Apply ''No Mosque near Ground Zero'' rule to right wing violence

[yurbud]

If Democrats like Howard Dean and Harry Reid are going to cede that the right is right about the "no mosque near Ground Zero" rule, we should at least qualify it by saying we should apply the same logic to acts of right wing violence.

But instead of saying ''no Christian churches near sites of right wing violence'' which would be as unfair as the right implying all mosques harbor terrorists, let's pick something closer to the actually inciting right wing violence: right wing talk radio and Fox News.

Certainly, Bill O'Reilly excoriated abortionist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_George_Tiller">George Tiller on TV before his assassination, so applying the mosque rule, out of respect for Dr. Tiller and his family, everyone listening to right wing talk radio or watching Fox News within two blocks of the Church where he was shot should turn it off. Since most people listen to talk radio in their cars, signs should be posted telling people to turn it off before they drive through the zone of exclusion.

The should be done at that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knoxville_Unitarian_Universalist_church_shooting">Unitarian church shooting, where the culprit said he did it because he hated Democrats, liberals, African Americans and homosexuals, and had books by Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, and Bill O'Reilly on his shelf. Out of respect for the two dead, seven wounded, and hundreds, terrorized, please turn off right wing talk radio in the two block radius zone of exclusion.

And certainly anti-government rhetoric motivated http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing">Tim McVeigh's attack on the Oklahoma City Federal Building, which was after all, a federal government building. They have a nice memorial there now. If you are close enough to see it, you should have already turned off Rush, especially since on the recent anniversary of the attack, http://mediamatters.org/blog/201004230016">he spent time talking sympathetically about the government attack on the Branch Davidians in Waco that Tim McVeigh in part felt he was avenging when he killed 168 people and wounded 680 at the OKC Federal Building.



That one was so big, maybe the zone of exclusion should extend to ALL federal buildings.

Ironically, right wing violence has touched the Ground Zero mosque controversy itself. http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/08/26/2010-08-26_ahmed_sharif_muslim_cab_driver_stabbed_by_bigot_says_he_was_targeted_because_of_.html">Someone stabbed a Muslim cabbie in New York City after asking him whether he was Muslim. The attackers diaries were filled with anti-Muslim rhetoric that sounds awfully familiar. Since many cabbies are Muslim immigrants and cabs drive all over New York City, please turn off right wing talk radio two blocks before you enter the city.

I say this not asking that the government restrain anyone's freedom of speech (or listening), but ask that our friends on the right do this because they have convinced me that this is the proper way to show respect for the victims of terrorism.

[yurbud]

1. This got voted below zero on Reddit. if you like it, give it some DUing there:

http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/d7b2r/apply_no_mosque_near_ground_zero_rule_to_right/

and other social bookmarking sites:

http://buzzflash.net/story.php?id=1125299

http://digg.com/news/politics/professor_smartass_apply_no_mosque_near_ground_zero_rule_to_right_wing_violence

http://www.jabberwonk.com/flinker.cfm?cliid=23xsx

[SheilaT]

2. After the Oklahoma City bombing

some clear thinking person wondered why we weren't rounding up young white males.

[yurbud]

7. profile skinny white farm kids at airports...

[snagglepuss]

3. What you overlook is that Christianity is familiar to most Americans,

so rightly or wrongly people have some ability to make distinctions between wacko xhristian fanatics and the rest. But even with massive exposure to Christianity the level of ignorance is beyond belief amongst puported Christians which was brought home to me when I once heard a women on a call-in program say her family was Catholic but wasn't sure if that meant they were Christians! If people who are Catholic are this confused about Christianity how can people who never had a clue about Islam until 9-11 be expected to make distinctions between radical and moderate Islam? Dean and Reid are simply acknowledging this reality - their position is simply pragmatic.

[yurbud]

5. good point

[Kievan Rus]

4. Don't forget the house in Pittsburgh where three police officers were murdered...

by a racist right-wing nut that believed the officers were coming to take all his guns away because the right-wing noise machine made him believe that.

[yurbud]

6. I tried to narrow it down to a couple of the most familiar and obviously in tune

with talk radio. The list would be infinite if I expanded to racist crimes, but arguably, the racist motive predates our current right wing media.

[yurbud]

8. .

[yurbud]

9. this made the front page of buzzflash!