Mosque going up in NYC building

[DogOnPorch]

Let's make that tens of millions and change the wording to killed, injured, displaced or deprived.

OK...let's start with the 1948 War...how many millions were killed in that war?

[Bonam]

And you have the right to say that you don't like Jews doesn't make it not bigoted. People not liking Muslims because they're Muslims is the definition of bigotry.

definition of bigot.

My link

First: not liking Islam and not liking individual Muslims are two different things. Second, one can "dislike" something without "exhibiting intolerance, irrationality, or animosity". I might dislike a noisy neighbor, but tolerate them and not be irrational about it. I might dislike a crappy professor, but not be seething with animosity towards them. One might tolerate gays and support equal rights for them but not particularly like them or want to be friends with them, and that is not "intolerant". Likewise, one might not like religious people who try to push their nonsense on others.

Seriously, what do you want? Everyone to profess their undying love of Islam? Is that what it would take for you to not call someone a bigot?

You are seriously taking the ridiculous PC mindset to whole new bounds. Not only must we be tolerant, but, apparently, we must also love every culture and religion. Grow a pair and stop being so afraid of offending. People have every right to like or dislike whom and what they please.

By the way, I don't like you or your posts. I guess I must be bigoted against you (and maybe all Metis people) by your standards. Go take it up with the HRCs or something.

Edited August 25, 2010 by Bonam

[PoliticalCitizen]

OK...let's start with the 1948 War...how many millions were killed in that war?

The math is quite simple now... Just Palestinian and Iraqi refugees will easily make more than 10 million...

Add the populations of entire countries to the number of deprived...

And I didn't even mention entire countries being held in constant fear of US or Israeli aggression...

[DogOnPorch]

The math is quite simple now... Just Palestinian and Iraqi refugees will easily make more than 10 million...

Add the populations of entire countries to the number of deprived...

And I didn't even mention entire countries being held in constant fear of US or Israeli aggression...

Incorrect. About 6000 Israelis and 8000 Arabs KIA.

[DogOnPorch]

Now let's move up to 1967's Six Day War. How many millions died in this particular affair?

[PoliticalCitizen]

Now let's move up to 1967's Six Day War. How many millions died in this particular affair?

Keep going... How many wars have you counted in total?

[DogOnPorch]

Keep going... How many wars have you counted in total?

We'll get to those...and we'll add-up the actual casualties. Afraid of the results? They won't be in the millions.

Now...how many casualties were there during the 6 Day War?

Answer:

Israeli: About 1000 KIA.

Arab: Between 11 and 20 thousand KIA.

[Guest American Woman]

And you have the right to say that you don't like Jews doesn't make it not bigoted. People not liking Muslims because they're Muslims is the definition of bigotry.

definition of bigot.

Quote

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.

To say one has a negative view of Islam is NOT being "obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices" and it most definitely is NOT saying they don't like Muslims. It's having an opinion, about Islam, which people have every right to do. When people have different standards for them, then it's intolerance. When they hate, then it's prejudice. To have "a negative view" is not the definition of "bigot."

Having a negative view of Islam and yet feeling Muslims have the same rights as every other religion is tolerance. It's the very definition of tolerance. If you think "tolerance" has to include "admiration," or can't include "negative feelings," you don't understand what tolerance is. Often tolerance involves being accepting in spite of one's negative feelings. One doesn't have to love or admire homosexuality in order to be tolerant of gays. One can have a negative view of homosexuality and not hate gays and believe gays should have the same rights as everyone else.

No one is being "hostile" to Muslims by saying they have a negative view of Islam, and it's ludicrous to insinuate otherwise.

Furthermore, I've never even said I have a negative view of Islam, yet I've been called a bigot over and over again by the very intolerant PC crowd. These threads have really been an eye-opener for me.

[DogOnPorch]

Now let's zoot forward to 1973's Yom Kippur War.

How many millions died in this particular brew-up?

[DogOnPorch]

No guess? Well no worries...we have the numbers.

Yom Kippur War

Israeli: approx 3000 KIA

Arab: 8-15,000 KIA depending on the source

[Guest TrueMetis]

Clearly we have different views of what tolerance is then, because to me a poll saying X amount of people don't like Islam is the say as X amount of people are bigots. Of course the polls aren't exactly a great source of information after all the fear mongering the media has done.

Meant to write Muslims there not Islam my mistake.

[dre]

First: not liking Islam and not liking individual Muslims are two different things. Second, one can "dislike" something without "exhibiting intolerance, irrationality, or animosity". I might dislike a noisy neighbor, but tolerate them and not be irrational about it. I might dislike a crappy professor, but not be seething with animosity towards them. One might tolerate gays and support equal rights for them but not particularly like them or want to be friends with them, and that is not "intolerant". Likewise, one might not like religious people who try to push their nonsense on others.

Seriously, what do you want? Everyone to profess their undying love of Islam? Is that what it would take for you to not call someone a bigot?

You are seriously taking the ridiculous PC mindset to whole new bounds. Not only must we be tolerant, but, apparently, we must also love every culture and religion. Grow a pair and stop being so afraid of offending. People have every right to like or dislike whom and what they please.

