On Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:46:58 -0400, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:


1. Close enough as doesn't matter. You, isolated in Arizona, may
think that a block and a half is far enough. My daughter lives in
NYC, saw the planes crash into the towers. She was on her bike on the
Brooklyn Bridge. New Yorkers think a block and a half is too damned
close. A lot of folks do.

I watched the smoke from my attic window.

2 OK, a muslim activity center if you would so quibble.
3 Yes. So why build yet another at (or so close to) ground zero?
4 "...intolerance of a...": asserted with no basis or defense. I
merely assert that building *there* is blatantly disrespectful.

Why? Are you holding all Muslims responsible for 9/11? If so, why?

No. However, we don't hear any decrying of terrorism from any
muslims. Those that support terrorism are very influential within the
muslim community. This was discovered in Dearborn MI not long after
9/11. Do your own homework if so motivated.

You seem inconsistent in being self-righteously defensive of their
first amendment rights but cavalier about mine and those of others
who notice and comment about their choice of sites.

There
are no Cathedrals in Mecca.

So what? Are we to lower our principles of liberty and rights to those of
Saudi Arabia?

No.

They can build their mosque (or
whatever) in a different borough of the city -- or Newark, or Peoria
or Kingman AZ.

Who are you to say where they can build? Why do you want to?

I can't say where they can build. The 1st amendment protects their
right to build wherever they want as long as they are compliant with
laws and codes that apply to everyone in NYC. The 1st amendment is
law of the land whether or not I might support it, and in fact I
defended the constitution a lot more substantially than you and Wayne
ever have. I actually showed up for the fight.

I do strongly question their motives for wanting to build near ground
zero. Why do they want to do that, rather than choose a more neutral
site, other than to make a statement? I and many resent that as
being callously disrespectful of those Americans who were killed there
by terrorists in the name of Islam. Associating any particular muslim
or group of muslims with terrorism may not be logically defensible,
but memory of the 9/11 event in New York City makes it emotionally
obvious and inevitable.

Just because it's legal doesn't make it right some days.

5 The oath goes: "...defend the Constitution of the United States
against all enemies, foreign and domestic..." We did that. That
doesn't preclude us from speaking out against blatant gestures of
contempt and disrespect.

What makes you assume it's "contempt and disrespect"

I see no evidence to the contrary. What other significance does that
site have? Why there rather than elsewhere, other than to make a
statement?

Others question that too:
http://www.thomasmore.org/qry/page.taf?id=19