Just Where Is The Lincoln Memorial, Anyhow? 650
John3 writes "Searching Google Maps for the Lincoln Memorial is returning the location of the FDR Memorial instead. Conservative bloggers smell a conspiracy since Glenn Beck is holding his 'Restoring Honor' gathering at the Lincoln Memorial tomorrow (August 28). Notes for the map listing on Google state 'This place has unverified edits'; so, did someone claim the listing and edit the location?"
Re:Ed hardy handbags (Score:1, Insightful)
GASP! Google maps is wrong! (Score:3, Insightful)
The memorial is about half a km north west of what google maps highlights. Google maps has been far more wrong before...
Re:You need directions? (Score:5, Insightful)
They talked for a bit and soon found out the tourist was from New York. The local said, "Oh, I've been there. I visited the statue of liberty." The New Yorker said, "Oh, yeah. I've been planning to go there one of these days....."
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't be a toolbox. Red State makes no mention of a conspiracy, and WTH is "Moonbats" anyway? A real leading conservative blog there. Beck is an entertainer, not a serious voice, yet so many on the left and right moon over him. The summary is just a another smear of conservatives, and since that fits your world view filled with hatred you consider it valid.
Re:True patriots (Score:5, Insightful)
This is bad (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Politics aside, wtf is wrong with Google? (Score:3, Insightful)
Google doesn't have that accurate a source of landmarks, so they've left them as Wiki-style editable. With such a politically charged event scheduled for tomorrow, it doesn't take that many Beck-dislikers to toy with navigation... anybody trying to find the rally with an iPhone will get the wrong directions if this is allowed to stand.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
You bring up another great point too. Why on a site that is "News for Nerds" would people mock creationists? It's just not fair! Teach the controversy!
Re:True patriots (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:True patriots (Score:5, Insightful)
REAL AMERICANS unfortunately have trouble finding the United States on a map, much less a famous landmark. Remember that famous botch job by the Miss America contestant? Because her answer was so stupid most people didn't notice that the question was: why can't 1 in 5 Americans find the US on the map? Yes, I'm an American. Yes, I'm embarrassed by that.
Re:This is bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The answer? Simple (Score:2, Insightful)
The Metro is a communist conspiracy. Real Americans drive everywhere and don't notice that the road are government-funded as well.
Government funded roads are a communist conspiracy.
Re:True patriots (Score:5, Insightful)
...and pollute our precious bodily fluids
Re:You need directions? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:True patriots (Score:4, Insightful)
That's nothing, 20% still believe the sun revolves around the earth and 25% believe we got our independence from a country other than Britain.
Re:True patriots (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The answer? Simple (Score:5, Insightful)
Government funded roads are a communist conspiracy.
Specifically, they are part of plank 6 of the 10 point program of Communism [wikipedia.org] in the Communist Manifesto. Although, it also states "These measures will of course be different in different countries.", and without assuming the reasons why we make these decisions, you must agree that we are on a road of which Marx would have approved.
Re:GASP! Google maps is wrong! (Score:1, Insightful)
What in the world is a kilometer? This is America, sir.
Re:Beck's Sheep Can't Find the Lincoln Memorial? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Politics aside, wtf is wrong with Google? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Politics aside, wtf is wrong with Google? (Score:4, Insightful)
http://www.bvblackspin.com/2010/04/15/black-tea-party-member/ [bvblackspin.com]
http://www.theroot.com/views/black-tea-partiers-speak [theroot.com]
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/09/black_tea_party_express_tour_t.html [americanthinker.com]
http://www.theroot.com/views/should-black-folks-give-tea-party-second-look?page=0,1&hpid=topnews [theroot.com]
http://www.theroot.com/views/who-you-callin-uncle-tom [theroot.com]
http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2009/08/17/20090817obama-scene.html [azcentral.com] (this is the article that MSNBC cut apart to show gun-toting crazies at tea party rallies - except that it was a black man carrying that weapon freely and nobody thought he was a danger, kinda shoots your theory down doesn't it?)
