Alternatively, I wish I had the gift of satire and wit of the Right Honourable Van Cruncheon and his ilk. To be able to skillfully dismiss your concerns with a couple lines that makes others break out in uncontrolled laughter. Unfortunately, I do not, and instead, I am irredeemably earnest.
So to you, drew, I say this:
This controversy is indeed a litmus test issue. Unfortunately, it is one in which you have been found wanting. Because for anyone to know the facts of the case, and to come down on the side of "this mosque must not be built!", then they are indeed on the side of the reactionaries, the bigots, and the irrationally fearful.
Because, for as much as here in the year 2010, we are the products of cynicism, and bitterness....as much as the United States of America seems to be losing its way as the inmates try their best to run the asylum...as much as serious issues are ignored or put aside in favour of the histrionics of the day...and as much as the history of America is filled with pain, mistakes and suffering that mar the high aims and ideals of its founding...
if America remains any sort of example to the world....if terms such as "liberty", and "freedom" mean anything other than being vacuous expressions of self-congratulatory chest-thumping by rednecks at NASCAR races, then one cannot offer any sort of opposition to a group of people who decide to purchase an amount of private land, and of their own free will, decide to construct a place of worship on that land.
So yes, if you disagree with that, I would say that this filthy socialist canuck understands America, or at least America as it was meant to be, better than you ever will.
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