[Scotty]

Majority/minority matters for ****.  It should change absolutely nothing.  The fact that it apparently does for you is a frightening prospect.

[iamzack]

Well, you can punish a minority for the actions of a minority of the minority. It isn't feasible to do the same for the majority. MOB RULE YEAH.

[Bobboau]

no, it is very much central to what is happening and the stark differences between how the two events played out, if you don't care to understand that's fine but you shouldn't be talking about it if you don't care.

[iamzack]

So, are we allowed to build churches (or some kind of American military base or embassy) in Iraq? Didn't we kill an order of magnitude more Iraqis than Al-Quaida has killed Americans? I'm pretty sure we're the minority over there.

[QuantumDelta]

BAN ALL THE CHURCHES.

I could live with that 

[General Battuta]

no that is a moronic comparison, because Oklahoma City is like 95% Christian, try to come up with an example where a minority attacked a majority please cause otherwise you are just throwing out nonsense.

That seems totally spurious to me. Why does it matter who the attackers and victims were? It's okay for white people to kill white people but not okay for brown people to kill white people? The brown people should be punished disproportionately?

And before you say that you're talking Christians and Muslims, not white and brown people, it's the same majority/minority relationship.

[Bobboau]

So, are we allowed to build churches (or some kind of American military base or embassy) in Iraq? Didn't we kill an order of magnitude more Iraqis than Al-Quaida has killed Americans? I'm pretty sure we're the minority over there.

that is a much better example, thank you.
I would say if a bunch of American Christians started building a Church in Iraq, or if Some American developer started building something I could totally see that brewing hostility. an embassy is a place for official government interaction, so it has a legitimate purpose, never the less I totally understand why it is often the focal point of attacks.

[Bobboau]

not okay for brown people to kill brown people?

not sure where you are getting that from.

[General Battuta]

not okay for brown people to kill brown people?

not sure where you are getting that from.

Sorry, fixed.

[Bobboau]

ah, ok, brown people killing white people is just as bad as white people killing brown people.

[StarSlayer]

no that is a moronic comparison, because Oklahoma City is like 95% Christian, try to come up with an example where a minority attacked a majority please cause otherwise you are just throwing out nonsense.

Try this one on for size.  Casualty statistics, there were 2,977 victims of 9/11.  Ever taken a look at the estimates for Iraqis killed during the war?  Most conservative estimates ball park it at least 90,000.  Do you feel like you should be forced to personally take the blame for that? I mean your an American, you're part of the group responsible.  It's quite reasonable that you should be held accountable for that tragedy and be forced to cough up you're rights as restitution.  Its obvious that all Americans are should be ostracized and be treated like savages, Hell they burn other culture's religious books.  Have you ever looked at some of the things in their Holy Bible?  Its barbaric!  Filled with stuff like homosexuality being an abomination, legal slavery, stoning people to death.  It's quite obvious their religion is daemonic.

[General Battuta]

ah, ok, brown people killing white people is just as bad as white people killing brown people.

That's not what I asked. You're postulating that brown people killing white people is worse than white people killing white people. Why?

[karajorma]

no I'm not talking about all Muslims, I'm only talking about the ones who think it's a good idea to construct a shrine to there religion in a plot that had a building damaged to the point of being abandoned by followers of that religion.

Except that the so called Ground Zero Mosque isn't actually at Ground Zero.

But you are actually still making generalisations here. All Muslims are to blame for the actions of the 9/11 hijackers so therefore any time any of them attempt to do something you don't like they must all shoulder the burden of those actions. They should all feel collective guilt over the actions of a few extremists who espouse completely different politics from them just because they happen to share the same religion with them (along with over a billion other people).

[Bobboau]

ah, I was hoping someone would take that bait, the building at 51 Park Avenue was a Burlington coat factory that was severely damaged during the 9/11 attacks, a landing gear and part of the fuselage hit the roof basically rendering the building uninhabitable.

Only if they are going to do something that shows insensitivity to the subject, like building what is effectively a mosque in a plot that had a building damaged to the point of being abandoned by followers of that religion.

[General Battuta]

Only if they are going to do something that shows insensitivity to the subject, like building what is effectively a mosque in a plot that had a building damaged to the point of being abandoned by followers of that religion.

Doesn't work for me, logically, on two levels

1) It assumes that all followers of a religion are sufficiently homogeneous or share an identity to the point where all Muslims bear collective guilt (absolutely insane)

2) It is a double standard because all Christians do not bear guilt for the actions of Eric Robert Rudolph and I doubt you'd argue they would.

Feels like dressed-up outgroup fear and outgroup homogeneity to me. These Muslims are as distinct from the attackers as any Christian on the street is from the above mentioned Rudolph. They share no responsibility or guilt.

[Bobboau]

before making recent notariey, I probably wouldn't have thought much of members pastor Terry Jones' church but now I have a particular dislike of them.

[General Battuta]

before making recent notariey, I probably wouldn't have thought much of members pastor Terry Jones' church but now I have a particular dislike of them.

But you don't extend that dislike to all Christians.

[newman]

Generalizations like that can be dangerous and only serve to further totally unnecessary strife between religious groups. Muslims, for example, are a very numerous group - if all of them were terrorists they'd have run out of buildings to destroy a long time ago. Not sure how to get this through to you: Islam didn't take down the WTC. Regular practitioners of Islam shouldn't be made to share collective guilt over something a small group of extremists did. Backing down from that community center would actually be a public admission of shared responsibility for the 9/11 tragedy. If they did back down, people could very well ask: "why did they back down? They must know that they're to blame. If they weren't guilty, why would they cancel such an expensive project?"

[Bobboau]

But you don't extend that dislike to all Christians.

as i don't extend my dislike to all mosques.

[General Battuta]

But you don't extend that dislike to all Christians.

as i don't extend my dislike to all mosques.

Yes you do. The only possible reason you have to dislike this particular mosque is because it is near Ground Zero (though no closer than any number of strip clubs, gambling parlors and other seedy ventures). If you believe that mosques in particular do not belong on Ground Zero, you do so because they are Muslim. And if you believe that Muslim temples in particular do not belong on Ground Zero, it is because you believe Muslims are somehow responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

They are not, any more than Christians are responsible for the Westboro Baptist Church.