Certain groups are terrified of what the Tea Party stands for, and they've played the race card in order to try and stop it. The fact that you believe it and espouse this shit means you're just a mindless patsy that can't think for yourself.
Re:You need directions? (Score:1, Insightful)
There's still a big difference between knowing where somewhere is on a map and actually getting to that location when you're on the ground in a possibly unfamiliar area.
Re:You need directions? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Statue of Liberty trip is practically an in-joke among New Yorkers. Many (most?) New Yorkers have never been to it, though everybody can see it when you're driving around the bottom of the FDR or West Side Highway. I actually have a beautiful view of it from my living room (I live right on the Hudson River), and have never actually taken the ferry to the Statue of Liberty proper, though I once took a ferry trip to Ellis Island, and that boat took us around the Statue for a fairly close look.
The lines to take the ferry to Liberty Island are ridiculously long on weekends (like 3-4 hours), I walk by them every weekend on my morning walks through Battery Park, so unless you have a weekday off in the city, it actually takes as long to go to the Statue of Liberty as it does to drive to Boston.
Same reason I've never been to the top of the Empire State Building - ridiculous lines.
Re:Glenn Beck's Idiots are a Problem (Score:2, Insightful)
Unlike the Panthers of Philly who intimidate voters, unlike the protesters at G-8 who smash and break things. You are a moron. I thought the Tea Parties were a bunch of red neck hicks until I actually attended one. You know what I found out, sure there were red neck hicks there, but probably less than 5% of the crowd were Hicks, but the rest were what you would consider hard working middle class folks. They left the rally or Tea Party in almost the same shape or cleaner that it was before they held it there, the people picked up the trash. I have been to rallies where a bunch people mostly of the liberal persuasion who left the place a complete and utter mess. Yeah, why don't you do a search on how many people get arrested at a Tea Party compared to any protest event held by people on the far left. Gee, The lawbreaking scum that are the Anarachists are pissed about the tea party because they make them look bad and expose them as the miserable human beings they are. That is why there is so much animosity against them.
Re:True patriots (Score:5, Insightful)
I Call Straw Man (Score:1, Insightful)
This seems to me as a straw man argument to imply that "conservatives are paranoid". There are two links listed. As far as I can tell, the one doesn't say anything about a conspiracy. The other link seems to be the craziest anti-leftest they could find, so he at least is depicted correctly. However, to say that Glenn Beck supporters are all conservative or that conservatives are paranoid is a bit of a stretch. I don't think many Beck supporters will even notice the Google map, as they probably all have a paper map somewhere.
Many of Beck's supporters wouldn't vote for a conservative or a Republican to save their lives. If you recall, before Fox picked him up, he was on CNN's Headline News which could in no way be thought of as conservative. The liberal station loved him then while he was bashing George Bush and Republicans. Now, the liberals are in power and he's countering environmentalism and socialism. This time, it's Fox who likes him and CNN that hates him, but his basic message is the same.
His detractors use ad-hominem attacks and straw man arguments to refute him. They say things like "He cries on TV!" and "His supporters are rednecks!", but very rarely have I heard any arguments against his message. I think that many people have trouble agreeing on what part of his message they don't like. For instance if they say they don't like him because he didn't support Bush or McCain, their friend might have liked that, but dislike that he doesn't support global warming legislation. It's so much easier to just attack the man and people who like him.
Re:Politics aside, wtf is wrong with Google? (Score:5, Insightful)
From the people I have talked to at the one Tea Party I happened to walk by on lunch break I found out most of them are decent people who have some conservative leanings, but mostly have Libertarian or "Classical Liberal" Leanings. Sure there were some far right wing nut bags in the group but they were VASTLY out numbered by people who, if you put them on a political scale were far more libertarian than full on democrat or republican.
Plus they didn't wreck the place and leave a mess after the rally unlike other groups whom I have seen leave a mess in their wake.
Let these people protest, they aren't hurting anyone yet. To say they are evil and scum is wrong for now. Give them the benefit of the doubt and let's see what happens. I would have thought that a lot of the people who once decried their right to protest and assemble are the same people who are now looking to demonize these people are making themselves look like hypocrites they are. Judging the Tea Party people this way would be like instituting a "pre-crime" policy and arresting anyone in sight whom the police "think" might commit a crime. It is wrong.
