Just for 30 days

If I could be one person for 30 days, it would be the person in charge of making the decision about whether or not a mega mosque should be built at Ground Zero in NYC.

It cannot be just about money, although it is obvious the legislators and mayor of NYC had their heads up their collective backsides when they decided to raise the taxes on the rich, who responded by leaving NYC in droves. But to put up a mega mosque at Ground Zero is sheer lunacy.

The Muslims are upset at the backlash of feeling and point to the freedom of religion and freedom of speech as backing their claim that a mosque should be built there. Setting aside the fact that it was Muslim extremists who brought down the towers and killed thousands, to honor the Muslim dead and their religion by erecting a mega mosque is to forget about the people who died and were not Muslim. Is it right to honor the religion of one small group of people over the religion of the tens of thousands who died? I think not.

If a religious center is built it should represent the religions of all those who died that day and in the days that followed, a mega religious center not a mega mosque.

I have read arguments that a mega mosque would be like the Taj Mahal, erected by a bereaved Mogul (Muslim) king honoring his dead wife. He was the ruler and his wife was queen (rani), so that was understandable. Neither America nor NYC have kings or rajahs, so a monument to one group of people and their religion is not understandable. What is understandable is the outrage that so many Americans feel. This is what free speech is all about: open discussion and conversations from all sides of the issue, not just the popular and politically correct side.

No one is keeping Muslims from celebrating their religion or building mosques on other sides in America, but it is the right of every American to have a say in whether or not a mosque should be built at Ground Zero? Celebrate your religion anywhere. Roll out your prayer mats and point them toward Mecca while you pray at Ground Zero, but don't expect for Americans to embrace putting up a monument to the Muslim extremists who destroyed two buildings to throw American commerce and lives into chaos and killed tens of thousands of Americans. Yes, there were Muslims who were killed on 9/11/2001, but there were far more non-Muslims who were killed that day. To honor one group is to ignore the deaths and religions of all the other groups. As far as I am concerned, there isn't enough money in the world to allow that to happen. As the person in charge of this decision, it would be a center for all religions or business as usual.

Now, down the street a couple of blocks among all the other churches and synagogues, is something else again. To that I say, go for it.

That is all. Disperse.

The crime of Geert Wilders

Have you seen Fitna yet? You should take a look before Jordanian courts extradite Geert Wilders and execute him for blaspheming the Quran. And then you should take a look at the speech Wilders had intended to give to the Houses of Parliament in London about the freedom of speech and the allegations of thought crime using the words of the Quran to make his case.

Wilders quotes Winston Churchill who was ignored in the 1930s when he warned Parliament of Hitler's plans and also Ronald Reagan.

In 1982 President Reagan came to the House of Commons, where he did a speech very few people liked. Reagan called upon the West to reject communism and defend freedom. He introduced a phrase: ‘evil empire’. Reagan’s speech stands out as a clarion call to preserve our liberties. I quote: If history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly.


What Reagan meant is that you cannot run away from history, you cannot escape the dangers of ideologies that are out to destroy you. Denial is no option.


Communism was indeed left on the ash heap of history, just as Reagan predicted in his speech in the House of Commons. He lived to see the Berlin Wall coming down, just as Churchill witnessed the implosion of national-socialism.

In the land where George Orwell imagined the life of London in 1984 and the penalties for thought crimes, Geert Wilders was denied his chance to speak. In a land where men and women were guaranteed the freedom to voice their opposition, as well as their agreement, London, and indeed all of Britain, kowtow to the growing Muslim elements, nurturing a viper at their breasts that willfully segregate themselves from British citizens in their own communities while spreading fear like leprosy, reaching out into every aspect of British life.

Your choice

During a discussion about bringing out the truth, one person said, "Least said is easiest mended," and it put me in mind of how that philosophy guides so many people and the damage it has done. Thoughts of Auschwitz and Treblinka, Japanese relocation camps in America, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda and so many other things came to mind. How could any of those have existed if people had spoken up in the beginning? And it applies to relationships as well.

