Follow the money I`ll look for a list of the investors! Ninja time!

Knopfler, you’re more caustic than I ever was. Keep it up.

OK everyone on the count of three we all throw up our cookies. Lets see now Islam has problems in England, France, Belgium, Sweden, Holland Germany Switzerland, AND, Australia, Phillipines, China Russia, SO WHY NOT USA?! So can Americans learn from others, who already have the Muslim PROBLEM. Now first they called it a Mosque, after demonstrations they changed it to a communitee center, frist thyey called it Cordoba house, but History busted them, Cordoba was the first city of spain to fall under Islam, built the Mosque in Cordoba and spread from there, now they call it Park 51, sneaky bunch of people, sorry can`t trust them at all, especially conquering 911, Ha Ha , America needs the EDL from England!

gerard:

“It is the abuse they suffer which contributes to our “freedom of speech” (and nominally “of the press”) and you’d better believe it! Their miserable skinny bodies wracked with disease and blindness are paying for our privilege to “debate”.”

I’m not sure I get it, so help me out. Is it “our” freedom of speech which causes “their” destitution? Or is it the other way around? Must they go hungry and without medicine so we can speak? Or is our speaking causing them to starve and fall ill? If we gave away our freedom of speech, would the they heal and be fed? Or would feeding them stifle our freedom of speech? I’m so confused.

First off:  This is not a “debate”—it’s a media frenzy stirred up by unprincipled people to exploit ignorance and increase hysteria and fear.
  Countries that would “countenance” a “debate” like this (though probably not exploit it so long and allow it to create such chaos):

Probably: England, Ireland, Scotlnd, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Holland, Finland the Netherlands, Germany, France, Austria, and possibly large sections of Southern and Eastern Europe. Australia and New Zealand. Japan, South Korea, India, South Africa, Canada, Russia; Possibly the “Stans”; parts of North Africa, Mexico, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Brazil.
  Many of those named (and a few others heavily influenced by Islam)  might not even consider it an issue worth debate if left free to decide without pressure from outside political demands.
  Many “under-developed” countries are too destitute and too dominated by destructive beliefs, too repressed and abused to engage in such frivolous activities as “debating” mosque-versus-church. Most of their populations only have time and energy to scrounge in dumps for food and a sheet of plywood to cover the hole in the roof of their “house.” 
  It is the abuse they suffer which contributes to our “freedom of speech” (and nominally “of the press”) and you’d better believe it! Their miserable skinny bodies wracked with disease and blindness are paying for our privilege to “debate”.  Meantime, they are screaming silently:  “Get off my back” and if we have half a brain,  we will hear them and get to it.

Bravo to Dr. Paul.  Let me add some more truth here:

-Most people opposed to the project say that it is “too close to Ground Zero.”  Yet before and since 9/11, there has been an active mosque only four blocks from Ground Zero, and no one ever expressed any opposition to it.  As well, the congregation of the imam behind the project outgrew its storefront mosque near Canal Street some time ago, and has been using a portion of the Park Place building ever since.  Yet no one expressed any opposition to that either.

-Only a fraction of the project will be prayer or worship space; the vast majority of the 13-story building will be taken up by an auditorium, a gymnasium, a pool, offices, exhibition spaces, and the like.  The Board of Directors will be comprised of Muslims, Christians and Jews.  And programming will include multi-cultural and multi-religious courses and exhibitions.  It will essentially be the Islamic equivalent of the Jewish Community Center or 92nd Street Y.

-There will be no domes, minarets, or other obvious Islamic architectural elements.  The building will look like a fairly plain office building.  Thus, most people visiting the memorial and new buildings will not even know it is there.

-The broad-brush claim that Muslims build mosques to mark triumphs is not historically accurate.  Although it is true that in some cases conquering Muslims did build mosques, this should not be surprising.  In fact, the Old Testament is replete with cases where the Israelites built temples shortly after they conquered an area.  And the Christians did similarly during the Crusades.  In all cases, this was far more a practical matter than any sense of triumphalism.  With specific respect to the name of the project developer, the Cordoba mosque was actually a nearly-completed (not “destroyed,” as one TD-er claims) church that was simply converted into a mosque: it was not “built” by the conquering Muslims.

-Even if we accept that Ground Zero is somehow “sacred ground,” the proposed project is not on Ground Zero, so it is not “desecrating” it in any way.  In fact, the new complex actually being built at Ground Zero is expected to have a commercial element likely to include such things as McDonald’s, Starbucks, Duane Reade, and other stores.  I would suggest that selling Big Macs and chai lattes on “sacred ground” is a far greater desecration than a nearly invisible Islamic center two blocks away.