By the way, I don't like you or your posts. I guess I must be bigoted against you (and maybe all Metis people) by your standards. Go take it up with the HRCs or something.

You are seriously taking the ridiculous PC mindset to whole new bounds. Not only must we be tolerant, but, apparently, we must also love every culture and religion. Grow a pair and stop being so afraid of offending. People have every right to like or dislike whom and what they please.

I dont care who you like or dont like, and I dont care if youre bigoted towards certain religions. Theres lots of good reasons to be.

What I dont like (and this is directed more at these threads in general, not you) is the dishonesty in these threads about the mosque and the transparent moral gymnastics, and transparently bogus logic people are engaging in.

Just come on out and say "Islam sucks and they can shove their mosque up their ass!".

But instead we get all this nonsense about how people who oppose the Mosque DONT dislike Islam, or Muslims. Theyre just "senstive about ground zero!". But the mosque in NYC isnt ON ground zero, and the mosque in Tenesee isnt on ground zero, and the mosque in California isnt on ground zero. 120 pages of the most low quality thinking, and faux reasoning imaginable.

Then to top it all off we have the STUPIDEST TALKING POINT IN HISTORY: "Why wont moderate muslims speak out!!!!". But when a bunch of moderate muslims try to build a facility for exactly that purpose those same morons start making picket signs.

Edited August 25, 2010 by dre

[Shady]

Then to top it all off we have the STUPIDEST TALKING POINT IN HISTORY: "Why wont moderate muslims speak out!!!!". But when a bunch of moderate muslims try to build a facility for exactly that purpose those same morons start making picket signs.

As Thomas Friedman stated today, we don't need moderate muslims speaking out in America. We need moderate muslims speaking out in the Middle East. If you have $100 million dollars to built an interfaith/intrafaith facility, build it in Pakistan, or Egypt, or Kuwait, etc. That's where the moderation needs to first take place.

[dre]

As Thomas Friedman stated today, we don't need moderate muslims speaking out in America. We need moderate muslims speaking out in the Middle East. If you have $100 million dollars to built an interfaith/intrafaith facility, build it in Pakistan, or Egypt, or Kuwait, etc. That's where the moderation needs to first take place.

Muslims all around the world are already speaking out against jihadists.

[Jack Weber]

Most definitely. In fact, I think it was also the CIA that was responsible for the resistance in which the British encountered in Afghanistan too. Not only that, I'm pretty sure it was the CIA that was responsible for putting the whole concept of the holy warrior in the Koran in the first place.

A non response from a clueless ideologue...

I'm pretty sure that you have a tenuous grasp of reality or recent history....

[Jack Weber]

To be accurate, it was made up of a few dozen handfuls of arabs like OBL...

Correct...But loons just the same....

[bloodyminded]

Muslims all around the world are already speaking out against jihadists.

1st person: "Why don't Muslims speak out against the jihadists?"

2nd person: "Well...Muslims DO speak out against the jihadists."

1st person: "That's irrelevant!"

This is literally the level of sober and nuanced discourse which attends this "debate."

[Guest TrueMetis]

1st person: "Why don't Muslims speak out against the jihadists?"

2nd person: "Well...Muslims DO speak out against the jihadists."

1st person: "That's irrelevant!"

3rd person: "And those Muslims speaking out against the jihadists are just jihadists pretending to be moderates."

Edited August 26, 2010 by TrueMetis

[bloodyminded]

3rd person: "And those Muslims speaking out against the jihadists are just jihadists pretending to be moderates."

Right! I forgot that one, but it has become quite an important aspect of the debate here.

[GostHacked]

Right! I forgot that one, but it has become quite an important aspect of the debate here.

So no matter what people say, they are all terrorists and should be treated as such. WTF is wrong with people?? Circular logic which leads back to the same question. Stuck on the merry-go-round.

I guess I am not the only one who wants to see/read what he wants to see/read.... right American Woman?

[scribblet]

Just a question, when a thread gets this long should another one be started - who's going to read 118 pages, and besides they go way off on tangents LOL

The Imam and founder of the Cordoba Initiative Imam Rauf has publicly endorsed the most extreme and repressive side of Muslim theocracy.

People who defend this ‘initiative’ talking about tolerance, might want to ask it works both ways, as tolerance is not a word that immediately comes to mind when talking about Islam.

