Mickey Mosque

I don’t know whether the rest of the country has to cope with the same lower-Manhattan mosque Islamic center news flood that we’re being subjected to here in the New York City area. I suspect so, because New York tends to feed the news, and anything to do with September 11th and the former World Trade Center site is always a fun topic for the media to grab onto.

Let’s consider a few things.

If you lost someone dear to you in the World Trade Center buildings, you get to be very, very sad about that. You get to have a share in the victims’ compensation payouts. You get my eternal sympathy, along with that of many, many others throughout the world.

You don’t get to tell other people what to do, and you don’t get to decide what’s done with the land.

The area is a chunk of real estate in lower Manhattan, some of the most expensive land in the world. It’s in a business area. It’s not a tomb; it’s not hallowed ground. It’s owned by people, and the city of New York has rules about how they approve construction projects. Those rules don’t include asking citizens and doing what they want, regardless of what a particular square of ground means to them, emotionally. We’re all sorry about what happened, but this is how it is.

If you’re a politician, and you’ve decided to stick this issue into your political witch’s brew, well, you don’t get to tell other people what to do nor decide what’s done with that land either. I could expand on that, and say that you’re a bottom-feeding scum-sucker who’ll feast on any misfortune or bigotry you can get your teeth into, but that seems unnecessary, so I won’t.

For my part, I’d just as soon not have anyone build any places for people to gather and spout nonsense about fantasy beliefs, ever again, anywhere. I don’t want to see land, money, time, and other resources wasted on mosques, synagogues, churches, cathedrals, or, for that matter, Fox News studios.

But, you know, I don’t get to tell people what to do or decide any of this either. None of us have any more say in what happens with this Islamic center, or anything else to do with that ten acres or the area near it, than we do about any other block of ground in the city.

So let’s all leave it alone now, and go find some real news to talk about.

[Here’s the New York Times editorial on the topic.]