As long as Mayor Mike is in the dock, let us also note that when it comes to building a mosque near Ground Zero, he has from the start stood behind the First Amendment — sort of.
That is, he likes the part that gives Muslims the right to build a house of worship just about anywhere they want.
But the part guaranteeing a separation between religion and government?
Not so much.
That much became obvious last week with the release of e-mails demonstrating that City Hall did much more than offer the mosque’s organizers routine help.
In fact, it turns out that Team Bloomberg was heavily involved in operating the political machinery needed to ensure that various regulatory agencies approved the controversial project — which has rightly drawn the ire of many 9/11 survivors and victims’ families.
It’s OK. I mean, it’s not like it was a Christian church or something. That would be wrong.
You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Funny, he’s got a better track record than the warm mongers. Though, while I joke about firing up the SUVs, I don’t think that increasing the CO2 levels are a solution to a new glacial advance (I continue to be unconvinced that CO2 is a cause, and not a symptom, of climate change). We’ll have to think about serious geoengineering for that.
You would think the liberal intelligentsia would, with a record of so many misses on so many consequential matters, become chastened. But no. They are filled with certainty: Obama is back, the recovery is around the corner, Russian “reset” is a success, ObamaCare can’t be repealed, there are no electable Republican 2012 contenders, and more, they tell us. We’ll see if the left’s crystal ball is any more accurate in 2011.
You’ll be seeing a lot of pieces like this one from Leonard David over the next few days, with a look back one year and forward one year at commercial spaceflight. Leonard got quotes from Brett Alexander, Jim Muncy, and me among others. I’ll have a couple up myself, probably early next week, at AOL News and Popular Mechanics.
I know that there are a lot of good causes to which to donate this year, but FIRE remains near the top of my list. They are in the front line of the propaganda war against not only our culture, but the Enlightenment and our freedom, religious and otherwise. And sadly, many in academia are on the barricades on the other side.
The statistic that stood out the most was that 32% of Muslim college students believe it is OK to kill someone in the name of religion. Most who held that belief said that killing is perfectly fine if you are defending your religion. So it shouldn’t be surprising that another CSC study (done in July 2010) revealed that 1/3 of terrorist attacks done by British Muslims the last ten years was done by people who had attended universities.
Other parts of the CSC research found that 40% of Muslims want Sharia law in the UK for Muslims. 1/3 of those want a worldwide Caliphate based on Sharia. There are already over 85 Sharia law schools in the British Isles, so their wish is becoming true. Moreover, 54% of those survey wanted a Muslim Party to be represented in Parliament.
I too would like to see a similar poll done on American campuses.
I like this: hit the speech police where it really hurts — in their checking accounts. Force them to take responsibility for their actions, instead of just taking the easy road and going along with the grievance mongers.