Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Politics / Racism MSM Steps Out on a Limb in Mosque Controversy
Posted by Jeff Woods on Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 5:16 PM
Asked about Gov. Phil Bredesen's rather tepid defense of religious freedom yesterday, Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said:
“That’s a good statement, but perhaps it would have been more beneficial coming earlier and also coming earlier in the repudiation of the voices of bigotry that have been very loud in this debate."
In response, Bredesen press secretary Lydia Lenker pointed out "the governor wasn’t asked for his thoughts by the media until yesterday," as if Bredesen can't put out a press release or give a speech expressing his thoughts at any time.
Hooper also commented on Mike McWherter's standard response to any question about mosques, that "you can’t just drop these into the middle of a very quiet neighborhood and expect the same quality of life.” Hooper called that "very strange—you know, kind of like we don’t want any more black families in the neighborhood because more might come in.”
Comments (19)
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Black families don't blow up planes or fly them into buildings or tape cell phones to soft drink bottles. Muslims do. Anyone who picks up a paper, watches the news or surfs the net sees examples of this behavior every day. And many link back to mosques where hate is preached as a matter of course. People who are suspicious of Muslims are not bigots, they are responding rationally to what they see constantly. MSM editorialists are lazy and in denial - it is a lot easier to call people bigots than to honestly address the elephant in the room.
So who are you going to believe? The MSM or your own liyin' eyes?
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Darn, I didn't know McVeigh or that fellow who flew a plane into the IRS building in Austin were Muslim. Gee, the MSM really is getting lazy.
Muslims have been in this country since the mid 1700s. Most of the slaves who were brought here to slowly die of hunger and overwork were Muslims. There are approximately 1.5 millian Muslims in this country and 2000 mosques - the first which was built in Iowa (although there were mosques created in buildings already constructed long before).
So, here we are in the year 2010 and Christians are just now bitching about mosques and Muslims? Where have they been all this time?
Tell me, "Dude", are Muslims directing deadly Predator drones to wipe out entire quiet Afghan neighborhoods in order to kill one suspected Taliban member (who is, more likely, just an apolitical opium producer who refused to pay kick-backs to the (Muslim) Kabul regime we are propping up?)
Tell me, "Dude", are Muslims now leading (and launching) wars of convenience and conquest to make the world safe for "approved" heroin and transnational pipelines?
Or, "Dude", do these things not matter because no one with a brown skin and a Koran can truly be "innocent", regardless of where they live and what citizenship they enjoy? Sounds like the same logic we applied at Wounded Knee and Sand Creek, for the same reasons but without the same results. Shame on us then, shame on you and your ilk now.
You've really picked the wrong avatar, "Dude". It sounds to me like you are channeling the voice of Walter Sobchak (the John Goodman character) in that film, rather than our favorite peaceful celluloid slacker. Or maybe you're channeling "Jesus" in his bright purple bowling pants. In any event, you should just go back to drinking your White Russians (or do you spell them White Rush-ians, in honor of your own great white whale) and leave matters of state to people who have actually, you know, read the Constitution -- people who believe, honor and respect what it says.
Freedom of religion + freedom of assembly + freedom of speech + separation of church and state = the American Way. (Dude!)
I think the response that small "d"made shows how people are blind and ignorant to the fact that radical muslims wants to kill him and every person in the U.S.If he is not happy living in this great country,then he can get his lazy,ignorant ass and move to pakistan or iran.Jimmy
There are radical christians who want to kill everybody who isn't white. By your logic, American, we should ban chirstian churches.
Small d - the warhead on a Hellfire Missile, the type launched by Predators, is around 20lbs - not nearly enough to destroy an entire neighborhood. Hellfires are used because of their precision and the lack of collateral damage they cause. If you're going to criticize our Armed Forces, at least have your facts straight.
That being said, the Muslims in M'boro are about as threatening as my cat. Freedom of religion = freedom for ALL religions.
