America has problems, but America is NOT THE PROBLEM!~
Political Correctness rears its UGLY HEAD, Once Again
Published on January 6, 2007 By Moderateman In Religion

A minor issue at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) has
potentially major implications for the future of Islam in the United States.
  
  Starting about a decade ago, some Muslim taxi drivers serving the airport
declared, that they would not transport passengers visibly carrying alcohol, in
transparent duty-free shopping bags, for example. This stance stemmed from
their understanding of the Koran's ban on alcohol. A driver named Fuad Omar
explained: "This is our religion. We could be punished in the afterlife if we
agree to [transport alcohol]. This is a Koran issue. This came from heaven."
Another driver, Muhamed Mursal, echoed his words: "It is forbidden in Islam
to carry alcohol." They also refuse to carry anyone with a dog because it's considered that as dogs saliva is 'UNCLEAN" even if the person is blind and freezing and NEEDS his dog to live his life with some dignity.

If the Muslims chose to take a job in the public service sector, the should be made to obey the taxi laws just like everyone else does, but no, not the Muslims..they are special and want all Americans to bow to their will and their religion.

  
  The issue emerged publicly in 2000. On one occasion, 16 drivers in a row
refused a passenger with bottles of alcohol. This left the passenger - who
had done nothing legally wrong - feeling like a criminal. For their part, the
16 cabby's lost income. As Josh L. Dickey of the Associated Press put it,
when drivers at MSP refuse a fare for any reason, "they go to the back of the
line. Way back. Past the terminal, down a long service road, and into a
sprawling parking lot jammed with cabs in Bloomington, where drivers sit idle
for hours, waiting to be called again." I think that if they refuse fares they should not be allowed to pick up fares at the airport, period, after all the airport grants permission for cabs to ply there trade there and can revoke this privilege at any time.
   
  To avoid this predicament, Muslim taxi drivers asked the Metropolitan
Airports Commission for permission to refuse passengers carrying liquor - or
even suspected of carrying liquor - without being banished to the end of the
line. MAC rejected this appeal, worried that drivers might offer religion as an
excuse to refuse short-distance passengers.

America needs to stand up and see what is happening, the Imams that set themselves up to get thrown of the airplane so security might get relaxed so there suicide bomber brothers can bomb innocent Americans again. Now Muslims telling Us what they will or will not do at work. Does this mean as a Jew If I was A taxi driver I could refuse any once displaying a cross because it offends me? Or carrying Crab or pork because it is unclean and against my religion> When will we stop playing the accomadation game with minorities that are trying to subvert our way of life?
  

"
Comments (Page 2)
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on Jan 07, 2007

Reply By: SilentPoetPosted: Sunday, January 07, 2007
Their taxi, their business, their rules. Deal with it.

I mean, it is just like here at JU. Brad can do whatever he wishes, ban whomever he likes. Can we disagree with it? Of course. Can we do anything? Nope.

I feel, that deep down, this is just another bit of BS. Something to bash muslims with...

...it's despicable.

Hey Mod, lets see some pieces on Jews, Christians, or the like doing the same, or similar.

how about I write what I want to write about and you write what you want to write about.

on Jan 07, 2007

have no doubt if this was a Christian who had a problem with alcohol, Modmad would never have even perked an eyebrow at it.
Reply By: BakerStreetPosted: Sunday, January 07, 2007

as I have no doubt if this was written by anyone but me you would not have commented the way you did. I will ask you one more time. Please just stay out of my blog, you have not added anything to them in months, just used them to take the oppertunity to shoot at me. Now go away little man that I use to respect but no longer do, you bother me!

on Jan 07, 2007
"as I have no doubt if this was written by anyone but me you would not have commented the way you did."


Yeah, modman, I have a hands-off policy on everyone but you. Could you name someone that I don't offer the shiv when they say something stupid? If you still can, look at the situation objectively and you might see that instead of me getting all nasty, you're just getting more paranoid and more apt to trample on the freedoms of people you don't agree with.

Like I say, if this was a pharmacist refusing to sell RU-486, you'd be on a different side, wouldn't ya? I'll stay off your blog as you request. You and the real Americans enjoy your butchery, Mr. Cutting, because obviously I don't belong.


on Jan 07, 2007
as I have no doubt if this was written by anyone but me you would not have commented the way you did. I will ask you one more time. Please just stay out of my blog, you have not added anything to them in months, just used them to take the oppertunity to shoot at me. Now go away little man that I use to respect but no longer do, you bother me!


Why not just counter him? Why resort to a semi-victim mode? 'Cause frankly, that's what I see. You say he's picking on you, why? You've said before, to many others, that it's okay to disagree with you; to state their opinion. Now, when Baker does, it's not okay.

how about I write what I want to write about and you write what you want to write about.


Fine, your choice.


Peace, ~Lucas
on Jan 07, 2007
Also, another thing.


I have noticed, through reading your blog for some time, that you have a certain mindset towards Muslims/Islam. It seems to me to be one of disdain, perhaps borderline hate. Maybe I'm wrong, and if I am, I apologize. That's just what i've seen.

Peace, ~Lucas
on Jan 07, 2007
"Lucas, you're an asshole."


Hey, now... hey, hey, hey...

