Two Faces of Obama

[howeird]

First he invokes the 1st Amendment to support the building of a controversial mosque. Then he urges a  preacher to not exercise his 1st Amendment rights.

You can't have it both ways, Barak Hussein. You either support the 1st Amendment or you don't.

And as for your ridiculous statement that the Koran burning will be a major El Qiada recruitment tool, your supporting the mosque was a major Tea Party recruiting tool.

Comments

[gil-liant.livejournal.com]

Well, actually, you can.

There's nothing hypocritical about observing that a person has the right to do something, while also expressing the opinion that actually doing it is ill-advised. Or even just not in the speaker's interest. After all, that is what happens, for example, any time any interested party asks for mercy -- or a favor -- on behalf of themself or someone else.

To suggest any connection or correlation between the two situations is ... short-sighted at best and, in my opinion, disingenuous at worst.

Liberty is the Freedom to do Evil! We must protect that right, while hoping that people will be wise enough not to exercise it. We do this because of the preponderance of situations in which there is no clear consensus as to what constitutes 'Evil', and the recognition that, at its core, it is a matter of personal choice.

[howeird]

Ah, but you see IMHO both the building of the mosque and the burning of the books are provocative acts protected by the First Amendment.

[gil-liant.livejournal.com]

And neither the President, nor myself is suggesting in any way that both acts are not protected under the First Amendment. (At least, so far as I know.)

The President, and many other notables, have suggested that burning the Koran is a hate-filled, small-minded, inflammatory, anti-Christian, anti-American, anti-social, unintelligent, and needlessly provocative act which would not even be considered by those in possession of functional brain cells -- but it is "protected speech".

There are other notables who, sadly, have argued that it is not. And, sadly (but not unfortunately) even those arguments are "protected speech". Liberty remains the Freedom to do Evil.

But, in my opinion, those arguments do not reflect well on them.

[howeird]

I think where we differ is I see as much evil behind the choice of the mosque site as I see in the Koran burning. Both, I think, deserved the same response from the President - none.

[gil-liant.livejournal.com]

Well, in my opinion, if the President saw evil in both choices, he should speak out against both. The right of Free Speech, after all, does extend even to our elected officials. One needs to be careful not to confuse the responsibilities and dignity of the Office, with that of the man, but even in the Office, it is not unreasonable for the President to issue an opinion or a plea for people to conduct themselves wisely -- even when there is no pretext for coercion to transform that plea into a demand. If Obama believes the Koran burning will increase unrest in America, he should speak against it, as long as he doesn't threaten to use legal force to prevent it. Similarly, if he believes the building of the community center will increase unrest in America, he should speak against it -- again, stopping short of threatening any sort of legal interdiction. However, it seems likely to me that the President, only seeing evil in one, chose only to speak out against that one. Which is, of course, his right. It certainly isn't "trying to have it both ways".

As it happens, I suspect you are right in that we (you and I) don't view the building of the community center with the same degree of concern and/or alarm. I do think that some bad choices went into making that decision, by any number of parties. But the culture battle was lost to the terrorists the moment that the monied interests decided [u]not[/u] to replace the World Trade Center with another shrine to Rampant Secularism and Crass Greed in its most materialistic of forms. The fact that any religious or fundamentalist entities attempted to define that ground as 'sacred' meant the terrorists had won that battle. The only way to win that scenario after the massive and tragic loss of life was to bulldoze it, build on it, slap up a memorial plaque and get back to business as usual in 12-24 months. The real crime is that the ground was allowed to sit idle for so long while ideologues wrangled about who had 'rights' to the site. The owners have rights to the site. The Muslim Mosques are exercising existing property rights in accordance with the current laws of the land, for reasons that seem good to them. If they think this will actually promote peace, harmony, and an inclusive sense of community I think they have badly misread the situation and grossly failed in their efforts to socialize the plan among the community. On the other hand, if they think this will significantly advance the fundamentalist muslim agenda, I think they are grossly mistaken there as well. Any victory along those lines (it is my personal belief) will be superficial and transitory as best -- not worth the financial investment they will expend to achieve it.

Now, getting us to change or abrogate our own laws and Constitution in such a way as to prevent them from building it ... that would be a major victory for the terrorists!

