08-18-2010, 05:11 AM | #201 |
Elf Lord
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Just for the record, McVeigh described himself as an agnostic, though he also said he believed in God, in vague terms of a natural order- he was raised Catholic, but said he drifted away from it. A lot of people are under the impression- I used to be- that he was part of the Religious Right, but he wasn't- his concerns were basically political.
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Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them? "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us, cats look down on us, but pigs treat us as equals."- Winston Churchill |
08-18-2010, 05:30 AM | #202 | ||
Elf Lord
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Quote:
Full story here. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/ny...urch.html?_r=1 Basically, it's a question of money. As well, the Church's site would be directly opposite the 9/11 memorial, and the city didn't want the memorial overshadowed. By contrast, the mosque/community center is two blocks away in a former Burlington Coat factory store, and despite the claims of the opponents of a 13 storey building towering over the memorial, is not even visible from Ground Zero because it is blocked from view by even higher buildings. (Also two blocks away from the sacred ground- the New York Dolls strip club.) As for religious buildings, in 2000 Congress unanimously passed a federal law making it very difficult to block the construction of places of worship. Quote:
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Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them? "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us, cats look down on us, but pigs treat us as equals."- Winston Churchill |
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08-18-2010, 05:37 AM | #203 |
Elf Lord
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Also found this really good piece on how the story broke in the media. 2 minutes of your time well spent.
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/w...mosque_origins The proposition is that it was kept alive by a small group of right-wing bloggers and columnists, eventually got picked up by the New York Post, and then went like wildfire through the mainstream right-wing media. The leader of the mosque building project is quoted as saying "We want to push back against the extremists,". Last edited by The Gaffer : 08-18-2010 at 05:38 AM. |
08-19-2010, 10:52 PM | #204 | |
Elf Lord
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The "Ground Zero Imam" that the mosque opponents are raving about (some demanding he be deported):
Quote:
(The author of that piece, Jeffrey Goldberg, is a conservative American Jew who actually went to Israel and joined the Israeli Army) Rauf was also selected by the Bush Administration as an outreach ambassador to Muslim countries, to go overseas and tell their people that America wasn't anti-Muslim.
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Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them? "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us, cats look down on us, but pigs treat us as equals."- Winston Churchill |
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08-19-2010, 11:08 PM | #205 |
Elf Lord
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And in France, Sarkozy cracks down on Gypsies
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/wo.../20france.html Also happening in Italy, Sweden, Germany and Denmark. Signs of the times? The result of the recession, people facing high unemployment and economic uncertainty turning against immigrants and outsiders ?
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Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them? "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us, cats look down on us, but pigs treat us as equals."- Winston Churchill |
08-20-2010, 07:33 AM | #206 |
The Chocoholic Sea Elf Administrator
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Hm, I can't fault the French for wanting to expell people who stay in a country illegally, even though I don't think the action is very constructive. The travellers obviously have found ways around the existing rules.
Just last month there was much to do about a group of gypsies passing through our country. They took over somebody's field without permission, destroying his hay yield in the process. They promised but eventually refused to pay the owner. The city provided them water, which they didn't pay for either. And when moving on two weeks later, they left all their trash behind for the owner to clean up. Judging by their shiny and expensive-looking camper models, they were not a poor band of gypsies either. You can't really fault a town for not wanting to play host to such a group. But then it's never the groups that pass through that don't cause trouble or damage to everyone that you hear about...
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08-20-2010, 10:13 PM | #207 |
Elf Lord
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"Is it time to return the Stars and Bars to the South Carolina State House?
I ask because I thought the rule was that an understandable revulsion to the memory of an emotionally-wounding time was enough to win out over a noisy, self-promoting group’s determination to advertise its views in a prominent, highly-symbolic area… but now I find that’s not so true, not so true. So — Confederate flag at the SC statehouse again? Because the people flying the flag there say they too have good, non-objectionable motivations for doing so — a reminder of heritage, honoring the dead, etc., etc. But previously we have shown skepticism towards their claimed motivations, and also decided their motivations were irrelevant — it wouldn’t even matter, we decided, if their motives were pure; the important thing was the Confederate flag was too hurtful to have near the people’s house of government. Again, so I now find out this isn’t the rule anymore. So if it’s not the rule anymore: Why can’t we have the Confederate flag at the SC statehouse? Yes, I know, blacks (and others, including whites) consider it offensive and a nasty reminder of a national tragedy; but the spokesmen from Cordoba House have a response to such concerns, and that response is “F___ yourself, get over it already.” " http://ace.mu.nu/archives/304852.php I copy this particular linkage to answer the question of what do I think about the mosque near ground zero. Other than the allegation of attribution and its employment of the F*word, I agree with the above. This is what I think of it, because as a native South Carolinian, I have lived through the "concerns" over the Confederate flag. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If they can take away the Confederate flag because of protests about "concerns" about racism, violence, reminders, et cetera, then they can block a mosque near Ground Zero on the same grounds - equal application of the same principle. Nothing to do with religion, race, or creed ... Just "concerns".
