still haven't read him -- when Elizabeth Scalia accused me of Alinsky tactics on her blog. My point is that you guys get these notions in your heads (on a local site a guy accused me of disagreeing with him on the Civil War because I'd been educated in government schools, never mind that he had no idea where I've been educated) that you think explains every liberal thought or action. Are you sure everyone you think was using Alinsky tactics has even read him?"

I doubt that most of the people who use Alinsky tactics have read him, other than maybe his list of "rules for radicals". However, most political strategists on the left seem to have read him, so his tactics are part of what you hear and read from them. They are probably used unconsciously, rather than intentionally, by many people. However, your demand that I place renunciation of Sarah Palin at the top of my priority list fits in with current Democratic tactics and is in line with two rules by Alinsky, the one noted by Bill Whittle and the one about keeping the pressure on. I don't think you intended it to fit into a political agenda. It just happens to fit.

"Did Alinsky have anything on Machiavelli, and breathes there an American politician of rank who hasn't read The Prince? And whose side was Lee Atwater on? What about Rove, or whoever it was that smeared McCain so viciously in South Carolina on W's behalf in 2000? The Left didn't invent or perfect dirty tricks, I don't who has shown or could show that the Left has been dirtier recently -- the Left would of course say the opposite --, and the notion that the Right is now getting worse because they're being forced to keep up is just fantasy. It beggars common sense and the beginning of spiritual wisdom, i.e. that we all share the same base nature."

I believe that there are cycles in history and politics. Sometimes one type of unethical behavior is prominent in certain political movements, at other times other types of unethical behavior may come to the forefront. And if you think both sides are equally subject to expression of the same weaknesses, why did you say, "The licentious or lazy have a great friend in liberalism. Bigots have a friend in conservatism."? Different ideologies tend to suppress or encourage expression of various parts of our "base natures". So do moments in history.

"And I'm sorry, but I'll read quotes you cite, but not 10 whole links. "

Just allowing you the opportunity to gain some ammunition against the Right and maybe some understanding of how the larger Right thinks. You don't have to read them if you don't want to.

'the term community organizer was coined by Alinski and was the centerpiece of his theory that the socialization of America could best be accomplished from within the system since Americans were alert to revolutions forced upon them from the outside.'

"Never mind his political aims, it's Alinsky tactics you guys always accuse us of using as well. But what could possibly be wrong with that tactic?"

Well, relatively peaceful change from within is preferable to violent overthrow from without. But people who don't want a socialist country feel less confused when they understand the tactics being used to bring changes in the direction of socialism into government against their will.

'One of the Rules for Radicals is Make the enemy live up to his/her own book of rules.'

"So Saul Alinsky was the first guy to say, "if you're opponent's a hypocrite, say so"? Because that's the illogic behind your argument. You're using what I like to call the Hitler-yelled-at -his-kids argument. Hitler yelled at his kids, so if you yell at yours, you're a Nazi too."

I'm not sure what you're talking about here. I'm not saying that you're like Saul Alinsky. The point of the piece was that the Right needed to understand the tactics being used against them in order to avoid defeat.

'Think about the genius of that. Just let that sink in. When a Republican has an ethics scandal, it’s “hypocrisy” and “double standards” and all the rest. But when a Clinton or a Pelosi or a Charley Rangel or a Chris Dodd or a Barney Frank or a William Jefferson has an ethics scandal, no one bats an eye. Why? Because of course they’re immoral! They’re Democrats.'

"I have never ever seen that. I can't remember what Pelosi is supposed to have done, but the other's scandals have been well covered, and not excused."

You've never seen a difference in how the right and left treat people "on their side" who have been charged with an ethics scandal? In whether the party affiliation of someone charged with an ethics violation appears at the beginning or the end of the story, depending on their party affiliation? You never saw Democrats making excuses for Clinton or attacking the Right for bring up his ethical problems? You didn't see feminists defending Clinton and bad-mouthing his accusers? You aren't aware of Rangel's high-profile fundraiser? You don't think Al Gore gets a pass for hypocrisy in wasting energy in his multiple homes, boat, private jet travel, etc? Why did the press avoid confronting John Edwards for so long, leaving it to the sleazy National Enquirer to break the story about his love-child?

