Islamic group to build mosque adjacent to ground zero

[Don Corleone]

I think the problem with discussions like these is that we're debating intent, in this case the intent of Cordoba House. I'm reminding myself as much as lecturing anybody else... truth be told none of us can know for certain ahead of time what their intent really is. You can make inferences about their intent, but that's all based on what you bring to the argument in the first place.

I didn't mean to mention Jim in the context of "Well, my buddy dying means I have a pair of Aces showing". Of course it makes my arguments no more or no less valid. But Beskar raised the spectre that the whole argument was nothing more than sensationalism for its own sake, others have stated I just hate muslims or whatever "islamophobia" means. Neither is true... I have some real skin in this game.

The reason I keep asking for evidence of other mosques closer to ground zero is because I never found any in Lemur's interactive map. The construction date is valid to me because if they pre-date 9/11, then obviously they weren't built to memorialize anything.

Final point, then I'm moving on to other discussions.... I stand by the simple observation that if this mosque was really about tolerance and building bridges, they would have recognized the sensitivity of such a construciton and taken some steps to mitigate the impact. In it's magnitude, in it's mono-faith focus, in the timing, in it's refusal to provide any documentation on where the money is coming from, and in the lack of willingness to listen to divergent views, the founders of this mosque have convinced me that they do not care about the opinions of others. That doesn't imply "inter-faith tolerance" to me at any level.

I do not believe that this group speaks for all American muslims, or muslims in general for that matter. But I am convinced that for this group, this mosque is an enourmous "Screw you! We PWNED you!".