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The Expansionist
Monday, August 16, 2010
 
Propagandathon. From Saturday to Sunday, I found myself reading thru thousands of comments at the end of an article on AOL News about President Obama's remarks on the so-called "Ground Zero mosque". Most of the comments were from Radical Rightwingers spouting vile bile, and I am very tired of Rightwingers dominating online comments areas, so I added my own take after a great many. I had been sleeping a lot in prior days, after several days of low activity in recovering from the flu, and found that I just kept going and going, like the Energizer Bunny. More than 27½ hours later, with almost nothing in the way of breaks except to check emails and TV listings, and with the TV on in the background some of the time, I had written 284 substantive comments, totaling 17,445 words, which I stored to a WordPerfect file on my computer. I did NOT store the comments I was replying to, but you should be able to infer those assertions.
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I also left some untracked number of short comments complaining that a bunch of comments were repeats, from dishonest Rightwingers who wanted to make it seem that there were more people on their side of the issue than there really were. I didn't save those comments, just the ones that responded to unique remarks, not repeats.
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I don't know how many people will want to slog thru all 284 of the comments below, but there may be people as irritated as I am with the unanswered Rightwing tripe that appears after so many news items online, that they may find it refreshing to see nothing but Liberal-Left remarks on the "Ground Zero mosque" issue. Here, then, my Liberal-Left marathon writing session, on one main topic and the other topics dragged in by other people, in response to the endless propaganda of the Radical Right that floods the Internet. If the topics (how terrible and evil Barack Obama, foreigner and secret Moslem, is and how out of touch he is with American values, as demonstrated particularly by his defense of the building of a mosque near Ground Zero in Downtown Manhattan), you can skip this extremely long blog entry. I don't expect most people to read this entire post, and certainly not at one sitting, but if you'd like to see a Liberal hitting back hard at Radical Right nonsense, this may make you jolly. Here now, my Leftwing Propagandathon.
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Human rights are not subject to suspension for political reasons, and the Constitution does not wave in the breeze of public opinion but must stand solid as a MOUNTAIN against all people who would disrespect it -- here, now, and there, tomorrow, and yet another place the next day until the places where the Constitution holds are few and far between, and the places where the Constitution no longer exists are everywhere.
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Plainly that writer is completely confused about everything. The Constitution has not been "edited" by Liberals. We read every word, and insist that every word must be heeded. Liberals do not spit on Christians; that's just a silly slander intended to inflame the ignorant. "Under God" IS in the Pledge of Allegiance, tho it ORIGINALLY WAS NOT. Public-school prayer is a plain violation of the First Amendment, and everybody knows it. But the people who want to inflict their religious views on others are OK with such impositions; it is only sane people's refusal to be imposed upon that they cannot bear. How would they like it if the Pledge included, in place of "under God", "with no delusions of silly gods"?, or if in place of "In God We Trust", our money bore the legend, "There is no God"? Russia went from official religion to official atheism within two months in 1917. Would the God-pushers like to see the same thing happen here? Push us far enuf, and we'll push back harder than you could 'believe'.
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So freedom of religion is not a fundamental American value? The Framers of the Constitution, who put it into the Bill of Rights, part of a document that nowhere mentions God, would be very surprised to hear that religious bigotry is the supreme American value.
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No state seceded. 11 attempted to secede, but failed. Unfortunately, their highest of high treasons killed some 600,000 Americans. And that treason is indeed honored by the state of South Carolina, which ALL Americans should boycott.
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It is NOT at Ground Zero, but 3 blocks away.
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The President of the United States in his official capacity cannot join in a day of prayer. That is an endorsement of religion. He can send any message he likes as a private citizen, but must make that role plain.
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Have Christians denounced the Wars of the Reformation? the Iraq invasion? the creation of the State of Israel and all the hundreds of thousands of deaths it has caused (including over 1.25M in Iraq alone)? Let him who is without sin cast the first stone. Who said that?
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The Constitution has to prevail over simpleminded prejudice, every time. Is it unimportant how the rest of the world sees us? Do you really want them conspiring to destroy us? Not wise.
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Oh, yes. 7 million Moslems are going to take over the United States, a Nation of 301 non-Moslems. Of course. And God exists, along with the Easter Bunny and the Devil.
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You can see into people's hearts, can you? You're a regular human X-ray machine, you are. Oh, no. Actually you're not.
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Your 'report' of a denial of the right to open a "campus" (not "church"?) in DC is suspicious in its lack of details, and thus not to be believed. The U.S. is a Christian country, ethically and culturally if not religiously, and everybody on Earth knows that. Except you.
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And that [an execution of a pregnant Afghan] is part of why we are at war against the Taliban.
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Irrelevant to this discussion. Stay on topic. But the LEGISLATURE and GOVERNOR of Hawaii passed a law that said that Obama's birth certificate IS VALID and they will not waste any more taxpayer money answering endlessly a question the answer to which will never be accepted by lunatics. How about we charge each person or organization that DEMANDS to see Obama's birth certificate $100 million, and use that to reduce the deficit?
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There are indeed some people who say that no mosque should be permitted in the United States. And the President pretty much did suggest that there might be a better place for a mosque but that where they build their houses of worship is the business ONLY of the congregants, and of the zoning authorities and such other entities in LOCAL government.
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[In response to the assertion that Christian churches and Jewish temples cannot be built in the Middle East:] Perhaps you have missed the STATE OF ISRAEL, with tens of thousands of synagogs. Israel was built in the Middle East with no regard whatsoever to the feelings of the people around them, and we have spent something like a TRILLION dollars to keep Israel going. That support for Israel CAUSED 9/11 attacks. Iraq had a thriving Christian community until Bush invaded; now Iraq's Christians have had to flee. Yes, all parts of the world should have freedom of religion, and indeed almost all the world signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, one of which rights was religious freedom, including the right to convert OUT of any religion. It is not for us to destroy freedom of religion here because other places don't have it. Why should we emulate them? They should emulate us. Indeed WE should emulate us.
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NOBODY among the people who are building this cultural center and mosque had ANYTHING to do with ANY attack on the WTC or Fort Hood. You might more sensibly blame your local rabbi for Sabra and Shattila.
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There are millions of churches in this country, and children and adults all have the right to pray in PRIVATE, not making a show in public school. If you don't know what Jesus had to say about people who make a show of their piety, look it up.
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You're making it up. No one is turned away from any public property for saying a prayer or singing the National Anthem. What they are NOT entitled to do is use public property as a prop for religious symbols that imply that the GOVERNMENT endorses religion.
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States do not have any right to legislate on immigration; that is a Federal responsibility. What they CAN do is enforce Federal law, which is all that Arizona wants to do. As for the Founding Fathers and healthcare, there was essentilly NO MEDICINE in 1789. George Washington DIED because the 'physicians' of his day BLED him to let bad things out with his blood! The Constitution does not address healthcare, but I sure would like to know what the Founding Fathers would have done if they knew what we know. I suspect they would have created a single-payer universal healthcare system paid for from general revenues.
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True Christians do not do violence to people of other religious communities. Real Americans don't restrict religious freedom. And repeat: the mosque will NOT be at Ground Zero but three blocks away, one crosstown, two uptown. What was that old rule about false witness?
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Yeah, the nerve of the guy in defending the Constitution when all 'real Amurikans' want to tear the Constitution to shreds.
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While you're at it, take some of that pig's blood and scrawl swastikas on every synagog anywhere in Downtown Manhattan. Just make sure you have the swastikas right: pointing to the right.
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Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. Do you REALLY think he would be in favor of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor?
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The President swears an oath to uphold the CONSTITUTION, not to bow to the worst instincts of bigots. Even if 70% of Americans were hostile to Islam, that is 5% short of what it takes to abolish the First Amendment. The Framers of the Constitution knew that crazy passions can seize control of large numbers of people for a short time. They made the Constitution very hard to change to keep such idiot passions from destroying our civilization.
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So you are arguing that the United States should be as intolerant as the most intolerant country abroad, are you? Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Morocco, and most other Moslem countries DO have Christian churches, and Saddam Hussein's Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, was a Christian. Iraq's Christians have felt threatened since the U.S. invasion ousted their protector, Saddam Hussein, and many have left because the U.S. put them in danger. It is, in any case, not for us to spite some foreign country's face by cutting off our own nose.
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If it were not for lawyers, NOBODY would have any rights but the rich and the powerful.
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The ROMANS destroyed the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem hundreds of years before the Moslems conquered Palestine. The United States is the greatest power in the history of the world, greater in our time than the Roman Empire was in its time. The only way we could be conquered is if the people who don't believe in this country -- like most of the people commenting here --- destroy the social compact that alone keeps us strong, by setting one religion against another, one race against another, one sexual orientation against another, one ethnicity against another. Most Americans have far better sense than that. [I'm not sure that comment 'took'.]
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Look up "Peoples of the Book" to learn what Islam REALLY says about Christians and Jews. Islam FORBIDS forcible conversion of Christians and Jews.
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Islam's prejudice against homosexuaity comes from JUDAISM, as does Christianity's. Jesus Himself NEVER condemned homosexuality but implicitly blessed it: "As you would have others do to you, so too do to them." But the Golden Rule means nothing to so-called "Christians", only a few sentences from the JEWISH book of Levicitus, most of which is devoted to ANIMAL SACRIFICE and dietary laws that the exact same Christians reject.
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Obama is not a Moslem and does not endorse Sharia law. Sharia law would be UNCONSTITUTIONAL in the United States, so why bother talking about it?
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Islam honors Jesus, and posits that at the end of days, Jesus will return to Earth to rule with the Mahdi and redeem the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahdi. Islam honors Jesus in the highest esteem; the highest authorities of Judaism slew Jesus. So which do rightwing Christians regard as the enemy, Judaism or Islam?
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Your infantile and dishonest remarks warrant nothing more measured than this: "Liar! Liar! Pants on fire!"
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Note that Rick Santorum is a FORMER Senator. The people of Pennsylvania got rid of him because he did not represent their views. And he sure doesn't represent the will of the people of NYC either -- which, please note, is the city where that mosque is to be built. Should outsiders be telling New Yorkers how to run their city? I thought conservatives wanted home rule, and that local government is the best government.
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Yes, one mosque in one city will destroy the United States. Take your medication and lie down until it takes effect.
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Yes, people shouldn't do anything that might cause some nut to resort to violence. Hm. That means, since nuts have their own 'reasons' for everything they do, which are unpredictable, that nobody should do anything. Good plan.
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What Saudi Arabia does is IRRELEVANT to what the United States does. Why do people compare the two, to suggest that we should be as intolerant as Saudi Arabia? We have freedom of religion. Saudi Arabia does not. That makes the United States BETTER than Saudi Arabia. Isn't that a good thing?
