9/11 Quran Burning Event In Florida

[TheScotsman]

Rani defending people that would have you in a burka.

I guess it's their religious right to bury young women in the dirt and stone them to death.


Seems like burning a few books is a whole hell of a lot less of a crime.

[Rani]

[quote name='TheScotsman' timestamp='1284183113' post='481882']
Rani defending people that would have you in a burka.

I guess it's their religious right to bury young women in the dirt and stone them to death.


Seems like burning a few books is a whole hell of a lot less of a crime.
[/quote]

I don't defend extremists. Well, occasionally, since I do sometimes defend you. You're being cantankerous and provocative again and we both know it.

How's the still coming?


'Rani

[mitchard]

I burned my copy of the Quran a little early this year.

[img]http://i53.tinypic.com/2ziva0n.jpg[/img]

[TheScotsman]

[quote name='Rani' timestamp='1284183615' post='481884']
[quote name='TheScotsman' timestamp='1284183113' post='481882']
Rani defending people that would have you in a burka.

I guess it's their religious right to bury young women in the dirt and stone them to death.


Seems like burning a few books is a whole hell of a lot less of a crime.
[/quote]

I don't defend extremists. Well, occasionally, since I do sometimes defend you. You're being cantankerous and provocative again and we both know it.

How's the still coming?


'Rani
[/quote]

You know, a still may be a good idea, I have this great jet boat that likes 70+ gallons/hr of 4:1:1 E-85, H/S diesel and napthane (because I don't like buying 5$/gal race fuel... I am a [u]cheap[/u]-Scotsman!) But frankly, e-85 is a load cheaper than I can make it, after all your tax $$ are subsidizing my boat fuel! thanks, by the way. As far as a beverage goes, all I keep around is Laphroaig Cask, Bruichladdich "the Twenty", and some Caol Ila (training whisky for guests) And since I am too cheap to get pissed on the good stuff, I have to put up with the stupidity of the general public in a sober state... although some of my more liberal leaning friends have made me question my self-imposed-semi-economic limitations on inebriation.

[Balthazar]

 [quote name='Rani' timestamp='1284179651' post='481880']
And besides, what does that say to Muslim American soldiers serving right now in Afghanistan?  
[/quote]

While I agree that America stands no chance in "winning" in Afghanistan (and recent promotions of talks with Taliban surely confirms what most of us have known for years), I don't think the quran-burning would have a noticeable effect on that. True, it might endanger American lives. But as Scotsman said (and this is probably the first time in my 4,5 years here that I agree with him), that's the price you pay for your freedom of speech. What you or the majority of Americans feel about his proposed burning really doesn't change anything, it is his right.

Also, regarding how Muslim soldiers might feel about it, I'm sure some would be offended, but freedom comes at a price. Also, remember that this is one nutjob pastor wanting to burn the book, not the president or majority of the population. There are idiots everywhere, and hopefully your Muslim soldiers would rest assured that a majority of your population doesn not share the sentiments of this pastor.

It's like holocaust denial. Friggin retarded, but thank god it's not an punishable offence (although sadly it is in several countries, including my own). The kind of censorship some people have suggested is a slippery slope. I for one hope burning flags, fiction and firewood will continue to be allowed. Looking forward to burning Ayn Rand's bibliography as soon as the winter months hit Norway (in a couple of days, that is )  Edited September 11, 2010 by Balthazar

[Rani]

[quote name='Balthazar' timestamp='1284230893' post='481928']
[quote name='Rani' timestamp='1284179651' post='481880']
And besides, what does that say to Muslim American soldiers serving right now in Afghanistan?
[/quote]

While I agree that America stands no chance in "winning" in Afghanistan (and recent promotions of talks with Taliban surely confirms what most of us have known for years), I don't think the quran-burning would have a noticeable effect on that. True, it might endanger American lives. But as Scotsman said (and this is probably the first time in my 4,5 years here that I agree with him), that's the price you pay for your freedom of speech. What you or the majority of Americans feel about his proposed burning really doesn't change anything, it is his right.

Also, regarding how Muslim soldiers might feel about it, I'm sure some would be offended, but freedom comes at a price. Also, remember that this is one nutjob pastor wanting to burn the book, not the president or majority of the population. There are idiots everywhere, and hopefully your Muslim soldiers would rest assured that a majority of your population doesn not share the sentiments of this pastor.

It's like holocaust denial. Friggin retarded, but thank god it's not an punishable offence (although sadly it is in several countries, including my own). The kind of censorship some people have suggested is a slippery slope. I for one hope burning flags, fiction and firewood will continue to be allowed. Looking forward to burning Ayn Rand's bibliography as soon as the winter months hit Norway (in a couple of days, that is )
[/quote]

Hmm, some points I can agree with. But after looking a bit deeper, I'm not certain he ever planned to actually burn anything. I think it was a stunt to bring in money. I'm certain our own soldiers know it's a lone idiot stirring up trouble, but when someone is out there in the dirt and risking their lives for an ideal of freedom, slapping them in the face with disrespect is not something we should be doing.