But, Tobin, there are cats out there who hurt people! And kill birds! And leave half-eaten rabbit carcases on the lawn! Plus, lions and cheetahs! Being a predator is hardwired into feline genes, and we forget this at our peril. Some people keep baby ocelots as pets, and when they get older they maul their owners! Clearly all cats must be viewed with loathing and fear. And I don't want someone with potentially dangerous animals like that in my neighborhood.
Thanks Small "d". Very well said. 'american' and 'dude' are hopeless in their ignorance both of the world and what it means to be American, and most of all they are shameless cowards.
'american' - No one is talking about radical Muslims; we're talking about US citizens who have chosen to follow the Islamic faith and have been living peacefully in TN for decades.
Also, it seems from your comment that you are the one that is unhappy living in the US since you apparently don't agree with our Constitution (re-read the First Amendment). Perhaps you are the one who would be happier living in one of those countries under theocratic rule.
"Our political leaders are really spineless when it comes to the anti-Muslim hysteria overtaking Tennessee."
Maybe that's because they know that leftist twits like you are merely being hysterical in claiming that anti-Muslim hysteria is "overtaking Tennessee".
"leave matters of state to people who have actually, you know, read the Constitution -- people who believe, honor and respect what it says."
That would be great.
Because that criteria would exclude every liberal alive on the planet.
Yo Gilbert --
You want to talk Constitution? Let's start with this small "d"'s Cliff notes:
Freedom of religion + freedom of assembly + freedom of speech + separation of church and state = the American (the Constitutional) Way. Discuss.
For extra credit, you can explain for me just what "consent of the governed" means to folks (?) like you in these days of unverifiable voting machines and a Memphis that's just turned bright red -- right before our very eyes. (And it only took them 6,000+ more votes than (actual) voters to get there.) Comment?
If you do not protect, much less tolerate, the rights of every American to assemble, speak and worship as they please -- well then, sir, you're either in the wrong country or the wrong millennium. Which is it?
You have all the time you need to speak up or shut up. Either way, we'll leave the light on for ya'. And we'll leave a copy of the Constitution in the night-stand.
These days, Gideon (and jesus) would certainly understand.
One more thing for TobintheGnome: Thanks for correcting my mis-statement about the kill capacity of a drone-delivered aerial assault. If I had said "Afghan family" instead of "neighborhood", would I have been accurate? I know we have killed entire wedding parties through drone-directed attacks, but I don't know how many missles that took (or why targeting entire families to kill one person is necessary or justified).
Regardless of my ignorance (and thanks again for correcting uit), I appreciate your support for the Constitution and for un-scary cats in M'boro. The anti-American nut-jobs who are fomenting religious bigotry and terrorism in the name of their God and country are neither American or Christ-like. Most of us who love this country -- no matter how much we might disagree on other issues -- know that and know we need to protect and defend it. Thanks for speaking up -- everyone should.
"You want to talk Constitution? Let's start with this small "d"'s Cliff notes:
"Freedom of religion + freedom of assembly + freedom of speech + separation of church and state = the American (the Constitutional) Way. Discuss."
Nope, since I never said anything against those freedoms, we can start elsewhere.
We can start with the 2nd Amendment absolute right of individuals to keep and bear arms with the exact same degree of freedom from interference in any way from any level of government that applies to 1st Amendment freedom of speech and religion.
And then we can move on to Fifth Amendment private property rights, and the 10th Amendment that confines the federal government to enumerated powers - which do not include anything authorizing the creation of such things as Social Security or Medicare.
And then we can review the text of the Commerce clause and acknowledge that no where in there is the federal government explicitly authorized to regulate "anything that could have an effect" on interstate commerce but merely interstate commerce itself.
Just a few of the many things that liberals are on the wrong Constitutional side of that would preclude them from being involved in matters of state as per your criteria of " actually, you know, read the Constitution -- people who believe, honor and respect what it says."
By the way, you get a historical D minus on that "separation of church and state thing being the "American Way". The First Amendment only prohbited Congress - i.e. the federal government from making laws establishing a religion. Some of the states had official state religions at the time the Constitution was ratified and continued to have them up until some time in the 1820's.
