The growing number of right-wing ignoramuses who believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim (and therefore, by implication, more in sympathy with the aims of Middle Eastern wackjobbers than those of the U.S.) is beneath comment. And yet while Obama’s support of the Ground Zero mosque is noble, the issue itself is arguably muddled.

To build a mosque directly adjacent to the site of the greatest slaughter of noncombatant U.S. citizens in this country’s history, a slaughter perpetrated by young Muslim loons who shouted “Allahu Akbar!” right before the planes hit, would obviously be an act of spiritual generosity. Magnanimous, Christian, loving, compassionate, mature.

It’s not the same thing as, say, a Jewish synagogue being built on the site of a World War II-era Nazi concentration camp. We all get what that means — a renunciation of evil and the triumph of tolerance and brotherhood. A Ground Zero mosque obviously wouldn’t make the same statement. It would be more about who and what we are. It would say “we’re more than just revenge monkeys — we’re about genuine Christian values, and the rights of each and every U.S. citizen.”

Most American yahoos, many of whom are illiterate or ill-informed dumbasses, equate the Muslim faith with anti-U.S. sympathies and terror cells. If you want to process the situational ins and outs with crude mental tools, I can see how they might think that way. But a U.S democracy can’t hope to function with his kind of rank stupidity influencing the conversation.

What can you do about such people, really, except wait for them to die? There’s the age-old Hollywood Elsewhere solution of putting them into green reeducation camps for minimum one-year terms, but people snicker at such thoughts. Green camps, by my way of thinking, are about compassion and enlightenment and investing in human potential. Don’t punish or imprison your enemies — help them to see the light.