Legitimate Questions for Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin’s latest inane statement, “Legitimate Questions for the President,” may be inane, but it demonstrates quite nicely how those on the left lost the rhetorical battle concerning what she calls “this Ground Zero mosque.” As Eric Rauchway pointed out, Manhattan Island is a small place—only about 13 miles long and 2.3 wide—that looms larger in our collective imagination because of its social and cultural importance. If you asked Palin or any of the others who have temporarily abandoned their disdain for all things East Coast and elitist whether it would be acceptable if someone built a mosque within a 1.5 mile radius of where the Twin Towers once stood, they would likely continue protesting because they are utterly ignorant of the fact that that roughly eliminates everything south of NYU.*
To their minds, New York City is less of a teeming than an endless metropolis, one that begins on the southern tip of the island and extends beyond the horizons to the north and east and west. They fail to recognize that there was a reason New Yorkers stopped building out and started building up—there is only so much room on an island 22 square miles in area—and so they assume that renovating a Men’s Wearhouse into a community center must, perforce, be an insult to the memories of the victims of 9/11. Their reaction to learning that the mosque being built on Ground Zero is actually a community center being built two blocks away is a stubborn spectacle couched in deliberately deceptive language.
Palin’s rhetorical transformation of “the mosque being built on Ground Zero” into “this Ground Zero mosque” would be brilliant if intentional. It draws a scar across an infinite island and declares everything to its south to be sacred American soil. The area she calls “Ground Zero” is a fictional place in whose name she and her ideological brethren can express their xenophobia without fear of being called xenophobic. She and they can claim to support the good Muslims—the ones who know that their place, literally, is not in lower Manhattan—safe in the knowledge that, with a wink, their fear of people with strange names from foreign lands can arguably be something other than it is. In her mind and theirs, “this Ground Zero mosque” is less of a building than a psychological representation of the controversy caused by their ignorance of the island’s geography, i.e. they have retooled their own stupidity into a potent rhetorical feint whose truth is undeniable because it refers to the debate about an imaginary building on an infinitely large island. For Palin and those like her, the “Ground Zero” in “this Ground Zero mosque” functions not as a reference to the former site of the Twin Towers, but as a simple adjective that identifies the particular “mosque” in question.
That it happens not to be located on Ground Zero is, at this point in the conversation, irrelevant.
Palin proves this by obfuscation. Her concern about “this Ground Zero mosque” is not that it will be located on Ground Zero, but “steps away from” it. Twice in her short post she uses the phrase “steps away from” to describe the distance of “this Ground Zero mosque” from Ground Zero. Part of me wants to chide her with a simple reminder that, despite being in Southern California, I am “steps away from” her front door in Wasilla, Alaska. Granted, I’m many millions of steps away from it, but steps away nonetheless. Another part, however, wants to ask her to define her terms. How many “steps away from” something she considers “hallowed ground” must American citizens of Islamic faith be required to take before they can enjoy their constitutionally guaranteed right to religious freedom? How many “steps away from” must they be before they can exercise their constitutionally guaranteed right to assemble freely?
I have a feeling that waiting for specific answers will be a fruitless waste.
*I write “roughly” because superimposing a circle on a grid and describing the results hurts my head.
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For the non-New Yorkers, here’s a map marking the location of the “Ground Zero Mosque” that proves it’s only steps away. But first you have to find Ground Zero.
Somewhat difficult on that map, you would have to admit.
You put way too much thought into this. Here’s how it works:
Sarah Palin: Look at that goshdarn shiny thing!
Palindrones: Skreeee!
Repeat as necessary.
Except they’re talking about U.S. citizens, which is why any support they may have had from non-insane people will continue to rapidly erode.
Just like Russia, also too!
Little $arah $unshine…spreading fear and lies like fairy dust.
That argument would hold more water if they weren’t dedicating the thing on 9/11, etc…
They can do what they want, even if you don’t like it.
It’s not like any non-radical Muslims died on 9/11, or that their deaths deserve commemoration …
Do you really believe that it’s being dedicated on September 11th?
Really?
It’s not a mosque.
It’s not at Ground Zero.
It’s not being dedicated on 9/11.
More Glenn Beck incendiary BS. Of course, if it starts a fire he was only joking.
Uh, yeah, they are…
Might also help if the Imam wasn’t a radical, and no such thing as “Cultural Jihad” existed.
Such a radical that he’s been working with the FBI for years!
P.S.
Uh, yeah, they are…
Uh, no, they’re not.
it demonstrates quite nicely how those on the left lost the rhetorical battle concerning what she calls “this Ground Zero mosque.”
First, I’m on the left and I don’t recall the
mosquecommunity center being on my agenda.Second, one cannot win a rhetorical battle with bigots armed with pitchforks and torches. To engage is to lose.
