Nice piece on this subject, covers most of the arguments I’ve made about the thing.
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There are actually a couple of adult entertainment venues that show up on Google ( GOOG –news – people ) Maps if you search around the former site of the World Trade Center. Internet reviewers seem to like New York Dolls best, due to its sexy, disproportionately Russian staff, mirrored stage and purportedly high-quality lap dances.
As yet, I haven’t heard anyone wonder why our political class is silent as the sex industry operates on sacred ground. It would be a bizarre complaint: It’s Manhattan, where you can find anything mere blocks from a given location. The closest strip club to Ground Zero happens to be two blocks away, a fact that has nothing to do with our reverence for the place where so many Americans were killed by terrorists. As you’ve probably noticed, it doesn’t even make sense to call it The Ground Zero Strip Club.
UPDATE: Best quote from the piece…
Moreover, the writer Jeffrey Goldberg, as staunch an opponent of radical Islamists as you’ll find, posted recently on the controversy over this cultural center, having interacted with the folks who are attempting to build it, and reported that they are peace-loving people intent on marginalizing extremists inside their religion. “One of the ways to prevent future Ground Zeroes is to encourage moderation within Islam, and to treat Muslim moderates differently than we treat Muslim extremists,” he writes. “The campaign against this mosque treats all Muslims as perpetrators. This is a terrible mistake, for moral and strategic reasons.”
Opponents of this project are judging people they’ve never met on the basis of their religion, treating all Muslims as enemies of America, and allowing emotional prejudice to dictate their opinion when prudent reflection would serve everyone better. Forbidding houses of worship from being built is something done in foreign autocracies, not a country founded by people fleeing religious prejudice.
I can’t stand most of Goldberg’s stuff, but even he can see how the Palin’s [1] (and Gingrich’s [2]) of the world are dead wrong on this one.
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As to [1], the quitter wrote, “”to build a mosque at Ground Zero is a stab in the heart of the families of the innocent victims of those horrific attacks.” This is insane. So insane, in fact, it got enough people to flag it as offensive it got deleted by Facebook. This “blame *them* all” attitude of Palin’s is just wrong. And then, of course, she doubled down on the crazy, “Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn’t it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate.” Hey, jackass, the peaceful muslims ARE THE ONES BUILDING THE MOSQUE. Not only that, but the “heartland” wasn’t even attacked by Muslims. Ever. New York was. You know that place, right? Why not leave the decisions on how to heal to them, rather than an unemployed politician from 4,000 miles away. The only thing that makes her looks slightly rational is when compared to [2].
[2] “But Gingrich was not content to have the Mama Grizzly conducting the conservative Crazy Train. He wants to forbid the location of a mosque at Ground Zero until there are churches and temples allowed in Saudi Arabia.” [full article] I mean, really? Gingrich wants to take religious tolerance cues from Saudi Arabia? And here I was thinking the U.S. was slightly better than that. It’s very similar to a number of conservatives who defended Arizona’s crazy laws by pointing out Mexico’s even worse laws. And these are the same people who constantly bray about the U.S. being the best thing since Jesus. And yet…they want to take cues on how to govern from some of the worst offenders in the world. The mind, sometimes it boggles.
Robot Pirate Ninja 