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This discussion is about ONE mosque, within three blocks of Ground Zero in NYC, and the assertion was made that if this ONE mosque is allowed to be built, it will destroy the United States. I merely pointed out the absurdity of that 'reasoning'.
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The building was old, but not a historic landmark. It had been substantially altered a number of times. If NYC left standing every building that was old, nothing new could be built.
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So you can read President Obama's mind, can you? How wonderful for you. Maybe you should tell fortunes for a living.
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Repeat: the mosque is NOT to be built on Ground Zero but three blocks away. How many blocks, or miles, or thousands of miles is far enuf away from Ground Zero, and who are you to tell private persons they cannot build a mosque on their own private property when the local officials of their city say it is in violation of no law? Christian writings on GOVERNMENT property are unconstitutional, and you would understand that if MOSLEMS wanted to post MOSLEM writings on Government property. Would you REALLY like the Government of the United States to permit Moslems to write "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet" on courtroom walls? It is because it would offend Christians to permit Moslems to write their propaganda on Government walls that the Framers of the Constitution forbade Christians or Jews to write THEIR propaganda on Government walls. Its called "religious neutrality", and it's why we haven't had religious wars.
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Iwo Jima was returned to Japan after WWII. The only monument there reads: "On the 40th anniversary of the battle of Iwo Jima, American and Japanese veterans met again on these same sands, this time in peace and friendship. We commemorate our comrades, living and dead, who fought here with bravery and honor, and we pray together that our sacrifices on Iwo Jima will always be remembered and never be repeated."
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87% in an Internet poll means nothing. Radical Rightwing crazies vote 139 times each to bolster their side. It means nothing.
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When did Republicans EVER do the will of the people? Did they OCTUPLE the national debt to serve the people? Did they cut taxes on the rich and super-rich to serve the people? The Republican Party serves only the rich, and uses racism to manipulate the white trash whom they have kept uneducated generation after generation so they can't see the truth, and thus vote against their own interests.
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Most sensible people know better than to waste time trying to counter the dishonesty and massive stupidity of the Radical Right, which loves to fill comment areas with their propaganda. I, for one, have nothing better to do right now than to expose the lies and counter the nonsense. Tomorrow I may have better things to do. But right now I am delited to expose the stupidity of the stupid, and the dishonesty of the dishonest.
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Michael Bloomberg is a Zionist Jew, and the Mayor of New York. If that mosque doesn't bother him, why does it bother you? Bloomberg knows what happens when the intolerant majority feels free to attack an unpopular minority. His people suffered from religious intolerance for centuries. He doesn't want that to happen to anybody else, ever.
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Obama created no controversy but has been the victim of racists whose racism EVERYBODY understands to be the single motivation behind all attacks on him. The exact same people complained about his CHRISTIAN pastor, Reverend Wright, AND call him a Moslem; and a Nazi and a Communist, even tho those things are mutually contradictory. If one slander doesn't do the trick, throw another slander, even if it is completely inconsistent with the prior slander. Obama has lost support from his base because he has been too gentle with his enemies and allowed them to block the program he was elected to accomplish. If Obama were the terrible person he is accused of being, he would have crushed the Republican obstructionists and sent them to Guantanamo to be waterboarded, so he could play, on all media, videos of their confessions to being enemies of the United States. And all the slanderers in these comments areas would be tracked down and imprisoned. That hasn't happened. Why? Oh, that's right. He's not a dictator but the duly elected Democatic and democratic President of the United States.
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The only leader I know that Obama bowed to was the Emperor of Japan, which he quite rightly should NOT have bowed to. But Japan is not exactly an enemy, tho it is assuredly not our friend either, but has subverted our economy with unfair trade for decades. The U.S. has ALWAYS had to deal with corrupt and dictatorial regimes, because the only alternatives are (a) to cut all relations (and then how many countries would we recognize or trade with?) or (b) intervene in their internal affairs to overthrow their governments -- and what replaces those overthrown governments might prove even worse (as we have indeed found to our dismay on various occasions). The mosque in question is NOT being built at Ground Zero, so all the comments about the triumphalist symbology of building at Ground Zero is irrelevant. All the people who attacked the World Trade Center DIED in that attack. The Governments of Moslem countries played NO role in that attack; no Moslem government has declared war on the United States; no Moslem government has made any statement in favor of that attack. Islam did not attack the WTC; 19 religious fanatics did, and we have lots of religious fanatics of our own. It is religious fanatics we must guard against, of any and every religion.
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Mosques are built only where there are Moslems enuf to fill them. Perhaps you should ask why mosques are filled, while many churches are closing.
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A Confederate memorial is not a church. Nazism is not a religion. Shintoism did not attack the United States; the Empire of Japan did, for reasons having nothing to do with ancestor worship. The battleship "Arizona" is out in open water, in a national monument. There is no private property there that people might build a shinto shrine on. The proposed mosque is on private property three blocks from Ground Zero. The comparisons you make are inapt.
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I very seriously doubt that ANY of the people you mention would favor religious bigotry. But try to get them to make a public statement. I'm sure a lot of people would like to hear their views.
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Islam tolerates "Peoples of the Book" and Mohammed FORBADE the forcible conversion of Christians and Jews. That lots of people in Moslem governments thru the ages have ignored his teaching should hardly surprise. There are lots of so-called "Christians" who wouldn't recognize the Golden Rule if it kissed them on the cheek.
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So if Obama says you should not be killed for your views, you would be in favor of someone killing you?
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The one thing has nothing to do with the other. What if Jews demanded that all Christian churches be closed because they didn't stop the (Christian) Nazi Holocaust? Would that be their right?
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Exactly WHO is going to "die" under our present, black President? Building a mosque three blocks from Ground Zero is going to KILL people? Take your medication.
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The first Civil War was brought to us by racist white trash. If there's a second, it will be brought to us by the same group. With the same result, total defeat of the racist white trash. Except this time we should castrate or spay them so they do not pollute the gene pool into the future.
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And what would keep President Obama from finishing his term? Both houses of Congress are firmly in the hands of his party, and likely to remain so. Thus he will not likely be impeached. Are you perhaps hoping he is assassinated? All true Americans protect basic rights and respect the results of elections. If the KKK wants to open an office anywhere, on private property, that is their right. Of course the KKK is not a church, but courts and police have consistently defended their political rights, including the right to march in largely Jewish Skokie, IL, and to hold rallies in places where the police protecting them outnumber the demonstrators. I have always been irritated to know that exactly the same people who railed against NYC as enemy territory and said things like they wished it would sink beneath the sea, all of a sudden on 9/11 pretended they always loved New York.
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Obama's job approval is around 45% (http://www.gallup.com/poll/116479/Barack-Obama-Presidential-Job-Approval.aspx); Bush's hit 28% (http://www.gallup.com/poll/106426/bush-job-approval-28-lowest-administration.aspx). Last I knew, 28% is lower than 43%, so BUSH was the most unpopular President since Hoover. And Bush was white, so did not get any of the anti-black crowd denouncing him. The Presidency has indeed become a crappy job, but mainly because Presidents have not lived up to their campaigns, but compromised away most of their principles.
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"The Saudis" financed 9/11? Drivel. If Saudi Arabia's GOVERNMENT -- which is what "the Saudis" means -- financed the 9/11 attacks, why didn't George BUSH, who was President at the time, attack Saudi Arabia?
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"Freedom of" necessarily entails "freedom from". That's called both "logic" and "English".
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No, the God of Love is NOT the God of Wrath.
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No, Obama has repeatedly alienated his base to try to win bipartisanship. For instance, he compromised away single-payer universal healthcare to try to get the Republicans on board. It was an insane and stupid thing to do, to sell out your own party to try to appeal to the enemy party -- and he got kicked in the teeth by the enemy party for his trouble.
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Ramadan is not President Obama's holy month. He is a Christian. Remember Reverend Wright? You can't have it both ways, that he went to Reverent Wright's church AND that he's a Moslem. Nazi Germany was a Christian nation. Should we have outlawed Christianity to fite Nazism?
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Hm. Obama "took a hard left" but "the lefties are exiting [e]n mass[e]"? Wouldn't leftists be flocking TO him, not running away, if his program were leftist? The progressive income tax was instituted in 1913 by a Constitutional Amendment (the 16th), so represents the will of 75% of the Nation. Its redistributionist effect was never "robbery". Welfare is a trivial part of the budget, and the largest part of welfare is welfare for the rich in the form of tax breaks to corporations and obscenely rich individuals. EVERYONE pays taxes, even if they do not pay income tax. They pay sales taxes, and gasoline taxes, and excise taxes on alcohol and other things, and taxes on telephone service and electricity and natural gas and heating oil and on and on and on. In attacking "redistribution" of wealth, you are trying to set us back 97 years, while pretending to honor our traditions. The past 97 years of a progressive income tax are our tradition, not the age of the robber barons. We repudiated that era of hideous abuse, what I call "monster capitalism". Taxes are not "robbery" but the dues we must pay to belong to society. If you don't want to pay taxes, then leave society. Go live on your own in the wilderness, and provide for ALL your needs on your own, without any help from anyone else -- not farmers to grow your food, not police or firefiters to protect your property, not doctors to save your life if you have an accident or incur a disease or heart attack. And give up your Internet connection -- on which you would have to pay taxes, and thus consent to be "robbed" -- so you stop bothering sane, responsible, decent Americans.
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What "free ride"? Obama was elected by a margin of MILLIONS, but the Republicans did not accept the legitimacy of that vote because they do not believe in democracy, only oligarchy and plutocracy.
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This was SATURDAY, and is going into SUNDAY. Most people in the U.S. don't work weekends. Perhaps it is you who are not in the paid economy, if you don't know that.
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What company that received a "bailout" went bankrupt anyway? AIG is still going, as are GM, Bank of America, Citigroup, and on and on. And the "bailout" of corporations was done during the BUSH ADMINISTRATION. You should be cheering the success of the bailout done by REPUBLICANS.
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Obama's job approval rating is in the range of 43%-45%. Bush's hit 28%. One good thing to note about Bush is that he has NOT attacked Obama on ANYTHING. Too bad the people who voted for him don't have his good grace.
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Aren't you ashamed of yourself for speaking common sense?
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Obama's job approval is around 45%. I see you don't know your fractions. Go back to grade school.
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[In response to remark, "It's time to lay prostrate and face the east and chant allah akbar."] If you are Moslem, by all means feel free to do that.
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Saddam may have been a bad man, but he was a secularist who protected Christians. His Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, was a Christian.
