Keep America Safe's Debra Burlingame on freedom of religion and the proposed Islamic community center near Ground Zero, a few months ago:
In terms of "freedom of religion" as an issue people have used to support the mosque project, Burlingame said, "That's not the issue that we're dealing with ... that's a Western concept, completely." She cited New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's speech in defense of the project as an example of people taking the concept of "freedom of religion" and misapplying it in this case.
For the most part in Islamic culture, she said, "They are slaves to Allah. ... Allah owns you in the Muslim world."
Keep in mind we're not even talking about indefinite detention or torture of terrorists here. We're talking about a group of American Muslims who want to build a community center on a piece of land they own. Because freedom of religion is a "Western concept," basic constitutional rights do not apply to Muslims.
Now here's Burlingame on the new TSA procedures:
“I believe this is a tipping point,” said Debra Burlingame, a vocal advocate for tough anti-terrorism policies. Burlingame – whose brother was the pilot of the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 which crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11 – was outraged after undergoing the new TSA pat-downs.
“I was not prepared for it…I've been patted down a lot of times but never like this,” recalled Burlingame. “I had to tell myself not to cry…..It's about having a keen sense of your human dignity being violated.”
Of course, if you're Sami el-Hajj, it's perfectly cool for the government to violate your dignity by shoving you into an island prison for seven years without charge. There's no mystery here. The application of constitutional rights, for some conservatives, is a completely tribal affair.
What's really frustrating, of course, is the lack of recognition of the connection between justifying the imprisonment el-Hajj faced and the TSA procedures Burlingame finds humiliating. It's a long slippery slope, but for the first time people like Burlingame see themselves at the end of it.