Let's not overlook me being an asshole...
on Jan 08, 2007
I don't agree with what they're doing either. The passengers with alchohol are not offering it to them, or drinking it openly. So why shoudl it bother them? If they are there to provide a service to the public then they should serve the public! If the shopping habits of some people offend them, then maybe they should not be taxi drivers! Duhhh!!! That's the silliest thing ever and it's a good thing their appeal was not approved because you can be sure that they would do more and blame it on their religion as the reason!


on Jan 08, 2007
I don't agree with what they're doing either. The passengers with alchohol are not offering it to them, or drinking it openly. So why shoudl it bother them? If they are there to provide a service to the public then they should serve the public! If the shopping habits of some people offend them, then maybe they should not be taxi drivers! Duhhh!!! That's the silliest thing ever and it's a good thing their appeal was not approved because you can be sure that they would do more and blame it on their religion as the reason!


This is the same deal as what went on with JU being Draginols/Brad's thing. It's a service, and he can do whatever he wants with it.

Why should their business be any different?

Lucas, you're an asshole.


Hmmm... *checks himself* Sorry, no, I am not an asshole.

on Jan 08, 2007
Hmmm... *checks himself* Sorry, no, I am not an asshole.


Sure you are. I am. Baker is. LW is.

Learn to embrace your inner asshole, Lucas. You'll be a much happier young man.
on Jan 08, 2007
So, if a taxi driver doesn't want alcohol in his cab, I'm cool with that. Just the same as I am when they try to force pharmacists to carry the morning after pill, or try to force landlords to accept gay couples, yadda yadda.


Bingo, Baker. All I ask is that they get bumped to the end of the line like anyone else who refuses a fare and not get preferential treatment.

As long as they get bumped, it should be their choice, in my opinion.
on Jan 08, 2007
"Bingo, Baker. All I ask is that they get bumped to the end of the line like anyone else who refuses a fare and not get preferential treatment. "


Bumpage should be proportional to their stupidity, really. At least their position in the moral climate of the nation they live in. The more wacko you are, the worse your business will be. If you are a landlord that lives in one of the gayer parts of SanFran, well, then you're gonna pay for your aversion to gay tenants.

I really don't see this as any more wacko than anything else. It's just a moral decision, not nearly as extreme as the Amish not using technology or Christian Science folks refusing medical treatment. They don't want alcohol in their cars. Whoopdeedo.

Wait, I said I wasn't going to post any more. Sorry about that. I can't read many blogs from this camp any more without thinking about Bill Cutting in Gangs of New York. I'm a native, but I guess I'm suspect because I'm 'lukewarm'.

on Jan 08, 2007
I really don't see this as any more wacko than anything else. It's just a moral decision, not nearly as extreme as the Amish not using technology or Christian Science folks refusing medical treatment. They don't want alcohol in their cars. Whoopdeedo.


No, you're right, it's not whacko. I think it is just as legitimate as Christians who refuse to work on Sunday, or the pharmacists with the "morning after" pill.

But in the case of this particular airport, the policy is to bump cabs who refuse a fare, and that's the understanding they have to get the contract. So they should be bumped, they shouldn't gripe about being bumped, and the airport shouldn't make a deal out of them refusing the fare.

I'm sorry you think my response on this one is extreme or bigoted, Baker, but I honestly don't see how that conclusion can be drawn. I am simply asking that they not be excepted from the airport's policy based on their faith based decision (which, by the way, is the airport's point of view as well).
on Jan 08, 2007

This is the same deal as what went on with JU being Draginols/Brad's thing. It's a service, and he can do whatever he wants with it.

Why should their business be any different?


That's the point. It shouldn't be.

Just as Brad can run JU in whichever way he wants if he stays within the bounds of the law, so can taxi drivers run their cabs in whichever way they want if they stay within the bounds of the law.

But as far as I know taxi licences do not allow a driver to refuse to carry a passenger because he carries a bottle of wine. In fact, I am sure the law specifically forces the taxi driver to accept the fare. And that's it. It's the law.

You can argue against the law, but you cannot claim, as some here appear to do, that a taxi driver violating the law is the same as Brad not violating the law. Taxi drivers are not that different from other people. They only seem that way.
on Jan 08, 2007

well now that everyone has had his or her feel good moment let us look at this one fact, or moment of reality. TAXI DRIVER may not for any reason refuse a fare, unless they perceive said fare as a THREAT of harm to themselves, bodily harm.

If a white refused a black A pick up I would be pissed and writing about it, If a Jew refused someone eating a Ham sandwich a pickup I would be writing about that.

The back of the line thing was ALREADY  a concession to the Muslim drivers, but now they want more concessions, they do not want to have to go to the back of the line, they do not want to lose there spot at all.

Lucas? whip is right you are an asshole.

Baker? I owe you an apoligy, you are an asshole at time, but an asshole I still admire and one I respect too.

on Jan 08, 2007
"Baker? I owe you an apoligy, you are an asshole at time, but an asshole I still admire and one I respect too."


I *deeply* appreciate that Modman, and you know damn well that I appreciate and respect you too.

The reason that I react this strongly is because, to me, it is like people running around a burning house, claiming the reason family members are dying is the color of the drapes. I don't like to see people just stand around while the house burns down.

Until people really start to address the problems that cause this hateful fundamentalism to flower, it won't just persist, it will GROW. Why? Because what you are doing is a self-fulfilling prophesy. The fundamentalist cheerleaders say we hate Muslims and that we don't care whether people are taxi cab drivers or terrorists.

What do we do? We get oversensitive and let every detail we hear on the news make us rabidly irate. Then, we rant online about cab drivers and reinforce the idea that it is "Islam against the West". The best thing we can do is shed light on the real rot, and stop giving Muslims the impression that our aim is the degradation of destruction of Islam.
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