'Mosque' Debate Is a Red Herring

The Cato Institute ^ | August 17, 2010 | Gene Healy

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

By 2012, our national debt will be larger than the entire U.S. economy, according to the International Monetary Fund. So what's on the front burner in Washington these days? Zoning issues in lower Manhattan!

Is it OK to put a Muslim community center close to Ground Zero? I don't know, but local authorities don't seem to mind.

That should settle it, but what Sarah Palin calls the "9/11 mosque" has somehow become a headline-grabbing controversy.

On Friday, President Obama insisted that Muslims have the "same right to practice their religion as anyone else" and can build a mosque near the former World Trade Center site. House minority leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, found the president's comments "deeply troubling." Newt Gingrich accused him of "pandering to radical Islam." (Are there a lot of votes there?)

All this posturing is getting tiresome. The "mosque" controversy isn't about property rights or religious freedom. It's a bogus issue seized by the GOP establishment to distract the rank-and-file from the party's reluctance to shrink government.

From all the caterwauling, you'd think the Park51 group planned to fashion a mock Kaaba out of trade center ashes and mount it atop the wreckage. But you can't see Ground Zero from the Park51 site — it's separated by two canyonlike city blocks, occupying the former site of a Burlington Coat Factory. "Hallowed ground," indeed.

The plans include building a large mosque — and a 500-seat theater, swimming pool and food court — which makes calling it a "mosque" just slightly more accurate than calling a YMCA a "church."

Republicans pose as the party of decentralization, yet here they are reversing Tip O'Neill's dictum, insisting that "all politics is national."

There's plenty of hypocrisy to go around, though. It's insulting to hear New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who has persecuted bar owners for the crime of displaying ashtrays, wax rhapsodic about private property.

Apparently, if you want to pray to Mecca, your rights are sacrosanct, but if you'd like a cigarette at the bar after a hard day's work, then head on out to the stoop, peasant.

And while Obama pats himself on the back for defending religious freedom and private property, it's not clear who he's arguing with. The mainstream Right has renounced "using the machinery of government to stop this project," as National Review's editors put it.

You don't need to buy amateur theologian George W. Bush's line that Islam is "a religion of peace" to recognize that the Park51 controversy is a red herring. With Muslims making up 0.8 percent of the U.S. population, dhimmitude seems a more remote threat than national bankruptcy.

In a recent (pre-campaign?) appearance in Des Moines, Iowa, Newt Gingrich denounced Obama's "secular socialist machine," but, when asked, he declined to specify federal programs he would cut.

You see, cutting government is hard, and often unpopular. No surprise, then, that Boehner would rather play urban planner than embrace Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan's "road map" for shrinking middle-class entitlements.

Faced with difficult choices, the alleged party of small government always retreats to the lazy politics of Kulturkampf. Hey, that guy's a "card-carrying member" of the ACLU! Ask me about my flag-burning amendment!

John Cornyn, R-Texas, head of GOP efforts to take back the Senate this fall, plans to make the Park51 "mosque" a major campaign issue. It's all too typical: Feed the rubes conservative identity politics, and, with luck, they'll be too distracted to notice you've grafted a Republican "K Street Project" atop the same old edifice of Big Government.

The establishment Right wants to play the Tea Party movement for suckers. It remains to be seen whether they'll play along.

[Berlin_Freeper]

But you can't see Ground Zero from the Park51 site — it's separated by two canyonlike city blocks, occupying the former site of a Burlington Coat Factory. "Hallowed ground," indeed.

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Fiterman Hall, located at 30 West Broadway between Barclay and Park Place, was damaged in the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center (WTC) when falling debris from 7 World Trade Center left it with significant damage in its south façade.

After September 11th, the City of New York, DASNY, CUNY, and others took steps to clean out some of the debris, close breaches in the south façade, and stabilize the structure. Because mold and WTC dust contaminated the building and rendered it uninhabitable, Fiterman Hall had to be deconstructed.

[Berlin_Freeper]

Call To Prayer - blasted by loudspeakers across Ground Zero

[aquila48]

This guy obviously doesn’t seem to believe we’re in a culture war. And actually even if he did, like many libertarians, he probably thinks we were in part responsible for starting it.

Seems like libertarians believe in living in houses with no gates or doors, and only confronting a burglar once he’s inside the house and taking his stuff.

[EternalVigilance]

It’s becoming more and more apparent that the Libertarians are as much a threat to the survival of this republic as the leftist Democrats and the fake conservative Republicans.

[Republican Wildcat]

Yeah, that’s the ticket - the GOP establishment got the Muslims to try to start building a mosque at ground zero so that it would be an issue to distract everyone from the debt. That’s the ticket - wanting to distract people from the winning issue that was at the forefront of their campaigns - then to top it off, they got Obama to endorse it, and Pelosi to come out and call for people who disagree to be placed under investigation.

The author of this piece needs to be trained on logical fallacies, news cycles, and how topics of discussion at any particular moment can eb and flow. The 911 families are not part of the “GOP establishment.”

[Nosterrex]

I have no doubt that the mosque issue is unimportant to Libertarians. Religion for them is something to be tolerated, but not embraced. I would say that Libertarians have a negative view of religion, especially when it comes to issues such as abortion, drugs, and marriage. There is much that I find attractive about Libertarianism, especially the idea of limited government. What I do not like about Libertarianism is the view that everything is based upon materialism. Man does not live on bread alone.