Third, Palin is spreading hate and bigotry. She has to be called out for it in those terms. As in, “Once again, Palin and the Republican are spreading hatred and bigotry. Do they ever say anything that doesn’t promote hatred and bigotry?”
Fourth, the point must be made, strongly, that promoting hatred and bigotry against Muslims is exactly what Da Terrists want. You hate, they win.
Fourth, the point must be made, strongly, that promoting hatred and bigotry against Muslims is exactly what Da Terrists want. You hate, they win.
Completely agreed, and this is what boggles me. I mean, I expect a lack of self-awareness, but bin Laden et al have not exactly been veiled in their declarations that this is what they want. Last week on the Daily Show, they showed a clip of some planned public Koran-burning on September 11th (don’t remember where – it was in the first segment of the Monday episode), and I thought, “you idiots – turning this into some cultural war with clear sides is exactly what bin Laden hoped for when he launched his various attacks in the 90s and 2001. How does it feel to be doing what the terrorists WANT you to do?”
Aiding and abetting terrorists in their goals – though I imagine these people won’t end up being sent to Guantanamo and waterboarded for it.
I’m on the left and I don’t recall the
mosquecommunity center being on my agenda.Palin and FOX are setting it in the run up to November, unless the Democrats decide to unstupid themselves and push some different narratives.
the point must be made, strongly, that promoting hatred and bigotry against Muslims is exactly what Da Terrists want. You hate, they win.
That’s one point the right never has and never will understand, be it about Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, etc.
Sorry, Professor Kaufman, but you are dead wrong on this one. It’s a Burlington Coat Factory, not a Men’s Wearhouse, which just makes the insult all the more grievous.
I once bought a coat there.
I once bought a coat there.
I hope you thanked the salespeople for your Freedom.
I write “roughly” because superimposing a circle on a grid and describing the results hurts my head.
20 blocks to the mile or so, innit? A mile and a half would be 30 blocks. So yeah, if you want it to be a circle you need to put some arcs in, but it’s easier to just say 30 blocks up-downtown, 15 crosstown. Roughly.
The distance is less than 1/10th of a mile — about 150 yards or the length of 1&1/2 football fields; for most people that’s about a 2-minute walk, and certainly qualifies as mere “steps”.
A 15- or 20-story mosque would dwarf the intervening building. Not only would the mosque be plainly visible from Ground Zero, all future visitors to Ground Zero who spend any significant time there would necessarily hear the adhan (the Muslim call to prayer), which is amplified and broadcast on multiple outside loudspeakers (usually at least 4) placed at the top of the mosque 5 times each and every day.
Each broadcast of the adhan includes the phrase “allahu akhbar” a minimum of 8 times. These are the words that Muslim suicide bombers/terrorists cry in committing their acts of violence; they are the sound that accompanies every YouTube video, news report and documentary concerning Islamic terrorism and jihad; they are likely the very last words that the people on the 9/11 planes ever heard.
Sarah Palin has the empathy, sensitivity and imagination to comprehend fully just what a horror it will be for 9/11 survivors and everyone else who wishes to visit the commemorative site to have to experience hearing these words, over and over and over again. I hope you will at least try to understand, as Sarah does, that placing this mosque so close Ground Zero site will inflict needless additional pain and suffering on those of us who have already suffered too much.
Let it be built elsewhere. In noisy NYC, 8 or 10 blocks away should do the trick, even for the early-morning adhan.
I hope this is parody.
Who cares what a bunch of creepy distaster tourist weirdoes think?
In noisy NYC, you can’t hear one of Darrel Issa’s ear-splitting car alarms beyond a block. I think the call to prayer will be fewer decibels in intensity.
Obviously you have never lived in a majority-Muslim country or community. I have, in several different ones (some of them rivaling New York for noise), for a total of about 15 years. The adhan is ever-present, and when it sounds it is extremely loud. Otherwise it would be completely ineffective as a call to prayer. Obviously.
And ajay: Nope, not parody — perhaps you are unfamiliar with “sincerity”.
Nope, not parody — perhaps you are unfamiliar with “sincerity”.
Perhaps.
I am, however, depressingly familiar with “stupidity”.
jean, this is not going to be a 13 storey mosque. It’s a 13-storey building (not 15, not 20) which will include a prayer room. It won’t have a minaret, nor a dome – it won’t look like a standard mosque, in other words – nor will it broadcast the azan, as far as I am aware. It’ll look more or less like a normal modern building.
Given these two facts, I presume you now have no objection to the building of Park51.
Whatever the building eventually looks like, the Cordoba Initiative website states that it will include a mosque. A mosque must perform the call to prayer at least 5 times daily (on some days more than that) — otherwise it is not a mosque. Although traditionally the call is done from a minaret, whether by a muezzin or (in modern times) via loudspeakers, a minaret is not required; the loudspeakers can be placed anywhere at the top of the building or where the call will be heard clearly over the largest area surrounding the mosque.
