This is a rant, and it is not polite.

The people who are opposed to building a “mosque” “at Ground Zero” need to be slapped in the face and have their driving, firearm, voting and child-bearing privileges revoked. They are exhibiting reasoning so flawed, so dangerous and so dumb as to require their isolation from the rest of civil society. Do not respect their arguments. Do not respect their points of view. They’re wrong.

Something about this situation just made me snap this morning.

Maybe because today would be my mother’s birthday, and I’m feeling extra fired up; maybe it’s the fact that the Democratic leader in the U.S. Senate, Harry Reid, has come out against it; maybe it’s because half-term Governor Sarah Palin shares her half-wit thoughts on the matter constantly. Yeah, that might be it, cause I saw this on her Facebook wall:

“If [Obama] encourages [the mosque] he has lost my vote – and I am not even American.”

Some facts.

  1. There already is a mosque near Ground Zero. It’s been there for decades, so shut up.
  2. The proposed Islamic Center is more than a mosque. It’s a cultural center with a mosque inside it, so shut up.
  3. This is really stupid, so shut up.

As best I can tell, those opposed to the construction of this thing think it is insensitive to the survivors of the September 11 attacks and the families of those who died. They reason — and I use that term with more compassion and generosity than they deserve — that putting a mosque near the site of an attack by Muslims is offensive because “Muslims attacked us.” They also cite polls about the American public’s opposition to the construction.

Indulge my disassembling of this poorly constructed logic.

a) There is a connection between the feelings of the 9/11 survivors and New York City construction plans.

Some of the survivors are offended. So what. Some of the survivors have no problem with it and are being used by opportunistic politicians. So what. Either way, it does not matter. Horrible things happen to people every day. That doesn’t mean they get to influence urban planning. I survived a meal at Crown Fried Chicken. It was traumatic. I suffered greatly. However, that does not mean I get to banish processed chicken products from my neighborhood.

b) The people who attacked us are building a mosque where they attacked us.

This actually physically hurts my brain to even type out. There are multiple Muslims in the world. The ones who jacked the planes and planned all that horribleness are not the same ones building the center. The fact that both claim to worship the same God is irrelevant. Would we come close to accepting this justification for other groups?

I have one in mind. Catholics. Thousands of Catholic priests raped children for decades and were granted protection by the Church itself. Very traumatic stuff. So how about no Catholic churches get built anywhere near a child? Children should be a Catholic Free Zone. It’s too risky. It’s too soon. It’s too painful. It’s probably still happening. It stabs hearts or whatever the hell words fell out of Palin’s gaping maw and found their way onto Facebook and Fox News and my brain today.

Here’s another. Bankers. Thousands of “finance professionals” took massive risks that destabilized what’s left of our economy in large part due to insane bets on the housing market and the peddling of crap mortgages. So how about no banks get built within five miles of a foreclosed home? I speak for the survivors of the housing meltdown when I say allowing any bank anywhere near such hallowed ground is offensive. It’s too soon and too thoughtless.

One more. People. People do bad things to other people. As a person I speak for the victimized people of the world, and I demand that we not allow people to do things near the places where other people might be.

c) A majority of the American people are opposed.

So what. This country isn’t run by simple majority rule, and the opinions of people in California, Kansas and South Carolina has not a thing to do with what we build in New York. Know what else is true of the majority of Americans?

In addition, did you know that 100 percent of the people in my apartment believe Montana should be replaced with a live fire obstacle course where the Texas School Board has to don sombreros, Charles Darwin t-shirts and survive an assault by the gun-happy, illiterate offspring raised on their embarrassing education standards? True story.

Look, there are hard parts to making democracy and civil society work. There are tough calls. There are times for compromise. This situation is none of those things. This is easy.

We claim to have religious freedom in this country, so the people who dry hump the Constitution should not be opposed.

We claim to respect private property rights, so the libertarian folks should not be opposed.

We claim to be a nation of laws, so the ignorant opinions of random agitators should not matter.

If we stopped this religious facility from being built on private property, then the terrorists have won.

I don’t know how this “argument” has gone on for so long, but it’s over. There’s really nothing left to say. Anyone opposed to this building is a crappy American who doesn’t know what America actually is.

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