New York Is the Center of New York

Over at Outside the Beltway it’s seemingly all Ground Zero Mosque/Cordoba House/Park51 all of the time. I have been reluctant to weigh in on this subject for two reasons. First, I don’t believe it’s any of my business. I have complete confidence in the ability of New Yorkers to work the matter out by themselves in a reasonable and prudent fashion if left to their own devices. Furthermore, as long as New Yorkers aren’t being murdered in their thousands by terrorist attacks I don’t much care what goes on there. IMO New York and Los Angeles receive attention disproportionate to their actual importance in the scheme of things because so many television journalists live in those places.

Second, there’s a matter of simple logic that appears to have been missed in the discussion. If A implies C and B implies C and A and B are the only alternatives and mutually contradictory then C is true and which of A or B is true is irrelevant in determining the truth of C.

We are not going to go to war with all Muslims at the same time. IMO President Bush’s finest moment in the White House was, in the immediate aftermath of the attacks on September 11, 2001, he proclaimed that we are not at war with a religion.

There are two extreme positions held in the United States. From the point of view of one minority, Islam is completely irrelevant to the attacks on 9/11. From that position believing that a mosque, Muslim community center, or whatever you care to call it within shouting distance of where the Twin Towers used to be located is wrong is plain unvarnished bigotry, pure and simple. The other extreme point of view, held by a different minority, is that we are in fact at war with all of Islam, Muslims cannot be taken at their word because their religion endorses lying to non-Muslims for the sake of Islam, and that a mosque of Islamic community center anywhere in the United States, let alone within a couple of blocks of the most successful attack by Muslims on the United States is an affront.

Even if that were the case wouldn’t it be extremely imprudent to announce it? Divide ut impera. Wouldn’t the prudent thing be to attempt to divide Muslims between its radicals and those less radical so they could be confronted in detail? From that point of view we should at least be appearing to arrive at accommodations with Muslims to reduce the size of the imminent threat to one more manageable at the present time.

Hence my observation. Once you’ve processed the reality that we’re not going to war with all of Islam regardless of whether Islam is benign or reprehensible I think you arrive at my position: silence is golden.

Honestly, I think I’m out-living my time and don’t know what to believe anymore. My mother taught me that sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. And I learned in college that one good approach to tolerating this vale of tears is to tend my garden. Those taken together tell me that although I should defend myself when attacked I should be tolerant of the views of others and, basically, mind my own business. For me that’s true whether it’s a matter of flying the Confederate flag over southern cities or building mosques in New York.

Now I’ll shut up again.

11 comments… add one
  • PD Shaw Link

    I probably agree that it’s eighty to ninety percent local. Too many Americans died across the country on 9/11, and in the wars it set in motion for it to be entirely local. Probably deserves about ten to twenty percent of its coverage.

    I think one thing this flap exposed was the underbelly of rising Jeffersonianism. That impulse to withdraw from foreign engagement is rooted in negative/pessimistic views of foreign culture. Elite opinion seems shocked about the breadth of negative views on Islam, going on nine years of war in the Middle East.

  • Michael Reynolds Link

    IMO New York and Los Angeles receive attention disproportionate to their actual importance in the scheme of things because so many television journalists live in those places.

    Yes, many people in Chicago believe that.

    Sad to see that you have been affected by FES — Flyover Envy Syndrome — with it’s impotent resentment of the rightful coastal elites and it’s shrill insistence that “We’re important, too! We have the Field Museum! And . . . um . . . hot dogs with scary green relish.”

    Really, Dave, you’ll be much happier if you just accept your second class status.

  • Presumably, I should also accustom myself to the reality that St. Louis, Detroit, Cleveland, and Denver all have palm trees because whenever you see a TV show set practically anywhere except New York City, there are palm trees in the background.

  • What Cleveland doesn’t have palm trees? Well, guess I’ll have to take that city of my list of places to visit.

    Hence my observation. Once you’ve processed the reality that we’re not going to war with all of Islam regardless of whether Islam is benign or reprehensible I think you arrive at my position: silence is golden.

    I really, really hate this topic.

    Islam is not going to “destroy” us. We are doing a damn fine job on our own thank you very much. Health care’s unsustainable nature tied in with Medicare, unfunded pension plans that are threatening many state budgets. At best anemic economic growth, and policies based on demographic realities that are unlikely to hold for much longer. And we are worried about where a building in New York will be? Maybe because the other problems seem so insurmountable people like to focus on something relatively simple. But the conclusion still remains, it is a waste of time and effort and distracts us from the very real problems our country faces.

