I take exception to your opinion on the proposed mosque on the 9/11 site.
Many Americans have gotten caught up in a political correctness scheme, a social justice scheme, a liberal progressive scheme or are just too lazy to research the facts about Islam and to study its history.
You, on the other hand, use the themes of religious freedom, private property and a free country justifying the imam building a mosque wherever they choose.
Islam is not a religion, Gary. Islam is a government with a very rigid set of freedom destroying laws that masquerade under the guise of being only a religion. The thought of Islam becoming a major force in America should concern every patriot. The Bible of Islam is the Koran, the Sira and the Hadith. These three texts can be called the Trilogy. The text devoted to the Sira and Hadith is 86 percent of the total textual doctrine of Islam. Islam is 14 percent Allah and 86 percent Mohammed. Sharia (Islamic law) is a nothing more than a condensation and extrapolation of the Koran and Sunna (Sira and Hadith).
The largest part of the Trilogy is not about how to be a good Muslim. The majority of it is about unbelievers. Islam is a complete civilization (not just a religion) with a detailed political system, religion and a legal code, the Sharia. After failing as a preacher in Mecca Mohammed went to Medina and became a politician and a warlord. After two years in Medina, every Jew was murdered, enslaved or exiled. This was not a religious process, but a political process. Jihad is a political action with a political motivation disguised as religious.
To understand Islam, you must "take off" your Westernized conception of culture/religion, Gary. Westerners believe that all religions are more or less the same and we all agree that the golden rule applies to all and we all live side by side. You cannot fathom how different Islam is until you realize that the muslims who know the Koran well have no intention of playing by western rules of civilized culture. This is not their reality. Muslims who are Americanized either are being deceived as well or hiding Islam's true goals from non-Muslms because Mohammed told them to. Basic tactics of war - lie and deceive until you are ready to attack. History is full of these episodes of Islamic supremacist aggression. It's a basic tenet of Islam: Spread it until everyone is Muslim or die trying. Does this sound like a westernized concept of religion?
Middle Eastern concepts of culture/religion, taught from birth, are the opposite of our Westernized Golden Rule. Islam teaches, like the hardened Nomads of the desert from which Islam arose, to be "harsh, or hardened" to others, as this is a matter of survival in hard times. Weakness in Middle Eastern Islamic culture is to be exploited for your own families' gain. Power is respected, weakness defeated as the survival of the fittest demands. Deception is encouraged to gain an upper hand with an enemy. Allah is arbitrary and harsh; this world has no "absolutes" except if you die fighting in jihad.
Mohammed forbids Muslims to trust or befriend non-muslims, to deceive and lie and do whatever they must do in order to exist in non-muslim lands until their numbers are large enough for attack. This is their history, and it is also their reality today. They are stuck in this perpetual 7th century mentality because Mohammed said they must take all words from Mohammed literally and cannot change them upon pain of death.
Give Islam a free ride in this country and we'll lose every freedom we enjoy, Gary. An Islamic Mosque on the site of the 9-11 massacre is a repugnant thought and one that would give aid and comfort to the enemy. Patriots in this nation should rise up screaming "treason" and throw every elected official supporting a Mosque on that site into the street.