If the Tea Party Rallies were doing some of the same things that the Anarchists were doing at their rallies I could see the point of what the talking heads are talking about how "bad they are". So far from all of the B-roll footage I have seen on TV of all of the tea party events I have yet to see the police throwing tear gas and mass arrests of protesters. I have yet to see people being beaten up and people running away with bloodied brows. I have seen the occasional weird screwball sign, but last i heard we still have a the First Amendment as part of our bill of rights.
I will be watching tomorrow on C-SPAN and see it for myself, I am not going to listen to the pundits on either MSNBC (who will make jokes about sexual acts between two consenting men) or Fox News (who will be inflating the number of people in attendance). I will reserve judgement because it is the correct thing to do. I am keeping my "jump to conclusions mat" in it's box.
Re:Patriotism Is the Last Refuge of a Scoundrel (Score:2, Insightful)
The .fortune at the bottom of the page showing this story say:
Slashdot has achieved artificial intelligence. Or it's another part of the same conspiracy hiding the Lincoln Memorial from Beck's zombie army. Or both, since "reality has a well-known liberal bias" (- Stephen Colbert).
My .fortune offers a retort: "Power, like a desolating pestilence, Pollutes whate'er it touches... -- Percy Bysshe Shelley"
Re:True patriots (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Politics aside, wtf is wrong with Google? (Score:5, Insightful)
toadlife's experience mirrors my own, except I know a few more tea partiers then him (or her), and they are all high-income with a good deal of "ethnic animosity", quite seriously considerably past any desire of mine to continue associating with them, much less voting for any of their causes (almost all of which turns out to be based on provably false dogma).
So how many people is that? Five? Ten? And you're willing to generalize to a large group, that you happen to disagree with from the start and know little about, based on this huge sample of people you claim to know? You know what this sounds like to me? Brazen hypocrisy. Now, don't get me wrong. I indulge in it every so often myself. But the "the whole group is racist because I know a couple of people" argument is ludicrously hypocritical. Maybe even a tad bit idiotic.
Re:Politics aside, wtf is wrong with Google? (Score:4, Insightful)
My conjecture: Most of the tea party folks got involved because the president doesn't look like them. And that scared the hell out of them. Disprove that.
Proof: you don't supply evidence to support your conjecture. Give the absence of evidence to distinguish between that hypothesis and the null hypothesis (that there is no measurable difference in racial attitudes between the tea party folks and the general population), one cannot rationally accept the conjecture.
How is he an idiot? No, really. (Score:5, Insightful)
He sells lots of books, gets a lot of money for a TV show and has many, many minions. Wait, how is he an idiot again?
Look, I have no use for the guy, but he's accomplishing more than you or me. We may not agree with what he's accomplishing, but that's irrelevant. I wish I had thought of it. *I* want minions, dammit! I need to find an underserviced fringe of my own to cater to.
You really think he believes half the shit he says? He's playing to the hyper-right niche. Same with Ann Coulter, or Michael Moore for a lefty example. They have targeted an audience and feed them what they want to hear. If Sarah Palin has any brain at all she'll just play the lecture circuit for the rest of her days and put out more books.
Oh, and people like him *LOVE* people like you. Your dislike and insults just play to his cause and give him legitimacy in the eyes of his target market.
Re:True patriots (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes. 6% is acceptable. I mean, 100% would be nice, but that's just not going to happen. 6% of respondents may have not taken it seriously, been insane, provided an answer that was unintelligible, meant to say "The US" but accidentally said something else, left the question blank on accident, found the question insulting, been drunk or high, etc or some combination thereof.
It also says at the top that "The margin of error for the total sample is +/- 4.4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level."
How does that 6% compare to other countries? I'm guessing it's not that different from many others, and probably a lot higher than many countries with lower education.
Re:Politics aside, wtf is wrong with Google? (Score:2, Insightful)
It's the classic "No way are we racist, look, there's a black guy!"