  • Yup. I agree with the thrust of your comment.

    However, Islam is going to destroy us just as Catholicism and Judaism did before it and just as the North destroyed the South in the American Civil War. The “us” that we became after “we” decided that Catholics weren’t secret agents of the Vatican or Jews weren’t subhuman was quite different from the “us” that we had been. We had redefined “us”.

    Some core set of values have remained within that new construct and there’s a fight going on as to what the new values will be within the next us. Those won’t be imposed on us by one of the subgroups of our society. They will be emergent phenomena of the new us and the real, genuine American dream is that the new us that will emerge will be a better, truer one than the old.

  • I think you miss something in your categorization. There several subsets of Muslims that are important, as they get a say in all of this. There are those who practice a militant ideology and would happily slit your throat to advance their cause of Muslim triumphalism. Then there are those operating peacefully within the West but who are nonetheless pursuing the same goals. Then there are those who embrace Western freedoms and want to see their religion advance out of the 11th century interpretations that were in essence frozen in time.

    As to the thought that ‘Islam is not going to “destroy” us,’ it certainly won’t happen to the U.S. during our lifetime. To pretend, though, that it is not a “real problem” is, to put it charitably, very unwise. Are we that far from 9-11 and thousands dead that we can ignore the issue now as meaningless? It is kind of like the old saying about God – while you may not be thinking about militant Islamists, they are thinking of you.

    One needs only to take a look across the pond to see that Islam may well overtake Europe during our lifetime. The city counsel in the capital of the EU, Brussels, is majority Muslim. In the Netherlands, Muslims will soon make up the majority in all major cities. Britain is having ever increasing problems with its ever increasing radical Islamic population. And those are only a few of the myriad of problems Europe faces with Islam.

    The Euro left and the EU long ago decided to open its borders to massive immigration from Islamic countries. And indeed, perhaps the biggest problem is that the Muslims that are emigrating are being accompanied by Muslim triumphalists who are doing their level best to sure that Muslims do not integrate into their new homes, but rather retain their goals of overtaking them and establishing Sharia law states.

    Thus it should be of great concern which interpretation of Islam emerges victorious in the Muslim world, the view of the reformers or the view of the Muslim triumphalists. And given that the latter are very well funded, silence on the part of our government and ourselves simply plays into the latter’s hands. And indeed, as the old saying goes, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” No one chooses to live in hard times, but they are upon us nonetheless.

    Lastly, on this issue, let me reocmmend to you this interview of Zhudi Jasser.
    http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/a-patriotic-muslims-warning-on-ground-zero-mosque/?singlepage=true

  • Our problems are different than those of our European cousins, GW. I think we should deal with our problems and they with their own. So far they’ve been reluctant to do so. We shall see what the future holds.

    In brutal honesty I think that we have less problem with Muslims and Islam than we do with Arabs. Thankfully, our long established Arab population is largely composed of Christians, Lebanese Maronites and Iraqi Chaldean Christians for the most part. Additionally, the Muslim Arab we have here tend to be of a different social class than those in Europe. The importance of class in the Muslim world is a subject about which the scholar Ernest Gellner wrote about at some length.

  • Icepick Link

    Presumably, I should also accustom myself to the reality that St. Louis, Detroit, Cleveland, and Denver all have palm trees because whenever you see a TV show set practically anywhere except New York City, there are palm trees in the background.

    Big deal. A few years ago a TV show set in Florida had people driving back and forth across a desert with mountains in the background. That was supposedly what the drive between Orlando and Gainesville looked like. And not an RV flying a UF flag to be seen. Because Central Florida looks EXACTLY like the Mojave Desert in Antelope Valley.

  • steve Link

    “. But the conclusion still remains, it is a waste of time and effort and distracts us from the very real problems our country faces.”

    Culture wars are a good way to avoid the real issues. Gay marriage, gays in the military, abortion, guns (not really an issue IMO), etc.

    Steve

  • Michael Reynolds Link

    I can’t believe I misused “it’s.” Twice. Jesus, I need a vacation.

  • Hell just very cold or something…steve, michael and I all basically agreeing on this mosque stuff.

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