Of liars and lunatics

From Atheist Ethicist

However, there is another relevant moral issue related to the fact that this is a community center and not a mosque.

It means that these hate-mongering bigots who use the term are lying.

They could not muster enough hate (and obtain sufficient political and economic contributions for themselves and their allies) by telling the truth, so they decided to lie.

They decided to package a community center as a mosque because this particular packaging - this false advertising - this "bearing false witness" - generates more hatred than the truth.

What's worse is that much of the bigotry at the root of the backlash against this cultural center is being pushed - thanks to mainstream media providing her with a platform to do so - by Pamela Geller, despite the fact that she is a raving lunatic who believes in wild, malicious conspiracy theories (e.g. people are being killed to protect the secret that Obama's birth certificate is a forgery) and who is apparently genocidal. This is someone so blinded by hatred of Muslims that despite being Jewish she is an enthusiastic endorser of literal crypto-fascists.

The Washington Post notes

Through her blog, Atlas Shrugs, television interviews and appearances at political rallies, Geller has become one of the chief organizers of opposition to the so-called Ground Zero mosque as well as efforts to build other Muslim prayer centers across the country.

...

Geller has become a prominent voice in the debate despite the fact that she once promoted the view that Obama is Malcolm X's love child. She frequently warns that Muslims are trying to impose repressive sharia law on the United States, refers to the president's holiday message to Muslims as "Obama Ramadamadingdong" and promotes a Web site, Religion of Peace, that claims to tally the number of people killed around the world by Muslim extremists.

Geller has managed to hate her way to the top. Her blog is a vortex of shrieking, hysterical crazy about all the evil, nefarious commie/facist things that liberals and Muslims are up to. Her intellectual skills and ethics are sub-par. Yet there she is on tv night after night, spreading her hate despite being an over the top joke of a bigot.

I used to generally ignore Geller because she's so cartoonish in her deranged hatred of Muslims and liberals that I couldn't imagine anyone taking her seriously. Yet she is on the national stage, helping to push crazy mainstream.

I doubt it is possible to overestimate how low our national media is willing to set the bar (I believe I heard Alexander Zaitchik first say this in regard to Beck.) We live in a country where hating liberals and/or Muslims is a qualification in and of itself to propel one to the heights of political media stardom, one's level of intelligence, education, and intellectual integrity and competence are irrelevant so long as you hate greatly enough and are willing to not be bothered by facts and reality.

Just ask Glenn Beck, Pamela Geller, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, or any of the rest of their fool ilk.