How many times has a girlfriend or boyfriend or spouse or companion held their tongue and believed that if they didn't say anything, or said little, that everything would turn out right? How many times did nothing change and get much worse? How many people have suffered in silence because they believed that saying little or nothing would be easier to mend until there was nothing left to mend? Where would we all be if men like Ben Franklin, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson and so many other men less famous said little thinking that good King George would see things their way and that Pharaoh would let the Israelites go?

Freedom is a right and a privilege in this country and one we take for granted, expecting someone else will speak on our behalf so we can stand by silent or speaking little and believing that our words don't matter and would take less effort to mend whatever goes wrong? Freedom is like a muscle that atrophies if not used and exercised on a regular basis until before long it is gone.

How many of us would be willing to stand and speak Patrick Henry's words loudly and proclaim, "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" Can we afford to stand by silent and watch, saying little in hopes that what little we say is easily mended and just as easily cast aside and forgotten?

Earlier in his speech, Patrick Henry also said, "Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past."

Oh, if such words had fired the hearts and minds of the people who stood quietly by, saying little, who watched as men, women and children were herded like cattle into railroad cars and transported to the gas chambers and to the living death of the concentration camps and to the isolated and lonely camps surrounded by barbed wire while Americans were relocated. The reasons do not matter because freedoms can be subverted and ignored if people speak the right words that end in the interment of those who are different or unwilling to speak up. There are plenty of people not shy about saying what's on their mind, especially when what's on their mind is the destruction of liberty and the eradication of freedom.

I am not ashamed to say I believe in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and I exercise my freedoms vigorously and often. It doesn't make me popular but it does make me less willing to say little in hopes that whatever I say can be mended. I don't want my views to be mended and if I step on a few toes, so be it. The owners of those toes have just as much right to speak out and have their say as I do, resulting in discussions and debates that may well change things -- and may change them for the better.

To anyone who believes that staying silent and saying little ever did any good, I say, "Look around you, take stock and tell me if what you see is what you really want," and then decide if you want to remain silent and let the vast and very vocal minority map the course of your life and choose your path for you or if you'd rather have a say in how things are run and what happens. It's not easy to speak up and speak out, and change does not always come quickly, but when you speak up and speak out it is guaranteed that your words and your voice will reach others who feel the same way and maybe, just maybe get them to speak up and speak out and join their voices to yours until things change. Let's face it. The silent majority is just that -- silent.

It's the old parable: Breaking a stick is child's play, but breaking a bundle of sticks is not. It's your choice.

In passing

Yesterday, I received an email from someone I didn't know and almost deleted it, but something told me to read it -- probably the subject: Benson Wolman. The email was from one of Benson's colleagues at the ACLU in Columbus, Ohio. He died yesterday. I was contacted because I interviewed Benson for an article about a case he had coming up before the U. S. Supreme Court. He was defending the Ku Klux Klan. What was most surprising to me is that Benson was Jewish. The time I spent interviewing him was delightful and we ran well over the 30 minutes he originally offered, neither of us willing to end things. He was my first professional interview, but not my last, and the newspaper ran the picture I took of him in the conference room at the Columbus ACLU in front of a poster of the American flag.

Benson was in his late fifties at that time and had decided to go back to college to get his law degree. He retired and wanted to do more with his life, so he studied law. He made Law Review and was hired by the ACLU, making his dream come true. I asked him why a Jew would consider defending the Ku Klux Klan, especially considering the Klan's stand on where Jews fit in the scheme of things, and he told me what his rabbi told him.

The thing about democracy and freedom is that it entitles everyone to their own opinions and politics. It is the most aggravating thing about democracy and freedom of speech, but it's also the most wonderful thing. Freedom of speech means everyone is allowed to say what they want, whether you agree with them or not, and only in a country like ours will you find people at opposite ends of the political spectrum defending each other's right to speak.

Benson Wolman was a remarkable man and a champion for freedom and justice. I am proud to have known him and to have interviewed him.

I had no idea Benson Wolman had kept up with my writing or that his colleagues at the Columbus ACLU read my articles, stories and books. Now I know.