-Most of those opposed to the project consider themselves patriots, and ostensibly support the Constutition - and the troops who fought and died (and continue to do so) to defend and protect that Constitution and the freedoms it provides.  Yet many of these same people are all too willing to ignore the Constitution - in this case its provision supporting “the free exercise” of religion - when it is inconvenient.  Some counter by saying that although Muslims may have a right to build the project, they should not do so out of “respect” for those who died.  One pundit responded to this by saying, “In other words, freedom of religion…should be exercised only if first ratified by a ‘popularity contest.’”

-Many Muslims died on 9/11, including in the twin towers, at the Pentagon, and at Shanksville.  And many Muslim first responders (police officers, firefighters, etc.) responded to the attacks - some losing their lives when the twin towers collapsed.  And the vast majority of the world’s one billion Muslims practice their faith privately and quietly: they do not engage in or support violence, and they repudiate the acts of those extremists who participated in the attacks.

Those opposed to the project are defining an entire religion by the acts of a few.  And that is about as un-American as anything I can think of.

That’s completely untrue Rico. There are at least 8 locations where local people have refused the right to build a mosque. And the ugliness and stupidity on display among these anti-Mosque people (I saw some of them interviewed) is no different to that of the people who banned another religion - Judaism. No one should be surprised that first the Nazis burned books, then they burned Jews. America, at the moment, looks very like pre- Nazi Germany. Making excuses for these religious fanatics is similar to those who said Hitler was a patriot and would ‘save’ Germany from its enemies-even though he was already locking up union leaders and editors in detention camps at the time. The problem was, HE was Germany’s enemy and these people are America’s enemies. This whole controversy is not an aberration, it’s a plan to retake government on the back of hatred, fear and religious persecution.

I think this speaks well of the US. How many countries in the world would even countenance a debate at all?

Only a handful of ultra-right wackos are against a mosque, or the freedom of Muslims to practice Islam in this country.

It’s the LOCATION people! It’s an in-your-face publicity stunt. Pure and simple.

And why is it that when some ultra-rightwing wacko badmouths Islam, progressives hyperventilate that he is the perfect representation of ALL unenlightened non-progressives, yet when an ultra-radical Islamist speaks, or worse, acts, progressives are quick to his rescue, pointing out that he is a mere abberation, frustrated because he can’t make his mortgage payment or isn’t allowed to stone his wife, and beyond the pale of mainstream Islam?

Jes cause I’m paranoid don’t mean those Muzlins don’t wanna kill me….LOL

PS: Great post, Gerard!

America has a terminal case of what used to be called “the heebie-jeebies”—a psychotic syndrome now re-named “anxiety” caused by fears and loathings.
  Let’s face it:  We were never united.  That was a political construct to try to reconcile the actual facts that we came from all kinds of different places, bringing all kinds of contrasting beliefs and notions, and were forced to unite for survival and identity, facing an enormous wild country peopled by dark-skinned indigenes for whom our coming proved a disaster.  We killed most of them and robbed the rest, and if those few remaining are now laughing at us, we have it coming!
  But—in the process of uniting, unconsciously we allowed political and economic “interests” to divide us by using issues like Christianity, white supremacy, war, greed, ignorance and media manipulation. 
  Now we are not just 50 States of Mind—at least—but millions of lonely individual islands, each determined to go it alone or die trying. Our families, church groups, social and cultural engagements are with people like ourselves, by choice—networking ...networking ..incessantly trying to make “rewarding relationships”.  We are a nation of outsiders needing to get back into a more natural state which we permitted to deteriorate while we were attemptng to grow, advance, progress, achieve, produce, win, dominate—whatever you choose to call our present “success”—a huge chunk of ice which is now melting somewhere off the shores of Cape May.
  “Something is happening, and you don’t know what it is, do you Mr. Jones.”  In fact, hardly any Mr. Jones even wants to know. 
  Leave me alone.  I think they want to kill me.  I don’t know who I am.  Who are you? Shall we dance?
  (PS—Just in case you wonder, I definitely include myself as one of these I am describing.)
  Is the cure awareness—or evasion—or ...?

Yes she did. Must have caught the tolerance flu bug or the talking points from the GOP might have slipped into her spam box.  here she is recently on the Colbert Repore

Laura Ingraham
Stephen questions Laura Ingraham about the hackneyed racial stereotypes President Obama makes in his diary. (which she wrote)  http://www.newslook.com/videos/236672-laura-ingraham?autoplay=true