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Let's see. Obama got nearly universal healthcare passed; passed a stimulus package that kept us from falling into a second Great Depression; passed financial reform; saved the jobs of over 100,000 teachers and police; and achieved other parts of his program, all in 17 months, with over 2 years still to go in his (first) term. That's failure? Limbaugh should wish more such failure on the President.
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Which "them" might that be? Oh, I know: blacks.
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The issue is terrorism, and the men, women, and children McVeigh killed had nothing to do with the suicide of the Davidian wackos, any more than the U.S. Government poisoned the Kool Aid in Jonestown. Religious lunatics killed themselves. Good. Had the religious lunatics of 9/11 killed themselves on 9/10, before they boarded a single plane, the world would have been spared the violence of the believers in a God of hate -- the same God of hate that all rightwing loons believe in.
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No rightwinger will open any such gay bar [for gay Moslems near Ground Zero]. It's just idiot theater for the knuckle-dragging crowd.
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The reason Congress is in disrepute is that it has permitted a MINORITY to obstruct majority rule. If Congress had ended the unconstitutional supermajority required by the filibuster rule and passed the entire Liberal program without destructive Republican amendments, the people would be dancing in the streets at our finally breking the stranglehold of the obscenely rich. Democrats can win a very big victory if they ask voters to give them a supermajority bigger than they now have, with which to end minority rule forever.
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Humor is not your thing. Stick to vitriol.
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No, actually Liberals are better educated, at the best schools, and outperform conservatives by every measure of intellectual achievement. The only conservatism we adhere to is preservation of things like the Constitution's First Amendment protection of religious freedom, which "conservatives" want to destroy, not conserve.
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No, reputable polls show that 70% have misgivings about the mosque at its proposed location. The 86% number is from an INTERNET poll, in which hostile people vote over and over and over. One person per vote yields a very different result. But it doesn't matter what 70% of people want. If 70% of people want to execute the entire Republican Congressional leadership without trial, should we do so? As for Obama being a "seething fanatical Leftist", there is NOTHING Leftist about his program, any more than defending the 221-year-old First Amendment is radical. The people who attack Obama cannot name a SINGLE program of his that is Leftist. Not one. Even his near-universal healthcare plan requires people to buy insurance from PRIVATE companies.
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70% of people as polled by reputable pollsters does not equate with 70% of voters, and the Constitution does not grant the mob the right to abrogate fundamental human rights. That's what I meant by "it doesn't matter what 70% of people want". If you want to repeal the First Amendment and end religious freedom, you need 75% of cool-headed people to do so -- and then you need armies to wage the many religious civil wars that result.
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Here is the one basic questions Americans need to ask: why do my rights depend on your feelings?
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Saying that Islam oppresses Christians and Jews as a religious principle is absolutely false, and you are misstating the teachings of Mohammed. That is called "bearing false witness", and it is forbidden by both Judaism and Christianity. But that doesn't stop you, does it? Nor do the actual teachings of Islam stop bad people from violating those teachings.
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Nobody is afraid of Sarah Palin, only of the bizarre politics she espouses and the lies she spouts ("death panels", indeed!). She resigned a public trust to make money, and people know that she is in it for the money and the ego-stroking, not for us.
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Yes, all Moslems are terrorists, and all Jews are slumlords who practice child sacrifice, and all atheists are Communists, and all Catholics take orders from the Vatican in all things, and all Protestants are imperialists devoted to taking up "the white man's burden". Aren't stereotypes and group slanders fun?
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You do have a sense of humor after all.
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Why did Christians kill each other in the Wars of the Reformation (and many, many others, producing deaths to the tune of millions over the centuries), and burn heretics at the stake when their religion teaches "Thou shalt not kill" and "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"? Because people do what they want to do, and nobody can stop them except thru force. Moral leaders have always failed to stop immorality. The fault is not in the teachings but in the "imperfect" human beings (i.e., monsters) who grab the few words of a complex moral teaching that they can use to justify their own immorality, while discarding all the rest. Mohammed taught tolerance of "Peoples of the Book", esp. of the Abrahamic religions, as you concede. He is not responsible for people defying those teachings, and the teachings are not invalidated by the refusal of people to obey them.
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I'll let sensible people judge for themselves. You don't speak for any sensible person.
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George Bush was shown walking with a Saudi prince hand in hand, like a pair of gay lovers. I'm sure Obama did NOTHING as egregious as that on his Mideast trip. Certainly I never heard of any bowing by Obama, and I watch a lot of news on reputable TV networks, and read a lot of news on reputable websites. If the President -- any President -- bowed to any foreign leader, he should be rebuked. Ordinary Americans should hold to the same standard, and not bow or curtsy to nobodies like Britain's make-believe "Queen".
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The only way you would hear "more and more" that Obama is the worst President in history is if you isolate yourself in the radical-right echo chamber. The Confederacy regarded Lincoln as the worst President ever. That is not his present reputation.
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Oh, I forgot to mention a guy named "Lincoln" whose election produced the Civil War. I guess you forgot about that too.
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In that the 2012 election has not yet occurred, and Obama is still a young man, so even if he were defeated in 2012 he would still be eligible to run later (remember that Grover Cleveland had two, nonadjacent terms), it is absurd to be talking about him as a one-term President. Wishing doesn't make it so. As for his being a liar, you'll need to specify what exactly he has lied about. Otherwise, that unsupported assertion has no force.
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Look up "Peoples of the Book", and stop spouting nonsense about Islam. There is no such thing as "Islamics". "Moslems" are "Islamic" -- no -S. Megachurches are political; should it be illegal for them to be built? And no one's rights can be abrogated by the claim that they incite civil unrest by going to a church, synagog, or mosque of their own choosing. That's akin to saying that honest working people should not be allowed to live in or even walk thru certain neighborhoods because street gangs will attack them. We don't give in to violence; we suppress it, and protect people from it.
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You are plainly not serious about comparing Obama's and Bush's college transcripts. Bush was a C student; Obama, a professor of law at the University of Chicago, one of the Nation's most prestigious institutions. If people have the right to do something, they have the right to do it, no matter what other people may feel. Your rights don't end where my feelings begin.
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Wishful thinking means nothing. And my comments are not remotely "recycled", unlike the talking-points remarks of the radical right.
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Takeover of the United States by Moslems is not remotely possible but is an INSANE suggestion that anyone who thinks such a thing should seek professional help for.
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Endless nonsense about an issue the State of Hawaii resolved by LAW shows the person who refuses to admit that truth to have a serious problem in coping with reality. Seek professional help. As for Obama's religion, didn't the radical right condemn Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's CHRISTIAN pastor?
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Internet polls are not valid. Partisans who feel strongly vote repeatedly. They do not respect the principle of one-person/one-vote. And wishing for Obama's defeat does not make it so. Let's just wait, shall we?
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Obama won the Presidency by MILLIONS of votes, but 'Peggie' doesn't respect democracy and won't accept the judgment of the American electorate. If there is a civil war, let's make sure that everyone like 'Peggie" is killed. If Obama is such a monster, he surely knows exactly who she is, and can send a death squad to shut her up. Let's see if that happens. If not, perhaps she should stop her pathetic rants.
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If one man has multiple wives, other men have NONE. Explain the appeal of that. As for gender separation, that is found in many institutions in the Christian West, and the largest church in the world does not permit female priests. It is male projection of male attitudes onto women that compels the conclusion that women feel oppressed in having places of their own, and well-defined gender roles. Many converts to Islam are women. They have their reasons, and it is not for you to tell them how to live.
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Oh, by the way, Orthodox Judaism also segregates the genders.
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The proposed mosque is NOT at Ground Zero but three blocks away, so the feelings of the families are IRRELEVANT, and not just because of the distance but because freedom of religion is a RIGHT, whereas consideration of SOME OTHER people's feelings is a courtesy. Rights trump courtesies every time.
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YOU may trust in God -- but exactly what does that mean? Does it mean that God will make everything turn out right? Then He wouldn't allow an attack on the World Trade Center, right? I do NOT believe in God or gods or demons or devils or spirits or ghosts, and YOU do not speak for ME, and it is improper for you to make the claim that "we" (all) "trust" in "God", since that is emphatically and obviously not true. Halloween is condemned by conservative Christians as devil worship. The Ten Commandments are Jewish, not Christian, so you want Christians to be controlled by Judaism? "God" is not a magic word. It does not turn nonsense into sense. Trust in that.
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And what's right is freedom of religion, for everyone, including Moslems in the United States and Christians in predominantly Moslem countries.
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Name-calling is not rational argumentation. Plainly you do what you can, not what you can't. So sorry to break up your party of self-congratulatory rightwingers who usually have comments areas as your personal echo chamber, but I thought that rational people who stumble in here by accident might like to read something other than the drivel put here by most of the commenters, many of whom seem to know each other and resent an interloper. As for a mental ward, you are projecting. To the delusional, reality is absolutely unbelievable.
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Obama is not PROMOTING the construction of that mosque, only defending the RIGHT of Moslems to build it.
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Exactly when did President Obama tell you his deepest religious thoughts?
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Judaism stoned women to death. Don't you remember these words from Jesus? -- "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." Ergo, Judaism is a cult, and not entitled to the protection of the Constitution, right? The Taliban may believe in stoning, but that is NOT a practice of mainstream Islam. And President Obama is commanding a war against the Taliban. As for not joining a particular church in DC, the President said he did not want to inflict the disruption of the Secret Service upon any one church every week. He also wanted to spread the benefit of his having attended services -- in "George Washington slept here" fashion -- by going to services in MANY churches, not none.
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Protecting people's rights is not "pandering" to anything. It is courageously standing up for OUR principles.
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Defending religious liberty is not supporting terrorism, and no rational person could make that claim. The Constitution is not being manipulated, only enforced. If Moslems have no religious rights, then YOU have no religious rights. Would you like your church or synagog -- if you even go to one -- shut down because of somebody else's feelings? As for countries whose citizens were killed on 9/11, you'd have to appeal to some Moslem countries, because at least 60 Moslems died in the Twin Towers, more than three times the number of (and not counting) the hijackers.
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To give in to this bigotry would constitute an admission that Islam, not 19 fanatics, attacked the World Trade Center. Islam did NOT attack the WTC, and Moslems have no reason to go skulking about as tho guilty. There is no perimeter they have to respect where they don't have the protections of the First Amendment, and it would be WRONG of them to give in to bigotry. They are fiting for your rights, whether you know it or not.
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"Brothers" has figurative meanings. Christians regularly refer to "brotherhood" for people who are not related, and "brotherhood" is not restricted to one's own religion or race or any other narrow group. Many people speak of "The Brotherhood of Man", a concept alien, I admit, to many people leaving comments in this area. But Obama may also literally have Moslem half-brothers in Kenya, to which his father returned after the marriage to Barack's mother was dissolved, or from his mother's second husband in Indonesia.
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In the United States, building a house of worship is NOT a "privilege". It is a RIGHT. Obama is showing LEADERSHIP, taking the right stance despite its unpopularity. And yes, lots of people would refuse Moslems the right to build a mosque anywhere in the United States. Such opponents are properly called "enemies of the United States". Don't they realize that their incitement to anti-Moslem bigotry here can be used by Moslems in other countries to restrict Christian missionary activities, even close churches?
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So, bombing the WTC was wrong, but bombing a mosque not far from the WTC would be right? Why don't you put that in a letter, with your name, address, and telephone number on it, and mail it to the imam? We'll see what the NYPD has to say about that stance. And your saying that Islam is not a religion does not make it the slitest bit true. Look it up in any dictionary: "the religious faith of Muslims, based on the words and religious system founded by the prophet Muhammad and taught by the Koran, the basic principle of which is absolute submission to a unique and personal god, Allah" or "the religion of Muslims, having the Koran as its sacred scripture and teaching that there is only one God and that Mohammed is his prophet; Mohammedanism". Those are two dictionaries' definitions at Dictionary.com. They are right. You are wrong.
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"God" is in many public places, such as storefronts, church façades, and street preachers, but does not belong in any GOVERNMENT place. The mosque at issue is to be built on PRIVATE property, with only a public façade, so you're mixing apples and oranges. As for President Bush staying in Washington, please do not attempt to rewrite history so ridiculously. Bush spent 487 days at Camp David and 490 days at his ranch in Texas (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-4728085-503544.html), for a total for those two places alone of 977 days; his total time in office was 8 years (1,460 days); so he spent 67% of his time out of Washington! Do the math.
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The people DID vote, in large numbers, in 2008, and put both a Democratic President and a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress. Yes, by all means, let us vote. But rightwingers will not respect the vote next time any more than they did last time, because they are antidemocratic, not just anti-Democratic. And tho they would love to impeach every Democrat who wins the Presidency, they will never get away with it, because Republicans are likely to become a permanent minority in Government because of a tribalism that forces everyone but the most radically rightwing extremists OUT of the Republican Party.
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Of course they have the right to build a place to worship anywhere they want where they own the land and local zoning requirements are met.
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You do not know the Constitution. You might try reading it sometime. It's written in plain English, not legalese, so that anyone of normal intelligence can understand it. The Constitution does NOT sanction armed revolution but provides for ELECTIONS and the amendment of the Constitution by a difficult democratic process. The Declaration of Independence, NOT Constitution, spoke of Revolution, because the Government over the Colonies was a MONARCHY, not a democracy, and the Colonials didn't even have representation in the Parliament, which was in any event no match for the King, who was not a constitutional or limited, figurehead monarchy, but a real monarch -- tyrant -- who paid no attention to the Colonies, and little more attention to Parliament. Historians generally regard the Constitution as an ANTI-revolutionary document, which provided for a responsive Government that the people could change by ballots, not bullets. Nor is President Obama building the mosque at issue; private persons are doing that. Obama is just not misusing Government power to interfere with freedom of religion. Why can't the radical right ever tell the truth about ANYTHING? Oh, that's right: because the truth is against everything they stand for.
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"Marxist" is not just a name to be thrown around. It has an actual meaning, and Obama does not remotely fit the definition of Marxist. Marxism advocates complete government control of the means of production -- of everything. NO private corporations, no private banks, no private farms, no private anything beyond perhaps a home and the clothes on one's back. NEVER has Obama advocated any such thing. Nor is Obama a Moslem, but a Christian. Can radical rightwingers ever tell the truth about anything?
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"Progressives" didn't establish a torture camp at Guantanamo, nor arrest Americans and send them to Guantanamo to deprive them of their Constitutional rights to be confronted by their accusers in a speedy trial in which they have compulsory service of subpenas, the right to competent counsel, a presumption of innocence -- and all that nonsense that 'conservatives' pretend to believe in, except for people they don't like. The typical 'conservative' in this comments area has never read the Constitution, and would HATE IT if they did. They would want all its rights for their "own kind", but not for anyone else. That's not how the Constitution works. And how did private citizen or Illinois State Senator Obama "rip apart the Constitution since at least 2001"? Try to deal with reality. You might like it. It is not filled with conspiracies and enemies behind every door.
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Let's see: the innocent should pay for the crimes of the guilty. And houses of worship should be turned into political centers. But I thought rightwingers didn't WANT an Islamic political center three blocks from the World Trade Center site. And should every church and, especially, synagog be required to collect funds for the Iraqis murdered by the U,S. in TWO wars and a decade of murderous sanctions that killed over a half million children? What size fund should there be for each? A few blocks of Downtown Manhattan ravaged, as against an entire country; less than 3,000 killed at the WTC as against 1.25 million Iraqis killed by the U.S. invasion, plus half a million killed in the interwar period, plus all the Iraqis killed in the first Iraq attack. And let's throw in all the Arabs killed by Israel with supine U.S. backing and unquestioning, kneejerk support. Such an economic burden would close every single church in the United States. Good plan.
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Islam did NOT take over Europe. It took over two southern peninsulas. The bulk of Europe remained Christian, which is why we are Christian, because we were established by European powers.
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NY cab drivers do not and cannot legally refuse to carry passengers who have pork among their purchases. Since that assertion is CLEARLY not true, one must assume the others aren't true either. That's what happens when you're caught in a lie. Everything else you say is assumed to be a lie, absent proof to the contrary. You're just making this stuff up. NYC's taxi industry is very heavy-handedly regulated, and the Mayor of New York is a Jew. This comments area is not for fiction. Write your novel on your own time.
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Liberals caused 9/11 -- 2001? When George Bush was President and conservatives ruled the day? Radical rightwingers have absolutely no shame when it comes to ridiculous lies. Fortunately not every voter is a total idiot, which is why Barack Obama is President today.
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What outsiders are telling Americans how to run this country? The Framers of the Constitution are telling us, from 221 years ago, how to run this country. We should listen to them.
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"Communist" is not just a name to be thrown around. It has a meaning, and no U.S. major medium fits that definition.
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So any time the Government wants you to build somewhere else, it should have the right to deny your right to use your property as you please? I thought you people were for private property rights and for small government minding its own business.
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Christians and Jews have killed MILLIONS in religious wars. The Wars of the Reformation killed at least 4 million people, and possibly half again as many, at a time when there were only half a billion people on the entire planet. Jews practically exterminated one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, the Benjaminites, and in modern times have directly and thru their slave, the United States, killed well over 1.5 million Arabs, to make the Mideast 'safe' for Israel. Islam does NOT promote honor killings; that is a bizarre CULTURAL practice in the Indian subcontinent. Islam does not call itself a religion of love; that is Christianity's claim. Islam means "submission" to the will of God, not "love". And Islam forbids forcible conversion or oppression of Christians and Jews. The Constitution of the United States controls the United States, not Saudi Arabia or any other country, so what other countries do is absolutely IRRELEVANT to rights under the Constitution. In short, just about EVERYTHING you say is the exact opposite of truth and reason.
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So I guess Christian America should expel -- or forcibly convert? or kill? -- all those heathen Jews, huh? Europe is NOT laffing at us, but is much more favorably disposed to us since the election of Barack Obama. He was greeted in Berlin, even before his election, like a rock star, and a committee of the Norwegian Parliament awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize. It seems that the trick to reading comments by radical rightists is to REVERSE everything in order to find the truth.
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Why are there so many repeats of rightwing comments here? Verbatim cut-and-paste copies appear throughout this discussion. Sometimes, the repeat is obvious, because the ratings are lifted with the text. Other times you just have to read thru quickly to see that these are NOT new comments, just more attempts by rightwingers to magnify their actual importance by repeating the same comment half a dozen times. That's dishonest. But, alas, there is nothing new about dishonesty by rightwingers.
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Yes, the poor, tiny Christian minority has to find businesses to patronize. Are you kidding? The U.S. is dominantly Christian, and always has been. There is no need for Americans to seek out Christian businesses by such a device. The great preponderance of businesses are owned and run by Christians, and many of them advertise in church newsletters and such. Rightwingers might know that if they went to church every now and then. But then they might be exposed to the genuine teachings of Jesus Christ, and they would hate that, because Jesus was not a hate-filled, violence-minded bigot, and they'd better hope He never comes back, because they would perish the instant he appears.
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How many times are you going to cut-and-paste this irrelevancy into this discussion? It has nothing to do with an Islamic center in Downtown Manhattan, and the United States is at WAR against the Taliban. Barack Obama is the Commander-in-Chief in that war, AGAINST the Taliban.
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Fascism and marxism are OPPOSED concepts. Your username should be 'teenybrain' [not "teenybeany2"]
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Repeating the same comments over and over is abusive behavior and does not fool anyone. A xerox is not an original, and 146 cut-and-pasted comments do not bolster the case or the real numbers of rightwing commenters.
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What "we" have millions of people homeless and starving? If you actually believe that there are millions of people in the United States homeless and starving, you should check yourself into the nearest mental hospital and hope that the latest generation of medications will snap you back to reality.
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The United States was not even REMOTELY the only country to have slavery. Quite the contrary, slavery was a nearly universal institution across the world for thousands of years, and exists today in various parts of Asia and Africa. All parts of the world were "stolen" from earlier inhabitants. Celts once occupied most of Europe but were driven to the fringes (Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany). What matters is not who conquered whom but how people were and are treated by the people in power. American Indians have not just full legal equality with whites, blacks, and Asians, but protected, "reserved" rights that others do not have. Let's not exaggerate the faults of the United States. Despite the best efforts of the slavers and their ideological descendants in the Far Right, the United States is still among the best places on Earth.
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Perhaps you missed a little thing called the American Revolution, but the United States and Britain are separate countries that operate under different constitutions. The U.S. Constitution controls the behavior of the U.S. Government. Sharia law CANNOT happen here. Sharia is employed in some PRIVATE mediation and arbitration proceedings but not in courts of the United States, which apply and enforce the laws passed by public legislatures. Contract law empowers people to run their mediations and arbitrations by whatever principles the mutually consenting parties agree to, but if there is intimidation or fraud in getting people to agree to principles they did not intend to consent to, such mediation/arbitration awards can be voided by Government courts. It's like canon law that governs matters internal to a church. The Government does not interfere in such private matters unless some fundamental issue of public policy and constitutional rights is involved. And as for the person who asked what a Moslem is, a Moslem is a practitioner of Islam. Look it up in any dictionary. If the question was intended to snipe at the spelling, that is plain ignorant. English is not Arabic, and "Moslem" has been in English since about 1615. Everyone knows how to pronounce "Moslem". Nobody knows how to pronounce "Muslim". Altho there is no O in Arabic, that doesn't keep people from writing "Osama" bin Laden. Are you indignant that (the late) Usama bin Laden's name is misspelled?
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No reputable authority asserts that there are 15M illegals in the U.S. The highest figure generally used is 12M, and some authorities agree that the number has shrunk since the onset of the Great Recession. The rights of Moslem Americans ARE the rights of Americans.
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Stop cut-and-pasting the same comments. Once is all you're entitled to.
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Obama was elected by 69.5 million Americans, as against 60 million for McCain. Do you really believe that 69.5 million Americans are "the dregs of society with a hand held out wanting something for nothing"? Why do so many 'conservatives' hate both the United States as a polity, and Americans generally?
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How does one misuse a right?
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Why can't rightwingers read plain English? I said that the Golden Rule, articulated by Jesus, plainly describes homosexual behavior. He didn't have to specify every single thing that the Golden Rule applies to. That's the point of articulating a general rule: it has wide applicability, and people should consult it when making moral judgments. I have a counter-question: where in the Bible does JESUS condemn homosexuality? Answer: nowhere.
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You just made up that crazy 41M-people-on-welfare figure. The Wall Street Journal reported that in September 2008, there were 1.6M Americans on welfare: http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB124562449457235503.html. 1.6M real figure vs. 41M invention. You lied, by almost 26X! Have you no shame?
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There have been THOUSANDS of comments hostile to the President here, but we are supposed to believe that AOL does not allow criticism of the President! How STUPID do you think people are that they would believe so ridiculous a lie? I can understand that you have no respect for the truth, but how can you be so brazen as to lie to our faces, amid 8,000 and more comments hostile to the President, and say that criticism of the President is banned from this board?
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Barack Obama is a self-made MILLIONAIRE. Rightwingers are supposed to LOVE self-made millionaires. Get with the program. He has no understanding of Middle America? He was Senator from ILLINOIS. What coast do you think Illinois is on? He's black, which, in this country, gives one quite an education in short order. He has a family. He takes too many vacations? George Bush was at Camp David or in Crawford for 977 days, 2/3 of his entire Presidency. He won the Nobel Peace Prize, which shows that the Nobel Committee believes he is causing the United States to do important, CONSTRUCTIVE things in the world. He has said over and over that it is important that the United States make things, and helped save General Motors and Chrysler. There's not one single thing you have said that is true except that he is pro-union. And what do union workers do? They manufacture things, and do the hard work of society that rightwingers won't do.
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Cry "Thief!" and point off into the distance if you are a thief. Then run like hell. Are you running yet?
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This is at least the sixth time this same IRRELEVANT comment has been cut-and-pasted in.
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He was elected by almost 70M people, 10M more than McCain. He has the right to be in the people's house until the next election -- and probably beyond.
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The biggest terrorist organization in the world is Israel, and it is because the U.S. backs Israel in all its crimes that the U.S. city with the biggest Jewish population was targeted to begin with. Mayor Bloomberg, a Zionist Jew himself, is finally on the right side of something related to the Middle East. He wants Moslems to be fully invested in the United States, to see this as their country, to live in according to its laws, and defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Defending the rights of Moslems will win respect in the Middle East. Attacking the rights of Moslems, specially singled out, would win us enemies. Do we really need more enemies? Don't we have enuf in this comments area, all those people who hate the First Amendment's protection of religious freedom?
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Obama IS a natural-born citizen. Stop the idiotic "birther" b.s. It's old, it's stupid, it is contemptibly ridiculous. Only IDIOTS could believe that the government of the State of Hawaii would pass a law authorizing Hawaii's vital statistics department to refuse to keep saying that Obama's absolutely legitimate, state-registered birth certificate is indeed on file in Honolulu, if there were NO legitimate birth certificate on file. But you can produce 60 million proofs of Obama's natural-born status, and the people who refuse to accept a black President will still refuse to concede that he has the right to be where he is, in the "White" House. Never mind that Obama's mother was American, so even if he were born in the Panama Canal Zone (like John McCain, and my mother) or Kenya or Indonesia or the MOON, he would STILL be a natural-born citizen. Never mind that the white side of his family are from KANSAS, about as American as you can get. Never mind that the the State of Hawaii said unequivocally that his birth certificate is legitimate, so he was not only born to an American mother but was also born on American soil. You can't talk haters out of hate, nor delusional loons out of delusion. As for Congress, the only monsters there are the Republicans who have nothing positive to offer but are only the Party Of No.
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"Crook"? What criminal activity has President Obama engaged in? Did he waterboard prisoners? Invade a country thousands of miles form our nearest shore without a declaration of war? Kidnap people and send them to foreign countries to be tortured? Oh no, wait -- those are the crimes (well, some of them) of the Bush Administration.
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Oh, I get it now. Obama is like those alien invaders in some old TV sci-fi show, and any day now he is going to rip off his human facemask and reveal a lizardly bumpy skin and eyes with vertical slits for pupils ! Yes, I'm sure that's what's going to happen. (Humor him/her, and back away very slowly, then reach for the phone and call 911 to pick up a dangerous mental patient.)
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So I guess Jeremiah Wright was Obama's imam, (w)right?
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The behavior of 19 religious loons has NOTHING to do with a religion of 1.5 billion people all around the world, any more than the behavior of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols has anything to do with the behavior of the 2.1 billion Christians around the world. To blame Islam for fanatics who misread the Koran makes as much sense as blaming the great preponderance of Americans in the North who never owned a single slave, for black slavery in the South, justified by Southern Bible thumpers who claimed that the Bible taught that that slavery is okey-dokey with God because blacks are inferior to whites. Civil society is not responsible for the crimes of sociopaths. Criminals bear their own guilt. It does not belong to the larger society, at all.
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Nobody cares what you call PRESIDENT Obama. He is the President of the United States, whether you like it or not. Maturity, and sanity, require acceptance of reality.
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No, President Obama is a Christian. If you have any creditable PROOF to the contrary, produce it. You do not produce proof, because there can be no proof. He is a Christian, his wife is a Christian, their children are Christians. YOU are not.
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No, Moslems do in fact practice their religion freely in most places in the United States where there are enuf faithful in a given locality to hold services. If bigots had managed to suppress Moslems' services everywhere, we wouldn't be so exercised about the attempt to abrogate their Constitutional rights in Lower Manhattan.
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This entire discussion is about Obama's standing for something!
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No American writes "Pearl HarboUr". You are not American, so stop posing as American, and keep your foreign intolerance out of this forum.
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So churches, synagogs, and mosques are equivalent to strip clubs, bars, and liquor stores? On what planet?
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The "poll numbers here" are INTERNET poll numbers, and all Internet polls are easily falsified by people voting multiple times.
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This, and the other 7 or more repeats of the same cut-and-pasted comment, should be deleted.
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No one who write "mosgu" can be taken seriously about anything.
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Perhaps you don't know how noisy NYC is. Nothing can be heard from three blocks away except maybe an underground explosion that blows manholes into the air.
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That exercising your RIGHTS may incense bigots in no way alters the fact that your RIGHTS are intrinsic and no one else has the right to intimidate you out of them.
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Religious freedom is an AMERICAN value. No outsider is imposing religious liberty on us.
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Jordon is inventing quotations to support his ridiculous fears of a tiny minority.
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Europe is Christian, half of Africa is Christian, and the largest part of Asia is non-Moslem. There are at most 7 million or so Moslems in the United States, a Nation of 308 million. There are almost no Moslems in Latin America. It is only your grotesque exaggerations that have you scared. The reality is not remotely frightening.
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Innocent people reject being lumped in with guilty, and have absolutely no obligation to respect accusations that they are complicit in something they had nothing to do with.
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Libertarians offend you? Ron Paul is a politician you want to get rid of? Good. The only socialist in Congress that I know of is Bernie Sanders of Vermont. That's 2 members of Congress you want to get rid of. Oh, and by the way, there is no God.
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Lots of people want to see this mosque AND COMMUNITY CENTER built, for the educational outreach programs it is likely to launch, to dispel some of the ignorance and intolerance that permeates American attitudes toward Islam.
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The bulk of the world ADORES Obama.
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Obama went to a national cemetery in Illinois, where he happened to be, and Vice President Biden went to Arlington. No one disrespected anyone -- except the rightwing haters, who misrepresented what happened that day.
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The murderers of 9/11 all died. They are not around to murder anyone else. Don't blame anyone else for the crimes of that fanatical 19.
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What freedoms did the 9/11 terrorists attack? The freedom to send billions of dollars each and every year to Israel with which to slaughter Palestinians and commit assassinations in Arab countries? The freedom to invade Iraq, a country over 6,000 miles away that never attacked us? Or perhaps it was freedom of religion that they attacked. If so, then you and they are on exactly the same side -- and "the terrorists won".
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You're making it up. Obama never had any college remove any crosses. You're just making it up, snatching it from the clear blue sky.
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Freedom means nothing if you can't have it HERE, but only THERE. Would you have freedom of speech/press if you were forbidden to comment on this forum but could comment on some other forum, just one with fewer readers?
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What religious memorial would there be to a murderer? James Earl Ray was not a religious leader.
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Liberals are never mad about religious freedom. Ergo, you are NOT a Liberal. No one has the obligation to give up his rights on account of somebody's foolish "feelings".
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President Obama could ask for tolerance for the most vicious anti-Obama propagandists and they would condemn him.
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WILLFUL ignorance cannot be exploded by facts, but let's talk facts. According to the CIA WORLD FACTBOOK, 2.7% of Britain is Moslem, 3.7% of Germany, 5-10% of France (so wide a range shows that nobody knows). So of the three countries you talk about being populated by Moslems, at least 90% are NON-Moslem, and as many as 97.3% are non-Moslem. Stop being ridiculous.
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Just wait for the election. Saying he won't be re-elected won't make it so. And the idea of Obama canceling elections is contemptible nonsense. YOU can't even believe that, unless you are certifiably insane.
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This entire discussion has revolved around the Constitution, but suddenly some rightwinger wonders if the Constitution even applies! Read the First Amendment and a commentary or two about what it means, if its plain wording isn't clear to you. The First Amendment has nothing to do with "culture" but with religion, freedom of speech and the press -- AMERICAN values, not foreign -- and the right of assembly and petition. The First Amendment is profoundly, and nearly uniquely, American, not the slightest foreign. Perhaps you didn't you go to grade school in the United States, because all Americans know that the First Amendment entrenches AMERICAN values, and has become a basic feature of OUR culture.
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So out of touch is he that he won the Presidency by a 10 million vote margin.
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If you don't grant others the right of religious freedom, you are not entitled to it yourself, so why would you care if Islamists took over the United States and forced Islam upon you? You think it's fine to force religion upon the unwilling. Paranoia about a 2% or 3% minority taking over the Nation is INSANE.
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Who doubts that any antihomosexual group anywhere in this country would be permitted to establish any antihomosexual institution they wanted, anywhere they wanted? Make sure it's a church, however, because the First Amendment doesn't apply to just every organization, and a secular community center is not entitled to the same protections as a church. Antigay activists can hand out antihomosexual literature if they like, and say anything they want (that's true, not libelous) about homosexuals. That's constitutionally protected. Gay men have no desire to take away other people's rights. I know. I'm the guy who in 1970 proposed the term "Gay Pride" as it is now used.
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Every synagog is a slap in the face to Christians, because the supreme Jewish religious authorities of ancient Judea murdered Jesus. So let's forbid the construction of synagogs within two miles of the nearest church. How can the construction of a house of worship have NOTHING to do with freedom of religion? You're talking nonsense -- bigoted, silly nonsense that everyone with even half a brain, which includes almost a third of radical rightwingers, sees right thru.
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What has neo-Nazism got to do with religious freedom?
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The endless repetition of the chant that Obama is a Moslem and will be a one-term President does NOT magically make either thing true. You may think you are intoning magical incantations that will create spells on the voting public, but you're just ranting in a corner filled with hate and self-delusion.
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The KKK is not a church. Stay on topic.
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President Obama attended Columbia University and Harvard Law School, not any college supported by the [United Negro College Fund]. And nobody on Earth believes you contributed to the UNCF.
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Small point: only ADVANCED countries have universal healthcare. American rightwingers don't want us to be an advanced country. They want us to be a Third World country, where the rich own everything and everybody.
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There is no such thing as the Anti-Christ. There was no such thing as the Christ. There is no God, but there is a birth certificate, in Honolulu, which the government of the State of Hawaii has told everybody hundreds of times, until they had to pass a law to stop wasting taxpayer money answering the same stupid question over and over again. Some people really cannot take Yes as an answer.
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It's absolutely refreshing to see the hidden racist paranoia come out into the sunshine. But the racists in this discussion wouldn't want too much sunshine, because they'd hate to get a tan and cease to be 'truly white'.
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So you admire the behavior of the Mafia, do you?
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Natural-born American does NOT require birth within the United States, but can be the result of a child being born to a U.S. citizen. That doesn't matter here, however, since the State of Hawaii says Obama WAS born in Hawaii. I know that that is what the State of Hawaii said, in a LAW. I do NOT know either that what desdemona is saying is true -- and I have every reason to disbelieve her -- nor that the old woman she is talking about is senile.
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Monastic Christian communities are a comprehensive social system that governs every aspect of life, as is the behavior of the Amish, Mennonites, Mormons, and others. And Jewish temples and Christian churches preach politics from the pulpit all the time. All such religious bodies are religions nonetheless, and all are protected by the Constitution. As for German cultural centers in the 1930s and 40s, of COURSE there were German cultural centers where there were lots of Germans, thanks to the First Amendment protection of freedom of assembly. Megachurches have gymnasiums, parenting support groups, and other nonreligious activities. Those activities in no way remove the protections of the Constitution from megachurches. You really don't understand anything at all about how the United States works.
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Exactly whose flag would that be? So every synagog is a symbol of conquest of the Christian United States by Israel? And every church is a symbol of conquest of Amerindians by Europeans. What an interesting perspective you have on religion as conquest, not personal choice.
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The City of New York and its Jewish mayor permitted the construction of the mosque in question. The President had no authority to intervene in that local matter, and didn't. All he did was say that freedom of religion is a fundamental American value, and the anti-Obama fanatics flew into a rage, even to the point of DENYING that freedom of religion is a fundamental American value.
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Empty and completely false assertions about progressives disdaining the Constitution mean nothing. Progressives are almost the only defenders the Constitution has left, when "conservatives" want to deny the right to a fair trial to Americans (and others) accused of terrorism; deny Moslems their religious rights; call the income tax, established by the Sixteenth Amendment, "robbery", deny people born here the right of citizenship (all the while complaining that Obama supposedly wasn't born here so isn't a citizen -- but would be a citizen if born here); and on and on, endlessly.
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No one has the obligation to accommodate bigotry. They have the RIGHT to build on their own property. I thought you people were all for private property rights -- except of course for Moslems.
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So you don't want to know why hundreds of millions of Moslems hate us? Just pretend we are angels set upon by bad people for no reason. Terrorism is terrorism if it attacks people who are not themselves guilty of the crimes the Government commits in their name. For all they knew -- or cared -- every single person killed in the WTC had written letters to the Government demanding it stop supporting Israel. Justice punishes the guilty, not the innocent. But angry people, who have seen their own people slaughtered by the hundreds of thousands in Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries, cannot be expected to be calm, and draw fine distinctions. We have a democracy; so we are all theoretically responsible for the crimes of our Government. If we silently stand by while the U.S. kills over a million and a half Iraqis for Israel, we cannot claim utter innocence. Silence implies assent, and that renders everyone who silently consents to U.S. support for Israel's crimes, and U.S. crimes of its own against defenseless Iraqis, less than truly innocent.
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So, Gaile, reining in abuses by banks and credit card companies, as the recent financial reform bill did, is a bad thing, is it? Keeping General Motors -- and all its dealers and suppliers of every type -- from collapsing is also bad? Providing funds to keep over 100,000 teachers and police officers is wrong? Telling health insurers that they cannot refuse to cover people with preexisting conditions, nor refuse to pay claims of people who have been paying their premiums for years without a single claim, and forbidding insurers from setting dollar limits that keep people from getting life-saving treatments they desperately need are all bad, you say? Perhaps the only reason you couldn't think of one good thing Obama has done is because you haven't thought. Try it. You might like it.
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President Obama wants to raise taxes on the rich and super-rich, ONLY. I very seriously doubt you are in either of those categories, so why would you want to pay higher taxes and increase the deficit so the rich can live off the fat of the land while the poor and middle class do all the work?
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Barack Obama lived with his MOTHER, and then his grandparents -- the white, Christian side of the family. The 80 percent figure is a fraud, an Internet poll where people can vote as many times as they like. Stop pretending it is a valid poll of public opinion.
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The Constitution does not mention the word "mosque" or "church" or "synagog", but it does mention "religion", and protects "the free exercise thereof". Why are "conservatives" so utterly, fatuously dishonest? You're not fooling anybody. We know what the First Amendment means, and what it means is that Moslems are entitled to build mosques. As of RIGHT.
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So the rich have no rights? You need professional help.
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Destroying private property is vandalism. Destroying a house of worship is a hate crime. Would you equally grant Moslems in a dominantly Moslem area the right to tear down nearby churches and synagogs?
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And you pretend to be concerned with people's feelings. Ha!
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The Supreme Court refused to entertain a frivolous challenge to Barack Obama's right to run for President. The issue is settled. He IS American, he IS entitled to be President. He IS President. Move on. Nobody is spitting in the faces of the families who lost loved ones on 9/11. That is an absolutely phony issue. All the Moslems at issue want to do is build a mosque and community center on their own property. They didn't attack the World Trade Center. They didn't kill anybody. All they want to do is build something of their choosing on their own property, and the City of New York said that's fine with them. What business is it of yours? None.
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Mayor Bloomberg is Jewish. I don't think he'll be hosting a pig roast this weekend.
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Rightwingers always preposterously exaggerate their own numbers. 20-1! Drivel. How come the President and both Houses of Congress are controlled by Liberal Democrats if the people are so enthusiastically rightwing? I guess radical rightists can't do arithmetic. Reputable public opinion polls show about 70% of Americans negatively disposed to this mosque. That leaves 30% who are not. 70 to 30 is 2 1/3 to 1, not 20 to 1. Even the fraudulent Internet poll, where rightwingers voted many times to distort results, shows at most 87% opposed, which means 13% are not opposed. 87 to 13 is 6 2/3 to 1, not 20 to 1. But the real figures, at this point in time, are 2 1/3 to 1. Five years from now, when the mosque and community center have been in place as a peaceful part of the community for two or three years, the favorably inclined will outnumber the hostile. The Founding Fathers knew that momentary passions subside, and good sense prevails in the long run -- if only Government can stand against the mob UNTIL those evil passions subside.
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Yup, his true colors came out here: he believes in freedom of religion. What a terrible man.
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How many of those "votes" were repeats, by people who voted over and over and over, just as on American Idol? And 300,000 is less than one thousandth of the Nation. If construction workers won't build it, it won't rise, so why worry about it? Actually, you worry because you know it WILL be built, because not everyone is so narrow-minded as to take away one group's rights in the name of another's.
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I defy you to find the word "God" in the Constitution. Find an electronic copy online and do a Control-F search. It's not there. And the REASON it's not there is that the Founding Fathers didn't WANT it there because it doesn't BELONG there. The Founding Fathers did NOT adopt the motto "In God We Trust" but "E Pluribus Unum", out of many -- including religions -- one (Nation). "In God We Trust" was NOT on the money issued by the Founding Fathers, but was added to coins in 1864, long after the last Framer of the Constitution had died, and to paper money in 1957! And tho Moslems may have been rare in the U.S. at the time the First Amendment was written and ratified, Jews were well established in some cities, including New York, site of the proposed mosque, so non-Christians were indeed intended to be covered by the First Amendment. You can't just rewrite history to fit your biases.
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Chanting "Obama is a Muslim" doesn't make it so. Why, then, do radical rightwingers do it? Like all obsessive-compulsive behaviors, chanting that mantra is an attempt to calm anxieties, often anxieties that have nothing whatsoever to do with the conscious target of the chant. Logically, the President's religion shouldn't matter, and the Constitution expressly forbids a religious test for any Federal office. So it wouldn't matter whether Obama was Moslem, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, or atheist. He would still have the legal and moral obligation to defend freedom of religion. I detest all religions, but would not for an instant forbid silly people from making silly prayers and bows to a silly fantasy man floating in the sky.
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Don't waste the time of members of Congress. They have real issues to deal with, not absurd attempts to violate the First Amendment, which they cannot do.
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This is a verbatim copy of a comment already left (as shown by the "vote this comment" language. STOP putting comments up more than once. You are wasting everybody's time and not fooling anybody that there are more comments on your side than there actually are.
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He won the Presidency by a 10 million vote margin. He knows what he's doing.
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I thought we were supposed to be indignant about people flying planes into buildings.
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I don't know if it is constitutional to forbid the use of ANY structure for religious purposes.
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Impeachment is supposed to be done for "high crimes and misdemeanors", meaning violations of law. Obama hasn't violated any laws. And both houses of Congress are in the hands of his party. So impeachment is a nonstarter. I know you people hate democracy, but the people have spoken, and Barack Hussein Obama was their choice.
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Impeachment is not intended to substitute for popular election. But Republicans have no respect for law, the Constitution, the electorate, or the United States. They serve only the tiniest minorities of racist white trash and the abusive rich, so might NEVER win an election again, until they broaden their base and stop talking treasonous overthrow of the duly elected President of the United States.
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Remember that the Republicans also voted against healthcare benefits for the first responders of 9/11. As for "lazy" people who need unemployment benefits, when there are no jobs, even the most energetic and industrious person will not find work. And Unemployment is INSURANCE, into which people pay. Look at your pay stub -- if you have one. As for complete self-reliance, just wait until someday you are driving home from work and are hit by a drunk driver, or slide off a patch of ice into a tree or down an embankment and are incapable of working or even walking to the bathroom. Let's see how self-reliant you are then, bigshot. I'm sure you would rather die than accept Unemployment or any other benefit from Government, or will beg for charity from the rich -- who of course won't give you any. You can go from able-bodied to permanently crippled in 7 seconds, bigshot, and with your attitude I would insist you take care of yourself, bigshot, until you admit you were stupid, wrong, and meanspirited, then literally BEG for Government assistance.
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President Obama hosted a Hanukah party last year at the White House. I know that for sure, because my niece and her husband attended.
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I have been tested in the 99th percentile in intelligence, so am in all likelihood MUCH smarter than you will ever be. And Obama is NOT my man. I voted for Nader. I just don't level absurd and dishonest charges against the President of the United States, but respect truth and honesty. We who respect the office and the man are NOT outvoted -- he was elected by a 10 MILLION vote margin. YOU are living in a delusional world in which the rightwing echo chamber of incestuous comment boards and talk radio substitutes for reality. In the real world, Obama and a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress were elected by real Americans. Too many people have let radical-right loons misrepresent themselves as the majority, even tho they were TROUNCED in the elections in 2008, and huge majorities put a Democrat in the White House and BIG majorities in both houses of Congress. Who, then, is REALLY outvoted and out of touch -- with reality?
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You are lying to our face. You don't know any Moslems, but are talking thru your hat. Group slander such as you have issued would get you arrested in some countries that have "hate speech" laws. But Liberal Democrats won't let that happen to you here. You are doubtless undyingly grateful for the protections we give you. Just as you are grateful for everything else Liberals have given you, such as wages and hours legislation to prevent you from being reduced to wage slavery, workplace safety regulations, building codes, food safety laws, and on and on.
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Off-topic, and not funny. Government is not supposed to make a profit.
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Even if every single member of Congress WAS voted out of office, you would complain about the next Congress.
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"The" Moslems didn't attack the WTC; 19 religious fanatics, who didn't believe that other people have rights, did. They were much like you in their attitude toward other religions. The difference between them and you is they had the courage of their insane convictions. You just snipe at other people's rights from the safety of a country that allows irresponsible hate speech.
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Give it up. The Supreme Court, with its conservative majority, refused to entertain frivolous challenges to Obama's citizenship, and the State of Hawaii declared officially that his birth certificate is on file in Honolulu. If you nonetheless cannot accept this fact, you really do need to seek professional help.
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There is NO Socialist Party Caucus, nor Socialist Caucus, in Congress. That is an invention of radical rightwing liars. Democratic Socialism is NOT a reference to the Democratic Party, but to the principles of anti-Communist, anti-totalitarian Socialists. The name of the caucus is the "Congressional Progressive Caucus", and a search of its website on the word "Socialist" produces NOTHING.
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Bush had nothing to do with 9/11? It happened on his watch but wouldn't have happened at all if he had just told everyone "If anyone tries to hijack your plane, you must stop them, because they will not fly you to Havana or anyplace else and hold you ransom. No, they intend to use civil airliners full of passengers as flying bombs to smash into buildings, killing everyone on board and as many people on the ground as possible." Had he said that, the passengers would have prevented the planes from being used as bombs, as the passengers of flite 93 did once they heard about the WTC plane attacks by cellphone. But no, Bush kept all that SECRET from the flying public. HE caused 9/11. Other U.S. Presidents also contributed to the buildup of hatred against the U.S., of course, but Americans don't want to accept any responsibility for inciting violence. We just love to think of ourselves as saints and martyrs. Never mind that the death toll of Arabs from American violence is over 600:1. The 600 don't count, only the 1.
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Stop inventing statistics. The real public opinion polls (not ridiculous, easily manipulated Internet polls where anyone can vote dozens of times) show 70% opposed to construction of that mosque, not 90%. 70% isn't a big enuf number for you? Islam is no more "murderous" than Christianity or Judaism, and just saying that Islam is not a religion has no force in logic or law. The New York City landmark commission, the NYC Council, the Mayor of New York, AND the President of the United States all side with the Moslems who want to build this mosque. What ignorant rabble want is of no importance in deciding public policy, esp. when the rabble want to violate the Constitution, which is not their right. They can AMEND the Constitution if they can get the votes. But they will NEVER get the votes, because their betters won't go along with their mob mentality.
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The KKK is not a church. Neo-Nazism is not a religion. Apples are not oranges. Still, principles of free assembly and free expression do apply. Different people are entitled to different ideas. But there's a public park across at least one street from the White House, and I don't know if there is any private property availabe for a KKKNazi House.
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You don't believe that for a moment. Obama scares the s* out of you because his very election proved that the Nation has changed in a fundamental way, a way that likely consigns the radical right to impotent ranting and pouting, with no real power for the foreseeable future.
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YOUR country? You mean White America? White America has been taken over by the United States. Get used to it.
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The God of the Moslems is as silly as the God of the Jews -- in fact, it is the same God, the God of Wrath -- or the God of the Christians, the more admirable God of Love. They are all fantasies. But people have the right to their silly fantasies. It is no skin off my nose if somebody gets good feelings by bowing and scraping and reciting words that nobody else hears, not on Earth, not in "Heaven". All religion is nonsense, but people have the right to HARMLESS nonsense, like watching "Jersey Shore" or "Access Hollywood". Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and every other religion is NONSENSE, often pernicious nonsense. To the extent that people wish to pray in their own house of worship, let them pray, whoever they are, whatever ridiculous God they might pray to. Religious tolerance does NOT mean you have to respect the silly things people believe in, only that you don't interfere in their ritual nonsense.
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Praying privately in churches and such is NOT the same as inflicting religion upon people in GOVERNMENT establishments. You cannot really believe there is no difference between praying voluntarily in church and compelling nonbelievers to pray in public school. "In God We Trust" was NOT the motto of the United States when it was founded. "E Pluribus Unum" was. NO ONE is stopping Christians from practicing their religion, and in large parts of my city, Newark, New Jersey, there is a church every two blocks or closer. Stop lying. It is forbidden by the Ten Commandments to lie. But that's Jewish, so I guess it's OK for a 'Christian' to lie anytime s/he wants. If you want to practice Christianity, GO TO CHURCH. I seriously doubt that more than a tiny fraction of the radical rightists on this comments board go to church even once a month. Churches all over the Nation are closing from poor attendance and financial nonsupport, not from anything Government is doing, or Moslems.
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Yes, please expel Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Jim Demint, and every other member of the Party of NO, so we can do what the people really want without morally empty obstructionism for the sake of obstructionism. Vote early and often.
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I called klherrick's bluff and DID look up the Weather Underground. I don't know what she's supposed to be proving by calling attention to them, because they were sort-of American terrorists, albeit of a very tame variety. They ordinarily sent warnings to evacuate the buildings where they planted small bombs, and never killed anybody. Bill Ayers left the group, which he had belonged to in college, a time when a lot of people do a lot of stupid things, and later became a well respected educational reformer who worked on some of the same causes as did Barack Obama. The United States works with Germany, Japan, Russia, Iraq, and other countries it was once at war with, even with the remnants of the Confederacy! -- but only after they were defeated. The Weather Underground was defeated, and the destructive energies of some of its activists were turned to respectable reform movements. Bill Ayers changed his ways. Timothy McVeigh was unrepentent to his dying breath. And how does any of this bear on the right of Moslems to build a mosque?
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If by "Moron in Chief" you intend President Obama, he graduated from two Ivy League universities, Columbia and Harvard (Law). How many Ivy League schools did you graduate from?
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Many hate-filled comments here and in the mass media show that there are a LOT of radical rightists who are against the right of Moslems to practice their religion in the United States -- every part of the United States, not just Downtown Manhattan. There was no "triumf against the infidels" there, only a couple of thousand deaths and a lot of property damage that in no way diminished the United States except momentarily. The builders of this mosque and community center wanted a site not far from the WTC site to make the point that intolerance is a terrible thing, and we must all approach each other as brothers. That some narrow-minded Americans refuse to see the appropriateness of a mosque that focuses on the peaceful intentions of decent Moslems and their outreach to non-Moslem neighbors is a failure of imagination and good will on the ONE, non-Moslem side. Will some members of the congregation be embittered by the bigotry they are having to fight? Sure. Will they get over it and return to their original mission of building trust and community with their neighbors? We shall see.
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The President did NOT "entertain terrorists" in the White House. You are guilty of group slander, and in some countries could be sent to PRISON for "hate speech".
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Bin Laden has 'bin' dead for at least three years.
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The soldiers who fought WWII fought against intolerance, and saw in the concentration camps they liberated the ultimate exreme to which intolerance can go. Now you want to kill Americans who disagree with you. You won't accept the ballot box. You do not accept the legitimacy of elections. YOU are the enemy our soldiers have fought in war after war. If they have to fight you in a future war, make no mistake: you will lose, and you will die, if not on the battlefield, then on the gallows, hanged high for high treason. If Obama is as dictatorial as you assert, don't you think he knows who you are, or could track you down from your post here? If you believe the crap you write, you'd better leave your house, cover your tracks, and go into perpetual hiding. I, however, will stay at home, comfortable in democracy.
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You haven't been reading or listening to the news. The Mayor of NY, City Council of NY, and landmarks commission of NY all back the mosque. And Barack Obama not only graduated from Harvard Law School but also taught at the law school of the University of Chicago, another of the world's best schools. I am certain he could correct the 7 or more mistakes you made in your short paragraph.
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It did not get approved as a matter of cross-culturalism but of religious freedom, out of respect for the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.
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How is the United States favoring Islam over Christianity? You're talking absolute nonsense. If you don't know that you are lying thru your teeth, you need psychological counseling, pronto.
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Whenever anyone is willfully misinterpreted, and has the chance to answer unjustified criticisms, he does. You would, I would, he did.
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In a trial, your remarks would be dismissed as discussing matters not introduced into evidence. Various people here have made a blanket statement about a National Day of Prayer, without explaining what happened then. As I remember the brouhaha (and I'm not looking it up), talking to a group of religious people is not the same as leading a prayer, which the President of the United States, as the head of a secular government, should not do. And Franklin Graham was disinvited after making vicious group slanders against Islam. If he had made identical remarks about Judaism, there aren't three people in the panel of commenters here who would defend him.
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Drivel. People have no obligation to give up their rights because of somebody else's over-tender sensibilities. Many Moslems WORK Downtown, and need to pray in the middle of the day, as a requirement of their religion. They can't go home midday, and a lot of employers and co-workers would look at them strangely if they whipped out the old prayer rug and went into the complex bowing and prostrating that their prayer routine requires. Besides, people often regard religion as a collective experience, to be shared with coreligionists, just like a church service or mass. Why can't YOU be sensitive to THEIR needs? But you don't have to be sensitive to their needs, and they don't need to be sensitive to your exaggerated hurt feelings. 9/11 was almost 9 years ago. Get over it. Move on. MILLIONS of Americans have lost loved ones in those 9 years, to cancer, old age, accidents, crime. Two million Americans die every year, all over the country. Should the whole world come screeching to a halt and every accident or crime scene be recast as "sacred ground"? All life ends in death, and tho you may think this truism cruel, it's just realistic: Life goes on. The days when widows wore black and sequestered themselves for life are OVER. Life is for the living, and Ground Zero and its vicinity are part of future New York, a vital center to a vibrant city. Downtown already has two graveyards, at Trinity Church and St. Paul's [Chapel]. It doesn't need another -- without even bodies -- at Ground Zero.
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Barack Obama has degrees from two Ivy league universities. I'll warrant he's a lot sharper than you are, judging from your punctuation. The issue, however, is not the President's intelligence but the Constitution, which even most stupid people should be able to understand.
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Desdemona and her ilk are enemies of everything the United States stands for. To suggest that someone who believes in religious liberty cheered when the World Trade Center towers fell is inexusably and detestably slanderous. It is the ultimate ad hominem, slanderous irrelevancy. She(?) has no arguments to offer to defend her indefensible stance, so attacks the person with outrageous libel. Perhaps "Bruce" should consult an attorney about suing her for publicly attacking his character and patriotism. AOL would have to reveal her identifying information on court order, and desdemona would have to justify her vile slander in open court. The First Amendment is not "left-wing" but was written in 1789. Defending it is the very definition of "conservatism". 'Desdemona' (there's "demon" in there) must be living in a thru-the-looking-glass world where everything is backwards. Defending the Constitution is destroying the Nation. Passing several major pieces of legislation is having no accomplishments. And attacking other people's rights is the American way. (Cue the "Twilight Zone" theme.)
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Might that be white skin that crawls?
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How dare you call the First Lady a "hoe" (misspelled)? That is not reasoned political discourse, just ugly, racist crap.
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Where did you get the idea that the mosque will open on 9/11? Of what year? The present building hasn't even been torn down yet. It sounds like you're making that up.
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FDR saved us from Communist revolution. Would you have preferred Communist revolution? I would not. The measures his Brain Trust took stabilized the economy for the next 60 years, until the geniuses of Wall Street found ways to get around regulation, and the geniuses of the laissez-faire Bush Administration didn't even try to regulate the crooks. The result was the Great Recession. Perhaps the financial reform bill will prove the first step in restabilizing the financial system that the Bush Administration destabilized to the point of near-total collapse. It will take a long time, however, for us to undo the damage done by the radical free trade regime of the Bush Administration, which gleefully consented to the export of millions of jobs to China and India. Jobs are STILL being exported, and the Dems announced that they will try to stop that when Congress returns in September. But the rich don't WANT to stop exporting jobs, and their lackeys on the radical right back their "right" to take American jobs and send them overseas. (Hear Peter Lorre as Igor:) "You want to export my job, master? Oh yes, please export my job. Would you hit me too, master? Please."
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Stop lying about Islam wanting to kill nonbelievers. Mohammed forbade forcible conversion, oppression, and murder of Peoples of the Book (for our purposes, Christians and Jews). As Wikipedia says: "Non-Muslim People of the Book living in an Islamic nation under Sharia law were given a number of rights, such as the right to freely practice their faith in private and to receive state protection. They also had various legal impairments and responsibilities, such as the payment of a special tax called jizyah ("tribute") (although they were exempted from the Muslims' obligation to pay the Zakat charity)." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_of_the_Book#Dhimmi] So everyone who talks about Islam killing Christians and Jews as a religious imperative is LYING.
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Rape is forcible, against the unwilling. In the Paradise posited by the Islamist extremists, the virgins are perfectly willing to consent to sex with the martyr. Do you really think that Islam permits rape in Heaven?
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The complete irration of so many commenters in this message area cannot be explained by actual political or religious principles. Nothing Obama ever does is right, his natural-born-citizen status, tho confirmed by an entire state government AND the conservative Supreme Court, is endlessly challenged. His wife is a 'ho'. These are not rational stances. They are psychotic hatred, and it is very hard for any rational person to come up with any explanation but racism.
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Phony Internet polls, where people can vote over and over again, are never cited by honest people.
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Let's see [in looking for a village missing its idiot]. You write the possessive of "it" with an apostrophe, which is just plain wrong. And you spell "idiot" with a double-I at the beginning. I know! It's you! You're the idiot!
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The mosque is NOT a monument to the terrorists. That is your simpleminded slander. It is a mosque THREE BLOCKS from the former WTC site. No one can talk a simpleminded bigot out of bigotry. He is too simpleminded to understand logic or anything but his emotions. No one should listen to anyone who says a mosque is a monument to terrorists.
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NO, actually Governor Paterson made his announcement in Albany, which is about 110 miles up the Hudson River from Ground Zero, and did not say whether he had actually spoken to the developers: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/08/10/2010-08-10_gov_paterson_no_objection_to_ground_zero_mosque_but_floats_state_land_for_less_c.html.
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This is at least the sixth time this irrelevant post has been uploaded. It, and all repeats, should be DELETED in every copy to teach people NOT to repeat posts and waste people's time while trying to exaggerate the number of posts made on their side of the issue.
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So you are saying that religious intolerance is terrific and we should practice it as enthusiastically as some Moslem countries do? It is not for us to emulate them, but for them to emulate us.
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ALL the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center DIED in the attack. Islam did not attack us. 19 loons attacked us, and they are all dead. They are not buying anybody's home, because they already bought the farm.
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What other "terrorist attacks on our people over and above 9/11" are you talking about? And how about Israel's state-sponsored terrorism that the U.S. Government PAYS for? The Constitution isn't his justification: its his responsbility to defend. He took an oath to uphold it. You sure didn't.
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Birther lies and nonsense persuade no one. The Supreme Court dismissed the challenge, and all sensible Americans have also dismissed it. You lose all credibility the longer you talk about Obama's citizenship being questionable, when everyone knows it is not. So keep talking about it, by all means. Just realize that the longer you talk about that, the more people disbelieve every single thing you say about everything.
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It's NOT at Ground Zero but three blocks away. You subvert your credibility when you keep repeating a lie that has been definitively disproved. Oh, the President's "masters". Oh oh oh! Who are these "masters"? Please enlighten us.
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That has nothing to do with the topic here, but does speak to why we are at WAR against the Taliban.
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Speaking to a group of Moslems is not the same as leading a prayer, which the President of the United States must not do. He is a politician, not a minister. We elected him to run the Executive Branch, not to tell us we must pray.
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The mosque will be 800 feet from Ground Zero, around the corner and up two additional blocks. Stop lying.
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Ah, there it is!: "damn New Yorkers". That's what the radical right really feels about New York. They don't give a damn about New Yorkers' feelings, because they hate New York and the people who make it New York. Their worry about New Yorkers' feelings is a pretext for bigotry. Before 9/11, it was open bigotry against New York. Now it's open bigotry against the religion that in a very twisted version was used as pretext by the terrorists who attacked New York. The one constant: open bigotry.
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Obama is not a Marxist and not a Moslem, and repeating such silly lies just makes you sound off-the-wall nuts or like a terrible, clumsy liar.
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There are nativity scenes all over this country, where they belong: in and outside churches. The cross in the desert was illegally erected on PUBLIC land, not private. The President does have people of various religions to the White House. My niece and her husband went to a Hanukkah party there last year. Do you simply not know the truth or not care about the truth?
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Is this a repeat of a post uploaded elsewhere? If so, stop doing that. In answer to your implied question, however, Bin Laden has been DEAD for at least three years.
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Do churches have an obligation to reconstitute themselves as centers for all faiths? Do Catholic churches have to let Protestants preach against the Pope? Do Christians have to sit still for Jews telling them they have blasphemed against God by praying to Jesus? Get real. Different religions have different teachings, and some are incompatible with each other.
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You are digging a grave for your credibility with your endless nonsense about Obama being a Moslem. Keep up the good work.
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Bin Laden is dead. Would his corpse satisfy you if a DNA test matched to his children and siblings shows the body/skeleton to be his?
***
The mosque and community center will be open long before the 2012 election, many interfaith services and community meetings will have been held peacefully there, and everybody but the most hate-blinded anti-Moslem bigot will admit it's a great thing and that all the politicians in New York City and State, and the Federal Government, who defended the Constitution were absolutely right to have done so.
***
Be glad he ISN'T listening the way Bush was, with illegal wiretaps.
***
You haven't a clue what Socialism is, because if you did, you would realize that NO part of Obama's program is Socialist. But keep calling him a Socialist and Moslem, so we can all know that you are not to be taken seriously.
+
And that's all I wrote Saturday and Sunday. I did, however, on Monday evening, go in to see what new had been added, and replied to one other vile comment, thus:
Most decent people will pass over such insane and vile nonsense. Radical Rightwingers haunt comments areas online, which turns decent people away. Be of good cheer, decent people. There are a host of Liberal comments at my name, below, and a few other commenters are decent people too. Skip over the trash, and know that these are deeply hurting people whose grave difficulties in life they blame on other people, especially Liberals and others who have absolutely nothing to do with their failures in life. Know, too, that they speak for no one but the 25% of this country that is so filled with racial rage that we have a black President that they can't think straight.
(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,415 — for Israel.)





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