But even allowing that you personally are in charge of what the final building will look like and how worship there will be conducted (disregarding the Koran, apparently), it is still disrespectful and hurtful to site a Muslim place of worship so near the place where thousands of people died due to Islamic belief and practice.
Rather than exploit or denigrate the people who died, their families, friends and communities, and the tragedy that our country and much of the world experienced 9 years ago, all it would take to resolve this issue to everyone’s satisfaction — Muslims worship, those who remember 9/11 are spared added pain — would be a little common decency.
A mosque must perform the call to prayer at least 5 times daily (on some days more than that) — otherwise it is not a mosque. Although traditionally the call is done from a minaret, whether by a muezzin or (in modern times) via loudspeakers, a minaret is not required; the loudspeakers can be placed anywhere at the top of the building or where the call will be heard clearly over the largest area surrounding the mosque.
Since there’s already a mosque four blocks from Ground Zero (on Warren Street–been there since 1970), they should be used to it by now. Or maybe you’re not quite correct on how this works in practice.
I believe the Warren Street mosque is located in the lower floor(s) of a building otherwise used for non-religious purposes. But my understanding is that the 5 calls to prayer each day, however limited by circumstance or resources, are required. I know this is the practice in the Middle East and Malaysia/Indonesia, even for small, informal neighborhood mosques.
No one is calling for the Warren St. mosque or any other existing establishment, religious or otherwise to be closed. (Although apparently the city has repeatedly denied permission to rebuild the very modest, 4-story Greek Orthodox church at Ground Zero after it was severely damaged on 9/11 — and it had been there for nearly a century.)
The Muslims I know in California are called to prayer via text message, as the odds of them being in earshot of an actual call are slim in the sprawl of Southern California.
A mosque must perform the call to prayer at least 5 times daily (on some days more than that) — otherwise it is not a mosque
I spent five years living 80 yards from a mosque. It did not broadcast the azan over loudspeakers five times a day. (Fortunately; I wouldn’t have liked being woken up at dawn every morning.)
Lived next to a mosque in Oakland, and next to a church in Antigua. The church bells were much louder.
The issue you claim to be talking about is not a mosque. It’s not visible from Ground Zero.
The mosque you’re actually talking about is in your head. In your head, it’s visible from Ground Zero.
Should a mosque be allowed to be there in your head? Shouldn’t the feelings others have about your head and the tragedy that took place on 9/11 be considered?
A 15- or 20-story mosque would dwarf the intervening building.
The building is already there, no? Are they just constructing inside it?
If this thing were going to stick up like the Flatiron Building, I’d understand, but I haven’t heard that yet.
(Litmus test: Someone, like Palin, who doesn’t know what the Flatiron Building is, really ought not to say anything.)
Thresher: they’re demolishing the existing building and putting up another one. See the picture I linked to above.
Moral panic.
Didn’t this whole “controversy” begin with the lunatic Pam Gellar? Of Long Island? One more reason why it should go forward.
Since you don’t even know how to spell her name, I doubt you would be able to diagnose anything about her.
I’m sure Pam GELLER does seem insane to Ant-Americans like yourselves. She is after all, a patriot.
We Ant-Americans are always suspicious of Termite-Americans like Mad Pam.
Isopteraist!
She is after all, a patriot.
Only so long the American citizens in need of defending aren’t Muslim, that is. What percentage of the American population’s constitutionally guaranteed rights can you ignore and still be considered a patriot?
What percentage of the American population’s constitutionally guaranteed rights can you ignore and still be considered a patriot?
Ooo – I know! The only good Amendments are 2 and 10. Two good amendments out of twenty-seven is 7.4%.
She should be so lucky as to have the same last name as the actress who played Buffy.
I agree, this article could have been much shorter. If I may?
“Sarah Palin [and her supporters]…are utterly ignorant.”
That is all.
Care to back up that statement?
You’ve done a fine job of doing that yourself in this thread. Thanks for saving me the trouble.
Okay, I’m a little confused here. Since the ‘mosque” (community center) is being built on private property, and is apparently in accordance with all relevant city ordinances and regulations, just how is any of this any of these blowhard’s fucking business? And how, exactly, do they propose preventing this ‘travesty’ from taking place? By draconian government intrusion into the legal rights of private citizens to build whatever is legally allowable on their own private property? What is this, Russia?!?:-P
As to the offense some are taking at this wanton attempt to practice freedom of religion on their own damn property, that’s just too fucking bad. The constitution does not contain any devices to remedy offense taken at the sight of someone elses church. If it did, I’m sure there’d be a lot of kiddie-diddling Catholic edifices and Timothy Mcveigh approved Protestant piles reduced to rubble right now if I had any say in it, which I don’t, because in case you haven’t noticed, in this country how and where others worship is none of your damn business. Are these the same people who sneer at ‘political correctness’ and insist their free speech rights are being abrogated because they can’t call people n**gers and f**gots anytime they like, or did I miss something?