Nancy Pelosi's ethics problems have included favorable political treatment of her husband's business interests and some investments, campaign finance violations and refusal to remove Rangel from chairmanship of an important committee when his multiple ethics problems became obvious.

'Alinski could see that moral people have to be held to moral standards when immoral people do not.'

"I'll bet he never said that or meant it, but you guys have merely interpreted him that way."

There was no claim that he said that. The claim was that he understood it. That's one way he applied it himself. Whatever he meant, that's the effect of applying his rule. And no one can live up to all of their ideals. When you divert the other side's attention from the issues to "defending their honor", you have a strong tactical advantage. Breitbart was applying this rule when he called out the NAACP for racism. This helped neutralize their own attacks on others for racism. Racism is one of the few moral issues on the Left which currently have power to instantly trip up people on the Left, whether or not a charge of racism is justified. Just ask Geraldine Ferrarro.

A few of the Alinsky methods have been used on the right for some time. Rush Limbaugh understands the one about the power of ridicule as well as the Left does.

. . . a mutual agreement to ratchet down the hostility may be necessary in U.S. politics. Most of the country hoped that President Obama would help bring this about.

"So did you all shout down Limbaugh when he said 'I hope he fails?' "

No. Did you all shout down Obama when he dismissed the congressional Republicans in their first meeting with, "I won"? Did you all shout down the people who make vile comments about Palin before they could possibly have learned much about her personal characteristics? Who kept up the vile comments even after she went back to Alaska? Who file phony lawsuits against her to take up all her time and money?

If one believed that Obama's policies would destroy the country if implemented, and if Obama would not negotiate with the "other side", why would one not hope that he would fail in trying to implement his policies? Did you expect people to just shut up while he implemented irreversible, transformative changes to government which they believed would destroy the country?

There may have been a kinder, gentler, but still effective, way for Limbaugh to deliver the message that he thought Obama's policies were disastrous. But I'm not sure what it would be. Other than to propose a compromise, which Limbaugh did. And which Obama ignored, like other ideas proposed by the Right.

"Obama's agenda has been more progressive than moderates expected, in part because the economy forced his hand, but the Right never gave him a chance and never intended to."

Most of the Right was pretty quiet between the time of the election and inauguration. Many made comments about their hopes that Obama would be a moderate. Many wanted to give him a chance. In his first meeting with the Republicans, he dismissed their policy proposals with, "I won". That was an early signal that the Right would be dismissed by him.

He never intended to include the Right and he didn't have to, with majorities in both houses. So it was full speed ahead with vastly increasing the power and reach of the federal government. I don't see how you could believe that the reckless, haughty, aggressive actions of the administration and Congress in the early part of Obama's presidency were less insulting, shocking and alarming to the Right than Rush Limbaugh's statement.

Obama may believe that the economy forced his hand on some issues. But his policies haven't worked. So maybe there was something wrong with his approach. The effect of his changes all went in the direction of increasing the power of the federal government, especially the administration. Often while ignoring the rule of law. Why wouldn't "small government" and "rule of law" proponents be alarmed? What did he do to make them feel less alarmed and more "understood"?

Mark Steyn said this way back in March of 2008: "Obama is meant to be the man who transcends the divisions of race. . .

What is Barack Obama for? It’s not his “policies,” such as they are. Rather, Senator Obama embodies an idea: He’s a symbol of redemption and renewal . . . " http://tinyurl.com/35cjrue

People are disappointed that he didn't turn out to be a "healer". I don't think anybody expected Rush Limbaugh to be a "healer".

"I cited ANSWER and the SEIU because they ORGANIZED actions which resulted in violence from the Left. You asked for examples. ANSWER is far-left."

OK, but I expect bad behavior from the fringes. What concerns me is when the fringes, like Tea Partiers, attract moderate support.

