JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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1
Why do Japanese change their attitude when they communicate with foreigners?
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2
Confrontation
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3
U.S. Navy investigating how parts fell off aircraft near Atsugi
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4
California court to decide if SeaWorld whales are illegal 'slaves'
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5
Kuroki reported pregnant 2 weeks after denying relationship with Akanishi
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- Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) in Kanto region
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- Assistant Language Teacher - Kanagawa Prefecture - late-March start
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SezWho2
sailwind, family members of 9/11 victims have every right to visit Ground Zero and continue their grieving. They don't have to be rational. They can take as much umbrage as they want to the planned construction.
However, I think this is a matter of religious intolerance. Had it been Jimmy Jones at the controls taking his congregation into the Towers in lieu of offering them Kool-Aid, I don't think anyone would object to the construction of a new church--especially if it were on the site of a previous one.
People have every right to hate. It's just not good for them, not good for the radioheads that use hatred to stir up a good boil of rage and not good for America. It's time to build, not to hate.
Posted in: Obama says Muslims have right to build mosque near ground zero
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SezWho2
Molenir, I think that those who do not want it built are fighting hard to prevent the construction. The opposition has called for the fight. Should the Muslims just give up and abandon their current location? Their fight is a fight for their rights and against religious intolerance.
Much has been made of the Muslims right to build and their right to choose not to build. Little has been made of the right of non-Muslims to forgive the innocent for the actions of the guilty.
Posted in: Obama says Muslims have right to build mosque near ground zero
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SezWho2
sailwind, what are you talking about?
Posted in: Obama says Muslims have right to build mosque near ground zero
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SezWho2
bass4funk, I disagree that building a mosque serves no purpose. Even most people who disagree with my tolerance for a newly-built mosque on that site agree that it serves a purpose. They think it exists to celebrate a great Islamic victory and to celebrate the glorious martyrdom of the 19 holy warriors.
While I disagree Islamic end-zone-dancing is the purpose of the construction, I think there is a purpose. I think the purposes are to (1) construct a better facility on the site they are now using, (2) to provide a center which is more hospitable to Muslim families and to the community, (3) to provide a place where people can better inform themselves about Islam and Islam in America and (4) to offer a place of interfaith understanding and prayer. It seems as though Americans are not really down with number (4), however.
Posted in: Obama says Muslims have right to build mosque near ground zero
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SezWho2
This issue has everything to do with religious intolerance. If you are saying that religious intolerance has no relation to freedom of religion, it's a point I won't argue. It's also a point that I'd like to see you demonstrate.
The Constitution guarantees freedom of religion as far as regards the State. It does not citizen's tolerance of religions not to their liking. And what we have here is intolerance in spades.
As far as the rest of your post is concerned, what group is it that's trying to build a monument to al-Qaeda's 9/11 attack? Who are they and what have they said? How do you know that what they have said is different from their underlying motives? Where do you get your information?
Posted in: Obama says Muslims have right to build mosque near ground zero
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SezWho2
bass4funk, when you say that Americans should not build a center for their faith because some terrorists with nominally the same faith destroyed lives and buildings near the proposed building site, it has everything to do with religious intolerance.
Ban all religious activity or ban none.
Posted in: Obama says Muslims have right to build mosque near ground zero
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SezWho2
I don't think it's the case of Muslims trying to pour salt on American wounds. If you ask me, it's more the case of a vicious few re-opening American wounds and shouting that what might be salve is certainly salt.
Posted in: Obama says Muslims have right to build mosque near ground zero
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SezWho2
How much are they getting from Saudi Arabia?
Posted in: Obama says Muslims have right to build mosque near ground zero
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SezWho2
Now there's a sentence. There's certainly no point in trying to reason with people who disregard facts and who wish to make up the rules as they go along.
I guess I'd have to say that I'm one of those who doesn't see "the" danger. And of all the people who claim to see "a" danger, I've yet to hear a rational statement of it. But if I can sum up what seems to be the general tone, according to those who see a danger, there is no Islam except that which flies 747's into tall buildings.
