Ali Hasan: Opponents of Ground Zero mosque are bigots

• Paul, So now you won't even admit that your information source is conservative. Christ almighty, everything you spewed is teabag talking point bullshit. Not only are you an ill informed, angry conservative christian white bigot, you're a fucking liar as well. Get back to Beck and if you get a minute, watch bo's "Right America, feeling wronged". I'll bet you're in it.

• Eric - Nice jump, but wrong conclusion. I don't watch Fox, or any broadcast/cable news for that matter. And I've never watched Glenn Beck, or listened to his radio program. Nice try with painting me with your intolerant liberal bias, but it won't work. Better luck next time, since obviously you've failed to address my points. Your bigotry is as transparent as Mr. Hasan's.

• House of cards, Paul. You gave yourself away as a low information fox viewing conservative lemming with the assertion that the act of 19 vicious, bloodthirsty idiots slamming airplanes into the WTC, the Pentagon, and the Pennsylvania countryside was akin to the Japanese Empire launching an unprovoked carrier stike on the Hawaiian Islands. nute gingrich would be proud of himself for convincing you on that one. Nope, won't work. Well, won't work on anybody but fox nation citizens, anyway. I will admit though, my patience has run out for ill/uninformed zealots like you and your ilk. Our country faces some of its' greatest challenges, and we have to contend with mooks like you AND solve our problems. Please, Paul, try to keep up. This is too important for you to dumb down like this. But I should let you get back to Glenn Beck.

• Ali Hasan, I oppose this mosque not because the builders are Muslim, but because their intentions are suspect. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the founder of this project, has said in the foreign press: "...it is clear an Islamic state can be established in more than just a single form or mold. It can be established through a kingdom or a democracy. The important issue is to establish the general fundamentals of Sharia that are required to govern...current governments are unjust and do not follow Islamic laws." http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/05/911-mosque-imam-lying-to-the-american-people.html Imam Rauf sounds to me like a hypocritical man with an agenda of promoting unconstitution sharia law here in America, while complaining in the same breath his own Constitutional rights would be violated if he can't build his center, from which he's planning to erode the Constitution! Consider what Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, has to say about this: "I do not stand to eliminate Imam Rauf's religious freedom; I stand to make sure that my children's religious freedom will be determined by the liberty guaranteed in the American Constitution and not by clerics or leaders who are apologists for shar'iah law and will tell me what religious freedom is. 'Park 51', 'The Cordoba House' or whatever they are calling it today should not be built, not because it is not their right to do it - but because it is not right to do it." http://www.aifdemocracy.org/news.php?id=6131

• I appreciate your response Mr. Hasan, but I wholeheartedly disagree with your assertion that I am a bigot because I oppose the site of the "Ground Zero" mosque. I, and the majority of Americans, that are opposed to the "Ground Zero" mosque aren't opposed to Islam, rather we are opposed to the chosen site. To build a mosque at the proposed site is akin to Japanese-Americans building a Shinto shrine across from the USS Arizona Memorial. I am agnostic, and as such do not profess any faith in any religion. However, I am not opposed to people and their Constitutional right to freedom of religion. I would say this holds true to the majority of Americans. As such, your claims of bigotry, Mr. Hasan, ring follow. Especially in the light of the fact that there are over 1,200 mosques already in the United States. We are not saying Muslims can't build a mosque in New York City. What we are saying is that the proposed site is inappropriate and insensitive. Especially for those of us that lost loved ones on that fateful day. I understand your "private property" argument to an extent. However, would your analogy hold true to a pig farm, built on "private property," next to an existing mosque? I would think that would be inappropriate, even if on "private property." Would you agree? Or would you uphold the right of a pig farmer to operate next to a mosque? Mr. Hasan, you state that you'd be in favor of building a Christian church and a Jewish synagogue in Saudi Arabia. Given your financial resources, what have you done to promote this notion in the home of Islam? You call us "bigots," yet I see no condemnation from you towards Muslim nations that have zero religious freedom. I would not say you're a hypocrite, however there is an obvious imbalance to your argument when there are 1,200+ mosques in the United States and zero churches and/or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. The real "bigots" reside there Mr. Hasan, not here. As for "Eric," I understand that you don't agree, and that is your prerogative. However, in reading your post I see the myth of "Liberal Tolerance" at play. Liberals are touted as tolerant. You sir, are obviously anything but as evidenced by your sophomoric name calling and incivility. For that, I feel sorry for you.

• If this is "stolen valor" Chris, judging from your previous posts, you have no room to judge.

• Eric- "Blindly lashing out at those you disagree with....another "rock ribbed conservative virtue"' Are you actually that dense as to say this after your own insult-laden diatribe? "Wardo, mark, and paul: Shut up." Thanks for demonstrating the number one virtue of left-wing douchery.