The fact of the matter is that racism is endemic within the Tea Party, and if it's not, then its clearly tolerated. The most vocal members of the movement frequently make blatantly racist statements. The majority of the protest signs carry racist sentiments. And shall we discuss the immigration views the tea party espouses? If you prefer, I might accept the argument that the tea party stance on immigration isn't racism, merely xenophobia -- but I think reasonable minds will agree its definitely some form of bigotry.
Meanwhile, Sarah Palin expects people to "refudiate" people who want to build a mosque as a symbol of national unity, but does the Tea Party ever call out their racist members? Do they ever hold them to account for their words? Of course not. It's a racist movement. Are there a few black people? Sure, but only a *few*. Not unexpected from a group that attracts oddballs.
And lastly, you're kidding yourself if you think anybody is "afraid" of what the Tea Party stands for, other than the rise of domestic terrorism it portends (we've already seen too much of this, sadly). From a political standpoint, it's the best gift liberals ever got. A schism right down the middle of the conservative backbone of America. It's amazing! Republican politicians are in an impossible situation.
If they don't pick a side, they risk losing both sides, and yet in most parts of the country they need the votes from BOTH sides to win their elections. For every Republican that'll only vote for you if you pay lip service to the Tea Party, there's one that doesn't want to vote for an extremist that does. Liberals are absolutely loving it. It's a trainwreck.
Re:I Call Straw Man (Score:1, Insightful)
Before he switched networks, he thought the U.S. medical system was a failure. When reform was proposed and he worked for FOX, it was suddenly the best system in the world.
It's easy to attack the man, because he's a contrarian buffoon.
Re:And something you tend to find with geography (Score:4, Insightful)
This is all very true of course. As a UK native, I don't know where many of the states are relative to each other. There's an episode of Friends (yeah, yeah, we all watch it sometimes...) where Ross gets increasingly annoyed because he can't even list all the states.
I've been to Belize, for example, but when telling someone about it forgot that it was in Central America, not South. I think geographical knowledge grows slowly as you get older - and visit more countries.
However, there is sometimes the impression that US citizens know more about the geography of their own country than of others around the world. I suspect that Europeans who know where all the countries of the EU are (and yet miss many states) also know where, say, Korea is. Or Saudi Arabia. The attitude of "what I know is important" is annoying - but surely there is a middle ground between listing ALL countries and having a balanced knowledge of the whole world.
Frankly, many foreigners will not know where states are because - as you say - they "don't make the news a lot" :) They aren't individually important in the world, unlike the US as a whole.
Re:Politics aside, wtf is wrong with Google? (Score:2, Insightful)
The fact of the matter is that racism is endemic within the Tea Party, and if it's not, then its clearly tolerated. The most vocal members of the movement frequently make blatantly racist statements. The majority of the protest signs carry racist sentiments. And shall we discuss the immigration views the tea party espouses? If you prefer, I might accept the argument that the tea party stance on immigration isn't racism, merely xenophobia -- but I think reasonable minds will agree its definitely some form of bigotry.
Citation please for the actions of significant tea party racism (beyond that of US norm) or for that matter significant tolerance of racism (again beyond that of US norm). Surely you can vomit a half dozen links on command like those other guys. Until then, reasonable minds are going to have to assume that you're full of shit.
Is it just me or do other people find it bizarre that we seem to have a full blown talking points war going on here? I wonder if there's ever been a slashdot thread where the only posters have been shills pushing their respective propaganda in some sort of perverted simulation of real debate. If there have been, I imagine it'd look eerily like this thread.
My view is that the racism accusation is unfounded. First, any group of large enough size will have racists and other sorts of bigots in it. For example, a couple of slashdotters exhibit it (here [slashdot.org] and here [slashdot.org]) when they characterize an entire movement as racist based on a few people that they "know". Where's the evidence that the tea party groups are unusually racist compared to any other political group?
