Can we just move on already???

September 11, 2001, was a terrible day.  A day that shall live in our nation's memory.  A day when we were attacked on our own soil, when innocent lives were lost in the name of fanaticism.  A day when so many brave souls died trying to help those in the Towers, and when so many more did not die but contracted lifelong diseases from all the crap they inhaled.  A day when brave citizens gave their lives to prevent a fourth plane from crashing into whatever its target may have been.  These people should be remembered and honored.

But can we please move forward already????

I'm not going to be very popular for saying this (I can hear the pitchfork's being sharpened as I type), but it was 9 frickin years ago, people.  Nine years!!!!  Are we still going to mope around and cry over something that has long since past? 

Nine years isn't that long, you say.  Well, I grant you that.  I'm sure that after WWII ended, Veterans' Day was still pretty solemn.  And I don't know when we started Memorial Day, but I'm pretty sure that it wasn't always a beer-guzzling, hot-dog eating fantasma of headonism. 

But nine years is long enough to move forward.  To not be mourning anymore, but rather to honor the dead and act to make sure their deaths were not in vain.  That's right: to sit here and cry about being attacked is bullshit.  You want to honor the fallen of 9/11?  Get your ass out and vote!  Defend freedom and civil liberty!  Educate yourself and your neighbors!  Don't wrap yourself up in a flag and act sanctimonious. 

Why?  Because that's exactly the problem.  To the rest of the world. we are a nation of whiney cry babies with a too-big sense of entitlement.  Yeah, that's right: I said it.  So when we refuse to get over something like 9/11, or Katrina, or any other damned horrid thing that happened, "the terrorists" win.  We only reinforce their reasons (if you can call such irrationality "reason") for hating us. 

Look: the families and friends should absolutely feel sadness and loss, and do so as long as they need to.  But as a nation, we need to put our big-girl panties on and deal.  It happened.  It was awful.  And it's over.  A long time ago.  You wanna mourn something, how about mourning for the lives of our soldiers in Afghanistan, or the state of our budget that has been robbed to pay for it?

But looking to the future requires a maturity and courage that we as a nation just don't have.  So much easier to watch Dancing with the Stars and to blindly regurgitate the crap Hannity spoon feeds us than to actually think and stand up for something.  To actually move beyond the horrible thing in the past and move toward a positive future. 

Yeah, yeah -- I know you are ready to throw stuff at me.  But you know what?  I don't care.  I am not going to blind myself to the world with a blanket of 9/11 self-pity.  I am going to see the event for what it was, and do my best to move us and the world beyond it, into a world where that shit doesn't happen again.  But by all means, if you must, go wave your flag and wallow in it. 
While you're doing that, I'll be having a hot dog.

A Mosque at Ground Zero: Appropriate or Not?

I saw Mayor Bloomberg talking today about how allowing a mosque at Ground Zero was required by freedom of religion and separation of church and State.  He said things like (and I'm paraphrasing here), "if we give in to popular thought and don't allow it, then we allow the terrorists to win."  He reminded us of our Muslim brothers and sisters who died that day and those who grieved with us after.  He said so many things that ring of truth.

Except that they don't. 

Of course I believe in freedom of religion and speech, and separation of church and State.  I also believe that we need to be careful of playing into Al Quaeda's hands with our stupid, pig-headed reactions.  I recognize that there is no guilt-by-association for the Muslims who live and die here.  However, all that does not mean I am onboard with the idea of a mosque at Ground Zero.

It just feels like a big, fat slap in the face to allow a mosque there.  Frankly, I don't see why ANY religious building needs to be there -- it was a church to the dollar bill before, so why change that now?  I have heard that the idea is to have a mosque there to help educate people that bin Laden and friends do not represent the majority of Islam -- and I totally get that.  I support that concept. 

But does it have to be at Ground Zero?  Why not someplace nearby, but not ON the premises?  I say this not out of some misplaced anger, fear, or bigotry toward Muslims;  I say it because it seems disrespectful and in poor taste.  It seems to dishonor the memory of that day. 

How would we feel about putting some sort of Japanese cultural or religious structure at Pearl Harbor?  How do millions of Jews (and others!) feel about the presence of a cross at Auschwitz?  How would the residents of Hiroshima feel if we built a giant cathedral in their town?

I am all for educating the (generally stupid) American masses about Islam and pointing out that 9/11 was perpetrated by fundamentalist nut-jobs.  However, I just cannot find anything within myself that makes it ok to put a mosque at Ground Zero. 

What I find most interesting about this issue is that all the liberal folks on, say, MSNBC, are saying that opinions like mine are bigoted.  I saw Russell Simmons on Keith Olbermann just today, talking about how the push to ban a mosque from G.Z. was some awful, racist, unethical thing.  Really?  I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to call "overdone political correctness" on this one.  Please tell me how it is at all ok, or even necessary, for a mosque to be there? 

I realize that this plays into a bigger phenomenon -- that of people trying to ban mosques in their towns.  Now that is bullshit.  If there are Muslims in your town, then they deserve a place of worship.  Fuck you and your pantywaist, uneducated fears.  In fact, I am quite pleased to see some sort of Islamic center in my own town.  Good for them!

I am not going to say it's Right or Wrong to have a mosque at Ground Zero.  I don't think anyone would go to Hell if we allow one.  What I will say is that it is poor judgment.  Seriously, do the proponents not see how this could be exceedingly offensive?  Are people really going to play into the stereotype of overblown political correctness? 

I'm sorry, but I just feel this is wrong.  I just can't see how it's ok to have a mosque there -- and it's not because I'm some Tea Bagger crazy person.  It is just a slap in the face to all those who died, period.  Out of respect we should not allow it on the premises of Ground Zero.  Near enough by that people can go to it, absolutely.  But GZ itself, I'm sorry.  Let's just rebuild the financial buildings that we need and move on.