Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for August 02, 2010

Duke, use your James Carville accent; you already have the look!

At least Duke LOOKS like Carville…

Ragin’? Oh, yeah. Cajun? Not so much.

Ah yes, to gain sympathy, move to the area, affect a local accent and dress like the rubes. Lee Atwater is smiling in his grave!

In re yesterday’s comments:

It’s remarkable that Stebon chose to make yesterday’s strip a springboard to mention abortion. When the strip shows, in even fictitious form, the oppression of Afghan women, Stebon wants to circumscribe the liberty of American women.

I enjoyed Drome’s inclusion of remarks, although his/her categorizing them is needless & tiresome. Within reason, we have freedom of property in America. A mosque can be built wherever it can purchase the land. The larger issue is permitting all these religious buildings to exist tax-free. If communities taxed religious buildings, then most would have no budget problems. Let the mosque exist near Ground Zero. Tax it, and all other churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, &c. as we do other businesses, and reap the rewards.

I’m very disappointed that the Sarah-thon has been cut short, but I suspect that she’ll be back in October. Anyone want to take a bet? $100 to your favorite 501c charity.

The abortion issue is indeed concerned with the rights of American women, as approximately 51% of those people aborted are female. The dilemma isn’t about women’s liberties, per se, but in deciding WHICH women have specific rights to fundamental constitutional protections. I suspect that the tide of progressive thinking will one day advance past the 1960’s and, as has happened several times in the history of human rights, society will once again redefine what it means to be ”human” and extend the protections of life and liberty to the unborn. By the time that occurs, however, advances in medical technologies will probably make the question moot.

As to the mosque, I’m questioning why that property wasn’t taken over under eminent domain a long time ago. I wonder if there would have been the same level of concern if Macy’s had decided to put a new retail store at that site? As distasteful as the idea is to erect a mosque there, it’s a bit disingenuous to selectively complain about the new tenants.

The really sad irony is that this mosque will be built with oil money provided by American consumers.

How come no color pictures?

BRIAN Tax religion.To hell with the First Amendment (‘cept of course your right to speech).

The power to tax is the power to destroy

It’s bad enough in my state they charge sales tax on newspapers. Tax those Hollywood contributions to a certain political party. Tax everything till the government owns everything. I thought the “Liberals” believed in the First Amendment but I guess I was wrong. Remember BRIAN, Hitler painted a ring around the Vatican. Do you really want to be associated with him?

Duke, I have some advice: Never, never, never use “y’all” as a singular. It is always used to reference a group, such as a family, a business entity, or guys hangin’ on the street corner.

Next Southern speaking lesson: the fine art of droppin’ “g’s”.

As Lewreader notes, taxing something is taking control of its right to exist. For those of us who have never actually read it the First Amendment and think that it only provides for “free speech”, here’s the actual text:

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.

If a church cannot pay its taxes, people with guns will seize its assets and confiscate them in the name of the state. That pretty much prohibits the free exercise of religion, eh? Sounds a lot like Soviet Russia, but maybe that’s why some folks like the idea.

Besides, money is a unit of work. If houses of worship are taxed, then these religions are working for the government, and will demand their right to a piece of the action. That’s a can ‘o worms that you prolly don’t want opened.

When I see Earl being so proud of his father (no matter what Duke does…or what Duke THINKS HE’S DOING!), it always reminds me of Scrappy Doo looking up to his uncle Scooby.

Sad, isn’t it?

(Continuing yesterday’s “Sunday Diversion”)

Thanks to Brian, Nemesys, et al. for your responses to the NYT blog. I apologize for forgetting that thoughtful Doonesbury readers would rather do their own categorizing. Still, my broadest, opposed categories seem to have gone unchallenged.

All responses so far fall into the category of liberal tolerance. Are there any readers who are concerned—-as were the majority of the 14 NYT posters—-about limiting tolerance in the interest of justice? (This is hardly a new problem for liberalism, whose founding document is Locke’s De Tolerantia, or letters on toleration.)

The statement, “Taxing something is taking control of its right to exist,” is consistent with another of Locke’s principles, namely the axiom that liberal government is based on respect for private property. A liberal can no more uphold a government that confiscates private property than a government that puts a tax on religious worship or on “superstition.” Is there a tax on Doonesbury qua Doonesbuty (fantasy, superstition)?

billdog, you’re essentially correct about taxing the media, except that the Constitution does not provide specific protections for the free exercise of the press, Many states do not tax newspapers to honor the spirit of the First Amendment, but some others do since it’s technically not illegal to do so. Not so with religions.

Taxing something does indeed determine it’s right to exist. Tell the IRS that you won’t pay your taxes - that you refuse to work for the government - and they will send agents to take your property and deprive you of liberty as you sit in jail.

Fortunately, our founding fathers were wise enough to incorporate specific wording into the Bill of Rights around religion that protect the country from you, and those who think as you do

Clark Kent: thanks for sharing your religious dogma, which is exactly as scientifically verifiable as any other religious dogma. Good thing the First Amendment protects your rights to evangelize your faith as well.

That said, I also think churches should be taxed. The First Amendment does not require them to be tax-exempt, at least not the way I read it. And my reading of (for instance) Luke 4, plus the lessons of history, lead me to think the separation of church and state is primarily for the benefit of the church–whenever Church and State go to bed together, it’s the Church who doesn’t respect herself in the morning.