Second, the only concrete accusation you made is that tea party people are anti-immigration (well aside from the accusation that Sarah Palin is a tea partier, a very serious charge indeed). Here's my take on how to determine whether someone is for or against open immigration. Does open immigration benefit them directly or a political group that they identify with? If yes, then they're for immigration. If no, then they aren't. Since immigrants tend to be of particular ethnicities rather than no ethnicity, then we have the ingredients for a groundless charge of racism.
Let's talk Sarah Palin since this is turning into a very serious thread.
Meanwhile, Sarah Palin expects people to "refudiate" people who want to build a mosque as a symbol of national unity
Uh huh. While I don't care if someone wants to sink a lot of money into a propaganda tool such as the infamous "ground zero mosque" (the building probably transfers resources from authoritarian Middle East powers and transfers it to the US economy, something I see as a net benefit), I can't help but view statements as the above with a cynical humor. If these people were really interested in "national unity", they probably wouldn't have put that building with the role it has there. They probably just want to get their narrative into the 9/11 myth and a nice building is classier than billboards.
And Sarah the Refudiator doesn't seem any worse than the crop of presidents we've had over the past few decades. Not that I'd vote for her. Her bizarre behavior since the 2008 election means she's very unpredictable. Frankly, I want someone that both has views parsimonious with mine, decent integrity, and an even keel. At a glance, a Palin presidency would be wasting most of its time putting out fires that it started itself. Maybe that's better than when a presidency is doing something "constructive", but I really don't appreciate being deeply humiliated by my presidents.
If they don't pick a side, they risk losing both sides, and yet in most parts of the country they need the votes from BOTH sides to win their elections. For every Republican that'll only vote for you if you pay lip service to the Te
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And something you tend to find with geography (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, I stopped taking any geography when I was 13, such choice being a luxury of a non-National-Curriculum school. Some of what came under geography, e.g. resource mining and the worker issues surrounding it, was very interesting to me. But labelling of countries was not stimulating. I remember doing the British equivalent of memorising all the English counties etc. one evening, but today I have to, "Where's that?" for most of them. My brain just doesn't care what or where Northumbria (Northumberland?) and Wessex are. Perhaps it's related that I also hate jargon for its own sake - there seems to be so much of it now computing has become "cool". In both cases, it's all political/marketing.
However, I don't think people mock the US citizens simply because they are ignorant about the world. The frustration arises because US citizens are ignorant about the world while its elected government exerts tremendous influence on the world. If your democracy is at war, something is very wrong if a lot of citizens don't know where most of the troops are deployed (I would say "which country you're fighting against" but we're having one of those 1984 style wars against no-one and everyone). If your representatives think that Iran is a menace and potentially a good target for war, it should be because you (as a group) generally think the same. If you know nothing about Iran except that women don't get to wear bikinis and that Ahmadinejad hates Israel, something is broken.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And something you tend to find with geography (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, and that map didn't include eastern Europe. Not a very good comparison.
Re:Politics aside, wtf is wrong with Google? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Politics aside, wtf is wrong with Google? (Score:3, Insightful)
teabaggers
Name calling is not a form of argument. It only makes you look like an idiot.
if you consider Palin to be the start
Not even close. I watch CNBC. I clearly remember seeing the birth of the tea party movement, live.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp-Jw-5Kx8k [youtube.com]
Palin didn't sign on until well after the fact, when all Republican politicians were signing onto the movement because it became popular.
Re:Politics aside, wtf is wrong with Google? (Score:5, Insightful)
While I can understand how you got that impression from his comments, I don't think Tea Party activists in general are the same as libertarians. It's more than an ordering of priorities from what I've seen. The libertarian party is about personal freedoms for everyone even people they didn't like. They wanted to reduce government size to maximize personal freedom.
While saying a group that wants to reduce government size is the same thing with different priorities... I haven't seen the personal freedom part of the Tea Bagger movement. Sure, they talk about freedom, but when questioned they always seem to be interested in their own freedom while opposing freedom for others. Many oppose simple freedom of religion, for example, not to mention individual freedom based on sex and sometimes even race. Where are the freedom loving tea Party activists that want to legalize gay marriage, polygamous marriage, and any other kind of marriage to get the government out of making religious choices for people? I've seen more of them express the opinion that the government should be making interracial marriage illegal than gay marriage legal. That's bigger government, not smaller.
