Constitution Day
What an honor it is to live in the United States. I am so proud and privileged to have the right to live here. Today is Constitution Day. A day when we honor the living document which is the final arbiter of the law of the land here in our United States of America. When I think of the Constitution my first thought is really not to the underlying document. I do not think so much about our tripartite government system of checks and balances. As important as those institutions and controls are to our very freedom, the first thing I think about when mentioning the Constitution is the Bill of Rights.
I think about Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion. It is probably just my own juvenile understanding of the depth of the many parts of this fantastic document that makes me focus on the most obvious of Rights, but hey, that's where I focus. So be it. And to be honest, those freedoms are being attacked as we speak and I can't help but feel like I am a part of the attack. I do not want the Cordoba House Mosque built near ground zero in New York. I had a knee jerk reaction against it and I have intellectualized my emotions and tried hard to be on the "side" of our Constitution and give these allegedly "peaceful" Muslims the right to worship and congregate lawfully in whatever commercial spots are properly zoned for that activity. I want to be a "Principled" American. Our President seems to stand firmly on this academic ground. I am not so cerebral as to be able to separate my emotional reaction to what I feel is right and wrong from my intellectual processing of rights and duties. There is a disconnect that I could not get over.
I am not totally without academic analysis here. My emotional decision to oppose the Cordoba House has an academic component. There is a history that we Americans have now withstood that allows us to be justified in opposing the Mosque. The mainstream worldwide, that is right, I am calling out the mainstream Muslim Community here, not the terrorist extremist arm of the community; the mainstream Muslim community has waged a cultural and physical war against American Culture, Capitalism, Freedom and Democracy.
The worldwide Muslim community has almost no tolerance for any other religion or political method of government other than Sharia law. There are no synagogues in Saudi Arabia. I am not talking about Afghanistan or Iran. I said Saudi Arabia, our friend, our business partner, our trusted delivery system of oil. They, by the way, do not tolerate churches either. So, in the United States, there is a Muslim voice asking for "tolerance" and "freedom of religion", but on an international scale there is no reciprocal right for anyone else to have any religious freedom. I find that type of hypocrisy upsetting in the pit of my stomach.
But let's not stop at the underlying Muslim response to present buildings. Let's look historically at the behavior of the religious/political arm of the religion after they have been successful in taking over any other culture's political boundaries. The number of ancient, honored, revered, beautiful structures which Muslim invaders have destroyed or knocked down only to build a Mosque on those hallowed grounds. You simply do not get to be vicious with every other culture and then ask for tolerance.
But wait, that is not the worst of it. Here the Muslim "extremists" actually did invade. They plotted, attacked and killed thousands of Americans. They knocked to the ground an amazing American structure which represented our ingenuity, our wealth and our freedom. People around the globe knew the twin towers. My youngest son has no recollection of them.
We want to label the people who perpetrated this attack as extremists. I dispute that label. I remember clearly the video footage of Arabs worldwide celebrating the attack on the Great Satan, America. If the entire population of an Arab country is celebrating, I would say the extremist label is inaccurate. This is a full blow cultural war.
Historically, the name itself "Cordoba House" comes from a huge Mosque in Spain. That structure was build after Muslims determined that the building which the Catholic Spanish culture had built on that site was not appropriate, so they knocked it down to build a Mosque. That building was, of course, a church. This Cordoba House is nothing more than an edifice to the victory Muslims believe they hold over America. It is not a symbol of tolerance. It is a call for more attacks against our country. It is an obvious symbol to the Muslim forces worldwide that America is weak and their quest for world religious dominance is succeeding.
These concepts are obvious and my reaction is to fight back. My reaction is to say, the Cordoba House is not an expression of religious freedom and should not be protected as such. No religion that has as a tenet to take over the world through Jihad is compatible with precepts of American life. It would be like a religion saying that human sacrifice was part of their faith so leave us alone. We would not allow them to take part in that "sacred religious" activity because it is against our American laws even though it falls under "religious freedom".
I will not allow our freedoms to be used a weapons in a war against the very fabric of my own culture. We must stand up and fight back. Say NO to the Mosque and truly celebrate our freedom. When the Islamic mainstream can state they do not support a call for Jihad. When they can oppose and fight against these alleged terrorists. When they help us win this war against American democracy and security, then we can revisit the question of a new Mosque near the hallowed grounds in New York. Until then, in defense of the Constitution and our entire way of life, I say "Stand up and fight, Say NO to the Mosque."
Brian F. LaBovick, Esq.
Esther Uria LaBovick, Esq.
Mark R. Hanson, Esq.
Joseph R. Fields Jr., Esq.
Marcie Dodson, J.D.