The democrat part ran the KKK you FUCKING hateful little bastard!
Fuck all of you… Really.
Fuck you non-educated stupid mother fuckers!
Learn about Jihad goddamn it!
You forgot ROBERT BYRD!!!1111!!111eleven!!!
WAKE UP, Sheeple!!!!
*taps watch* Mom, what did I say the last time you forgot to take your meds?
You do realize that the
mosquecommunity center in question is Sufi, and therefore a target of global jihad, not a purveyor of it, don’t you?Do you specialize in pointless, off topic outbursts or do you actually have a point here? I’m fully aware of the historic roots and context of the “dixiecrats.” I was unaware that some entitity called the “democrat” party “ran” the KKK, but I am fully aware that Lester Maddox and the Talmidges of Georgia et al were members of the dixiecrat wing of the DEMOCRATIC party. I’ll be teaching a course here at Tulane University next week that touches on these subjects, you’re welcome to audit if you like.
As to the “jihad,” as a commenter elsewhere on the thread points out, it’s a Sufi cultural/community center/mosque. The Islamic world, like the Christian one, is large and variegated. You might want to read up on this stuff before shooting your mouth off and embarrassing yourself.
Fuck all of you… Really.
Fuck you non-educated stupid mother fuckers!
Pammycakes, is that you?
I, for one, am now convinced by Jade’s blazing grasp on cultural politics.
Jade, do you have a newsletter to which I could subscribe?
For some reason her little outburst reminded me of this.
That you for this paradigmatic exemplat of 9/10 geographical thinkering.
I call Poe’s Law.
Oooh, while you have him on the phone, could you arrange for him to autograph something for me? I loved him in Gattaca.
And jon, bewelcomery pertains for exemplat deliverment.
Reading this nonsense is proof positive that liberalism is a disease, a dangerous disease of ignorance and stupidity.
You geniuses need to read up on the significance of Cordoba, Spain to radical Islam.
Understand that, if your defective brains allow it, and you’ll understand why radical Muslims and terrorists want the “Cordoba House”, the official name of this insult to humanity, built on Ground Zero.
Oh, and since party of the LANDING GEAR from one of the planes landed on the existing structure where the Cordoba House will be built, I’d say it’s PART of Ground Zero!
BTW, unlike the nimrod who wrote this BS, Sarah offered up a link to an editorial written by two prominent Muslims who say building the Cordobam House in this location is a “fitna” an act of mischief, and forbidden by the Koran.
These are two of the “peaceful Muslims” Sarah Palin asked to speak up weeks ago.
The people behind this mosque are evil. These sooner you people get this, the better.
Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?
The ShadowGary knows.The people behind this mosque are evil.
What about the people standing to one side? Lawful Evil, or Chaotic Evil?
If they’re in that strip club, I say that it’s Chaotic Good.
There are radical Muslims under your bed, Gary! Terrorists in your bedroom closet! Radical Muslim terrorists hiding in your trees, watching your wife undress! Ooga-booga!
Why hide in the trees when they can just catch her act at the Olympian Glades of Arborea* strip club?
*It’s been really rough trying to keep up with the name changes for the Outer Planes.
Good call, as we saw nearly two years ago how assiduous she was about answering what should have been some pretty softball questions. And, besides (to repeat something I said over at Edroso’s place), it doesn’t matter if it’s two blocks, two miles, or two counties over from Ground Zero; in the mind of the sort of people that think that Sarah Palin is a fine leader and someone just like them, only a little bit better, the entire island of Manhattan has a ghostly bald eagle head with a single tear coming from its eye hovering over it, and that will never change.
I believe the Warren Street mosque is located in the lower floor(s) of a building otherwise used for non-religious purposes.
Which is also what’s planned for the prayer space in Park 51: a small part of a larger building with many non-religious uses.
But my understanding is that the 5 calls to prayer each day, however limited by circumstance or resources, are required. I know this is the practice in the Middle East and Malaysia/Indonesia, even for small, informal neighborhood mosques.
So that’s how it’s done in majority-Muslim communities. I wouldn’t just assume that it’s always done that way in minority-Muslim communities.
But it could be done that way, don’t you see? And it will be, once the Mooslims take over and force their wicked Sania Law down our unwilling throats!!!
Fuck. Somewhere in a cave in Pakistan, Osama bin Laden is laughing his ass off over this.
I’m eagerly awaiting Sangria Law.