Actually, from what I've seen the Tea Party seems to be a corporate sponsored movement designed to appeal to people's fear and prejudice and to the previously built "us versus them" political mentality, with the goal of preventing the government from effectively regulating and stopping the worst practices of big businesses, whether that is to poison our land and people for profit, or leverage wealth disparity to bleed the poor and middle class using capital as leverage. I sympathize with some people who associate themselves with the Tea Party. I don't like either of the major parties either... but I just don't think the movement itself is sane or cohesive and I think it is directed by advertising agencies with ulterior motives. I mean seriously, they're supposedly a movement that is about overcoming the two party system and breaking free of it, yet they only ever support candidates who were republican and they have never even mentioned (to my knowledge) electoral reform to actually do something about opening things up to non-republican and non-democratic candidates. That's a lot more than a reordering of priorities. That's fundamentally different philosophy.
Re:Politics aside, wtf is wrong with Google? (Score:3, Insightful)
I only know three, but every "tea partier" I personally know is an older white person who harbors what I would call..."ethnic animosity".
I don't think you're going to find an older person - white OR black - that doesn't harbor racial animosity on some level. In fact it has been said by many different people that we all harbor at least some prejudice against those that are different from us. The point is that just because there's a large group of predominately white people, it doesn't mean that group is racist.
Hell, even my Dad who is a dyed-in-the-wool progressive and participated in civil rights marches in the 1960's has expressed sentiments that can come across as "racist". It's doesn't mean he's racist. He's just an old white dude who suffers from the same fears as other older white people.
Absolutely. Another factor is experience and empathy - My father grew up and has lived in a 99% non-black area near the Canadian border in the midwest. His experience is different so he can't relate. I cringe when I hear some of the stuff he says, but its ignorance and he'll likely never be able to understand some things about white privilege. (But he can tell you all about the silly arguments and problems between the German, Swede, Finnish, and Norwegian cultures he grew up around)
But again, a group of mostly white people is not racist because it's a group of mostly white people, and though you call it a generalization, I stand by my first statement that people who claim otherwise are racist themselves.
The "poor" aren't the issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Before healthcare reform conservatives/right wingers were bitching and moaning about "poor/cheap/unemployed/lazy" uninsured people bringing down the system and raising costs for insured citizens because they can always get healthcare, insured or not. This bill forces them to get insurance.
This bill forces everyone to buy insurance whether they want to or not, and worse, forces them to buy it from a private third party under penalty of law. Not even the most extreme reading of the Commerce Clause justifies that, and I look forward to your excuses when SCOTUS throws the mandate out as unconstitutional.
If complaining right wingers really want to fix the problem, they should propose a law banning all healthcare for uninsured citizens who can't pay out of pocket. See how well that goes over.
If we really want to fix the problem... to the extent that it can be fixed... then we'll propose what we've proposed for years... for Congress to use the Commerce Clause in what is actually a productive, Constitutional manner and ban states from restricting interstate health insurance competition, which most of them do. This is one of the few issues where the states are wrong about the 10th Amendment. The states don't have a right to tell me I can't buy from a company in another state, and opening up a national market would mean national risk pools. Health insurance would then become more like car insurance. If car insurance were restricted by the states in the way that health insurance is, then no one could afford to drive either. There's a real market for auto insurance, though.
As for your concern about the poor, I might be moved more if I didn't suspect that your solution was probably "let the government handle it". You can help the poor without screwing the rights of everyone else, which this "reform" bill did. Further, this isn't an issue of "the poor", and never was. The poor have had access to paid healthcare for years. That's what Medicaid is, after all. In addition to that, most states have a program for uninsured children if you don't meet the poverty criteria but still have limited income. In Alabama it's called AlKids. The real issue is affordable health insurance for the not poor-and yet-not rich. Which *gasp!* a real market would go a long way towards helping.
Re:You need directions? (Score:3, Insightful)
Google tries to stay out of politics.
