The Fox News community website, Fox Nation, is often a welcoming place for bigots and hate mongers. Their history of tolerating repulsive comments, on a site that claims to have moderators keeping the discourse civil, is testimony to their intention to embrace and encourage right-wing hostility (see The Collected Hate Speech Of The Fox News Community). But the latest episode of wingnut spleen-letting may surpass anything that has come before it – and that’s saying something.
Fox Nation Frets Over Sharia Law
The article that incited the heinous comments below was a report in the New York Post (a corporate cousin to Fox News) that a Muslim developer was preparing to build a 43-story luxury condominium tower and Islamic cultural museum in lower Manhattan. The Post’s article was featured on Fox Nation with a somewhat more ominous headline that invokes Sharia Law. That’s part of what set off a rash of rhetorical racism, along with certain details that were predictable triggers for Fox’s intolerant audience.
First of all, the site of the development was once proposed as a site for an Islamic cultural center that Fox News branded as the “Ground Zero Mosque,” despite the fact that it was neither a mosque, nor at 9/11’s Ground Zero. Fox, along with a cacophony of conservative pundits and politicians, turned the issue into a bitter debate that fed on the bigotry of the anti-Muslims on the right. As a result, the center was never built. Now the same developer, Sharif El-Gamal, is hoping to complete a project that will bring jobs and commerce to the area. What a monster!
Secondly, the Fox brigades are disturbed by the method of financing for the project. Consistent with Islamic principles, El-Gamal sought financing from institutions that avoid the collection of interest on loans. And not surprisingly, the mention of “Sharia-compliant financing” in the article set off alarms at Fox Nation. However, there is nothing unsavory about this method of financing. In fact, it contains protections that arguably make it a more ethical way to deal with loans. [Here is a summary explanation of Sharia-compliant banking] Also, it is not a law and is no more an intrusion on American laws than keeping Kosher is for Jews.
Finally, the Fox Nationalist bigots were generally objecting to the fact that the project is headed by a Muslim (It’s a good thing they don’t know that the architect is a Mexican-American). Since they regard all Muslims as terrorists, they are certain that there is some ulterior motive that involves the murder of innocent Americans. And their response to that is to suggest replicating the tactics of terrorists themselves. They see no irony in advocating the sort of destruction that would result in countless fatalities throughout the vicinity, including the first responders who would rush to the scene to try to save lives. Here is sampling of the comments attached to the Fox Nation article:
Fox Nation Hankering For Another 9/11:
How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.
No commentary is needed for the nauseating remarks by the hateful Fox Nation mob. However, it is worth noting that the editors at Fox chose a photo of the devastation at the site of the World Trade Center, which has nothing to do with the new development or the article about it. They might have chosen to show a picture of the proposed high-rise, but then that wouldn’t have manufactured a controversy that would set their dimwitted readers’ blood to boil, which is Fox’s highest priority.
Waiting for the inevitable defenders of Fox to come here and insist that this high-rise IS a cover for terrorist training and how we should just gather up all Muslims and Arabs and ship them all to the Middle East or Guantanamo.
What FOX would truly desire and diligently is working for is buildings that are erected with slave labor, laborers paid almost nothing but happy (?) to have a job. It would be financed by the Koch Bros. and their investors and named for prominent conservatives like David Duke.
Well the people who made those comments have everything in common with Al Qaeda or ISIS.
Never mind the fact that Sharia law doesn’t get established simply by having a bulding devoted to Muslim culture built, let’s all give in to fear and ignorance and call for violence and intolerance!
Exactly what ISIS wants America to do.
This is the most insane site I have ever been to. First, it wasn’t “Fox Nation” that didn’t want an Islamic Cultural Center built near Ground Zero, it was the people of Manhattan. The memorial hadn’t even been drawn up yet, and the developers wanted to build. What a smack in the face and insensitive to the families of those who died.
Second, Sharia Law is being protested, not only because it is barbaric, it is against our constitution to have another set of rules governing a specific group in the United States. You guys complain about Fox, but under Sharia law sites like this would be banned, and the publisher would be executed.
Finally, under Sharia, women have NO RIGHTS WHATSOEVER> They are viewed as property, that can be bought and sold, beaten and executed. Sites like this make me positively sick.
Thanks for showing up to defend the brain-dead Fox world view.