The Therapist

9/11—And A Bit Of Clarification

I normally do not pull comments out of a post and lay them out here. But having been linked by Crooks And Liars yesterday, brought both a large flurry of emails, and a smaller flurry of comments from liberals. A couple of them wished I was dead, one temporarily anonymous critic tried to make the case that I can’t criticize a subersive attempt to simultaneously flip off my country while giving deference to the Five Pillars because the architect went to school for architecture for a long, long time.

Then, you get good folks like Aaron, who not only provide contact information, but try to at least make a peaceful case for their point. These are the people I appreciate almost as much as the fans of this site. I doubt Aaron is a fan, but he seems to be a good guy, with a peaceful way of making his liberal points on his own blog as well. I am now reprinting the latter half of a comment to this blog, as it just fits with the template of this fourth anniversary of the attacks of 9/11 with my response. The post is in response to my “Flight 93 memorial/New Orleans” post:

. . .as to this memorial being created in the shape of a red Crescent, it's become more and more acceptable lately to condemn the religion of Islam for the recent terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists. It's vitally important to distinguish between the religion of Islam and a small minority of religious fundamentalist zealots who act in the name of that religion.

Far too many people in America are failing to make this all-important distinction. To condemn an entire religion for the actions of a few is the worst kind of reactionary rhetorical propaganda, it's the kind of hate filled indoctrinational propaganda which leads to genocide. It should be rejected by all who embrace fairness and justice.

Thanks for your comments Aaron.

So you are saying changing the symbol to a Cross is ok, right?

I agree with you that the broad pigeonholing of any religion is bad, presuming that religion truly isn't based on slitting the throats of civilians in orange jumpsuits.

But, let's just say that Muslims didn't hijack flight 93. Let's just say that they didn't hijack three other planes that killed 3,000 people. Let's just assume that the Bombing of the USS Cole was performed by Norwegians.

Let's also go ahead and hypothetically play with Boy Scouts dragging a soldier’s body through Somalia, or that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir routinely bombs Jewish diners, or that even a rogue cadre of Buddhists throwing dead Israeli athletes out of windows at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

While I'm at this, let's just go ahead, for academic purpose, say that non-Muslims bombed the basement of the World Trade Center in 1993, murdered over 300 children in Beslan, and took out Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie.

And finally, we will also go ahead and assume that that man who shot and killed Robert Kennedy was also not beholden to the Koran.

So, this small list of crimes against humanity (although, there are many on the left who exclude Jews, Americans, and Christians from the term): for this exercise--NOT committed by Muslims.

I still don’t want anything that comes close to codifying the Muslim faith to represent a memorial to people killed by Muslims who had a fervent prayer meeting right before they started slitting the throats of infidels.

My logic? There are places that such a symbol would be appropriate in this country, just as I happen to believe the Cross is entirely appropriate on the Los Angeles municipal seal. The missions are an intrinsic part of history there. Islam’s only relationship with flight 93 is one of death—regardless if it was the ugly stupid cousins of “true Islam” committed it.

I do not—however think a surreptitious cross would be appropriate at a memorial for African Americans killed by the Klu Klux Klan—people who also bastardized scripture to lessen the value of others, and justified killing them, their families, and driving them to the edge of the human condition. Any crosses on a site like that would be approved by family members, who would most likely make sure that all crosses would represent the faith that carried many of these good people through the worst of times--and not the ones seen burning in their yards.

I will argue that the only religion that has a true mechanism of media, movies, and art that has free license to mock it is Christianity. Every time a writer, director or artist decides to start peeling off against Jesus, they are proclaimed to be “brave,” “courageous,” “laying it all out there,” etc. This is just preposterous. There is no bravery where institutional hatred for your subect permeates the avenues with which you travel to deliver it.

If art wants to be “courageous” try making a movies about Salmon Rushdie.

You and I both know this will never happen. And you and I both know why. And the very fact that I don't even have to elaborate says more than this post ever could.

Lastly. To this argument, I can hear the blood of Theo Van Gogh, wondering where all the Arts and Humanities voices are, outraged that Muslims silenced his Islam-critical, pro-woman film by slitting his throat in a busy street.

I know where they were. Too busy protesting Mel Gibson.

A thanks to Aaron for his comments. They were truly, and respectfully appreciated, despite the fact that I diasgree with him--The Therapist

UPDATE: It seems Islamic Missionaries are promising their amazing peace to Los Angeles. They even sound exactly like peace-loving Al Franken in the last big paragraph. It also seems like Cindy Sheehan may be ghost writing:

"Don't believe the lies of the liars at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and 10 Downing Street," Gadahn insists. "They have dispatched your sons and daughters to die lonely deaths in the burning deserts of Iraq and the unforgiving mountains of Afghanistan."

I guess we better start frisking Jehovah's Witnesses.

posted by Doofus @ 7:31 AM