Proposed Mosque Near Ground Zero

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Corkey

If this community center is not built I fear the terrorist will have won. Because there is nothing worse to me than to loose the 1st amendment rights guaranteed in our Constitution. It doesn't matter that I am not a "believer" in any institutional religion, the very act of stopping this building being rebuilt will effect all religious freedoms, not just Islam. Hypocrisy runs deep and the only way the terrorists win is if we give in to fear. You can't have it both ways, "We get to have our" christian houses there, but no one else can. That is the hypocrisy of the religious right wing that takes our rights and spits on them. Build it, and then we all win.

Corkey:

If *I* were, say, a high up in Hamas, Hezbollah or Al Qaeda I would be sending money--as much as I could--to the cause of *preventing* this community center from being built. I would task someone with showing up at every single protest against it--no matter where it happens. I would task someone else with simply hanging out at RedState, Drudge, FOXNews.com and every other right-wing website and copy and paste editorials and comments to same about this community center. And then, when the side that is convinced that this community center might as well be Al Qaeda Central, I would take all that video, all those interviews and every single word written in opposition to the Cordoba House and make movie after movie, pamphlet after pamphlet, showing how Americans behave. Each one would start and end the same. The beginning would be quoting the First Amendment and then the words "And here is American religious freedom in action..." followed by the quotes and images and voices of opposition. The end would simply read: Any Questions?

We are *writing* the Hamas propaganda FOR THEM! And the thing that would be funny if it weren't so damn tragic, is that the people carrying the propaganda water for Al Qaeda et. al. are the MOST religious and MOST conservative people in America! If Usama Bin Laden is alive he is laughing hysterically as he watches this play out.

Originally Posted by MsMerrick

Here is why, I keep having nightmares. The echos, of Hitler's historical rise to power, are ringing in my ears.
1) Pick someone , a religion for instance , slightly different from the mainstream , blame them for everything
2) Spread false rumors, that they eat children, abuse them, whatever, there's plenty of hot buttons out there..
3) Paint yourself as the only moral person, sworn to stop those horrible people
4) Start small, be sympathetic but, firm that although you have no real problem, for their own safety perhaps, they should wear stars .. so others can know, and truly it is for your own good

Oh yeah, make sure you don't allow anyone to practice the religion, but again, with a lot of sympathy just cite a lot of crap and incite people further
Seriously, this gives me nightmares...
That intelligent people can quote or cite, such incredibly hate mongering people, with false rumors, and call that "presenting the other side" ..scares the crap out of me...
This is how it starts..

Merrick:

As I said last week, I'm working my way through William Shrier's tome "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" and you are, of course, spot on. This pattern is well known and the path well worn. Now, are we in Germany in 1933? No, not yet. We are, however, in Germany circa 1931. We have (and it PAINS me no end to say this) a weak liberal government that is not willing to stand up for itself (the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats), we have a proto-fascist movement that is gaining strength and being allowed to believe that statements like "2nd amendment remedies" in response to elections that their side loses is appropriate (it's not) and we have conservative politicians who do not necessarily buy into the proto-fascism but are willing to use the proto-fascists toward electoral ends, believing that this will work out in their favor this time. It won't. The people who brought Hitler to power, ultimately, were the conservative forces in Germany--not the National Socialists, but the German Army and the German industrialists who thought that the Nazi's could be controlled. The army wanted arms and the Nazis were promising to rearm Germany in defiance of Versailles. The industrialists wanted someone to put a stop to the socialists, the communists and the trade unionists and didn't much care who did the stopping just so long as they were stopped.

I wonder if, 50 years from now, another historian will be writing a book "The Rise and Fall of the American Empire" and stating repeatedly, as Shrier did in his work, that the leaders of the American Theocracy TOLD the world and their countrymen what they were up to. Ann Coulter, Dick Morris, Franklin Graham, Pat Robertson, Sarah Palin and their fellow travelers have ALL stated, without pulling punches or reserve, what their agenda is and what they would do. We pretend that they don't mean it at our peril.