As another poster pointed out with the China angle, your statement is laughable, sir. It would be more accurate to say that Google tries to downplay politics, but the company is neck-deep in politics every day.
Glenn Beck is getting the message not to piss off those who contribute to Wikis.
We're all getting the message that some Wiki contributors are throwing a temper tantrum because Glenn Beck is, horror of horrors, holding an assembly in front of the Lincoln Memorial. You know, like other people have been doing for years. What a crime, eh?
Re:Politics aside, wtf is wrong with Google? (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh huh. While I don't care if someone wants to sink a lot of money into a propaganda tool such as the infamous "ground zero mosque" (the building probably transfers resources from authoritarian Middle East powers and transfers it to the US economy, something I see as a net benefit), I can't help but view statements as the above with a cynical humor. If these people were really interested in "national unity", they probably wouldn't have put that building with the role it has there. They probably just want to get their narrative into the 9/11 myth and a nice building is classier than billboards.
I don't think you have even though for a moment about the perspective of muslims in the US. Imagine your religion was being branded as extremist and violent despite 99.999% of the followers never acting out of violence. It's like branding christians as violent extremists because of what has happened in northern Ireland. How would you take a stand and show the people that your religion itself and most followers aren't violent and dangerous, but peaceful and very willing to work with others of other religions to help society?
Sure they started building a community center near the site of the 9/11 attacks, as a way to foster unity and help educate people and show people that the muslim religion can be a force for good things in a community. It's not like they expected it to be a major political issue because there are already dozens of them in the area, just as close.
Rather, this has become a propaganda war by fear mongers who want to brand the entire religion as evil, and want to go so far as to overthrow basic freedoms of our society in order to have a boogey man. If you oppose their right to put a mosque or anything else there, you are opposing the foundation of our country, personal freedom, political freedom, and religious freedom. Anyone who has read the works of the founding fathers and hasn't just read bits out of context and ignored the rest, has to acknowledge that truth.
And as for transferring money out of the middle east from "authoritarian middle east powers" clearly you must only be getting your news exclusively from Fox, the only station that hasn't covered the source of the funding is primarily the Kingdom Foundation run by Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, who is also the second biggest Shareholder in News Corp (Fox). He's not particularly an authoritarian, but rather has acted fairly middle of the road, as a business man and donating to charities that help bridge cultural gaps between the east and west.
The only people I see objecting to the community center are people who also seem to be in favor of expelling all muslims fro the US and who are so scared they think it's a good idea to abolish religious freedom in the US... while being ignorant or completely without perspective on the ramifications such an action would have.
Re:Politics aside, wtf is wrong with Google? (Score:1, Insightful)
... I have yet to see the police throwing tear gas and mass arrests of protesters. I have yet to see people being beaten up and people running away with bloodied brows. I have seen the occasional weird screwball sign, but last i heard we still have a the First Amendment as part of our bill of rights.
A fair point, but here's another one. It always seems that when conservative or right-wing groups show up for a rally, police don't seem to have massed armed troops in riot gear, warehouses converted into temporary prisons, or infiltrators inserted into the organizing groups well in advance of said events. It's almost like those in authority seem to take sides in things, but this is America and that couldn't possibly happen here---right?
Re:He's a racist religous nutjob with a show on Fo (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the current definition of "concervative" in the US. Most of his viewers probably define themselves this way.
OK, prove your assertion. Specifically what makes Beck... or conservatives for that matter... racist? What makes him a nutjob? Be specific. You're making the accusations. The onus is on you to prove them.
If you don't agree with conservatism or don't like Beck, fine. But if you're going to accuse them of these things, man up and prove it. I see you've been modded informative when the only thing you've informed us is that you've made a bunch of accusations... some of them serious...without any citations.
