"Too many mosques" sez Peter King (R-NY3) and nobody seems to care

[Stinky The Clown]

This thug says he thinks there are too many mosques in the US. And there seems to be little concern about that. I just searched GD and GDPol and found no reference to it. True enough, I may have missed a post, but a search turned up zilch.

Is it just me or isn't his statement akin to saying there, let's say, are too many A.M.E churches?



It sure is easier and more fashionable of late to bash a Dem instead of the REAL bad guys in elected office.

I guess there's no mileage in calling a Republican a racist, huh?

Well ..... I will. Peter King is a xenophobic racist panderer who plays to the basest emotions of his most bigoted constituents.

[Taverner]

1. He's right - and too many churches too!

Too much fucking religion - I say we evolve past that and replace them all with...well anything!

But then again, religion of any kind scares me.

[rusty quoin]

2. I have a hard time coming to terms with there were enough idiots

there were enough idiots in his district to vote him in. He makes crazy statements all the time.

[Igel]

3. Question.

Since I like language and how it works (not just Chomsky's "linguistic competence", but also what he calls "performance"), and believe that not understanding what's said renders the opinion about what was said fairly meaningless.

The quote: "Unfortunately, we have too many mosques in this country. There are too many people who are sympathetic to radical Islam." (One version of the punctuation.)

Or "Unfortunately, we have too many mosques in this country, there are too many people who are sympathetic to radical Islam." (Another version of the punctuation, the first one I saw.)

Or "Unfortunately, we have too many mosques in this country ... there are too many people who are sympathetic to radical Islam." (A third version of the punctuation, probably the best one.)


Imagine if Dean had said, "There are too many Democrats in this country ... there are too many Democratic Senators who buckle under the least pressure from *."

Now imagine that the NYT runs a story: Dean says, "There are too many Democrats." Follow up sources quote him as, "There are too many Democrats in this country. There are too many Democratic Senators who buckle under the least pressure from *."

Would the NYT quote be inaccurate? No, not really. Would you endorse that kind of quoting? I sincerely hope not. The quote should, at the very least and just on formal grounds, be, "There are too many Democrats...." At least then the reader knows something--possibly something important--has been dropped out. But in good practice the reader *should* be able to assume that what was left out doesn't affect the meaning of the quote.

Which leads to the next question: Would it be a fair quote, either way? No. What was dropped out changes the quotes' meaning, it leaves out a restrictive relative clause. A more fair quote would be to recognize the appositive for what it is and clean up any residue of ungrammaticality caused by a shift in the required sentential syntax, even if it means that a nifty political bomb is no longer in your arsenal: "There are too many Democrats ... who buckle under the least pressure from *."

Why do people suddenly become wilfully and obstinantly dysfluent at their native language as soon as politics comes into it, anyway?

[onenote]

5. too much thinking

this isn't thinkingunderground. At least not so much these days.

But, given how the repubs treat every utterance a Democrat makes, I have absolutely no problem with kicking King all over the lot on this one.

[Stinky The Clown]

6. And that's the point, exactly.

We all know, for example, what Moveon meant. But Rudy raised it as an issue and involved the, at that point, uninvolved HRC in the issue. That led to the dam bursting and the Senate (fer krissakes) taking up the totally bogus issue.

There's no need to parse words. King said there are too many mosques. I don't give a shit what else he said. Let the outrage begin.

I'm sick and damned tired of just the Repubs doing this shit. Fuck being 'above it'.

[Beaverhausen]

4. The DNC cares

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=3536487

[Stinky The Clown]

7. Good!

That's what we need.

Of course, Das Media won't do shit about it. After all, it was said by a Democrat.

[Name removed]

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[Yukari Yakumo]

9. 'cause it's kinda sorta old news

Most everyone knows the ReThugs are bigoted Islamophobes. All we have to do is wait for Glenn Beck to open that thing he calls a mouth to further prove the point.

[Name removed]

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