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Jewish World Review August 4, 2010/ 24 Menachem-Av, 5770 Ground Zero Mosque: Context Counts By Arnold Ahlert
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
New York City liberals are a remarkably obtuse bunch. With the exception of Los Angeles, the Big Apple might be the only place in America where a one hundred million dollar mosque could be constructed a block away from the site of the worst domestic attack in the history of the nation--perpetrated by the co-religionists of the would-be mosque builders. Proponents cite religious freedom as the basis for that decision, but all of our freedoms are contextual: despite the First Amendment, one is not free to yell "fire!" in a crowded movie theater. Nor can individual Americans own bazookas despite the freedoms guaranteed by the Second. So let's explore context.
--Timing is everything. Despite my experience with New York liberals that leads me to believe they are capable of anything, I suspect that if the effort to erect a mosque near Ground Zero had occurred at a different time--say, September 12, 2001--both the Community Board and the Landmark Preservation Commission might have come to a different conclusion. I suspect much of the talk about religious freedom now would have been met with stunned silence--or an out-and-out riot--then.
So what's changed? Don't we still have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan? Aren't we still dealing with numerous domestic terrorist plots perpetrated by Muslim fanatics? Aren't Americans still being murdered? Don't Islamo-fascists still have every intention of imposing a worldwide caliphate by any means necessary?
Aren't the victims of the 9/11 atrocity still dead?
Americans currently enjoy friendly relations with Germany and Japan. But such was impossible until long after hostilities ceased--and not before we had achieved unambiguous victory. Neither of those conditions currently exist in the war against Islamic extremism, and yet New York liberals still choose to forgive--despite being in the middle of a civilizational war that is still unresolved; and forget--the families of the victims mean squat to those determined to "move on" or demonstrate their "multi-cultural sensitivity"
-- Ignorance is bliss. Mosque planner Imam Feisal Rauf still maintains links with radical Muslim groups, refuses to identify from whom the one hundred million dollars of funding will originate, and has to know that the name of the project, The Cordoba House--Cordoba, Spain being the site of a great Muslim victory over Christian infidels--is provocative. He is entitled to do and say what he wants, but again, how do New York liberals blithely ignore such context? Would it matter to any of them if Hamas or Hezbollah were providing funds? Are they even aware of the fact that Muslims like to celebrate conquests by building shrines at the sites of them? Considering the track record of Islamists with respect to using mosques as armories and forts, is it impossible to imagine that this mosque is nothing more than the establishment of a militant beachhead in the middle of downtown Manhattan?
We'll never know, because the liberals in charge apparently don't care enough to ask the tough questions--or, because they might not like the answers, they don't bother asking any questions at all.
--Freedom of religion is sacrosanct. From liberals, this is utterly laughable. No other group of Americans has endeavored more mightily to remove any indication of religion from the American experience. The same group of people who approved the construction of a thirteen story mosque would fight tooth-and-nail to prevent a six-by-six foot Christmas creche from being temporarily erected on the same block. These are the same liberals who refuse to allow religious clubs to use school classrooms after hours, demand that people with views completely antithetical to various religious groups be allowed to join to those groups, and insist that separation of church and state be an integral part of the American landscape, even though there is no mention of it whatsoever in the Constitution.
Are Muslims free to build a mosque near Ground Zero? Without question--unless one could establish an ulterior motive in time of war, such as the aforementioned beachhead. The fact that this mosque has been approved without a thorough investigation of motive, funding sources or the players involved--during said wartime--is a travesty.
--Cultural sensitivity. As I mentioned in a previous column, this is one American who's had it up to his eyeballs with the left's interpretation of "cultural sensitivity." In a nutshell, it's up to "us" meaning ordinary Americans, to accommodate "them," whether the "them" represents Muslims, radical homosexuals, illegal aliens or any number of groups who disdain mainstream American values. In this case, I'll take the sensitivities of American families whose lives were ripped apart by 9/11 over the sensitivities of so-called moderate Muslims who have yet to prove their moderation to any reasonable degree.
Reality check: genuinely sensitive Muslims wouldn't dream of running roughshod over the feelings of people who lost loved ones on 9/11. Neither would genuinely sensitive liberals. In this case it's oh-for-two.
--The Constitution is not a suicide pact. The one right that trumps all others is the right to live. It is no secret Muslim terrorists are trained to exploit our Constitutional freedoms whenever possible. This is only possible when muddle-headed liberals believe that stateless, non-uniformed, non-American mass murderers are entitled to the same Constitutional considerations as American citizens. And even a cursory reading of American history will reveal that context is everything: many Constitutional rights and privileges have been suspended in times of national emergency--only to be re-instated when the emergency disappeared.
The bet here is many more Americans would be far less agitated by a Ground Zero mosque if Islamo-fascism were already thoroughly defeated--and New York City was no longer the primary bullseye for international terror.
in other words, context is everything. Too bad New York liberals don't have a clue.
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© 2010, Arnold Ahlert |
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