High Minded Commentary

I’m pretty sick of this whole, ridiculous mosque controversy.  But I absolutely have to link to this piece by Richard Cohen, No Compromise on Mosque, if only to be able to quote this paragraph.

If, on the other hand, you do not believe that the attack was launched by an entire religion, then you have a moral duty to support the creation of the Islamic center. Lots of people fall into this category — or say they do — and still protest the mosque. They include Newt Gingrich, New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio and that Twittering Twit of the Tundra, Sarah Palin. They indulge in a kind of pornography of analogy — a bit of demagogic buffoonery that is becoming more and more obvious. They pretend that they have a solemn obligation to defend the (powerful) majority from the demands of the (powerless) minority and champion people whose emotions are based on a misreading of the facts.

Yes, he said “Twittering Twit of the Tundra.”  And I love it.

Ok, now that I’ve got the giggles out of my system (too much coffee, maybe?), on to the more serious point.  This is something that I talked about on the radio the other day, and I think it’s the main dividing line on this issue.  Thus far, there have basically been two groups of people involved in this debate:

1) The first group believes that Islam is a dangerous religion.  All of it.  These people view this entire religion as a threat to our Western civilization.  As such, they view the construction of this mosque so close to Ground Zero as the equivalent of a shot across the bow.  Understandably, these people don’t want this to go unanswered.

2) The second group of people believes that it is a small minority of the practitioners of Islam that subscribe to the more radical theories of the 9/11 attackers.  These people, then, believe that we cannot lump the entire religion in with the radical views of a small group of its members.  Therefore, they don’t see the mosque as any kind of threat or insult and, as Richard Cohen points out, these people have a duty to defend the First Amendment rights of this religion.

Let me submit, however, that I belong to a third group.  I don’t know enough about the Muslim religion to feel qualified to make a statement one way or the other about whether it is only a minority of their membership that wants me dead (I will say, however, that what I know about it doesn’t give me the warm fuzzies).  However, it is my view that it’s an irrelevant point.  Even if every single Muslim prays every day for every American to wake up dead tomorrow, we as Americans have a duty to defend their right to do so.

We don’t punish thought in this country (well, we shouldn’t anyway…I’ll leave my commentary on how hate crimes laws violate the Constitution for another day).  We punish actions.  If any Muslim, whether it’s Imam Rauf or anyone else, takes action on their desire to see us all dead, then they should be punished by our criminal justice system immediately.  Simply hating, however, is not a crime in the United States, nor should it be.

Since when did it become popular to be the thought police in the name of patriotism?  It saddens me to watch faux conservatives destroying the credibility of the conservative movement just to score some political points.  Sadly, though, this is what it’s come to.