• Keep using the Leftwing lament: Racism! Bigotry! To cover up Muslim racism and bigotry. It rings quite hollow in the face of barbaric act after barbaric act. When will you come clean about your own deception? You infiltrated the Republican party to buy them off and to obfiscate your own Islamo-centric, pro-Sharia law agenda. How about telling the truth about the film you made glorifying female suicide bombers? Can Muslims take no responsibility for anything? Will you denounce the prescribed hatred for Christians, Jews and Women in your own faith or will you keep blaming it on others who aren't "politically correct" enough? How about explaining the use of the name "Cordoba?" Your whole presentation of "tolerance" is a lie. You know it and it bothers you greatly that others are coming out of their denial to know it too.

• Always good to hear from the tin foil hats. Bolsheviks? Guantanamo? Leftists? Blindly lashing out at those you disagree with....another "rock ribbed conservative virtue".

• Eric: You prove beyond all doubt that leftists in this country are at heart intolerant Bolsheviks whose best argument against those with whom they disagree is intolerance and oppression. That is why they are so sympathetic to GITMO prisoners and the like. They are spiritual cousins. I suspect Mr. Hasan will flee your toxic embrace, if he be wise.

• Anonymous: Great post! Wardo, mark, and paul: Shut up. Ali, I stand with you on this because the very thing happening in New York re: the mosque 2 blocks from ground zero makes the United States the greatset nation on earth. It's our belief system and our freedom of and from religion. We do not cower, as the 3 above would suggest, but we embrace our freedoms. I thought your piece in coloradopols on this was point on. Poignant. I associate myself with you on that 100% Having said that, Ali, I've followed you for some time. you are a republican. You lie down with dogs like the three morons above all the time. Now you want people to throw away the very tribalism, the "I got mine and you go to hell", "we're a christian nation, muslims are inferior", "me first, you never" and "us against the world" posture the GOP preaches and the vast majority of conservative republicans espouse. Not because it's right in all cases to be open, inclusive, honest, upright, tolerant of other views, stewards of the planet, country before self, strong on principle, and decent. No, it's because your particular interests are being transgressed upon this time. That's what made this different for you. On this one issue, you want conservatives to stop being fearfull, cowardly lemmings. To be heroic. That's not gonna happen. If it was any other "cause to champion", I fear you'd be nowhere to be found. When you figure it out that every person's life is as important to them as yours is to you, I'll take you seriously. Until then, you're just another selfish, ideology first, country second, I want mine republican. Thanks for listening.

• Dear Anonymous: You have offered an extremely powerful and persuasive, probably the best, argument for not only permitting, but encouraging, the construction of a mosque at Ground Zero. Thank you for your very wise and thoughtful contribution to this important debate. That said, I think you are, despite the great wisdom reflected in your remarks, asking far too much of people still justifiably enraged by 9/11. Though the Islam I once greatly admired indisputably does not countenance the murder of innocents to "advance" (actually bring disrepute upon) the faith, the extreme version which is increasingly dominant in Muslim countries, and which calls for the destruction of Israel and conversion of Europe, indeed the entire world, to an Islamic Caliphate, does. Mr. Hasan's complaint should not be with those whose view of Islam is confused, but with the bigots in his own faith who have created such confusion by preaching the slaughter of all Israeli Jews, and of all others who do not embrace their faith. As Christianity once was, Islam is now its own worst enemy, for it has to a very large extent been hijacked by extremists who are indistinguishable from Hitler and must, like Hitler, be destroyed. If Islam makes the mistake the German people made, and instead of ridding itself of extremism, embraces it, Islam may ultimately suffer the same fate as Germany in World War II. Not even Hitler slaughtered 3,000 innocent American citizens on American soil. Indeed, had Hitler not foolishly declared war on the US after Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt might have found it extremely difficult to fulfill his pledge to Churchill to join Britian in the war to defeat Hitler. Once, however, he made that colossal blunder, his fate was sealed. Islamofascists claim to be the true pillars of the faith, though they are not. There certainly is precedent for their methods in the conquest of formerly Christian parts of the Middle East at the end of a sword (to which the Crusades were an inevitable). Most of what is now the Muslim Middle East was once predominantly Christian, and Christians in those countries (including our so-called allies, Egypt and Saudi Arabia--our real enemy, as the fount of Wahhabism that feeds the extremist Muslim beast) suffer from severe oppression. Yet, it is profoundly unfair to Islam to paint all of its mostly quite peaceful and decent adherents with the brush of extremism which long ago left the mainstream of the faith in the same way Inquisitorial extremism long ago left mainstream Christianity. Though Christianity in its purest form may require it, I am not convinced we are obliged, instead of fighting to protect Western civilization from people determined to destroy it, to passively give way to them. At what point should we be willing to fight to destroy a threat to our way of life? We slaughtered millions of nominal Christians in Europe and Germany to save the world (and, paradoxically, our other comparable enemy, the Soviet Union) from Hitler and make it safer for the equally evil Stalin. Oddly, no one has ever seriously questioned that we were justified in doing so. Will the mosque at Ground Zero be a fount to tolerance of a kind most mosques once were, in which event its construction should be encouraged, or a fount of vile hatred of the kind so many mosques and madrassas are, akin to permitting a Nazi Party outpost to be established in New York in 1944, in which event it should never be permitted? It is incumbent on Mr. Hasan and his fellow moderate Muslims to provide a satisfactory answer to this question before they dismiss those who oppose construction of the mosque as mere bigots.