Palindrome says we can’t support “a government that puts a tax on religious worship or on superstition.”

That’s not a problem for Neolib. She’ll just exercise her self-endowed right to decide that religion is not really free speech and declare it taxable as a form of civic pollution, like advertising or news broadcasting.

Lew, Nemesys, there is no constitutional violation in imposing property taxes on religious property. Thanks to those (Billdog, Puddleglum, &al.) who have already punctured that tiny soap bubble argument.

libertarian claptrap is really quite taxing to me

To bring this issue of taxes back to the debate over whether a mosque should be built near Ground Zero, note that the Supreme Court recently reaffirmed the prohibition against any Federal tax on free speech (including religion). Unlike the Federal govt., the states can levy nondiscriminatory (equal) taxes on religious BUILDINGS that use state services, but they can’t tax religious worship.

A mosque built near Ground Zero should expect to pay state and city taxes. The question for those of us who are ready to accept the Mosque just like any other civic taxpayer is this: What happens when the Mosque, exercising its freedom to speak and worship, tolerates (and by its prominence implicitly glorifies) jihad?

(Anyone interested can review the NYT blog by clicking on the “back” arrow above today’s strip)

I don’t think “Alabama” is correct. “Y’all” IS singular. “All Y’all” is plural.

Palin drome more people have died in the name of God than in any war so if we are going to condemn on that basis then we should condemn all religons and tax them appropriatly

tabsok, Your general principle is of course politically correct and indisputable (see comment #14 from the NYT blog). But those who care about the meaning of Ground Zero have to ask whether JUSTICE is served by allowing this particular Mosque to advertise, even inadvertently, a jihadist victory over America.

Politically correct tolerance is trumped by politically more correct justice for our nation and for the 3,000 Americans commemorated at Ground Zero and in Washington.

No “jimpow”, “y’all” is plural, “all y’all” is redundant.

I think dialects may differ. I grew up with “y’all” as both singular and plural, then I noticed that people I think from further south were saying “all y’all” as a plural.

As a native South Floridian, it’s always seemed to me that only Northerners used the term “y’all”.

Of course, my grandmother always said that a Yankee was anyone from farther north than Jacksonville, FL.

Drome, I am glad to read that you agree that there is no law by which New York City can bar a mosque from building where it chooses (w/in the zoning laws). I am further glad that you agree that communities & states have the right to levy property taxes on religious buildings of any faith. That would no more violate anyone freedom of worship than my property taxes violate my right to speak my mind.

Neolib????

Nonsense words reduce the discussion to nonsense.

Great posts today.

Brian,

The issue is not the rights of taxpayers but the most basic right of a citizen to live peacefully. Very few of the 200 + posters on the NYT blog demanded more (or fewer) taxes on the proposed Mosque, but nearly all of them touched on the right to express an opinion.

While none of my own family or friends died in 9/11, I can understand why someone who did suffer a loss might be unpersuaded by arguments for tolerating diversity of expression in connection with a memorial to the victims. I figured their dilemma would interest thinking Doonesbury readers.

Pertinent, maybe, is an editorial in today’s NYT on the finding by the Roberts Court that videos depicting animal abuse are publishable and cannot be banned as “criminal.” Freedom of expression doesn’t protect criminal speech (shouting “Fire!” in a theater etc. etc.), but should it protect speech that, while not criminal, is likely to disturb the public peace?

An obvious example is the Mohammed cartoons; a hypothetical example would be a Terrorist or a Skinhead buying air time on national TV. Most recently, I don’t think Americans generally will applaud WikiLeaks for exercising its First Amendment rights. The various state laws defining a new category of “hate crimes” seem to be aimed at stripping the perpetrators of their First Amendment crutch.

As I said above, this issue of the proposed mosque balances the political correctness of tolerance against the more essential, politically correct goals of national justice and civic harmony. As Chief Justice Warren used to say to the defenders of segregation, ‘I know what you did is legal, but is it right?’

Any Moslem architectural statement regarding Ground Zero may be legal, but it is bound to be ambiguous and paradoxical, and therefore unneighborly.

“it is bound to be ambiguous and paradoxical, and therefore unneighborly.”

Such is the stuff of life.

Nemesys said, The really sad irony is that this mosque will be built with oil money provided by American consumers.

How do you figure that? I thought the current bugaboo about the mosque was that it might be funded by donations from non-American Muslims.

Oh fer… pull up your socks and consider it a blessing.

“Oil money provided [spent] by American consumers” = the Arab indemnity check that Giuliani tore up. Nemesys means that the Mosque will be built with similar “donations” from the nation that financed the suicide bombers.

I agree with SuperGriz that annoying neighbors are the “stuff of life,” and I wish the Palestinians and Israelis were secure enough to adopt our mature wisdom. Then we might all enjoy a kind of psychotic peace, knowing that we can kill our neighbor before he kills us.

“Nemesys means that the Mosque will be built with similar “donations” from the nation that financed the suicide bombers.”

You mean the republican party?

“Then we might all enjoy a kind of psychotic peace, knowing that we can kill our neighbor before he kills us.

Nice turn of phrase, PD.