Laphraoig Akbar!
By Mitch Berg
The Airport Commission is debating the Moslem cabbies’ “right” to refuse service to people with alcohol.
I’ve had about enough of these idiots:
Many cabbies disagreed, saying that the proposal denies them the right to freely practice their religion.
“This is discrimination,” proclaimed Ahmed Shine, a taxi driver for seven years.
No, it’s a “job condition”. If my religion forbade me from watching people use software, my employer would be well within its rights to toss me. Ditto the MAC.
And the MAC isn’t saying you can’t drive a cab. Merely that you can’t drive one on its turf, the airport.
Beyond that, Ahmed? Stand on principle! Refuse the booze! Eke out a living hauling welfare fares home from the grocery store (no booze there!).
Abdifatah Abdi, who said he was speaking for an association of cabdrivers, said the commissioners “will be judged on your decision.”You are deciding the livelihood of 600 drivers and their families,” Abdi said. “Say no to discrimination. Say yes to justice for the weak.”
Then go out and get a job where you don’t have to deal with infidels!
Seriously, what’s next? Refusing to serve women who aren’t wearing chador?
Go drive your cab in Mogadishu.
March 1st, 2007 at 9:35 am
J. Ewing
I’m game. Where would you like to start?
March 1st, 2007 at 9:36 am
“actual statement of informed opinion based on consistent principle?”
AngryClown is an ass.
How’s that?
March 1st, 2007 at 9:40 am
Personally I think that a cabbie that doesn’t pick up a driver based upon the alcohol reasoning, should go to the back of the queue.
However, 5,222 denials in 5 years may seem like a big number, but what % is that of total cabs taken? In the grand scheme of things, they turned down 3 rides per day, which i am guessing is in the range of
March 1st, 2007 at 9:41 am
Anybody care to discuss the issue at hand,
[Raises hand, waves enthusiastically.]
Letting too many lefties into a comment section is like hiring debutantes to work in a physics lab. It’s noisy, and things get broken, and eventually you realize nothing is getting done.
March 1st, 2007 at 9:43 am
(Not to paint with too broad a brush. Some of you are indeed valuable commenters).
(I keep Clown around because I told his parents I’d give him something to stay out of trouble).
March 1st, 2007 at 9:44 am
hmm, the comment section didn’t like my equation symbols i guess, but it should have said less than 1%.
March 1st, 2007 at 9:53 am
Gee Mitch, all Angryclown did was agree with you and all your wingnut pals start picking on him. It ain’t fair, I tells ya!
March 1st, 2007 at 10:03 am
Mitch observed: “I wonder – if you polled 100 New Yorkers about life outside of their roach-infested, over-priced city, and 100 average people real americans from between the Hudson and the Sierra Madre about life in New York – who’d score better?”
What’s to know? You come home from a hard day working at the feed lot, smack the kids around, read the cows a bedtime story and go to sleep. On your birthday your wife lets you do her and you get to eat at Appleby’s.
March 1st, 2007 at 10:25 am
“all your wingnut pals start picking on him. It ain’t fair, I tells ya!”
*sheds a tear* I pity the angryclown!
“What’s to know? You come home from a hard day working at the feed lot, smack the kids around, read the cows a bedtime story and go to sleep. On your birthday your wife lets you do her and you get to eat at Appleby’s.”
The dog ate your homework again? Poor, poor angryclown. *more tears*
You have a great day, angryclown! 🙂
March 1st, 2007 at 12:30 pm
We prefer Chili’s over Appleby’s. It’s much more diverse in a cultural sort of way.
March 1st, 2007 at 12:32 pm
A friend at another blog will be leaving for the Virgin Islands next week (Yes, that one), and he has a novel idea. When he calls the cab company for the ride to the airport, he’s going to request a non Muslim driver.
Let the Market work, I says.
March 1st, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Kermit – that makes a lot of sense although I think I’m going to change it up a bit. I don’t care if they’re Muslim or not.
I’m going to request a driver that will let me carry a bottle of wine.
March 1st, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Kermit, i think you meant, “Make the Market work inefficiently, I says.”
And you may want to direct your friend to AA as there may be a problem if he needs to bring booze with him on his trip! 😉
March 1st, 2007 at 2:14 pm
I’m going to ask for a driver that minds his own business.
March 1st, 2007 at 2:52 pm
No, I meant what I said. If a bunch of Somalis are going to get up on their high camel and try to dictate to the people who welcomed them as refugees, I say Screw Them.
And my friend is planning on bringng back high octane rum from the USVI. I may have to have a taste.
March 1st, 2007 at 3:01 pm
What if their cabs are running on E-85?
March 1st, 2007 at 4:50 pm
Allah will smite their apostate asses.
March 1st, 2007 at 5:16 pm
kermit said: “f a bunch of Somalis are going to get up on their high camel and try to dictate to the people who welcomed them as refugees, I say Screw Them.”
All fulcrum can say, “kermit, your ignorance is completely overwhelming. First off, they are not all from Somali and secondly, they are not all refugees. But xenophobia and racism have always been your forte.”