[howeird]

Excellent point about rebuilding the site.

The "trying to have it both ways" claim stems from my belief that both the mosque and the Koran burning defy common sense, but the President chose to encourage the one and discourage the other.

Now, getting us to change or abrogate our own laws and Constitution in such a way as to prevent them from building it ... that would be a major victory for the terrorists!
I totally agree.

[didjiman.livejournal.com]

That's some fuzzy thinking there. First of all, 1st Amendment doesn't mean do whatever one pleases. Otherwise, we wouldn't need the Supreme Court and it would be called an Anarchy.

Second, building a community / mosque serves the needs for many people. Sure it could be disaster to build it within 5 miles of Ground Zero, but it's still not the same thing as an act that fundamentally serves no function except to denigrate and anger the Other People.

[howeird]

The Supreme Court has held many times that th First Amendment protects all forms of expression which do not present a "clear and present danger". Whether it is burning a flag or burning a book, building a mosque or building a temple to Athena, if it doesn't start a riot it's protected.

[didjiman.livejournal.com]

I didn't say it's not a First Amendment issue per se, just that if the Supreme Court were to rule on the two issues, they may or may not rule differently, depending on the actual issue at hands. Ditto with Barack Hussein Obama, that he could have two opinions because while the issues may touch on the First Amendment's right, they are not the same thing.

[howeird]

I hear what you are saying, but disagree. Both to me are clearly First Amendment issues - on more than one level.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

They are both exercising their religion
They are both hoping to peaceably assemble
Neither one has petitioned the government about any grievances that I know of, but it could come to that.

The Supreme Court would have no choice under the Constitution but to protect the rights of both parties.

[gil-liant.livejournal.com]

Yes, and where has the President implied otherwise? Why are you making him the 'bogeyman' in this? The President has said that the Koran shouldn't be burned. He hasn't proposed that a law should be made to prevent it, or that any existing law should be enforced to prevent it. He has just said that, in his opinion, it's a bad idea. Bad for America. Do I understand that you think it's a good idea?

The most legitimate grounds for complaint you could have (in my opinion) would be along the lines of "I sure wish he'd spent that time, energy and money working on something else, instead of bringing up the Koran burning at all." But that, of course, has nothing to do with the First Amendment, and only addresses the priorities of the Obama Administration -- thus it is much less inflammatory.

You are the only one raising the strawman argument that the First Amendment is being threatened in some way. The overwhelming consensus seems to be that of course both activities are protected acts. And of course the Koran burning is stupid. And, the inevitable conclusion of that is that stupid acts can still be protected. Why do you want to silence the President from speaking his mind on the topic, as long as he respects and defends the Constitution in the process?

[howeird]

You are the only one raising the strawman argument that the First Amendment is being threatened in some way.
I hope I was not making that argument. I was trying for several notches less intense.

Why do you want to silence the President from speaking his mind on the topic, as long as he respects and defends the Constitution in the process?
I believe there is no such thing as the President (any President) making a personal statement. I think it is the tradition that the man is the office, as long as he holds it. Everything he says for publication is The President talking, not the private individual.

My problem in this case is when presented with two cases of a religious leader about to do something ill-advised, he backed one, citing the First Amendment, and discouraged the other, ignoring the First Amendment.

[gil-liant.livejournal.com]

I'd characterize it more as he strongly discouraged one and weakly endorsed the other. And he didn't ignore the First Amendment, he made note of the fact that, even though he discouraged it, it was still protected. It is simply that the First Amendment wasn't germane to his reasons for discouraging the proposed action.

In the case of the one he endorsed, the First Amendment discussion was more germane since the majority of the initial hue and cry did center on using direct government intervention to prevent it. Once that subsided (at least in my opinion), the involvement of the President's Office became significantly less noticeable.

Even though I consider the community center-thing to be not well-thought-out, it is easier for me to see how someone might be led to believe in the possibility of something good coming out of it, and so be more willing to endorse it. So I'm neither particularly surprised by, nor disappointed by the President's position. (With Washington, these days, I set the bar pretty low. ^_^) I just don't agree with it. That happens a lot. If I perceived the stand to be hypocritical, that would disappoint me much more.