I'm not even going to address the legal issue, because quite frankly there are laws on the books that shouldn't be there, and even some that should probably be there, but aren't. I'm of the view that burning books should be outlawed, no matter what the book. The biggest issue with his plan, even though I'm now pretty convinced it was nothing but a way to bring attention and money to his tiny little hole in the wall church, is that: If you're not doing something to make the problem better, if you're doing something that not only won't do any good, but [u]may[/u] do more damage, just don't do it. Don't give someone a rallying point that's going to hurt your cause, and really don't do it when there are American lives in the middle.

It's probably easing into another thread, but I actually think we [u]could[/u] have "success" in Afghanistan, [u]if[/u] we focus military might on the extremists, avoid alienating the general populace, and worked on helping them build their own future through building materials, books, food and water, etc. Razor's edge? You bet. And I'm not sure we should be taking it on in the first place, because we don't get to be right just because we think we are. People, all people, should have the right to self-determination. Even if we find the way of life they choose incomprehensible. The problem I have with this issue of whether or not we should be there, is that I have a great many middle Eastern friends. Most of them tell me someone needs to try and resolve the problems in the region or it will never get done. Back to that razor's edge thing again. Because I try to see both side, I've given up being comfortable with our being there are all.

'Rani

[mustafabey]

Success in Afghanistan might come if we learn to respect other peoples cultures.While in Vietnam,I got shuffled around alot because I was viewed by many field grade officers as a gook lover. It took awhile for an officer with some intelligence who assigned me to work with the Vietnamese troops. Conversations with recently returned Afghan and Iraqi war vets shows me things have not changed in the military. Ragheads, Hajis, flirting with the women etc is not winning any hearts and minds. While top commanders may lip service to not alienating the populace,it isn't necessarily filtering down to the troops. Very little attention has ever been paid in our military to the concept of troops being ambassadors. Certainly things like the Mosque issue and this asshole in Florida don't help. From a non military point of view, we seem to back repressive regimes, we have no staying power and appear to be interested primarily in energy issues. I am currently reading a book, Dark Sahara, by Jeremy Keenan about America opening a front on the war on terror in the central sahara based on scripted and staged terrorist "events" in order to justify troop concentrations. We have special operations units in Mauretania, Algeria and Mali. Ever since most of the Middle East was acquired by the west after WW I and controlled as mandates,raped and redesigned, and after the new nations formed in the 50's and 60'sstill could not escape imperialism, there is no trust for America. Then there is unquestioned support and separate set of playing rules for Israel.
Yes, the war can be won, but I'm afraid it will take more effort to change hate into love than this nation is able to give.

[Balthazar]

[quote name='Rani' timestamp='1284243233' post='481942']
Hmm, some points I can agree with. But after looking a bit deeper, I'm not certain he ever planned to actually burn anything. I think it was a stunt to bring in money. I'm certain our own soldiers know it's a lone idiot stirring up trouble, but when someone is out there in the dirt and risking their lives for an ideal of freedom, slapping them in the face with disrespect is not something we should be doing.

I'm not even going to address the legal issue, because quite frankly there are laws on the books that shouldn't be there, and even some that should probably be there, but aren't. I'm of the view that burning books should be outlawed, no matter what the book. The biggest issue with his plan, even though I'm now pretty convinced it was nothing but a way to bring attention and money to his tiny little hole in the wall church, is that: If you're not doing something to make the problem better, if you're doing something that not only won't do any good, but [u]may[/u] do more damage, just don't do it. Don't give someone a rallying point that's going to hurt your cause, and really don't do it when there are American lives in the middle.[/quote]

I don't want to make this into a speculative post, but I personally don't think the pastor was doing this for the money (what money?). It seems to me that he was pretty confident about what he was intending to do, and not until this had created a global shitstorm with even the president chiming in on the issue did he back down. There's bound to be some lunatics in every society, whether they want to burn Harry Potter og religious texts. To me it seemed like his motive was some sort of "revenge" for the planned cultural center two blocks away from Ground Zero.