[firebrand]

There are so many things wrong with this essay that I don’t know where to start.

Cato is too single-minded for me in general, and this guy takes it to an extreme. You can’t be a one-trick pony, guys. It’s a big nation with a lot of problems. Most conservatives don’t think social conservative issues are peripheral, and this is really a national defense issue if you look into it with an open mind.

[ohioWfan]

Many/ most Libertarians are small government liberals. That's why moral/patriotic issues like this one are "red herrings."

They're only partly conservative. And it's almost all about money and living the way they want to live.

[Do Not Make Fun Of His Ears]

An imbecile who is paid to think, but doesn’t.

[Do Not Make Fun Of His Ears]

To this idiot, the controversy is over nothing more than a glorified YMCA.

Yeah, that’s the issue, numbskull. I bet this pantywaisted eggheadhas never done an honest day’s work in his life.

[rambo316]

Who needs any mosques anywhere? I am sick and tired of the terrorist “religion” being shoved down our throats. Stand up against this crap, my fellow Americans. Since 9/11, where these islamic terrorists murdered over 3000 of our fellow citizens, we have had to hear how great muslims are. It is all bull$hit to put it frankly and I am sick and tired of it.

[PoloSec]

I will post this on every mosque thread I encounter.

This is what they refer to as a victory mosque...it is what they build when they believe they have pummeled their enemy. It will be viewed as a western mecca...muslims from around the world will journey there on every 9/11 to celebrate. It must be stopped!

[Monorprise]

I agree, I am soo sick of the Mosque “debate”, this whole issue shoudl begin AND END in the City and State of New York!

Nobody else has any authority to do anything about it and if New York doesn’t want to defend themselves from a symbolic conquest thats their problem NOT OURS! It only becomes our problem when they cross the border either into or out of New York.

New York has the means to deal with this or not deal with this, its THEIR CALL! Not ours!

[2ndDivisionVet]

It’s not always about the money, Gene! One of the landing gear from the planes hijacked that day hit there, so yes, it is hallowed ground and near other such ground. No wonder the Libertarian Party goes nowhere in this country!!

[luckybogey]

Ignorance and disdain to another viewpoint is the real threat to our republic. Libertarianism as defined in Wiki:

Libertarianism is advocacy for individual liberty with libertarians generally sharing a distinct regard for individual freedom of thought and action, as well as a strong suspicion of coercive authority, such as that of government. However, there are also broad areas of disagreement among libertarians.

Libertarians generally advocate for the maximization of freedom of thought and action with few exceptions. One exception shared by libertarians is that the actions of an individual should not infringe upon the freedom of any other person, a premise often referred to as the non-aggression principle.

Minarchist libertarians, such as Robert Nozick, advocate for a minimal state with the belief that it is permissible for governments to counter aggression, while more anarchist libertarians, such as Murray Rothbard, have stated that aggression should be countered without government. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes the minimal state as providing only law enforcement, a judicial assembly, and armed forces; also described is the right-libertarian view called anarcho-capitalism which holds that government can be completely abolished because private companies working for profit should provide the court systems, military, and police forces. In contrast to the anarcho-capitalist ideals, left-libertarian anarchists such as Noam Chomsky propose libertarian socialism which promotes the idea that liberty is best achieved through large-scale decentralization to empower workers, with the result of eliminating both government and private capitalist organizations, which they view as coercive.

Libertarians also exhibit differing approaches in areas such as the treatment of property rights, especially with respect to natural resources, with some libertarians advocating the grant of strong private ownership rights, and others holding that private ownership should be avoided as being inconsistent with the basic principles of libertarianism.

Source: Wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism

Additional Readings:

The Rise and Fall of Liberty (Ludwig von Mises Institute)

http://mises.org/daily/4642

“Review of Huebert’s Libertarianism Today”
Abstract: Libertarianism Today, by Jacob Huebert (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2010), is an excellent introduction to libertarianism.
http://libertarianpapers.org/2010/19-block-review-of-hueberts-libertarianism-today/

“Rand, Rothbard, and Rights Reconsidered”
Abstract: This paper examines rights and the protection of rights from both the minarchist and the anarchist perspectives.
http://libertarianpapers.org/2010/18-touchstone-rand-rothbard-and-rights-reconsidered/

[EternalVigilance]

I know all about libertarianism. It lacks a moral core, therefore it is empty.

And quit kidding yourself, it is the abandonment of morality that is destroying America.

[SusanKatzKeating]

The difference between me and the people who scream “extremist:” I have read the Koran. The NYT can call me an extremist if they want. I know what I really am: A realist.

[SusanKatzKeating]

The difference between me and the people who scream “extremist:” I have read the Koran. The NYT can call me an extremist if they want. I know what I really am: A realist.

[Brimack34]

President Bush dropped in ratings because everything was thrown at him. A death of a thousand cuts. Leave no stone unturned. BC,religion,economy,vacations, etc..

[DirtyHarryY2K]

BTTT

Scorched earth libertarians are worse that ignorant misguided libtards.