Re:Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, and us right-wingers will still complain about healthcare reform, because forcing people to buy insurance doesn't reform the healthcare industry, it gives money to the insurance companies. For a lot of people, the cost of healthcare insurance is so high, that it is crippling. Before I cancelled my policy at work, I was paying $800 a month for insurance. Of course, with copayments and coinsurance, if we went to the doctor, we would still owe another hundred dollars or more still. So we cancelled the insurance, and just pay for the doctor out of pocket. When you look at the cost of paying out of pocket versus paying the premiums and the coinsurances and copayments, it is cheaper to pay out of pocket. Unless you are a genuinely unhealthy person who has a lot of doctors bills, of course. But that is not what insurance is for. Insurance is for "what if", not the unfortunate reality of a health condition.
Lincoln who? (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, ya, that guy with clinical depression with a touch of megalomania.
Re:And something you tend to find with geography (Score:5, Insightful)
Right. Knowing what nations border Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran -- completely unimportant.
The fact that more than 6 out of ten American young adults (18 to 24) can't find Iraq on a map of the middle East [nationalgeographic.com], that 20% of them think Sudan is in Asia [wikipedia.org], and that almost half think that the majority population in India is Muslim, doesn't have any deleterious foreign policy.
And I've got a bridge for sale. (Don't be bothered by the fact that it's no where near any river, valley, or other geographical feature that the requires bridging...)
Re:Beck's Sheep Can't Find the Lincoln Memorial? (Score:1, Insightful)
Eventually line his pockets? The fine print at the bottom of his 828 webpage specifically states that all money made from this goes to pay for the event/people and what's left goes to SOWF. That is, we get paid first, and the charity that we're supposed to be restoring honor for and getting money for gets paid last (if at all).
"The purchase of Restoring Honor Rally merchandise is not a donation to SOWF, but all net proceeds from the sale of Restoring Honor Rally merchandise is being donated to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. All contributions made to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation (SOWF) will first be applied to the costs of the Restoring Honor Rally taking place on August 28, 2010. All contributions in excess of these costs will then be retained by the SOWF."
Stephen Colbert restored my honor than this rally will. At least when he did the "Wrist Strong" campaign for the Yellow Ribbon Fund he gave 100% of proceeds not what ever is left when I take my huge share.
Re:Politics aside, wtf is wrong with Google? (Score:2, Insightful)
They called themselves teabaggers, at first. After a couple of days of tee-heeing on the Internet, they changed it to tea partiers. If you are cultivating a snarky, contemptuous tone then it's perfectly suitable to continue calling them teabaggers. Not all discourse needs to be civil.
Re:Really? (Score:2, Insightful)
Before healthcare reform conservatives/right wingers were bitching and moaning about "poor/cheap/unemployed/lazy" uninsured people bringing down the system and raising costs for insured citizens because they can always get healthcare, insured or not. This bill forces them to get insurance.
If complaining right wingers really want to fix the problem, they should propose a law banning all healthcare for uninsured citizens who can't pay out of pocket. See how well that goes over.
Well that's why conservatives don't like it, because whether you are "poor/cheap/unemployed/lazy" or not doesn't mean the government should be forcing you to buy a product or service. Which is what they are doing. We are a FREE nation and we have the right of freedom of choice.
If the decisions an individual makes over the course of their lives leads them to a state where they are poor, unemployed and without health insurance, that's THEIR OWN DAMN FAULT and it's not my job or my responsibility to provide for them. If I choose to do so on my own, then that is my decision. But I should have the choice.
Re:Politics aside, wtf is wrong with Google? (Score:1, Insightful)
there are several examples of wars in living memory in the Middle East involving unprovoked attacks by 5% of all Muslims or more
I'd be thrilled to hear an example of 80 million Muslims mounting an unprovoked attack.
Aside from your figures being bull I'd also like to point out that a country going to war with another country does in no way mean that all of it's inhabitants are violent extremists. At least I'd like to believe that we are not.
Re:Really? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:True patriots (Score:3, Insightful)
Or, alternately, you can trick the supermutants into attacking Beck. As long as you don't enter the actual area in front of the momument itself, Beck's people won't fire at you, but you can lure supermutants close enough to set up a firefight.
Wait, I've confused the Glenn Beck people with slavers. Silly me...one of those groups aren't racist idiots trying to take advantage of the history of that site.
Re:And something you tend to find with geography (Score:3, Insightful)