Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Stop Catering to the Crazies

I knew New York Governor David Paterson was blind, but I didn't know he was dumb too.

Paterson agreed that there is "no reason" why the Cordoba House shouldn't be built at the site known as Park51. But in light of political response from conservatives, the governor is open to state intervention to help explore alternatives. "Frankly, if the sponsors were looking for property anywhere at a distance that would be such that it would accommodate a better feeling among the people who are frustrated," Paterson said, "I would look into trying to provide them with the state property they would need."
What the fuck, Dave? I know you're having a "can't we all get along" moment, but for fuck's sake, the argument against building Cordoba House is based on rage, bigotry, religious intolerance and irrational fear.

And where is this proposed property you'd look to provide? North of 14th Street? The Upper East Side? The Bronx? ...Buffalo? How far away from Ground Zero is far enough? Because the fact of the matter is that those you are trying to appease with your good intentioned idea will never be satisfied. They range from the politically opportunistic to the irrational to the just plain crazy. They will never agree to any cultural center or any mosque, anywhere. And to think that the overall problem of their intolerance will go away if only the site for the proposed center were further away from where hundreds of American Muslims tragically died at the World Trade Center along with the rest of the 9/11 victims is astonishingly naive.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where? How about where they live? Why would you build a "community center" outside of your community?

Tribeca Demographics: As of the 2000 census, there were 10,395 people residing in Tribeca. The population density was 31,467 people per square mile (12,149/km2). The racial makeup of the neighborhood was 82.34% White, 7.96% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 4.89% African American, 0.10% Native American, 1.66% from other races, and 3.02% from two or more races. 6.34% of the population were Hispanic of any race. Of the 18.2% of the population that was foreign born, 41.3% came from Europe, 30.1% from Asia, 11.1% from Latin America, 10.2% from North America and 7.3% from other.

chris said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
chris said...

What's your point, Anon? You saying that one must be a specific race to be Muslim? Or that all Muslims are foreign born??

jhw22 said...

Anon.,

I am not sure which zip you used to get your Census data. I entered the zip for the property in question into the USPS.gov site and got 10007. From that, I get different Census data than you.

I get: 66.7% White, 15.6% African-American.

What the Census DOES NOT state is the religious belief in their demo. Therefore, using Census is moot.

But, for argument's sake, if you DID find a percentage of Muslims in the area from better research, what would be an acceptable percent? And while you're at it, when you find data on religion of people who live there, please cross-reference that number against the number of religious institutions and community centers, like the YMCA, to make sure your point holds up. To your point, there shouldn't be more than a set number of churches, synagogues, etc, than can supported the number of those believers in the area. Perhaps, then you can suggest which ones should be shut down. After all, if it's about "where they live" only 0 Muslims living in that are should prove your point. So if you're going to apply some standard, make sure all faiths meet the same standard. Okie dokie?

As for Muslims, here is a significant study on who American-Muslims are and how they feel about America. http://pewforum.org/Muslim/Muslim-Americans-Middle-Class-and-Mostly-Mainstream%282%29.aspx

Jennifer

jhw22 said...

BTW, 12% of Americans are atheists. Yet we are SURROUNDED by religious institutions. Should all the atheists move to one place so we can be church and community center-free?

Should churches only be built if they have a certain percentage of Christians in the area? If there are more non-believers, can we stand up and say, no, you can't use private property because we think all Christians represent fundamentalist terrorists? Should Salem, MA bad all churches because of the Salem Witch Trials?

Your argument doesn't hold Holy water. Just sayin'.

Jennifer

Grace said...

I'm pretty sure the demographics of Tribeca weren't uppermost in Palin's mind when she called Ground Zero sacred in her FB post titled "An Intolerable Mistake on Hallowed Ground" & said the building of this center stabs at hearts.

jhw22 said...

@Grace, I'm pretty sure nothing was uppermost in her mind when she wrote that.

Jennifer

Anonymous said...

Seriously, Anon?

Churches sit in the middle of neighborhoods all across America, but that hardly means that the entire or even most of the people in that neighborhood attend that church. And then you tried to force feed statistics into an argument that just doesn't work.

Hey, if you really give a damn about the sacred ground, why don't you work to close down the titty bar that is much closer to Ground Zero!

Desert Crone

NowhereMan said...

Well played jhw22!Anonymous I'm guessing,Anon is trying pointing out with his stats that the mosque shouldn't be built in Tribeca because there doesn't seem to be in his thinking if you can call it that,that there aren't enough Muslims living in Tribeca to justify the building of the mosque.He fails to realize his stats are meaningless because Muslims come in all colors and nationalities.
The census doesn't ask you your religion so his premise has no basis since he doesn't know how many Muslims live there.I didn't know there was a certain residential quota required before you could build a house of worship. .As for Paterson for obvious reasons,doesn't see the big picture because hes got his head so far up his ass,it caused his blindness.

 
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