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
08-20-2010, 10:20 PM | #208 | |
Elf Lord
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Quote:
Here's a snopes.com fact-checked picture file of the lovely deposits of illegal immigrants ... At any rate, I went to Snopes.com to check it out. Snopes verifies it as true and even has the photos that were in the email. Originally from 2007 (I discovered), the Snopes site has been updated as of 5-19-2010. So, for good information regarding what is actually transpiring, with photo documentation see... http://www.snopes.com/photos/politics/restarea.asp Just wondering if it's OK for France but not for the US states to address the issue!
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
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08-20-2010, 10:38 PM | #209 | |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
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Quote:
Let it be said that I sympathize with the South. If the colonies had the right to remove themselves from the govt of the crown, then the colonies had the right to remove themselves from the federal govt. I have no problem with the Confederate flag as such or its use by private individuals, but to fly it over the statehouse seems a sort of violation of SC's place in the US. Of course, the fundamental difference between the issues is where the location is. When it is an official building, particularly a governmental one, then it seems to me that there should be a great deal more freedom given to the govt about deciding what may or may not be in a particular place.
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Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
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08-20-2010, 10:40 PM | #210 |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
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Hafta say, I would fault them. Perhaps its not as hypocritical as when the US does (give me your tired, etc.), but there's still an element of inhumanity to it.
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Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
08-21-2010, 02:20 AM | #211 | |
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The people being deported come from Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary, where large populations of Roma existed, often facing severe discrimination. There are also other groups who have been long resident in France and Spain and are citizens of those countries.
Of minority groups, it's often unfairly said they don't want to work, adopt majority middle-class values, they're prone to criminality etc. However, with some (not all, certainly), of the Roma, that appears to be true. Part of their culture is based on a wandering lifestyle, with a view that settled people are a resource to be exploited- sometimes by day labour, but often by begging or petty crime: pick-pocketing, burglary, fraud etc., and that, yes, some of them do teach their children to beg or steal. On thing about the peole being deported- they can, and often do, immediately return to France, where they can re-enter quite legally and stay another 90 days. Even this will only last to 2014, when the right to residence laws come fully into effect for those countries. Incidentally, another 4 million+ people currently residing in the poverty-stricken areas of Moldova, Macedonia, Serbia, Ukraine and Turkey are getting EU passports courtesy of Romainia, Hungary and Bulgaria. Quote:
http://www.boston.com/business/artic...stPop_Emailed6
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Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them? "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us, cats look down on us, but pigs treat us as equals."- Winston Churchill |
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08-21-2010, 07:23 AM | #212 |
Elf Lord
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First, thanks to the link to Ace o'Spades, inked- during the Bush years he was one of the prominent links that left blogistan would always link to for a laugh- just the other day I was wondering if he'd disappeared- glad to see him still around and whining about the poor downtrodden white folk.
The point about the Confederate battle flag flown at the South Carolina was that it was an official site. If the US government had proposed erecting an official state mosque (or church or synagogue or temple) at Ground Zero that would have been objectionable , too. If a private group had wanted to buld a private flagstaff on private ground for the display of the Confederate flag, that would have been their own business. (Yes, I know I'm Canadian so I should mind my own business.) Second, the meaning of the Confederate flag at the South Carolina statehouse: Was this a time-honoured display in salute of the war dead?- why, no, it was placed there by the South Carolina legislature in 1962, as a deliberate act of defiance to the Civil Rights movement- at the time, of course, segregation was in full force and n*****s, oops, nigras, oops, coloreds, oops African-Americans, were subject to arrest, imprisonment and state-sanctioned murder in the South for the crime of attempting to vote. The same thing happened in Georgia (adopted in 1956). So let's be clear- the people who placed the flag there did so in honour of white supremacy , not any concept of "Southern Heritage" or "State's Rights" -other than the heritage of Jim Crow and the right to buy and sell black people like cattle.
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Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them? "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us, cats look down on us, but pigs treat us as equals."- Winston Churchill |
08-21-2010, 07:34 AM | #213 | ||
Elf Lord
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Quote:
Quote:
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Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them? "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us, cats look down on us, but pigs treat us as equals."- Winston Churchill Last edited by GrayMouser : 08-21-2010 at 07:38 AM. |
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08-21-2010, 07:45 AM | #214 | |
The Chocoholic Sea Elf Administrator
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Quote:
I can understand that. However, no nation can take in every person in the world who is looking for a better life. A line has to be drawn somewhere, even though it will never be perfect.
