An Old Man’s View Of Mosques And Ethnic Cleansing

Those of us living out the twilight of our lives — you know, that idiotic expression “the golden years” — have personally witnessed history repeat itself over and over again.

Because it is in the news ad nausea, the latest soup de jour hysteria is a planned Muslim outreach center and mosque two blocks from Ground Zero. Throwing gasoline on an already incendiary proposal is our first black president who supports the project in the constitutional realm of freedom of speech and religion.

As with all ethnic and religious hate arguments, this one harbors an element of truth.

The argument goes like this:

Twenty-one Arab Muslims were involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the twin towers in lower Manhattan, the Pentagon and the passenger rebellion crash into a Pennsylvania forest. One branch of the Islam religion was responsible for the attack.

Therefore by hate mongering logic, all Muslims are terrorists.

It is also a proven truth that some mosques in the United States had imams and followers who championed the overthrow of our government by terrorist activity.

Therefore by hate mongering logic, all Muslims in the United States are terrorists.

That is all the extremists require to prove their point.

But the seeds of that absurdity filter down to the saner segments of society. How do we monitor rogue imams within the mosques unless a member rats on them to the cops or the cops infiltrate the Muslim membership of that mosque.

I don’t know nor do I care whether I could attend a Muslim service and hear the imam speak his mind.

I wonder if it is the same as the Mormons practiced in Klamath Falls, Ore., in the late 1950s where I worked for the newspaper and dated a fetching young Mormon lass whose father was a church elder and athletic director of then Oregon Tech College. I would attend the “open” service with the family but was assigned to the playground when the “closed” service was conducted. I harbored then and suspected later that the Church of Latter Day Saints were up to something not fit for a non-believer’s ears. Certainly, it was nothing nefarious as overthrowing the government. Perhaps, secret plans to promulgate polygamy, an area I also could care less about even in later years. But those were built-in prejudices never proven. But the stigma lives.

A white cop on the San Diego Police Department told me in the mid 1960s that he couldn’t tell blacks apart in a lineup “because they all looked alike.”

Therefore all blacks were ignorant, on welfare and needed government cheating methods called affirmative action to “level the playing field.”

I have forgotten the thousands of times people told me Jews were bloodsucking individuals never to be trusted, especially in financial affairs.

Therefore, by that logic, all Jews were crooks.

That’s enough. You tell me what organized religion hanging around for a century or more doesn’t have blood on its hands.

What institution does not have racial prejudice in its resume.

And, in any of these groups you may cite, does anyone associate with them at any  time the guilt, shame and fear that all were equal partners conspiring together to commit such devious acts.

In most cities and states, laws prohibit convicted sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet or greater distances from a school. How far is far enough?

At Ground Zero, how far away is enough? Two blocks? Five? Completely out of the Manhattan borough?

What do you people want? After Pearl Harbor, we interned all the Japanese residing in the United States. That turned out just ducky.

The president’s speech, the New York mayor’s speech, any speech supporting the constitutional right of that Muslim sect to build a center/mosque was the compassionate thing to say even though some believe they have misgivings.

This hysteria is an atom bomb exploding in a teapot based on fear on the premise if one Muslim is a terrorist, they all are, and if not, it only takes one.

That was the predominate argument in similar cases in Tennessee and my home town here in Temecula, Calif.

Get a life. Stop living and feeding off of fear.

Look at it this way. In every room of 10 persons, one is bound to be a jerk. When you convince me all 10 are jerks, I will slink away and shut up.

Meanwhile, I do see humor, a dark side for certain, in the Manhattan project. Were I a nearby resident, I would shake my head and mutter:

“There goes the neighborhood.”

I mention it because back in the late 1940s a gay couple, which really were disdained by society in those days, moved into the subdivision in South Laguna, on the corner about four houses from my parents.

They minded their own business, always friendly to the neighbors, and re-landscaped their front yard into a tropical paradise.

In a few months, all the neighbors did the same. A classic case of keeping up with the Joneses and no one turned gay to the relief of all the parents who were spitting images of “Ozzie and Harriett” and “Leave It to Beaver.”

I leave you now to continue your rants as I prepare dinner. Did you know that all people who eat are fat? Digest that morsel, my friends. That is the distorted argument too many of you are engaging.

Whales vs. Minnows Replaced In U.S. Senate By Balderdash

May I be so bold as to suggest recommended reading on how our U.S. Senate “works.” In its custom dating back to the beginning of time, the New Yorker Magazine takes an extremely dull subject and brings it to life.

Be forewarned. This article is not a sound bite. The author went to extremes to be fair to the arcane process and the polarized influence practiced by both Republicans and Democrats in today’s Senate.

But the bottom line, as politicians are wont to say, is the Senate rules are designed to fail. The article covers the gymnastics of rules manipulation used by both parties in getting the health and financial reform acts passed. When you get to the end of the story, you will read what legislation is sitting in limbo and why.

May I also suggest while reading the account, do what I did and assume the positions of liberals, progressives, moderates, conservatives and all the extremes on both sides.

As you will learn, it’s no longer the whales vs. the minnows. It’s the minority imposing their will on the majority. The Senate membership is short on elite leaders while growing stronger with panderers to the vast network of lobbyists.

Little surprise the Senators budget their time in which all never read the legislation before them and instead take their marching orders from Senate leaders, caucus chairmen and subordinate staff with ideological crosses to bear. They dare not miss those 15-minute intervals to call constituents and raise money for reelection campaigns.

To say the U.S. Senate is the greatest chamber ever designed to debate issues is, as one Senator in the article suggests, a bad joke.

Draw your own conclusions.