[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

I think you missed my comment about not understand the entirety of your Heston comment at first...

That being said, I think you're trying to read too much into this one, perhaps just to undermine it. After all, if it required a dissertation to make a point I'm not sure the Daily Show demographic would get it.

I am not trying to read anything into the Stewart video. I think it is funny. But, beyond the humor, I just don't see a valid argument against what he accepts as valid--the symbolic argument--sensitivity to the locations meaning. The mini-second clips of those making various comments about Islam are, without context, meaningless--though they can be combined into a silly pastiche. But they don't discount the symbolic argument, and if they did, why does Stewart accept that argument. Are there actual clips that do favor the argument--which he conveniently omits. The somewhat prolonged clip of Bolling with the card and highlighter is chopped up enough to make him look silly. The screen text denotes that the segment was about funding for the mosque and the tax returns of the funders. Did we see any of that in Stewart's version? What we see is Bollling's burned money and his bullet point card with some discussion of the points. How much discussion? I can't be sure how much was edited. I thought it peculiar that the clip was noticeably edited after some words about the Muslim Brotherhood and then it totally skipped the Hamas bullet point and jumped to Iran. It might have been inconvenient for Stewart's discussion to have it pointed out that Imam Rauf refuses to call Hamas a terrorist organization. I am not reading too much here merely to invalidly undermine Stewart's video. Perhaps those who think he nailed it aren't reading enough out of it so as not to undermine it.

From what I read above, if the Columbine killers were NRA members it would be a valid parallel, but if the only association is that they are all gun owners it's not.

What's the NRA's purpose? I thought it was to fight for the right to bear arms and fight against legal limitations on firearm possession. Looser gun control laws makes it easier for people like the Columbine killers to obtain them.

It would be unfair of course to presume the intentions of NRA members are illicit.

Ultimately we have an NRA meeting in Denver, seen as un-compassionate because of the proximity of "gun talk" and "gun people" and a terrible killing by people who used guns. And in New York we have an Islamic Center seen as un-compassionate because of the proximity of "Islamic talk and Islamic people" and a terrible killing by people who believed in Islam.

The irony is that while the NRA advocates legal and responsible gun ownership the Park51 Imam advocates moderate and responsible Islam.

So do guns kill people or do people kill people? That is exactly the question and why I think it was a perfectly appropriate analogy.

-spence

If the only link between the NRA and the Columbine killers is the owning of guns (which is not true, by the way--there are a myriad of other superficial similarities) then would there have been an objection to meeting in Denver at that time by The International Association of Chiefs of Police, or the International Police Association, or the National Black Police Association, or NAPO--National Association of Police Organizations, or (closer to home) the Arizona Professional Police Officers Association, or the American Legion, or Amvets, etc.

The symbolic argument that Stewart says is valid was not about religious people and religious talk (in parallel to your "gun talk" and "gun people"). Though Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc., are religions having that specific trait in common with Islam, the symbolic argument against building a house of worship for one of the non-muslim religions at ground zero would not be valid even though they all have a direct link to Islam in that they believe in a deity (Christianity and Judaism even the same God). The symbolic argument is only valid because it was actual Muslims who killed the 9/11 victims in the name of that specific religion.

The Columbine killers were not generic gun owners killing in the name of gun ownership, or gun rights, or killing because of guns. Who they were and what they did was neither about guns nor about the NRA. The NRA analogy is not specific enough to compare with the symbolic argument against the mosque.