Ya Gotta Love America....

In Sunday's Boston Globe, Laurie Goodstein describes how "Plans for new mosques drawing protests across the US". We're not talking about just Ground Zero, where Islamic extremists crashed two of four hijacked planes into the World Trade Centers on 9-11 and killed nearly 3,000 people. We're not talking about just the Bible-thumping South, where Christian conservatives mete out bigotry while quoting relevant scripture. No, this article cites California and Wisconsin, as well as Tennessee and NYC.


It always amazes me when American bigotry is on display. I give plenty of credit to Mrs. Goodstein for writing this article, but even the best reporters don't change the facts on the ground. Listen to this:

In late June, in Temecula, Calif., organizers with a local Tea Party group took dogs and picket signs to Friday prayers at a mosque that is seeking to build a new worship center on a vacant lot nearby.

 Dogs?! When's the last time you saw white people "protesting" a dark-skinned people with dogs? Oh right, here:

Let's continue on.

They quote passages from the Koran and argue that even the most Americanized Muslim secretly wants to replace the Constitution with Islamic law.

Where have we heard this before? Oh yeah, when JFK ran for President. Conservative Americans felt that JFK would listen to the Pope instead of his own people.

And finally, the real winner.

A two-year study by a group of academics on American Muslims and terrorism concluded that contemporary mosques are actually a deterrent to the spread of militant Islam and terrorism.

Wait. Hold on. You mean to tell me that these people are protesting the establishment of houses of worship that actually stop the same religious extremism that Americans loathe?! What irony! Way to go U.S.A! Actually assisting in the spread of Islamic fundamentalism by protesting the expansion of mosques!

Let's just ask Burhan Hassan, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, and Zachary Adam Chesser where they went when they wanted religious direction. Overseas you say? Right into the arms of extremists waiting to snatch they from their adopted country and radicalize them. Add into this that an American carrying an American passport is allowed to enter the country much more easily than a potential terrorist who would have to either have a forgery, or enter the country illegally, and we've got ourselves a problem.

And so, this week's big question is: without racial profiling, how do we stop an American who is carrying an American passport from launching a terrorist attack? My short answer: stop them from being radicalized in the first place. Thank you Boston Globe.

Addendum 11 Aug 2010: The New York Times published a timeline and backstory for the proposed Mosque which can be found here and is a good read, describing the organization behind the project and how the attempted Times Square Bomber was more or less the cause behind the uproar. You can find the article here.