• Disclaimer: I am not Muslim, or even religious. The goal of the terrorists on 9/11 was not simply to murder thousands of innocent civilians in the name of their "God." It was to foster true hate and bigotry in the hearts and minds of Americans towards all Muslims, so they could say, "see, Americans do hate us, they do want to kill/segregate/control those of the Islamic faith". Does a project like this not serve to counteract the intentions of these monsters and prove their ideas about America wrong? By building a mosque (or maybe even better- an interfaith center where Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans, etc may come together in peace and tolerance) we are demonstrating that these acts of hate can not force us to turn to the darkest parts of our humanity in seeking to fight against or punish those who would wound us. Some are saying, "well in [insert Muslim country here], the would not allow a [insert non-Islamic religious building here]," to which I say, America is not that country. We are a country founded on religious tolerance, one that welcomes all religions. Not all countries are like this so to conveniently compare us to those places is simply apples and oranges. Bottom line- yes, I recognize that this would be an incredibly giant leap of faith (no pun intended) for Americans but true change, changing people's hearts and minds can only come through radical ideas like this.

• Mr. Hasan is simply (quite unwisely) engaging in the same tactic so long employed by mouthpieces for his family's Zionist opponents: dismissing as a bigot anyone who questions any aspect of Israel's policies. This is a tactic long employed in a number of debates on a variety of subjects to intimidate one's opposition into silence with the threat of the opprobrium that inevitably accompanies one's being labeled as a bigot. It is a facile substitute for reasoned policy debate favored by the intellectually deficient or lazy. That Hasan is so insensitive to the implications of the placement of a mosque at or near Ground Zero is surprising, given his apparently mainstream upbringing in the US as the child of great wealth and privilege of a kind his father could never have amassed in his Muslim homeland. Yet, trying to put myself in his place, and imagining how I would feel if a predominantly Muslim country refused to permit the construction of a Christian Cathedral near a Muslim holy site, I would have to say that I likewise would regard that as bigoted. Of course, that is precisely what most predominantly Muslim countries do, already. Indeed, in many, the mere possession of a Bible is a serious crime, and Christian churches are banned entirely. If Mr. Hasan were to apply his considerable intelligence to thinking seriously about the issue, he would undoubtedly agree upon reflection that it is remarkable that his parents and he have been permitted to flourish beyond all expectations in a country that permits them to exercise their faith freely, without fear of imprisonment or death, despite their profession of a faith most Americans (rightly or wrongly) consider hostile to their own faith and values. He would also undoubtedly agree that, far from demonstrating bigotry, those who find it bizarre and infuriating that Muslims would insist upon placing a mosque so near where a great atrocity was committed by Muslims in the name of Islam (albeit contrary to Islam) may have a point, just as those Jews who objected to Polish Catholics placing a chapel at Auschwitz may not have been so much bigots, as too blinded by their natural rage and anger to recognize that little harm can come from opposing evil with more, rather than less, prayer.

• YO Hasan, No we are not biased, bigots or racists. we are not going to let our country become an islamic state like europe has. Thanks for showing your true colors.

• Dearest Paul - Thank you for this comment However - I stand by my words - opposing the construction of a building on private property, only because the builders are Muslim? That is bigotry - there is no other way to slice it In addition - asking Mecca to build a Church, in exchange for a Ground Zero Mosque, is reducing ourselves to the policies of Saudi Arabia, and in my view, America is MUCH better than that That said - as a Muslim, I FULLY support the construction of a Synagogue and Church in Mecca - Islam is an open-minded religion that accepts all religions that are beneficial to humankind - if ever I am in a position where I can have influence over such a decision, you have my promise that I would push for Synagogues and Churches in Mecca or any other 'Muslim' area for that fact Love and peace - Ali Hasan hasan2008 at mac.com

• Mr. Hasan, Where was the "Muslim tolerance" as those nineteen individuals screamed Alu Akbar as they murdered thousands of your fellow Americans and my cousin?! "Moderate" Muslims are surprised by this reaction? Really?! Are you THAT clueless or just that self-centered you can't understand why people like myself would be insulted by such a proposal? You sir, are the bigot as evidenced by your center-of-the-Universe rant. I'll make you a deal Mr. Hasan. I'll drop my opposition to the "Ground Zero" mosque, and forgive those that killed my cousin on that fateful day, when there is a Christian (any denomination) church and a Jewish synagogue built in Mecca. Religious "tolerance" flows both ways Mr. Hasan.

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