Yep! That's a danger that rates in small fractions of a percent on my scale of probabilities. Much higher would be that a mosque would be a force for good--both for Americans and for world-wide Islam. It makes little sense to try to "Americanize" Islam in the Middle East when we could more effectively allow it to be done right here. We have been rather successful in Americanizing Catholicism, Protestantism and Judaism (not that these are necessarily successes that should be cheered), so why not Islam as well?
As for people's sense of outrage, I think there are some very skilled professional rabble-rousers who help to whip that up. Even so, I think that among those who disapprove there are comparatively few who are actually outraged. The noise machine, however, doesn't try to reason things away nearly as much as it tries to do away with reason.
As far as "reasoning away"
Posted in: Obama says Muslims have right to build mosque near ground zero
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SezWho2
Molenir, perhaps I have the wrong information, but I wasn't under the impression that the mosque was planned to be built on hallowed ground. I thought it was planned to be built on the site of an old building, not at Ground Zero, which they now use as a prayer center. How big is this hallowed ground of which you speak--all of lower Manhattan?
Who is calling it the victory mosque? American Muslims? I doubt it. Why do you say that supporting Muslim's right to raze the current building and build something more grand celebrates the 19 men who flew into the Towers and the deaths and destruction which ensued?
As far as I can see, you are indulging yourself in viciousness.
Posted in: Obama says Muslims have right to build mosque near ground zero
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SezWho2
You are hitting new lows. How many cockpit recordings of crashed planes end with the phrases, "Oh, God!", "Lord have mercy!" or so on? You are demanding that American Muslims assume mass collective guilt for something that they did not do. Again, however, if you are OK with removing all religious institutions from the neighborhood, I could support that.
Even so, how close dare they come, according to you?
Posted in: Obama says Muslims have right to build mosque near ground zero
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SezWho2
No, samwatters, I think the attack on the Twin Towers was motivated by several factors, among them US favoritism of Israel, US troops in Saudi Arabia, and a perceived anti-Muslim bias on the part of the US. I think Islam was exploited to carry out that attack and I think that some of those on board the plane might have believed as you do. However, I don't think that those who masterminded the attack did so in the name of Islamic religious practices. The attack was obviously designed to scar and to send a message. It was not designed to bring us all home to Allah.
If you think that radicals will soon infiltrate this mosque, I think you are mistaken. It would be much easier for radicals to infiltrate something that is smaller and has a chance of operating under the radar in a way in which this mosque never can--if it is built. If it is built, it will be conspicuous and well-watched. Or perhaps it's our security apparatus that we need worry about.
As far as American generosity is concerned, yes, we can be generous. But Americans make a mistake when they think of themselves that they "are generous". We have been almost constantly at war since our initial act of disloyalty and we have left a trail of devastation. I think the best that can be said is that we are generous when we can have things our way. If we cannot, we can be very savage. I think a lot of people around the world observe this about us. We seem to need a boogeyman and these days Muslims are it.
Posted in: Obama says Muslims have right to build mosque near ground zero
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SezWho2
I think it has often been observed that our Founding Fathers knew that the majority was often wrong. And so, the founding elite (which is what they were), set up a constitutional government based on laws and which so happened to favor the elite being in positions of government. Mobs should not make binding decisions.
Posted in: Obama says Muslims have right to build mosque near ground zero
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SezWho2
American Muslims lost loved ones on 9/11, too. The Muslims already have a prayer center at the site which is "near Ground Zero". What would you do? Drive them from "near Ground Zero" altogether? How near may they dare approach? Or would you just be content to have them occupy the deteriorating a 160-year-old building and pray shabby?
Posted in: Obama says Muslims have right to build mosque near ground zero
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SezWho2
It's a shame that comes to mind. The attack on the Twin Towers was not perpetrated in the name of Islamic religious practices. And the people who are seeking to build the mosque were neither party to the attack nor supported it.