Anyways, I don't think his motives matter a whole lot, and I do believe it would be well within his rights to proceed with the burning. I understand that some people feel stuff like that should be outlawed, and my opinions are of no greater importance that any other. But personally I'm for as absolute a freedom of speech and expression, and burning your own possessions (so long as the act of burning itself does not harm other people (i.e it would not be OK if he taped the pages onto some random church member and set them on fire afterwards)) is well within that. What really bothers me about all of this though is the attention the guy is getting. If the media would come to the conclusion that this guy is a nut job, and that what he's doing doesn't really echo a general sentiment in the population or anything like that, this would be a way smaller deal. Of course the media does not keep itself running on morality and actual journalistic integrity, so any chance of a major story, especially one that transcends borders to this extent, will be given huge attention. After the Muhammad cartoons and the controversy that followed it seems like every single story that can be angled as a clash of civilization and "West vs. Islam" gets massive attention, and it doesn't seem to be changing anytime soon.

[quote name='Rani' timestamp='1284243233' post='481942']
It's probably easing into another thread, but I actually think we [u]could[/u] have "success" in Afghanistan, [u]if[/u] we focus military might on the extremists, avoid alienating the general populace, and worked on helping them build their own future through building materials, books, food and water, etc. Razor's edge? You bet. And I'm not sure we should be taking it on in the first place, because we don't get to be right just because we think we are. People, all people, should have the right to self-determination. Even if we find the way of life they choose incomprehensible. The problem I have with this issue of whether or not we should be there, is that I have a great many middle Eastern friends. Most of them tell me someone needs to try and resolve the problems in the region or it will never get done. Back to that razor's edge thing again. Because I try to see both side, I've given up being comfortable with our being there are all.
[/quote]

I agree, theoretically I think you could succeed (or at least do better than you/we currently are). But I don't pretend to believe that the good intentions expressed prior to (and during) the invasion was seriously given priority, the situation for Afghan women or democracy is a point in case. The support of the extremely corrupt Karzai administration, the rigged elections and now talks with Taliban. Realpolitik does seem to trump every "secondary good", as it always has. It really is a shame, and it's pretty much impossible to believe in altruistic state action (at least without ulterior motives) in these days.

[mustafabey]

Here is a link to an article on CNN.com by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the Imam of the Cultural Center to be built near ground zero.

[url="http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/09/12/rauf.islam.compassion/index.html?hpt=C2"]My link[/url]

[Rani]

[url="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100912/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan"]http://news.yahoo.co.../as_afghanistan[/url]

Doing something in the name of "good" that still serves evil, means you are in the service of evil. Period. Misguided, deluded, whatever, be damned. You have served the greater evil and nothing you can say can excuse that.

This world is never going to get any better if we don't ignore the idiots and hate mongers. Education is the ultimate answer, and I'm not talking about colleges and universities. I'm talking about knowledge. Reading every book you can get your hands on, learning about other people, other cultures, communicating, talking, experiences new foods, new music,traveling, filling your mind with as much information from as many different sources as you can shove in there. Knowledge is the only true counter to idiocy. And it's not something you can handle from a legal standpoint. You have to give people, including ourselves, the experience and knowledge to choose a better way.

'Rani

[TheScotsman]

But who is the bigger problem, the idiot that thinks going Fahrenheit 451 on a case of holy books is going to help anything, or the US flag-burning-butcher-beheading assholes that attacked us on Sept 11-incidentally, the event that created the culture where idiot #1 could get any traction with a stupid stunt.

The Cnn article follows their same tactic of leading the sheeple down the rabbit hole by curiously omitting a rather substantial amount of pertinent information. [url="http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/05/911-mosque-imam-feisal-abdul-rauf-blames-christians-the-us-and-the-west-must-acknowledge-the-harm-th.html"]Here[/url] The Imam is putting on a BS show to get what he wants. What is it called again??? Al-taqiyya (not sure of that spelling, it's been a long day, and I am too lazy to check)

Cultural center my ass. Even Obama called it a Mosque, are you saying our President is too dumb to know the difference between a cultural center, and a Mosque?

[Rani]

[quote name='TheScotsman' timestamp='1284345129' post='482007']
But who is the bigger problem, the idiot that thinks going Fahrenheit 451 on a case of holy books is going to help anything, or the US flag-burning-butcher-beheading assholes that attacked us on Sept 11-incidentally, the event that created the culture where idiot #1 could get any traction with a stupid stunt.

The Cnn article follows their same tactic of leading the sheeple down the rabbit hole by curiously omitting a rather substantial amount of pertinent information. [url="http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/05/911-mosque-imam-feisal-abdul-rauf-blames-christians-the-us-and-the-west-must-acknowledge-the-harm-th.html"]Here[/url] The Imam is putting on a BS show to get what he wants. What is it called again??? Al-taqiyya (not sure of that spelling, it's been a long day, and I am too lazy to check)

Cultural center my ass. Even Obama called it a Mosque, are you saying our President is too dumb to know the difference between a cultural center, and a Mosque?
[/quote]

They're ALL responsible. From the idiot himself, who would have gone unnoticed by the world if he hadn't wanted to drum up controversy by posting it on YouTube (which I still think was to drum up money for his nothing little church because on a congregation of 50, you don't have much money), to the media who caught it up and led the pretense of being appalled when in reality they were frothing at the mouth at news that would "bleed". In Afghanistan itself I'm pretty sure extremists rushed to inform the population of the planned burning and then just kinda forgot to mention it was called off. Even we the general public have a piece of this because we all listened to the news and carried discussion of it forward. (And no, I'm not referring to a relatively private forum.) If we, John Q Public, hadn't encouraged the media blitz, it might have died down. So almost everybody has at least a small piece of responsibility for what is essentially needless death. There are enough people, soldiers and civilians, dying due to a war over there. We don't need to be adding additional deaths for the hell of it.

