StrangerThan
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quote:
So wait, are the Muslims who don't think it should be built there more significant than the Muslims who do? How about this, the truth is the truth, and it doesn't care what religion you are. Because they are anti-mosque muslims I should agree with them?
You tell me violet. You're the one who wrote a nonsensical analogy that paints them in the corner as bigots, racists and phobic. That too, is a truth.
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wth? That came out of left field. I think, at least in this discussion, that you are the first to mention Obama at all. MY point, at least, is that the trauma and high emotions surrounding 9/11 are causing some in the country to have a moment of weakness in the American values department.
There are all sorts of values suspect in this debate, from koran burning ministers to people who got their panties in a wad when Obama was nailed by pundits. As for your point, at least this statement of it makes more sense than your op.
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the point of the original post was that different forms of bigotry can often have the same root. It just so happens in this case to be a past encounter. Besides, bigotry is bigotry, no matter what color the bigot is. I'm not sure why you think who voices an opinion pro or con should make any difference to my opinion.
Woo hoo. We have a winner. Nice to see that you finally understand that the point of your post was wrapped around establishing points like bigotry and racism when the issue is one of sensibilities and sensitivities. Years ago I took part in one of those social experiment types of classes. The instructor, who was a very wise woman, had unique ways of making you think about your position. She constructed a scenario for us to debate, one that involved an invented country, along with equally invented political parties. As a preface to the debate portion, we had to read a synopsis establishing the history, the abuses, the antics and leanings of each side. The issue at stake was not political in nature, but rather social and made fractious by the opposing stances of the parties.
Of course, these parties were symbolic of the parties we have in the US and included some of their rhetoric. So Monday we began a series of debates in courtroom style with her as the judge. The debates ran all week and grew fairly heated at times given that even though we began on an invented level, it quickly morphed into what was essentially a Democratic vs Republican debate. We kept the facade of it not being so, but it was. On Friday morning, before closing arguments were to be heard, she took our prepared papers, then sent us back to group and sanitized the context. The original text had staged an issue that could quickly fall into partisan lines, which it most certainly did. Once she removed it, removed all the names, cast the people as person A and person B, it stripped all the dividing points. So after all the debate, the maneuvers, the heated moments, what was left was a simple question.
It was quite eye-opening to see how simple things can become wrapped in partisan politics wherein the issue itself is lost. As part of her instruction that followed her point was that if you can take away the items that preclude seeing it in objective terms, and remove the pieces that seat people on one side of the table or the other before they even consider the question, then you have a more effective means of determining for yourself, the validity of the different positions in the conflict.
We ended up with a debate on Friday for sure. That debate centered around how fucking blind we had been however.
Which is why, I wrote this scenario in XYZ terms, which I will repost here for you.
"There's an internet group called XYZ. They are comprised of every race on the planet. A group of them come in your neighborhood and kill all the children in a school. A few years later, a member of XYZ moves in next to the school with the intention of tearing the house down and erecting a structure that is both a monument to XYZ and is open for you to come see how nice they really are. Some in your neighborhood think it is insensitive for him to do so even though he says he is nothing like the the ones who came and killed your kids and we can agree he doesn't have the same type of background. We can also agree that there are other members of XYZ who don't share that type of background.
A few weeks later, he goes and hangs out with more members of XYZ, comes back and tells you that if he doesn't build it there, it may cause them to come kill more kids in your neighborhood. In fact, some of the more militant members of XYZ publicly state the monument should go there or there will be a backlash that you will have to deal with. "
I have a problem with the mosque in that spot. It is not based upon race because muslims incorporate all races. It is not based upon bigotry because I could care less what religion one practices and honestly, probably have more experience than many in the middle east where I encountered many, many more moderate, friendly and accepting muslims than the opposite. I have a problem with the sensibility of erecting a structure that will create more disharmony than it assuages, that erects a monument to islam in a place where islam caused such death and destruction. I would have the same problem with any group or religion who did the same thing. It is neither sensible nor sensitive to those who lost, to a nation as a whole.
The point of your post was to wrap anything but your position in racist, bigoted terms. That my lady, is a crock of shit.
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So by your own stats at least, roughly half of all democrats and liberals, almost a third of all whites and a bit less than half of all non-whites are for the mosque, then? Does that sound like the fringe to you? I don't know how reliable those numbers are anyway, considering that by most accounts I've read the pro-mosque protesters outnumbered the anti-mosque protesters at the rallies this past 9/11.
National averages run 64-68 percent against, and locally in new york, 71 percent against, numbers that cross political, social, religious, and ethnic lines. I won't do your homework for you. Go look them up.
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I think that the paragraph above proves my point for me. Your statement is flat-out wrong, because if that were true then it would be a monument to Al-Qaeda. THEY are the "group" that caused so much death and destruction. Islam pre-dates Al-Qaeda by what, at least 1000 years?
Go easy Violet, if you want to replace group with religion in the sanitized version to help you understand, then go right ahead. The fact of the matter is that vision of the splinter group belongs to the whole and is mirrored in groups of different names across the globe, from Ingush to Abu Sayyaf to those in somali.
Have fun.
Edited to fix the quotes and explain the have fun above. Going in circles isn't something I'm wont to do in life. If you can't see the insensitivity, then you either can't or refuse to regardless of how many times it is batted back and forth.
< Message edited by StrangerThan -- 9/14/2010 5:02:14 AM >
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--'Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform' - Mark Twain
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RE: This is what made me pro-mosque - 
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