"I have no reason to doubt, at this point, Breitbart's story that he had received the clip as it was first shown and that he had rushed to post it while press attention was on the NAACP's plan to officially smear the Tea Party movement. He warned them that if they did not retract the smears they had already made and proceeded with their plan for a resolution officially smearing the Tea Party, he would release a tape he had. So while Sherrod was smeared, I can't say that this was Breitbart's intention. The NAACP criticized the audience, too, based on the clip he posted. It would have been far less embarrassing for everyone, including Breitbart, if he had checked out the entire tape first."

I don't doubt his story of how and why he posted it either ("smears" I do take issue with), but how does that excuse him? He has a responsibility to check out his stories, just like anyone else acting as a journalist or political commentator. The fact that the NAACP too fell down on the job in now way exculpates Breitbart, and Breitbart has never backed down from his faulty interpretation of the crowd's reaction (the same one you posted).

"I doubt that most of the people who use Alinsky tactics have read him, other than maybe his list of "rules for radicals". However, most political strategists on the left seem to have read him, so his tactics are part of what you hear and read from them. They are probably used unconsciously, rather than intentionally, by many people. However, your demand that I place renunciation of Sarah Palin at the top of my priority list fits in with current Democratic tactics and is in line with two rules by Alinsky, the one noted by Bill Whittle and the one about keeping the pressure on. I don't think you intended it to fit into a political agenda. It just happens to fit."

Again, I see no evidence that Dems are using tactics Reps aren't using too, and the Reps who accuse Dems of using them have obviously read them too, so when they use the same tactics, why aren't they just using "Alinsky tactics"? And my call for the Religious Right to renounce Palin is simply a call for integrity.

"I believe that there are cycles in history and politics. Sometimes one type of unethical behavior is prominent in certain political movements, at other times other types of unethical behavior may come to the forefront. And if you think both sides are equally subject to expression of the same weaknesses, why did you say, "The licentious or lazy have a great friend in liberalism. Bigots have a friend in conservatism."? Different ideologies tend to suppress or encourage expression of various parts of our "base natures". So do moments in history."

See above.

"people who don't want a socialist country feel less confused when they understand the tactics being used to bring changes in the direction of socialism into government against their will."

Again, conservatives lie if they say they don't use the same tactics, or whatever tactics -- whatever manipulative tool they can find -- to win. To use a popular phrase, you're making a difference without a distinction.

-- 'One of the Rules for Radicals is Make the enemy live up to his/her own book of rules.'

"So Saul Alinsky was the first guy to say, "if you're opponent's a hypocrite, say so"? Because that's the illogic behind your argument. You're using what I like to call the Hitler-yelled-at -his-kids argument. Hitler yelled at his kids, so if you yell at yours, you're a Nazi too."

I'm not sure what you're talking about here. I'm not saying that you're like Saul Alinsky. The point of the piece was that the Right needed to understand the tactics being used against them in order to avoid defeat. --

My point again is that Alinsky didn't invent this tactic, the tactic is fair, and everyone uses it.

"You've never seen a difference in how the right and left treat people "on their side" who have been charged with an ethics scandal? In whether the party affiliation of someone charged with an ethics violation appears at the beginning or the end of the story, depending on their party affiliation? You never saw Democrats making excuses for Clinton or attacking the Right for bring up his ethical problems? You didn't see feminists defending Clinton and bad-mouthing his accusers? You aren't aware of Rangel's high-profile fundraiser? You don't think Al Gore gets a pass for hypocrisy in wasting energy in his multiple homes, boat, private jet travel, etc? Why did the press avoid confronting John Edwards for so long, leaving it to the sleazy National Enquirer to break the story about his love-child?"

You're missing the point. Of course liberals are easy on liberals and hard on conservatives, but conservatives are just as biased. That's not just an Alinsky tactic. It's human nature. From everything I've read attributed to Alinsky, the whole "Alinsky tactics" charge is a rhetorical scam I'm surprised you haven't seen through. Maybe Alinsky was a smart guy, but he didn't invent human nature, and besides that, however misguided he may have been, his overall intentions were good.

"Nancy Pelosi's ethics problems have included favorable political treatment of her husband's business interests and some investments, campaign finance violations and refusal to remove Rangel from chairmanship of an important committee when his multiple ethics problems became obvious."

Yes liberals should denounce her when she's two-faced and hypocritical, and when you denounce Palin for the same reasons you'll have a principled leg to stand on (and "I haven't checked her out" is no excuse). If I retorted by bringing up, say Jack Abramhoff, would that somehow discredit conservative ideals, or even the score? The game itself is deeply silly. Again, I post here as a Christian wishing that Christians on both sides would hold Christians on their own sides to Christian standards. That's the best we can do until Christ returns.

"When you divert the other side's attention from the issues to "defending their honor", you have a strong tactical advantage. Breitbart was applying this rule when he called out the NAACP for racism. This helped neutralize their own attacks on others for racism."

The NAACP wasn't racist. They've suffered from white racism, so it's only natural that they sometimes imagine racism when it isn't there.

-- . . . a mutual agreement to ratchet down the hostility may be necessary in U.S. politics. Most of the country hoped that President Obama would help bring this about.

"So did you all shout down Limbaugh when he said 'I hope he fails?' "

"Did you all shout down the people who make vile comments about Palin before they could possibly have learned much about her personal characteristics? Who kept up the vile comments even after she went back to Alaska? Who file phony lawsuits against her to take up all her time and money? --

Vile language aside (of course I criticize that) you are in no position to evaluate the charges against her until you've actually read them from her accusers.

"If one believed that Obama's policies would destroy the country if implemented, and if Obama would not negotiate with the "other side", why would one not hope that he would fail in trying to implement his policies? Did you expect people to just shut up while he implemented irreversible, transformative changes to government which they believed would destroy the country?

There may have been a kinder, gentler, but still effective, way for Limbaugh to deliver the message that he thought Obama's policies were disastrous. But I'm not sure what it would be. Other than to propose a compromise, which Limbaugh did. And which Obama ignored, like other ideas proposed by the Right."

Well first of all, presidents shouldn't be negotiating with talk show hosts. And secondly, context matters. Limbaugh shows nothing but disdain for liberals, and his comments were received accordingly. There are ways to stand in opposition respectably, but calling Obama "Barry" isn't one of them.

"Most of the Right was pretty quiet between the time of the election and inauguration. Many made comments about their hopes that Obama would be a moderate. Many wanted to give him a chance. In his first meeting with the Republicans, he dismissed their policy proposals with, "I won". That was an early signal that the Right would be dismissed by him.

He never intended to include the Right and he didn't have to, with majorities in both houses. So it was full speed ahead with vastly increasing the power and reach of the federal government. I don't see how you could believe that the reckless, haughty, aggressive actions of the administration and Congress in the early part of Obama's presidency were less insulting, shocking and alarming to the Right than Rush Limbaugh's statement."

Obama did win, and handily, and he didn’t win promising to be a moderate. That wasn't the healing he promised. He ran promising, for example, to reform health care. In other words, he had a mandate. And if Reps were easy on him early on, it was likely because TARP was their baby too, as was the economy Obama was facing. Replying that he'd won (actually didn't he just say that to his staff?) may not have been good politics, but it's no different than Bush in 2004 saying he'd earned some political capital and he intended to spend it. Nothing wrong with that. What you call reckless, haughty, aggressive we call bold, confident and decisive which, regardless of whether his policies are wise or not, is a description of leadership.

"Obama may believe that the economy forced his hand on some issues. But his policies haven't worked. So maybe there was something wrong with his approach. The effect of his changes all went in the direction of increasing the power of the federal government, especially the administration. Often while ignoring the rule of law. Why wouldn't "small government" and "rule of law" proponents be alarmed? What did he do to make them feel less alarmed and more "understood"?"

Again, I'm not knocking them for being alarmed. But whether his policies have worked is up for debate. TARP has been paid back almost entirely. Do we know Rep policies would have created more jobs? The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the stimulus, which even some conservative economists supported, has created 1.5-3.5 million jobs. Compare that to the hundreds of thousands of jobs being lost when Obama came in. Likewise, the rule of law claim is highly debatable.

"People are disappointed that he didn't turn out to be a "healer". I don't think anybody expected Rush Limbaugh to be a "healer"."

