Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Via HopeNChange Cartoons, via Gerard, we find out this morning some loudmouthed individual who, although virtually anonymous, seems to be partially responsible for such a wise decision as getting our current President elected — had this to say about the Ground Zero Mosque controversy.
There is a debate to be had about the sensitivity of building this center so close to Ground Zero. But we can not let fear and rage tear down the towers of our core American values.
Wow, that’s both sensitive and clever!
Not and not.
So into what towers are seven out of ten Americans crashing our fuel-filled passenger jet planes? The elites in their ivory towers — Weehee! I can do it too! — have offered only one thing, which doesn’t fit the oh so sensitive metaphor of some plurality of “towers,” presumably, two. If the mosque is not built, or if it is built somewhere else, religious freedom is in awesome shape. It’s doing just fine. About as well as any other day on which the Department of Motor Vehicles insists you must remove your burqa for your driver’s license picture.
Since their argument logically fails, let’s inspect the situation one more time and try to figure out what’s at stake. To fit it to the events at hand, the first core value that comes to mind can be best qualified thusly: Fuck off and die, I’m allowed to do it so I’m gonna.
And the twin tower that goes with it is: And after I’ve done it, I’m gonna call it an act of fellowship, so fuck you again.
Speaking just for myself, I think it is the second tower of core values that I’d like to melt in the inferno of my passenger jet plane bomb. On the first one, I can begin to see the logic; when you have “freedom” but you only get to do what people like, that isn’t really freedom.
But there is a cost to be endured in practicing freedoms that offend others. Principally, there is — and I’m somewhat aghast at the sheer density of anyone who honestly cannot see this — the friendship of those offended. “Fuck off” means forever; you don’t get to go buddy-buddy up to them afterward.
And you certainly don’t get to build any kind of “fellowship center” on a foundation of fuck-you-buddy-I-have-the-right-to-build-right-here.
This much should be obvious. What’s getting in the way, I think, for those struggling with the delusion that a mosque at Ground Zero would be emblematic of “core American values” is the idea that anyone who is part of a DVG, a Designated Victim Group, cannot ever be told no. (It has to be something like that; otherwise, they’d be protecting our core values by defending Dr. Laura Schlessinger, and I don’t see any of ’em bothering to miss reruns of West Wing to do that much.)
This is where they’re constantly being tripped up. You toss a few hypothetical situations at them, ask their opinion about each, and they’re exposed in short order. Equal treatment under the law is not the issue. Exercise and expression of religion is not the issue. “Fellowship,” mutual understanding, mutual respect, these are not the issue. They’ll turn on all of these things if someone in a DVG is about to be told no.
And freedom? Liberty? It most certainly is not about those. The pro-Ground-Zero-mosque people don’t even understand the concept, it seems to me. Follow the argument: Freedom of religious worship is a core value of our society, and so we must allow the mosque to be built at Ground Zero and then we all have to like it. Yes, that is part of the mandate, have you not heard? Here and there you’ll hear one of them say “you don’t have to like it, but…” and that’s the furthest thing from the truth. We have to rid the world of discrimination, and “discrimination” is what they say it is. You have to like the mosque. If you don’t like it, they have a problem with that…even if you keep it to yourself. They’ll not be happy until you’re told what to think, and you do what you’re told.
That isn’t what America is supposed to be about, because that isn’t what freedom is.
Andrea Mitchell comes right out and says it: It’s about sensitivity, but only sensitivity toward persons in certain groups — that is the “core value” that is really being defended. And the best way to show this sensitivity is to make it a special, focused sensitivity…the kind of sensitivity you show, simultaneous with telling members of other groups to go piss up a rope.
It is about special considerations, special favors, special treatments. Not freedom, religious or any other.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: When a hyperliberal starts a speech gushing over how precious some of our freedoms are, you better look out because you’re about to lose some.
Image shamelessly swiped from American Digest.
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I dunn’o, Morgan, you make some wonderful points, I mean really good stuff. But, I’m to understand than ambivalence is the more mature position on this obviously non essential issue. It was just a couple unimportant buildings, only @ 3,000 people died and it’s not like the people who did that represent Islam in anyway whatsoever. Plus we have more blood on our hands that and jihadists do.
So I’d like to stay above the fray, be the more mature and thoughtful, enlightened citizen of the world. Plus I hear dhimmis are treated fairly nicely by the followers of that religion of peace. My beard is coming in nicely too and hopefully that bruise on my forehead will be callused over soon, ‘cause the infidels are started to notice.
Allah Akbar!
- tim | 08/25/2010 @ 09:24