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08-21-2010, 07:17 PM | #215 |
Elf Lord
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Earniel, I never had the least "inkling" of "hostility" - honest Injun, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die, really. I am astounded.
Gwai et alia, I understand your remarks and quotations. However, as a "child of the Confederacy" who did research on family to prove my ancestors gave their lives in defense of their country (quite apart from the reasons they may have had, which, I confess, I do not have any record of), I can assure you that the emphasis of the honor was not upon slavery as an institution or some seeking of its return. It was to honor the memory of those who gave all in the matter. I quite understand that those with Yankee forebears do the same. The matter at question is sensibilities and related concerns. If you vaunt the ideas above as the reasons for the refusal to fly the Confederate Jack, then, reasonably, you must apply the same reasoning to the proposed structure in NYC. I am not being obtuse. How do you separate the vast majority of alleged moderates who do not intend what you (generic, not personal) allege in SC? Does the same apply to NYC and the proposed site? I would say they do and for the same reasons. Your mileage may differ.
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
08-21-2010, 08:53 PM | #216 |
Advocatus Diaboli
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The obsession to hold on to the south was probably the biggest mistake in the history of our country. We'd be much better off today if we had let them go their own way. Trying to put too many cultures under one tent simply doesn't work with humans. The Europeans learned that a long time ago, and the Russians a little later, but we are still getting there.
In terms of flying a confederate flag, if they really still feel like the need to hoist it, then by all means let the do it. Much like with kids, sometimes the best way to teach is to simply let them do it. Once it ceases to be a point of contention, it will cease to have a point. Which goes for the Muslim center in NYC or any Christian building anywhere in the world. Symbols only have power for those who choose to give it to them, for the rest of us, they are all just relics.
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. Last edited by brownjenkins : 08-21-2010 at 08:57 PM. |
08-22-2010, 07:00 AM | #217 |
Elf Lord
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Just to make sure I'm getting the comparison clearly, the argument is:
1- people opposed to the Confederate flag at the statehouse see it as a symbol of racism and a celebration of slavery and segregation. 2- people who support the flag say no it isn't, it's a symbol to honour their ancestors' courage and sacrifice. 1a- people opposed to the community center see it as a symbol of violent Islamism and a celebration of Muslim hatred of America. 2a- people who support the center say no it isn't, it's a symbol of rejection of violent Islamism and to promote reconciliation and celebrate the acceptance of American values by Muslim Americans. But the analogy would only hold if either -the Cordoba Center was built to honour the courage and sacrifice of the 9/11 hijackers, even if the builders acknowledged the cause for which they died was wrong. or - the South Carolina legislature announced they were flying the flag as a symbol of rejection of their ancestor's support for the Confederacy, slavery, and segregation. Which would be kind of hard to do. I mean, reunited Germany built a Holocaust Memorial in the middle of Berlin to atone for their anestor's sins; they didn't hoist a Swatiska over the Reichstag to celebrate the undoubted courage and sacrifice of the German soldiers in the Second World War.
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Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them? "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us, cats look down on us, but pigs treat us as equals."- Winston Churchill Last edited by GrayMouser : 08-22-2010 at 07:05 AM. |
08-22-2010, 11:03 AM | #218 |
Elf Lord
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Interesting idea, BJ. Does it apply to Haggia Sophia - now a Muslim conquered cathedral cum redecorated museum?
But the guys in Cordoba ... http://www.christiantoday.com/articl...ar+Religion%29 So, do Muslims adopt Western standards of live-and-let-live or is such tit-for-tat a one-way street just for the West? Hmmm...................................
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
08-22-2010, 11:38 AM | #219 |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
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That may be, inked, but there is still the basic issue that the Confederate Flag was being flown over a state building, whereas Cordoba is, as far as I am aware, a private one. It seems that there is more leeway for regulating expression in a state building than a private one, because a state building functions as a part of the face of the government.
You're certainly right about the Hagia Sophia; its loss was a travesty, and Turkey will not have any real human rights credentials until the Patriarch of Constantinople is able to worship freely, and until laws restricting the election of the Patriarch are abolished.
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Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle Last edited by Gwaimir Windgem : 08-22-2010 at 11:41 AM. |
08-22-2010, 09:03 PM | #220 |
Elf Lord
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GW, the parallel is the PUBLIC intent, which, as I understand it, is precisely what is contested - in both cases. Possibly, I misunderstand, however, I think I do understand the feelings generated (rather like the Pope in the matter of the convent).
The issue is just that, is it not?
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |