Posted on 08/18/2010 6:30:21 AM PDT by detritus
It is hard to imagine that anything has gone unsaid about the so-called Ground Zero mosque, but an important point seems to be missing.
The mosque should be built precisely because we don't like the idea very much. We don't need constitutional protections to be agreeable, after all.
This point surpasses even all the obvious reasons for allowing the mosque, principally that there's no law against it. Precluding any such law, we let people worship when and where they please. That it hurts some people's feelings is, well, irrelevant in a nation of laws. And, really, don't we want to keep it that way?...
...[T]he more compelling point is that mosque opponents may lose by winning. Radical Muslims have set cities afire because their feelings were hurt. When a Muslim murdered filmmaker Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam, it was because his feelings were hurt. Ditto the Muslims who rioted about cartoons depicting the image of Muhammad and sent frightened doodlers into hiding...
This is why plans for the mosque near Ground Zero should be allowed to proceed, if that's what these Muslims want. We teach tolerance by being tolerant. We can't insist that our freedom of speech allows us to draw cartoons or produce plays that Muslims find offensive and then demand that they be more sensitive to our feelings....
Nobody ever said freedom would be easy. We are challenged every day to reconcile what is allowable and what is acceptable. Compromise, though sometimes maddening, is part of the bargain. We let the Ku Klux Klan march, not because we agree with them but because they have a right to display their hideous ignorance.
Ultimately, when sensitivity becomes a cudgel against lawful expressions of speech or religious belief--or disbelief--we all lose.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Is it Friday yet?
home
Welcome home!
It’s Friday here; I don’t know about your time zone.
Today James is going to help me organize the kitchen cabinets. It’s a project for Cub Scouts.
Good project for them. Especially the lower cabinets.
We’re only going to do the lower cabinets.
Packing for Switzerland well underway.
Haven’t seen it.
:(
You should probably rent it or borrow it or something. I wasn’t prepared for it when I watched it, having recently watched “Alice In Wonderland” with Johnny Depp, but I was captivated by the imagery. I think you will be, too!
Honest!
When do you leave for Switzerland? (Wish I could be a stowaway!)
Sigh. Just booked two more trips. This takes me to late October with trips to Switzerland, Vegas, Minneapolis, D.C. and Atlanta.
Tomorrow morning. It’s a good thing I didn’t go into the office today, with all the (little) things that have to get done. I have to go out for a bit now — see about a smaller book for the trip (I’m reading a “year’s best” anthology but at 700 pages it’s kind of big) and get some more travel-size shaving cream.
This was a weird day for me, so having a cat on a computer seemed almost normal.
I went to Drive Time (”We approve EVERYONE!”) and found out what I needed to know: Approval is based on income, and they “budget” the loan payment to suit the income. Which means that I need to come up with either $5000 or a co-signer who lives in Nevada!!
Thankfully, I waited until I was in the car before I laughed!
Don’t forget to breathe!
Sigh. I got a letter from the credit union today telling me I was pre-approved for a car loan. Didn’t I want a new car? Goofballs.
Once upon a time, I had a friend (fiance, actually) who had a twin brother who lived in Caracas, Venezuela. One night, we were in the VFW Club, and he mentioned to the bartender that he was planning another trip to Caracas.
We had only been dating a month or so, and not many people knew it. One of the gals that was sitting down the bar said she would like to be a stowaway, and I looked her right in the eyes and said, “I’d like to know how two of us are going to fit in that trunk.” From that point on, she never flirted with him again.
And it so surprised my friend! We were so good together!!
Some organizations just have no sense of the fitness of things.
Everyone I’ve talked to since I came home had the same reaction I did: they laughed!!
The maintenance man laughed, then he said, “You have credit, right?” And I said, “If I had credit, I woulndn’t have gone to DriveTime.”
They take trade-ins, so ostensibly, I could use Miss Daisy, but I doubt they would give me enough to make it worth the tow charge to get there.
Our banks love us because we pay off loans. However, I’d love to pay off loans and then not get new ones!
Oh yeah. Forgot about that. Must explain the blue color.
Lom read through the German SIM card materials; she went to check/add to the account but the first thing they did was to send a text message to the phone. Oops. Or wait... wonder if the card will work here...
But I have to go out now.
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