Germany Does What America Should Do

Two countries face terrorist threats. One does something about it, the other dithers. Germany recently shut down a mosque in Hamburg that spawned at least one of the 9-11 bombers. At the same time, the American left and the Kumbaya artists use flawed logic, poor Constitutional law, and Orwellian thinking to justify support for a mega-mosque just a few steps away from the spot where the 9-11 murderers carried out their plans.

The picture shows a citizen walking past the Taiba mosque, which has blessedly been shut down for good. Originally known as the Al Quds mosque, 9-11 ringleaders Mohammed Atta, Marwan Al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah were all regulars there. The Germans tried tolerance after arresting or deporting some of the remaining jhadists, but as can be expected, it didn't work. The mosque again became a hotbed of organizing for future attacks on innocent civilians, western civilization, Jews and Christians. For those of you who aren't aware of an historical fact, mosques are not "holy ground" like churches. Their original and historical purpose was a place to store armaments for jihad against the infidels. And regardless of what the distorters of Islamic theology say, jihad doesn't mean "a personal struggle to please Allah." Nothing much has changed.

For multiple good reasons, the Germans closed a mosque that was a danger to their national security, a threat to all non-Islamic people, and (importantly) a front for the Islamic concept of jihad and the melding of religious belief with hostile political action. The Germans may not have a First Amendment, but they know the difference between free speech and religion and a clear and present danger. Such is not the case here in America. The most recent and egregious example of America's inability to believe in itself and the rules of civilization is the approval of a mosque practically sitting on top of Ground Zero.

Make no mistake--it's a mosque. It can be called an Islamic Center or the Holy of Holies for all I care, but only a complete fool would believe that it's anything other than a mosque. It's quantum leaps larger than the German mosque, and it has the additional advantage of poking an Islamic finger in the eye of decent Americans who consider Ground Zero to be holy ground. Its founders are radical Islamists who speak peace and reconciliation out of one side of their mouths and jihad out of the other.

Leftists, cuckoos, families of 9-11 victims who suffer from Stockholm syndrome, and Constitution-perverters have all jumped in to muddy the waters so that reasonable people can't see the obvious. This isn't a First Amendment issue. Cities have control over who builds what, and where, and anything that doesn't fit into the city's normal plans can be dismissed without any further explanation. You can't build a church in the middle of a freeway. You can't build a synagogue in on the grounds of the local public high school. And there's nothing in the law or the Constitution that requires that New York City allow a mosque to be built in the middle of a commercial district.

In addition, the First Amendment is no more absolute than any other portion of the Bill of Rights. Which is where the clear and present danger test comes in. If the governmental body can demonstrate a compelling state interest in preventing otherwise protected activities, then it can and should do so. The religious issue that the leftists and jihadists raise here is minor and tangential to the political message that Islam wants to foment at this building site. And that message is that Islam must subjugate all other religions and peoples, using mass murder as a method if necessary. That is being taught in mosques nationwide, and this mosque will just be the same thing writ large.

But there are serious Constitutional scholars of a conservative bent who would disagree with me on whether there is a compelling state interest, and that's fine. If it's a judgment call, we should err on the side of protecting the First Amendment. So what? There are dozens of other practical and planning considerations which could stop the building of the mosque without addressing the religous issue at all. But political-correctness, lack of will, cowardice in the face of jihadist threats to sue, and just plain suicidal idiocy have contributed to this exercise in cultural oversensitivity.

The sheep who are allowing this wolf's den project to go forward don't even see the inconsistencies in the proponents' own arguments. "It will be a place of reconciliation." Where in the New York City building and planning codes does it say anything about having to approve reconciliation centers? "It will be a cultural and historical center." Same question. What if the locals don't want a reconciliation center or a cultural center in the neighborhood? Where's the First Amendment argument there? What kind of reconciliation center is built so as to promote irreconcilable differences with the very people who will have to look at it on a daily basis and be reminded of the hole down the street that created a mass burial center for 3,000 innocent civilians? And the great inconsistency: If, as the proponents say, it's not a mosque, then where's the First Amendment argument? You can't have it both ways, boys and girls.

Even with the First Amendment argument, the Constitution only prohibits excessive governmental interference in the practice of religion. Neutrality, if you will. Given all the other non-religious reasons mitigating against the mosque's planned location, it's not excessive governmental interference with religion to ask that they plan their next attack somewhere closer to midtown Manhattan than to Ground Zero. They can be just as religious in a grand mosque located a mile from Ground Zero. The religious/First Amendment issue is a damned red herring, a diversion, a smokescreen, to cover up the fact that most of the governmental entities involved in this decision have lost all sense of perspective, have caved in to pressure from religious organizations so long as they aren't Christian or Jewish, and are more solicitous of Islamic sensitivities than they are of the feelings of millions upon millions of Americans.

The only difference between the mosque in Hamburg and the proposed mosque in New York City is that the jihadists in New York City haven't started plotting the next mass murder--yet. And one more thing while I'm on my rant. The other mantra of the politically correct is that "jihadists comprise only a small percentage of Muslims." To that I say, read Burke. "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." If 95% of Muslims in America don't support jihad, then the least they could do is come out actively against it. I don't see any indication that such a thing has happened or is likely to happen. The mass murderers who comprised the Communist Party in the Soviet Union and Maoist China never reached much more than 10% of the population. Do I need to point out what a militant 10% can accomplish?

Add to all of this the recent revelation that the "owners" of the property who want to build this monstrosity are actually only the half-owners. The other half is owned by Con Edison, a public utility which has remained shamefully quiet during this entire debate, hoping that nobody will notice that they could scrap the whole plan just by deciding they don't like the look of the building. More cowardice, more political correctness, and more misplaced sensitivity.