March 1st, 2007 at 5:40 pm
So Fulcrum, when the cabbies start refusing to carry homosexuals, what are you going to do then?
March 1st, 2007 at 7:18 pm
AC said:
In contrast to Maseter, Angryclown is intelligent and completely reliable.
Oh yeah, we’re going to believe and trust a guy who wears greasepaint 24/7.
March 1st, 2007 at 9:53 pm
Fulcrum, you incredibly ignorant ass, Bill Clinton dumped tens of thousands of Somalis in Minnesota in the 90s. If you are that removed from recent history I can’t help but wonder why you bother expressing opinions to people who are better informed than you are.
And I’ve got you’re “forte” right here, bucko.
March 2nd, 2007 at 7:30 am
“Dumped.” Kinda like garbage, eh Kerm?
You sure don’t have to drill very deep on a wingnut blog before hitting that gusher of racism.
The camel comment was a nice touch too. Very subtle.
March 2nd, 2007 at 8:16 am
Sure clown. It was right after they piled thousands of Hmong up in St.Paul. There was nary a blue eye in the bunch.
But rather than extrapolate my semantics, how about a little mind theatre?
“Mohammed, we have a wonderful place for your family to take refuge. It’s called Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes.”
“Wonderful, praise Allah! When do we leave?”
“December. We want you to get the full experience. Bring warm clothes.”
March 2nd, 2007 at 8:24 am
Can you imagine? Brown-eyed people! Run for it!
The cold I bet they expected. They probably had to be warned about the racism.
March 2nd, 2007 at 8:51 am
My mom has brown eyes, my brother-in-law’s parents immigrated from China and you are an ignorant ass.
March 2nd, 2007 at 9:35 am
“How could I be a racist? My sister married a Chinese guy!”
Angryclown’s a wise ass.
March 2nd, 2007 at 10:15 am
Kermit, i love it, i call you ignorant, and you just proved it again! You didn’t refute one thing i said:
“First off, they are not all from Somali and secondly, they are not all refugees.”
To which you replied:
“Fulcrum, you incredibly ignorant ass, Bill Clinton dumped tens of thousands of Somalis in Minnesota in the 90s. If you are that removed from recent history I can’t help but wonder why you bother expressing opinions to people who are better informed than you are.”
How exactly are you better informed? Great, so Clinton settled many refugees here (obviously to your great displeasure). Does that mean all East Africans here are Somali? Does it mean they call immigrated as refugees?
And this nugget, “better informed than you are.”
Refuting your arguments is the easiest thing i do all week.
March 2nd, 2007 at 11:24 am
Um, that would be Somalia with an A, Fulcrum. But please, continue to impress me with your intellect.
“How exactly are you better informed?”
At least I know how to spell the name of the country.
March 2nd, 2007 at 12:05 pm
A typo!?!? Way to dodge the issue Clinton, um, I mean Kermit.
March 2nd, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Geez, Fulcrum. Even Kerm’s Chinese brother-in-law spells better than you!
March 2nd, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Yeah, I think that engineering degree really helped him out.
March 2nd, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Fulcrum,
So typos aside, it’s a simple fact – the vast majority of East African immigrants were Somali.
It was Clinton Administration policy.
That policy – bringing in wholesale lots of unassimilated immigrants, many of whom subscribe to a religious denomination that detests the very nation they moved to – is having consequences. Not always good ones.
It’s worth a discussion.
March 2nd, 2007 at 2:07 pm
Mitch agreed, but Kermit’s grandiose xenophobic statements were way over the top and need to be called out. He lumps all Eastern Africans together, and all Muslims together. To believe that there is a monolithic Islam is as ridiculous and dangerous as to believe there is a monolithic Christianity.
To say that since of portion of Islam’s followers detests America, and apply that to all of Islam’s followers is wrong. Personally, I think you would be hard pressed to find a lot of TC Somalians brought as refugees who truly detest America based upon religious beliefs.
Personally I think this is all being blown out of proportion since the refused rides represent less than 1% of all rides taken at the airport (my estimation).
March 2nd, 2007 at 2:46 pm
So as long as something only happens 1% of the time, then every thing’s OK?
Do you apply that standard to everything?
So if we fire every cabbie that refuses a ride based on Sharia law, then that would be OK, cause it’s only 1%.
March 2nd, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Fulcrum said:
Personally I think this is all being blown out of proportion since the refused rides represent less than 1% of all rides taken at the airport (my estimation).
Is it? Then how about answering Master of None’s question: So Fulcrum, when the cabbies start refusing to carry homosexuals, what are you going to do then?
I would add: What will you do when such cabbies refuse to carry women that are not dressed appropriately (burqas)?
Count on it eventually happening; there is no tolerance for gays in Muslim society. Anyone that comes out of the closet in a muslim nation is summarily executed (that’s the lucky ones.)
I find it puzzling that both the gay community and NOW have been quite silent on certain parts of Islamic law.
