Perhaps the closest parallel to today’s hysteria about Islam is the 19th-century fear spread by the Know Nothing movement about “the Catholic menace.” One book warned that Catholicism was “the primary source” of all of America’s misfortunes, and there were whispering campaigns that presidents including Martin Van Buren and William McKinley were secretly working with the pope. Does that sound familiar?
Critics warned that the pope was plotting to snatch the Mississippi Valley and secretly conspiring to overthrow American democracy. “Rome looks with wistful eye to domination of this broad land, a magnificent seat for a sovereign pontiff,” one writer cautioned.
... All that is part of America’s heritage, and typically as each group has assimilated, it has participated in the torment of newer arrivals — as in Father Charles Coughlin’s ferociously anti-Semitic radio broadcasts in the 1930s. Today’s recrudescence is the lies about President Obama’s faith, and the fear-mongering about the proposed Islamic center.
KRISTOF IS CALLING THOSE OF US OPPOSED TO THE GZ MOSQUE "HYSTERICS."
MOST OF HIS COMMENTERS AGREE WITH HIM AND COMPARE US TO MCCARTHY - AND DO SO THINKING THAT THIS MAKES US WRONG.
THEY ARE THE ONES WHO ARE WRONG.
FIRST: MR. KRISTOF, COUGHLIN WAS A LEFTIST, NOT A RIGHT-WINGER. HE WAS ON THE LEFT OF FDR, NOT THE RIGHT.
AND SECOND, MCCARTHY WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE USSR.
Senator McCarthy was right about the threat of communism, and 70% of Americans and 70% of NYC'ers are right about the GZ mosque. And this 70% are not neocon rethuglican racist islamophobic teabaggers.
We merely think that it is very inconsiderate for the mosque to be that close to GZ and on the spot where that was hit by a landing gear of one of the jets.
If the Muslims behind the GZ mosque were truly tolerant and looking for a bridge, then they'd move it; moving it would be a gesture which MIGHT assuage the "hysteria" of the 70% of NYC'ers AND 70% of our fellow Americans who also oppose the GZ mosque.
FACT: Muslims are on a hair-trigger when it comes to any perceived insult or slight.
They had WORLDWIDE RIOTS over cartoons in a small Danish newspaper. They put fatwas on the cartoonists and there have been several attempts on the lives of these cartoonists.
These fatwas are a direct and premeditated threat to our inalienable right to free speech.
If we give in then we are dhimmis on the road to submission.
If we give in, then we are trampling on our Constitution.
Muslims - and their dhimmi appeasers like Mr. Kristof - are attacking those of who are perturbed about the location of this MEGA MOSQUE and who are opposing it using democratic and PEACEFUL means which are guaranteed by our Constitution.
Since 9/11, I have come to expect this from most Muslims.
And - sadly - also from the dhimmis at the NYTIMES.
Nevertheless: shame on you, Mr. Kristof.
I am so tired of these pedantic assholes.
ReplyDeleteHere's the question for Mr. Kristof, what evidence can he point to that Muslims are not still living in the Dark Ages?
Islam has not improved.
The UN Report on Developing Nations 2002 focused on the Arab world. A telling statistic was that there were less than 200 patents granted to the Arab nations in the 1990's. During the same decade, the tiny country of South Viet Nam had over 17,000 patents granted.
Islam has not changed it's world view. Left to their own devices, left to control the world, they will take us back to the Dark Ages.
on the muslim calendar it is the 15th C.
ReplyDeletethat's how they behave - when they're on their best behavior!