And actually it is a cultural center that includes a mosque. There are Jews and Christians on the board for the place, and it's been planned as an "interfaith" structure. Since I don't live in New York and I'm not personally on the Planning Commission, I have only the word of New Yorkers who are, but I'm thinking that when you have differing faiths on the Board of Directors, it's not too dedicated to Islam alone. Just logical. What I keep hearing is that NYC residents themselves aren't 70% against it, which is what keeps getting quoted, but all the people who don't live there and have their opinion inserted in what really should be a local issue. They have the right to decide what to allow within their city, we don't. Yes, I knew people in the towers, but that still doesn't give me carte blanche to make a judgement call on what NYC should do with the real estate, or it's surrounding neighborhoods.

PS: You're linking to a document specifically written to encourage that the project be stopped. Unbiased it isn't and we all know when bias comes into place the truth tends to take a fast hike in the other direction.

'Rani

[mustafabey]

The Scotsman said" The Imam is putting on a BS show to get what he wants. What is it called again??? Al-taqiyya (not sure of that spelling, it's been a long day, and I am too lazy to check)
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ah yes, taqiyya. Taqiyya is a practice whereby Muslims may conceal their faith when under persecution or threat. Taqiyya is usually thought of as a Shia practice, usually for those Shia living under Sunni domination. There are considerations for its use. For reasons of safety, for reasons of reconciliation. Taqiyya may not be invoked if it would cause the death of another or if it cause harm to Islam. Sunni uses of taqiyya date back to the early days of Islam. Does it mean lying, disinformation and subterfuge, probably not. Nor is my knowledge of Islam learned enough truly understand the concept. But to apply it to Imam Abdel Rauf seems to be a misuse of the term.
Abdel Rauf certainly states that America need bear some responsibility for the events of 9/11. Our politics in Dar al Islam have been at times self serving and imperialistic. Our olive branches of peace to the Muslim world usually involve oil politics, not the high rhetoric of freedom and liberty that escapes from our lips.There is also the 800lb gorilla in the room called Israel, which at present neither side is willing to evoke any compromise.While political parties confound us with hot button issues, such religion,social welfare,economics etc, they conceal what is really a global scramble to secure access to oil. So we can search thru the Quran and our meager knowledge of Islam to find the quotes we need to justify our positions. Much like the Christian preachers who can find Bible quotes that enable them to smote their enemies in the name of god. Just as radical Islam can use the Quran and Hadiths to justify their brands of terrorism. Imam Abdel Rauf is a moderate Muslim, a Sufi whose focus is unity with the divine.Yet the Imam is an Arab and has awareness of what his people have suffered under western imperialism( and I surely include those addicted border drawers, the British). It how we choose to define things.
Take the word mosque:

The Scotsman said:"Cultural center my ass. Even Obama called it a Mosque, are you saying our President is too dumb to know the difference between a cultural center, and a Mosque?"
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sounds ominous ,a Mosque. Like its going to be a building filled with knowledgeable terrorist types, teaching bomb making,assembling suicide vests,brainwashing a new breed of domestic terrorist right in the shadow of the hallowed ground of the former WTC. People believe this kind crap, because Fox news and talk radio drum it into their minds. They accept, the don't investigate. Hatred is so much easier than compassion. Compassion requires some understanding,hatred only makes those with an inferiority complex seem great.

I and others here are not going to change your mind, as you already have cast Islam as evil. On both sides of these debates are people who see only evil. Evil is a word that is like a chameleon, it takes on the color of its environment. Yet, it is only from solitary and closed vantage points that we evil. Some of the evil we see is real, some of evil certain Muslims see is also real. Only dialogue and understanding, acknowledgement of errors and a desire to love is going to solve these problems.
[sup][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqiyya#cite_note-4"][/url][/sup]

[mustafabey]

This is taqiyya?


[url="http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/09/13/new.york.imam/index.html?hpt=T1"]My link[/url]

[Yasseah]

I'm all for free speech/expression, but not at the cost of common sense.

Political Correctness has taken away athourities' right to say "STFU, your opinion is garbage, stop what you are doing and stop causing trouble"