The mosque could be a great, visible sign to the Muslim world that America truly is a tolerant society. It looks, however, that American reaction to a peaceful American Muslim overture will only demonstrate how intolerant we are. The Muslim world of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan will not understand that Americans can be generous and forgiving. They will only interpret this outrage for what it mostly seems to be here--petty, vicious and lacking in knowledge.
Posted in: Obama says Muslims have right to build mosque near ground zero
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SezWho2
It's nothing like that at all. If you say it often enough and loudly enough you'll get the mob riled up. But that's only because it feels better to use your testosterone and adrenaline than to use those gray cells. The analogy fails on almost every point of comparison.
I understand what you are saying about the Muslims not exercising their right to not build a mosque there. Will you agree then to declare it a religion-free zone?
Posted in: Obama says Muslims have right to build mosque near ground zero
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SezWho2
The building of a mosque close to Ground Zero in no way resembles the US building a military base close to the Hiroshima Peace Park. What an odd and prejudicial thing to say. The comparison is odious.
As I understand it, the mosque would be built by American citizens on privately owned land for the primary, but probably not exclusive, use of American Muslims in the New York area. A military base near the Hiroshima Peace Park would be built by foreign troops on land requisitioned from the Japanese government and grudgingly surrendered by Japanese citizens and it would be built for the almost exclusive use of foreign troops, troops which perhaps largely support the use of nuclear weapons.
I do not for any second imagine that the Muslims who wish to build the mosque have much support for the destruction of ground zero. American Muslims, too, died in the attacks:
http://islam.about.com/blvictims.htm
It's like someone said, "We are so sorry for what happened. Let us build something of great beauty here, in the open, so that you can understand what we feel for America and what we feel for the destruction which happened here." It's like someone said that and so many others said, "Nuts to you, you towel-heads. Why don't you just go back to where you belong and take your friggin' minarets with you."
If Muslims are denied the right to build a mosque, the area must be declared a secular, non-religious zone: "Hey! You there! Quit your prayin'!"
Posted in: Obama says Muslims have right to build mosque near ground zero
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SezWho2
I don't think violence is going to solve this. On the other hand, if "the moral majority" would stop and think about history, they might be chastened. Escaping the doctrinaire Church of England, itself escaped from the moral rule of the Pope, the City on the Hill folks established their own morality in the New World. Whereupon vast disagreements as to God's word ensued and Christianity fragmented into tiny little pieces.
There are now churches which recognize the sacrament of marriage between same-sex partners. Clearly, this is not a matter of God's word. This is a matter of what is good for society and if there is "an honest moral majority" it needs to find cogent reasons why committed life partners in same-sex marriages should be denied the legal rights, protections and benefits of marriage. Absent a showing of harm, the objections of "the moral majority" are simply prejudicial.
That's the burden of democracy. Democracy falters when that burden is not taken up. And it fails when a majority, armed only with its prejudices and its vague claims to having the ear of God, tramples on a minority.
Posted in: Judge puts same-sex marriages in California on hold until Aug 18
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SezWho2
HonestDictator, why would you assume that I missed your argument about marriages contributing taxpayers? Rabbits do not marry in any legal sense, yet still they propagate. We will propagate fine without marriage.
Some countries which do not legally sanction same-sex marriage even have declining populations. Heterosexual marriage is neither a guarantee of more taxpayers nor a necessity for creating taxpayers. If you want more taxpayers, open the borders.
Posted in: Judge puts same-sex marriages in California on hold until Aug 18
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SezWho2
Sarge, to say that a question (or the asking of it, for your terseness really isn't very specific) is unbelievable is not the same thing as answering it. My question continues with another--whether the benefits that you seem to think are so obvious are real benefits or presumed ones. With the response you've mustered so far, it looks as if they fall in the presumed column.
Rush Limbaugh gets to be dismissive because he controls the microphone and has listeners who applaud his bullying. He isn't participating in a forum of ideas. But you'll have to do better than that--such as naming a few of the more important benefits that government-sanctioned marriage brings to our society.
Posted in: Judge puts same-sex marriages in California on hold until Aug 18