March 2nd, 2007 at 3:45 pm
“Kermit’s grandiose xenophobic statements were way over the top and need to be called out.”
Well. I think we have a pot meets kettle moment here.
I have never been grandiose. Grandiloquent, perhaps. And I’m not afraid of people who make sense, so that shoots the xenophobia charge down too.
0 for 2, Fulc.
March 2nd, 2007 at 3:57 pm
As long as they have the good sense to be white.
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:58 pm
MONS & Paul: I did not say it is ok, i said blown out of proportion, and I meant to say in terms of the coverage in the media (all forms) based upon occurances. Now we have 3 denials by cabbie made per day. We have no clue what they are for, or who makes them. So, if we assume that they are all muslims denying rides to alchohol carrying passengers (which it isn’t), then we are talking about (assuming 1000 cab rides a day) denials at a rate of .3%.
Denials based upon race/sex/sexuality/religion are human rights violations and completely unacceptable.
Gret job Kermit, well if you aren’t xenophobic of those that make sense, you just identified yourself by definition as someone who does not make sense. Like I said, refuting your statements are the easiest thing I do all day.
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:09 pm
“We have no clue what they are for, or who makes them. ”
Really? Could you possibly try to not be so disingenuous?
I’ll grant you that 3 denials a day isn’t that big of deal, unless you happen to be one of the people being denied. If you’re blind, and are being denied because your guide dog violates Sharia law, then it is a human rights violation. This has happened, it’s documented, and it has to absolutely stop. We know who’s doing it, and why they are doing it, so don’t kid yourself.
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:21 pm
i was not trying to be disingenous, I didn’t look at the Press link which indicated that most, but not all of those denials dealt with alcohol or guide dogs.
I agree with the guide dog issue, and apparently, if the papers are right, that practice has stopped. I have repeatedly stated my thoughts on penatlies for refusing to drive a passenger carrying alcohol.
So MONS please tell us, why are they doing it?
What do you think the penalty should be for pharmacists that refuse to fill orders on religious grounds?
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:27 pm
“Like I said, refuting your statements are the easiest thing I do all day.”
Wow. Getting out of bed must be a real challenge, Fulc. That and grammar.
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:30 pm
Muslim activists are trying to impose Sharia law into American society.
My view on Pharmacists?
If the owner of a business doesn’t want to sell a certain product for ANY reason, that owner can do that.
If the employee of a business doesn’t want to sell a product, then they have to answer to the owner. If I was the pharmacy owner, I would fire the employee if they refused to sell a product that I carried.
If the customer doesn’t want to do business with this owner they can go elsewhere.
At the Minneapolis airport, there are no alternatives to finding a cab. The cab drivers are licensed to operate on public property.
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:34 pm
Muslim activists are trying to impose Sharia law into American society.
My view on Pharmacists?
If the owner of a business doesn’t want to sell a certain product for ANY reason, that owner can do that.
If the employee of a business doesn’t want to sell a product, then they have to answer to the owner. If I was the pharmacy owner, I would fire the employee if they refused to sell a product that I carried.
If the customer doesn’t want to do business with this owner they can go elsewhere.
At the Minneapolis airport, there are no alternatives to finding a cab. The cab drivers are licensed to operate on public property.
The existing rules of going back to the end of the line aren’t working. People are still being denied service.
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:35 pm
Kermit, does your mouth hold both of your feet at one time?
You chide me about grammar (when I made a spelling mistake) with an incomplete sentence?
Refuting your statements is the easiest thing I do, since you do it for me!
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:37 pm
In retrospect apparently i do suck at grammar. And I tell ya, crow is mighty tasty deep fried!
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:41 pm
If the pharmacist is licensed to operating in a public facility, they should loose their license.
If the owner of a pharmacy, chooses not to carry a product for ANY reason, that’s his right. The customer has the right and the ability to go elsewhere.
I haven’t read anywhere that the practice of not carrying guide dogs has stopped, only that the cabbies have promised to stop it.
Why are they doing it? My belief is that there are a small number of Muslim activists that are doing this, in an attempt to force Sharia concepts into American society.
March 2nd, 2007 at 6:39 pm
In my opinion, there is a small number of Muslim activists that are at the root of this problem. They are attempting to insert Sharia law into American society.
If a pharmacist was licensed to operate in a public facility, and didn’t abide by the terms of that license, then I would pull the license. But, a private business owner can choose to sell or not sell anything they want for any reason they want.
March 2nd, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Master of None said: In my opinion, there is a small number of Muslim activists that are at the root of this problem. They are attempting to insert Sharia law into American society.
That is exactly what is happening, and the story has drawn national attention because of it.
March 2nd, 2007 at 7:48 pm
That’s cool, Fulc. I recommend the honey mustard sauce. (insert smiley face here)
March 2nd, 2007 at 11:49 pm
Gee, AC seems to be flailing more than usual lately. Perhaps he’s been reading the history of Blind King John of Bohemia. Or maybe he’s just drinking more than usual since his partner left him.