Again, for "healer" you mistakenly read "moderate." His rhetoric, at least at first, was mild. And Limbaugh has the responsibility to be a good citizen, which includes, inasmuch as it's possible in politics, being a peacemaker -- in other words, taking a page from Obama.

Ken, some responses:

". . . I expect bad behavior from the fringes. What concerns me is when the fringes, like Tea Partiers, attract moderate support."

Yes, ANSWER is pretty far to the Left. They specialize at staging protests for maximum PR value, and they often stage protests for somewhat less "fringy" protests on the Left.

What about their positions makes you consider the Tea Partiers "fringes?" Do you consider SEIU a "fringe" from whom we should expect violence? Why do you think there has there been more violence from SEIU than from the Tea Parties since the Tea Party movement started?

"I don't doubt his story of how and why he posted it either ("smears" I do take issue with), but how does that excuse him? He has a responsibility to check out his stories, just like anyone else acting as a journalist or political commentator. The fact that the NAACP too fell down on the job in now way exculpates Breitbart, and Breitbart has never backed down from his faulty interpretation of the crowd's reaction (the same one you posted)."

Why don't you believe that the NAACP intended to smear the Tea Parties? I agree that Breitbart should have checked out the tape. I'm not "excusing" him. But his "sin" is being wildly exaggerated on the Left. In what context did I post the Sherrod video? I don't remember posting it.

Things have become significantly messier on the Sherrod front since she was first compared to Nelson Mandela and Rosa Parks. Her husband was lionized in Salon or Slate (don't remember which). She was dropped from the TV circuit, pretty much, after she accused Breitbart of wanting to return blacks to slavery. Somebody found a tape of her husband talking about how blacks should not allow whites or their "uncle toms" to take " black" political seats. The Sherrods were attacked from the Left for keeping blacks, including children, in slave-like conditions on the farm they lost, for which they received a large settlement from the USDA. Sherrod has said she would sue Breitbart, and got a standing ovation from black journalists for announcing this. What a mess.

"Again, I see no evidence that Dems are using tactics Reps aren't using too, and the Reps who accuse Dems of using them have obviously read them too, so when they use the same tactics, why aren't they just using "Alinsky tactics"?

Yes. I mentioned that Breitbart was instructing the Right on how to use Alinsky tactics against the Left. He is very clear about which tactics he is using when. The point is that now the Right has a better understanding of the tactics and is starting to recognize them when used against them and also to use them deliberately themselves.

"And my call for the Religious Right to renounce Palin is simply a call for integrity. "

Precisely Bill Whittle's point. You would "criticize" Obama for lying but you would not "renounce" him because you don't identify with him religiously. You demand higher standards from the Religious Right. This puts the Religious Right at a tactical disadvantage. Your moral imperatives mesh nicely with the Democrats' goals of "neutralizing" Palin, Limbaugh, etc. Even if you didn't mean it that way.

"My point again is that Alinsky didn't invent this tactic, the tactic is fair, and everyone uses it."

The tactic is fair only if both sides have equivalent "books of rules" to live up to. Otherwise, one side is preoccupied with defending itself and the other side goes on the offensive because it has less difficult rules to live up to. Everyone might TRY to use this tactic. But the Left brushes off most charges of hypocrisy. This tactic is much more effective against the Right.

"You're missing the point. Of course liberals are easy on liberals and hard on conservatives, but conservatives are just as biased. That's not just an Alinsky tactic. It's human nature. From everything I've read attributed to Alinsky, the whole "Alinsky tactics" charge is a rhetorical scam I'm surprised you haven't seen through. Maybe Alinsky was a smart guy, but he didn't invent human nature, and besides that, however misguided he may have been, his overall intentions were good.

It is NOT a "rhetorical scam" to recognize Alinsky's Rules for Radicals when one sees them in action. Obama taught from the book and was proud of his role as a community organizer. It is relevant to how we got to our current situation. In an old interview, Obama described how he differed from Alinsky in one particular: Alinsky wanted leaders to "push power down to the people" and stay in the background. Obama had not had success with this principle as a community organizer. He stated that he believed that community organizing required a strong leader. Like him.

Conservatives ma