Although Hitchens has been in favour of the building you might want to read what he has to say here http://www.slate.com/id/2264770 and why suspicion of Islam it is by no means irrational. In particular this part:

Emboldened by the crass nature of the opposition to the center, its defenders have started to talk as if it represented no problem at all and as if the question were solely one of religious tolerance. It would be nice if this were true. But tolerance is one of the first and most awkward questions raised by any examination of Islamism. We are wrong to talk as if the only subject was that of terrorism. As Western Europe has already found to its cost, local Muslim leaders have a habit, once they feel strong enough, of making demands of the most intolerant kind. Sometimes it will be calls for censorship of anything "offensive" to Islam. Sometimes it will be demands for sexual segregation in schools and swimming pools. The script is becoming a very familiar one. And those who make such demands are of course usually quite careful to avoid any association with violence. They merely hint that, if their demands are not taken seriously, there just might be a teeny smidgeon of violence from some other unnamed quarter …

As for the gorgeous mosaic of religious pluralism, it's easy enough to find mosque Web sites and DVDs that peddle the most disgusting attacks on Jews, Hindus, Christians, unbelievers, and other Muslims—to say nothing of insane diatribes about women and homosexuals. This is why the fake term Islamophobia is so dangerous: It insinuates that any reservations about Islam must ipso facto be "phobic." A phobia is an irrational fear or dislike. Islamic preaching very often manifests precisely this feature, which is why suspicion of it is by no means irrational.

From my window, I can see the beautiful minaret of the Washington, D.C., mosque on Massachusetts Avenue. It is situated at the heart of the capital city's diplomatic quarter, and it is where President Bush went immediately after 9/11 to make his gesture toward the "religion of peace." A short while ago, the wife of a new ambassador told me that she had been taking her dog for a walk when a bearded man accosted her and brusquely warned her not to take the animal so close to the sacred precincts. Muslim cabdrivers in other American cities have already refused to take passengers with "unclean" canines.

Another feature of my local mosque that I don't entirely like is the display of flags outside, purportedly showing all those nations that are already Muslim. Some of these flags are of countries like Malaysia, where Islam barely has a majority, or of Turkey, which still has a secular constitution. At the United Nations, the voting bloc of the Organization of the Islamic Conference nations is already proposing a http://blog.unwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/defamation-of-religion-2010-hrc.pdf would circumscribe any criticism of religion in general and of Islam in particular. So, before he is used by our State Department on any more goodwill missions overseas, I would like to see Imam Rauf asked a few searching questions about his support for clerical dictatorship in, just for now, Iran. Let us by all means make the "Ground Zero" debate a test of tolerance. But this will be a one-way street unless it is to be a test of Muslim tolerance as well

.

[bloodyminded]

The Imam and founder of the Cordoba Initiative Imam Rauf has publicly endorsed the most extreme and repressive side of Muslim theocracy.

Where?

[scribblet]

It is taken from Hitchens' article.

[punked]

Wait you mean the Imam that worked for Bush as an adviser to Muslim out reach? Someone isn't up on their crazy right wing talking points.

[bloodyminded]

It is taken from Hitchens' article.

Ah, yes, including "your" phrase, "Imam Rauf has publicly endorsed the most extreme and repressive side of Muslim theocracy," unattributed.

However, let's look at Hitchens' claims on the matter:

I mentioned his sinister belief that the United States was partially responsible for the assault on the World Trade Center and his refusal to take a position on the racist Hamas dictatorship in Gaza.

Oh, too good.

First of all, the "sinister belief that the United States was partially responsible for the assault on the World Trade Center" is factually, objectively correct (so long as one talks about American foreign policy and not the innocent victims themselves); this view has been substantiated by intelligence officials generally, is probably held by most of the world's population...and was implied, initially, by Hitchens himself...though exactly when he repudiated his "sinister belief" (or even admitted to holding it) remains unclear. I suppose it could be found out.

The idea is that of "blowback," a term coined by ex-hawk and CIA consultant Chalmers Johnson, and is an idea well understood in official circles, even if President Bush lied openly about it ("They hate us for our freedoms," he said, hilariously, summing up complex consequences of foreign policy as bad guys wanting to hurt good Westerners for no sane reason).

Hitchens knows all this...which makes him a liar. At any rate, it's certainly not a "sinister belief," and it is held by most people, in fact.

On to the second point: "[Rauf's] refusal to take a position on the racist Hamas dictatorship in Gaza."

As has been frequently pointed out on this board, many of our allied countries don't take a clear position on Hamas...but of course, Hitchens expects much more from a Muslim cleric than he does from people allied in the "war on terror."

More to the point, in my view, is that those who whine terrifically about the evil terorists Hamas are almost to a person either liars or are so ignorant of histrroy that they should stop exposing their stupidity.

An objective, if uncomfortable, truth (and one that Hitchens knows full well, having once written well about it, though his Born Again hyper-Nationalism has forced him to forget) is that these Westerm noble beacons of freedom and democracy have been intentionally involved in massive acts of terrorism that make Hamas look like the terrorist amaturs they really are.

It's not that one shouldn't denounce the terrorism of Hamas; I think people should. But perspective, and basic honesty and decency, should demand we not be hypocritical moral relativists on this point. We are also guilty of terrorism...worse than Hamas and Hizbollah combined could ever have dreamed of accomplishing.

But we justify ours, of course...our terrorism is "different" from others' terrorism....and not only because it's worse. No, no; that's not the point. We were fighting the Soviet menace, for example (clear up until September 1999, interestingly).

So Hitchens doesn't buy his own argument here. He's pretending to be serious, but moral relativists and compulsive liars cannot be taken seriously.

Edited August 26, 2010 by bloodyminded