Journal Captain Splendid's Journal: Whoopsie! 9
Will conservatives ever learn? Here's Grover:
Posted Monday, August 16, 2010 1:27 PM | By David Weigel
In an interview just now, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform made a point about the "ground zero mosque" controversy that I hadn't heard before. One reason that opponents are going to have trouble legally preventing Park51 from building its Muslim cultural center is that, in 2000, a Republican Congress passed the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. It's not that this was a partisan effort. It passed by voice vote in the House and Senate, and was helped through the higher body by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.). The goal of the legislation, supported by a coalition of religious groups, was to respond to the Supreme Court's ruling in Employment Division Department of Human Resources v. Smith and give churches, synagogues, mosques and other places of worship more power in disputes with local and municipal authorities.
precedent (Score:1)
The WTC was already a collection of sacred buildings, dedicated to the god Mammon and how a nation was conquered and what real "laws" and practices take precedence.... so this mosque deal is just a variation on a theme, they all do it...
Hypocrites (Score:3, Insightful)
I find this issue so crazy in the hypocrisy of the right on this issue.
They sit there and demand better immigration reform "just enforce the laws that are already there." and "Respect the Constitution!"
There is not a single way to read the 1st Amendment that does not say that these people can build their religious area on their own private property. Zip, zang, blamo.
Yet, the same people crying for us to enforce the Constitution as written are also crying for this "travesty" to be stopped.
You know what? Even if they were building this mosque as a tribute to God over their conquered foe, guess what? That still isn't any ground to stop it. It sucks, but that's life. You want to preach the Constitution, you have to take the good with the bad.
Re: (Score:2)
There are many ways to read the Constitution like that. One is alter the definition of "citizen".
The machine that has created the alleged controversy has incorporated what was the "sovereign citizen" movement from the 90's militia craze. They regard "14th Amendment citizens" as second-class. The 1st Amendment only applies to True Citizens. Pulp authors peddling this stuff in the 80s and 90s now have prominent places in the Teabagger movement (like the F.A.I.R. people who wrote SB1070).
See also: the 25 Point [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
It's sad that people are willing to use their intellect on apologetics to justify their already held biases, rather than to build new and interesting information.
As an example, if I have to hear about Haeckel's Embryos one more time...
Re: (Score:2)
While I said "they see no hypocrisy", saying it's all apologetics might be generous. A lot of it is just schlock marketing. Not saying that there aren't people who defend their positions in good faith; but they are, at least, used cynically.
Funny since we talked about apologetics and Christian Nationalism... Here's a couple great posts from my favorite Christian blogger on the subject of dishonesty: VIII [typepad.com], Lying your way to crazy [typepad.com].
Re: (Score:2)
Well, I prefer "apologetics" to be a term used to describe any form of post hoc rationalization. That is, "I thought of this before there were any good reason to believe in it, and now I will defend it to the death with facts appearing strictly later to justify the position.
Plate tectonics was created essentially ab nihilo to explain how The Flood(tm) happened. He did a bunch of post hoc apologetics to justify his belief, some of which appeared to have rational bases, and thus were listened to by more rat
It's a manufactured crisis (Score:2)
Park 51 isn't at Ground Zero. There's a Catholic Church, a topless bar, an OTB shop, and several other businesses between Park 51 and Ground Zero.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Absolutely. Doesn't mean the sheep shouldn't learn that they're even more retarded than they think they are.