There is one woman who was on my facebook list, only because she was a "friend of a friend". Her status updates usually tend to be about nightlife, fashion, entertainment, etc. All of a sudden, she wanted to start commenting on more political things. But she forgot one thing -- getting all your facts straight before making public comments. Getting a minor detail wrong is one thing! Getting multiple major facts wrong in one paragraph shows you're not ready for prime time!
Here was that woman's status update!
Ok.. does anyone else think that its crazy that OBAMA is building a MOSQUE where the twin towers lay... Like the muslims from Iraq bombed us cause of the way we live here and killed thousands and no he wants to build a mosque where they died? Like thats like a slap in the face to america if you ask me... IM interested ...to see who supports this cause that is retarded! It should be turned into a memorial if anything
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So many errors in 1 paragraph
#1 - Obama is NOT building that mosque! No government is building that mosque! That mosque's construction is built with PRIVATE money!
And the mosque is NOT "built near where the twin towers lay", it's built near 2 blocks away!
On a block where a mosque already exists! They're just remodeling that block into a (omg ....no) a community center that happens to have a mosque within it!
#2- "Muslims from Iraq" did NOT bomb us! There were absolutely ZERO Iraqis involved in 9/11. ZERO! The 9/11 attackers were mostly Saudis, with a few from Egypt and United Arab Emirates involved as well!
Ironic, since that woman, like me, is from Hawaii, where we laugh at anyone who gets the Asian groups confused. You wanna call Bruce Lee "Japanese"? People here will laugh at you! You want to say "Chinese bombed Pearl Harbor"? Everyone here will be quick to remind that it was the Japanese, NOT the Chinese who bombed Pearl Harbor!
It's ironic that here in Hawaii, we like to lecture mainlanders on diversity, and laugh at those who get Asian groups confused, yet many of the SAME EXACT PEOPLE are totally clueless about other places in the world! So, we got this woman of Japanese ancestry who claimed Iraqis "attacked us on 9/11" when it was guys from OTHER Middle Eastern countries who were involved!
We got radio DJs at 102.7 who said rapper/singer MIA is a "red dot Indian" (already an insulting term), when MIA is NOT from India, she's from Sri Lanka!
And I remember hearing someone telling me about a group presentation about Puerto Rico that mentioned tacos & burritos (MEXICAN food, NOT Puerto Rican food!)
The US war on Iraq was never about 9/11. The whole thing started with Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Under then US President George Bush Sr., the US forces help kick out the Iraqi troops out of Kuwait. Afterwards, there was concern that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein wanted to retaliate against the US. Bill Clinton decided to just keep an eye on the situation, but not to invade unless Hussein launches attacks on the US. After 9/11 (which Iraqis weren't involved) George W Bush thought that Saddam Hussein still wanted to retaliate against the US and wasn't going to wait until Hussein launch any attacks on the US. Therefore, we launched a pre-emptive strike (meaning "strike them before they strike us") on Iraq. It was NOT about 9/11!
Whereas the 9/11 attackers were from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, none of their governments were involved. The ones who planned the attacks (Osama bin Laden and his organization Al Quaida) were based in Afghanistan, so that's why the US is fighting there!
#3 - a mosque near where the World Trade Center used to be is NOT an insult to the victims!
This is all based on the stereotypes of "hey, if some Muslims were involved, that means all Muslims want to do the same to us". If you think that way, you really need to enter the real world!
This "insult to the victims" stuff is so stupid for so many reasons.
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Yeah, some Muslims killed Americans on 9/11. But they weren't the ones who were conquering and slaughtering the Native Americans! It was the European Christians who were doing that!
So what, are Christian churches in the Americas an "insult" to Native Americans killed by European Christian conquerors? Or is mass murder only bad if committed by Muslims?
Yes, Christians and Muslims were using violence to intimidate and conquer non-believers throughout history! But also throughout history, most Christians and Muslims weren't interested in conquering others. They're more interested in keeping their friends and family in line with their religious beliefs!
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A mosque near Ground Zero is an "insult to the victims"? HELLO, some of the victims are Muslims!
New York City is a city that attracts immigrants from every corner of the world! Many of those immigrants come from places like the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, all areas with large Muslim populations!
Many of those Muslim immigrants work in various careers in New York, including but not limited to finance, food service, taxi service, custodial work, and medicine! Many were in the area when the planes hit the World Trade Center and many of them were killed in the attacks. Also, some of the resuce personell, and hospital workers helping the survivors were also Muslim.
IF you are an adult, and if you didn't know that, you are extremely ignorant! You obviously know nothing about the kind of city New York is! You obviously know nothing about the lives of Muslim immigrants. You obviously limit your information from news soundbites and you are one of those who don't even try to learn about different cultures around the world!
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A mosque near Ground Zero is an "insult to the victims"?
So what if they put a mosque in the Pentagon? The Pentagon was also attacked in 9/11!
Guess what, the Pentagon has its own min-mosque inside! It's been there for years already!
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/08/05/muslims_infiltrate_pentagon/index.html
Yes, Muslims have infiltrated the Pentagon for their nefarious, prayerful purposes -- daring to practice their religion inside the building where 184 people died on Sept. 11, 2001. They haven't even had the sensitivity to move two blocks, let alone a mile, away from that sacred site.
The
The "desecration" began shockingly soon after the attacks. Cox reported in October 2001:
Army Chaplain Abdul-Rasheed Muhammad, the first Muslim chaplain to serve in the military, read a verse from the Koran at the memorial service at the Pentagon on Thursday, exactly one month after the attack. Muhammad, who became a chaplain eight years ago and works at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, ministered to rescuers in front of the smoldering Pentagon after the attack.
