Sarah Palin Tweets Fuel Ground Zero Mosque Controversy

Okay, time for joking around is over.

The main background is here: "Sarah Palin Won’t ‘Refudiate’ Mosque Comments." (Plus more at Memeorandum.)

But the larger issue is the mosque itself. My long-time blogging pal Wordsmith left a comment this morning at an earlier entry:

Sorry Donald, but I am NOT ok with the National Republican Trust ad. It is nothing short of religious bigotry and a win-win for the global jihad movement.

Wish I had time to go into more details on how I've arrived at this position, but right now, I don't have the patience. Just a lot of anger at the conservative blogosphere.

That got me thinking, naturally, and I posted on the issue this morning. And that entry garnered some excellent comments, from Stogie, for example:

I've thought about this quite a bit, and I don't think the 1st Amendment should protect Islam. It is not just harmless worship, but a totalitarian ideology that seeks to violently overthrow our Constitution and democracy and replace them with Sharia law. The extensive cultural disruption and non-assimilable nature of Islam in Europe has already been clearly noted. Do we want the same problems over here? I think not.

The Constitution, as someone has said, is not a suicide pact. In the 1950s, when we were being undermined by communists "boring from within," would we have allowed communist training centers throughout America? And if they had called themselves "a religion," would that have made it all okay?

Also, from Grizzly Mama:

As an American, raised with American values and beliefs in freedom of religion, I am uncomfortable with even having this debate. BUT...after what we have witnessed of islam in the last ten years, I don't want it anywhere near me or mine. I've become very intolerant of islam - I despise islam's influence in the world and in America. It's a hateful, nasty, intolerant political system. In no way should the Cordoba mosque be allowed anywhere near ground zero. As for Temecula - not sure what to say except that a vast majority of Americans will not be dhimmified and the fight appears to be on. Bring it on. I would hate to see what happened to large swaths of Philly happen to Temecula. Parts of Philly are nasty with radical islam. It's disgusting, and it won't take much for the fuse on this culture war to be lit.

Dana at CSPT commented as well (mostly snark however).

I'm not personally thrilled about Ground Zero, and I join those in protesting it. Seems a slap in the face to those who died and to the living who are still mourning and recovering the dead. I won't personally go so far as banning Islam in America, however, which is what both Stogie and Grizzly are supporting, basically. I'm not sure how we're going to do it, but we've got to find a way to separate jihadi Muslims from those of the faith who reject the Islam's fundamentalist literalism in favor of liberalized version of the religion. (And I'm skeptical that's possible, given my knowledge of Islam as a religion of victory and conquest.)