{"id":4468,"date":"2010-08-14T22:34:30","date_gmt":"2010-08-14T22:34:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=4468"},"modified":"2010-08-15T00:45:47","modified_gmt":"2010-08-15T00:45:47","slug":"about-that-mosque-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/about-that-mosque-2\/","title":{"rendered":"About That Mosque (2)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/Bloomberg.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/Bloomberg-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Bloomberg\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-4469\" \/><\/a>New York City mayor Bloomberg receives praise <a href=\"http:\/\/www.villagevoice.com\/2010-08-11\/columns\/as-polls-go-against-the-mosque-bloomberg-preaches-religious-liberty\/\">here<\/a> in the usually hostile <em>Village Voice<\/em> for his stance on the planned \u201cGround Zero\u201d mosque.  As he is in favor of letting it to be constructed (as <a href=\"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=4459\">am I<\/a>) that\u2019s not altogether surprising, but I was somewhat taken aback by this comment:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Of all our precious freedoms\u2026the most important may be the freedom to worship as we wish.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Really? Yes, it\u2019s an undeniably important freedom, but the <em>most<\/em> important? Who knew? Mind you, coming from Bloomberg, one can be sure that that remark is humbug\u2014pious humbug\u2014but humbug nonetheless. <\/p>\n<p>As for freedom, in the greater scheme of things the right to smoke in a public place may not be the most important of matters, but even if Bloomberg is right about that mosque (and he is), I\u2019ll don\u2019t think I\u2019ll be paying that much attention to any lectures on liberty from a petty little authoritarian so convinced of his own rectitude that he wouldn\u2019t allow the owners of bars and restaurants to decide for themselves whether to permit smoking on their own premises.  <\/p>\n<p><em>Property <\/em>rights\u2014amongst the most important of freedom\u2019s building blocks\u2014do not, it turned out, count for <em>that<\/em> much from this mayor.<\/p>\n<p>And that\u2019s something to be remembered before praising Michael Bloomberg, freedom fighter. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New York City mayor Bloomberg receives praise here in the usually hostile Village Voice for his stance on the planned \u201cGround Zero\u201d mosque. As he is in favor of letting it to be constructed (as am I) that\u2019s not altogether &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/about-that-mosque-2\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[598,597],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4468"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4468"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4472,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4468\/revisions\/4472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}