Army Chaplain Abdul-Rasheed Muhammad, the first Muslim chaplain to serve in the military, read a verse from the Koran at the memorial service at the Pentagon on Thursday, exactly one month after the attack. Muhammad, who became a chaplain eight years ago and works at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, ministered to rescuers in front of the smoldering Pentagon after the attack.
And let's not forget, there's many Muslims in the US military putting their lives on the line to fight Al Quaida! Our CIA would NEVER be as good as it in gathering intelligence in the Middle East if it wasn't for the Muslims who work for them!
If you are an adult who didn't know that, you are supremely ignorant!
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A mosque near Ground Zero an "insult to the victims"? HELLO, not every survivor nor relative of those killed on 9/11 agrees with the anti-mosque fanatics!
http://www.thenation.com/article/154008/ground-zero-free-speech
Actually, there are 9/11 survivors and families on both sides of the Park51 proposal. Opening the center is "consistent with fundamental American values of freedom and justice for all," said the group September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. And although a Marist poll found that 53 percent of New York City residents oppose the center, 53 percent of Manhattanites support it—let's hear it for the much-mocked Upper West Side.
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Newt Gingrich said we shouldn't have a mosque near Ground Zero, because some Muslim-majority countries ban Christian churches and Jewish synagouges!
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/07/24/this_week_crazy_newt_gingrich/index.html
This is the idiocy of many in the conservative correctness crowd. They scream about "freedom" and "don't tread on me" at tea-party rallies, but many of those same people want to restrict the freedom of others because "other countries do it too!" This "Monkey-See, Monkey-Do" mentality is what our Founding Fathers warned about! The USA is supposed to be about freedom for all, regardless of what idiocies go on in other countries! Mature adults aren't supposed to go down to the level of immature kids, and the USA shouldn't go down to the standards of dictator-run nations!
It's also ironic that many right-wing conservatives claim to be for "private property rights".
Well, this mosque is on private property!
Don't like it? Just ignore it! No one's going to force you inside!
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The anti-mosque fanatics also love to point out opinion polls showing "the majority agrees with us".
WHO CARES?
Plus, it's more important to be on the right side of history, to be judged well by future historians than it is to give in to the opinion polls of today.
A lot of segregationist politicians of the 1950s & 1960s claimed to be for the "majority opinion". That includes George Wallace, Strom Thurmond, Robert Byrd, Jerry Falwell and Jesse Helms. But when "majority opinion" changed, all of a sudden, they all claimed to be integrationists!
That shows you what phonies they are!
As decades go by, the Ground Zero mosque is already built and in use, majorities of the future would wonder what the fuss was all about! They'll be laughing at the fear-mongerers of today, wondering why they fell for such negative stereotypes of Muslims. Future generations will have grown up with peers of Arab, Turk, Iranian, Pakistani, North African and Indonesian ancestry who act like the average suburban Anglo-Americans. They'll understand that many Muslims are not "jihad screamers", and definitely not "jihad bombers".
The politicians of today who gave in to the "anti-mosque fanatics" who are still alive 2 decades from now will act as if they supported the mosque all along! YouTube will expose them as the pandering phonies that they are!
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Now for some smarter quotes from my facebook list!
1)If Muslims can't have a community center in New York, Marines can't have a base on Oahu, Jews can't have homes in the West Bank, Germans can't live in France, whites can't live in the Southwest United States, black Americans can't go to Liberia and Christians can't go anywhere.
Then that same person added!
There's a million sushi restaurants in the shadow of Pearl Harbor. Actually, come to think of it ... PEARL HARBOR is still in the shadow of Hawaiian land ... filling it with oil ... and jet fuel.
Amen to that! Some conservative correctness bozos said "what if they put a Shinto shrine near Pearl Harbor?" IF that happened, ALMOST NOBODY in Hawaii would complain! Hawaii got so many Japanese, and most of us had Japanese teachers and Japanese co-workers, and we know most Japanese-Americans don't agree with the Pearl Harbor bombers. The only complainers will be the bigoted doofuses from the continental US, plus Midweek's ultra-conservative writer Jerry Coffee!
2)This one from Grant Crowell
Guess what has ALREADY been built within 2 blocks of Ground Zero? A strip club and off-track betting parlor. So much for the already phony "hallowed ground" argument. (I wonder if strippers flew the planes into the world trade center, there would be the same level of anger today?)
That commenter also gave us a link to the following article
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/36962_Hallowed_Ground
And a quote from that link.
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Look at the photos. This neighborhood is not hallowed. The people who live and work here are not obsessed with 9/11. The blocks around Ground Zero are like every other hard-working neighborhood in New York, where Muslims are just another thread of the city fabric.
Last thing before I end this, here's some links to smart commentary from some New York politicians
From New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/08/03/mayor_bloomberg_on_mosque/index.html
Representative Jerrold Nadler, whose district includes the former World Trade Center
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/08/05/nadler_defends_the_mosque/index.html
As an elected official who believes strongly in the separation of church and state, I contend that the government has no business deciding whether there should or should not be a Muslim house of worship near Ground Zero. And, as a representative of New Yorkers of all faiths and cultures, I find the singling out of Muslim-Americans -- because of their faith -- for animus and hate to be shameful and divisive. We should instead work toward building tolerance and understanding. For centuries, New Yorkers have exhibited a great capacity to incorporate and benefit from diversity. The Cordoba House, which is the product of moderate Muslims, has the support of the local community board and a wide swath of Lower Manhattan community leaders.