Gilbert,
Changing the subject is not answering my questions. By my count, you dismissively answered one and ignored the other two. BTW, if you believe in freedom of speech, religion and assembly; it might behoove you to speak out against behavior that is its exact opposite being perpetrated by your slither-en (they don't look like brethren to me) in Murfreesboro. It would be nice to know that we really believe in a few things in common, and that our words and actions reflect those common beliefs.
On that score, you might actually be surprised at my beliefs regarding the 2nd, 5th and 10th amendments; if you weren't so one-dimensional in your labeling of me as to "know" ahead of time what I think. For example, I believe strongly in the 10th amendment and believe that the Supreme Court's Raich v. Gonzalez decision turned that amendment on its head in order to perpetuate the corporate and corrupt law enforcement cash flow associated with the wrong-headed and ineffective war on (some) drugs. I also believe that states have taken steps to overturn this improper reach of federal power vis a vis the 10th amendment in ways that validate its true meaning, in ways that I strongly support. If you had heard my hour-long testimony to our state legislature this session in that regard, then you would know that.
It's too pretty a day to give you more examples of where your assumptions about me make an ass out of you, methinks. But I did want to comment about you boys' obsession with guns. EVERYTHING comes back to guns with your folks. Why is that? To me, there are only three explanations for why you can't get guns off the brain:
1) You were raised by authoritarian parents to fear everything, and that is the way you are raising your children also (a multi-generational neurosis that could really use some psychiatric intervention) or
2) You and your kind have done really dastardly things (like arson at religious sites or flipping computer code in unverifiable voting machines to create a false "mandate") and you fear the justice and retribution you deserve. (Believe me, that is coming for the wicked and the sinful among us, at least in the afterlife. Your guns won't help you a bit when you are standing before the Pearly gates.) or
3) This gun fetish is some kind of preverted sexual "thang". As Freud would say if he were living in Tennessee these days, "Sometimes a long, hot gun-barrel isn't...."
For most of my adult life, I have owned guns and enjoyed deer hunting on my farm, to keep them thinned out, to eat the healthy meat and share it with neighbors and to remind myself that I can kill animate objects at a distance with a weapon I am comfortable with. Even so, at the end of the hunting day, my guns went back on the rack or in the closet, I didn't take them to bed with me (like one of your goobernatorial candidates was proud to announce during the primary campaign, for krissakes.)
So, although I am glad this country allows responsible gun ownership, I fail to see the fascination shared by a bunch of old boys like yourself standing around and showing each other their "guns" as a substitute for real manhood. I never will.
OK, Gilbert, so much for your misconceptions and your neuroses. Get help, man, while you still can. And stop playing with your guns -- it will make you go blind, if it has not already done so.
"Changing the subject is not answering my questions. By my count, you dismissively answered one and ignored the other two. BTW, if you believe in freedom of speech, religion and assembly; it might behoove you to speak out against behavior that is its exact opposite being perpetrated by your slither-en (they don't look like brethren to me) in Murfreesboro. It would be nice to know that we really believe in a few things in common, and that our words and actions reflect those common beliefs."
I'm not changing the subject - I'm responding to your sanctimonious remark about people believing in the Constitution.
Believing in freedom of speech and religion does not require me to criticize other people exercising THEIR freedom of speech in expressing disaproval of the mosque or protesting against it. People enganging in criminal behavior for any reason are responsible for their own actions and are answerable to the law. It is the job of law enforcement to deal with them - not mine.
And your rambling insults about guns and obligue references to the 10th Amendment, etc. are merely further efforts to evade the point.
The 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms is every bit as much an absolute right as freedom of speech and religion in the 1st Amemdment. And any interpretation that does NOT acknowledge it as being absolutely as free from government control at every level as is the freedom of speech and religion is illegitimate. It's just as simple as that - period. There is nothing in the literal text of the 2nd that indicates it is otherwise.
All your psycho-babble about it is irrelevant.
"People enganging in criminal behavior for any reason are responsible for their own actions and are answerable to the law. It is the job of law enforcement to deal with them - not mine."
Really?! How refreshing of you to admit it! So I take it you're not a proponent of Guns in Bars?
