Minnesota MAC votes to discipline booze-shy Muslim cabbies

Great Debates
41

[QUOTE=LonesomePolecat]
Okay, so let’s let 'em cut down this one tree, 'cuz we’ve got this whole forest and it’s the easiest way to avoid an unpleasant confrontation in which we might look racist. They want to cut down another tree? Okay, let 'em. It’s a trivial unimportant issue, and the most important thing here is not to seem racist or xenophobic or uncool. Well, they want a few more trees, now. Well, give it to 'em. If we try to draw a line here, things could get ugly. Uh … they want more trees … guess we’d better. Remember the Crusades? Don’t want to be a bunch of bullies oppressing a minority, you know. Gee, they want still more trees. Well, we’ve got plenty, so I guess in a spirit of brotherhood and tolerance we should … I mean, Islam is the religion of peace and tolerance and all that …

Hey, where did our forest go? How did those Muslims get all that lumber?
[/QUOTE]

Or let’s let you cut down trees on your own property because you want to build a house. And we’ll let the guy down the street cut down trees on his own property because he just hates trees. And we’ll let another person cut down trees on their own property because he thinks trees are Satanic. But if someone wants to cut down trees on their own property because they’re a Muslim, we should all run around in a panic. Even though they’re taking the exact same action that you or the guy down the street are taking, we must definitely prevent them from cutting down trees on their own property if they want to because they’re Muslim.

Do you have any conception of private property rights? Do you even understand what separation of church and state is? Separation of church and state means that people are allowed to exercise their private property rights even if they have a religious motivation for doing so. Separation of church and state means that we don’t prevent people from exercising private property rights simply because we disagree with their religious motivation.

If you’ll notice, the cab drivers wanted to exercise control of their own property for religious reasons–that is the essence of separation of church and state. MAC denied them this control on non-religious grounds–once again, in compliance with separation of church and state.

If you want to prevent me from keeping alcohol off my property, you’d better have a better reason than telling me I can’t keep alcohol off my property because I’m practicing my religion. If you don’t like it, maybe you should go to a country where people are prevented from freely practicing their religious beliefs.

42

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
I dunno. His approach to that discussion was not measurably different than comments I have seen made by Falwell, Robertson, Wildmon, Paisley, or even Dobson (although Dobson can occasionally seem more nearly lucid). (For that matter, he did not seem much different than Limbaugh, O’Reilly, or Coulter–encounter an opposiong viewpoint that seems “inconceivable” and resort to bluster.)

[/QUOTE]

My point about him was just an aside, but obviously gave you an excuse to bury me in moral relativism. Perhaps you should examine what the lady has to say more closely.

43

[QUOTE=BrightNShiny]

If you’ll notice, the cab drivers wanted to exercise control of their own property for religious reasons–that is the essence of separation of church and state. MAC denied them this control on non-religious grounds–once again, in compliance with separation of church and state.

If you want to prevent me from keeping alcohol off my property, you’d better have a better reason than telling me I can’t keep alcohol off my property because I’m practicing my religion. If you don’t like it, maybe you should go to a country where people are prevented from freely practicing their religious beliefs.
[/QUOTE]

Obviously, I can do what I like on my property. I have no problem with people telling visitors they cannot smoke in their house. Anybody, Muslim or not, has a right to tell another person they cannot bring booze into their car. Or wear a red jacket, or brown shoes. IN A PRIVATE VEHICLE.

Now, I must admit that I do not know the exact laws about taxis in Minnesota. If I am wrong on this point I stand to be corrected. But in all the major cities and airports that I know of, taxi licences are given in limited numbers. The number of taxis that can use the taxi stand at the airport is usually controlled and limited as well. Otherwise, in a large city, everyone would be fighting over the lucrative airport fares.

Taxis are allowed onto the airport property SO THEY CAN SERVE THE TRAVELLING PUBLIC. Not so Mohamed can impose the will of almighty Allah.

A Taxi may be private property in the saense that it is not a publicly owned vehicle like a bus, but by the same token it is not a private vehicle like a private car.

For example, if I were bigoted against blacks, (I am NOT) I can decide that no blacks will ride in my PRIVATE car, and that is all there is to it. Nor do I have to invite blacks, or Catholics, or Jews to my PRIVATE home if I do not want to. And if a Mulim tells me he does not want me coming into his PRIVATE home with a booze bottle, I will bow and turn around with not a word of protest.

But if a Hotel, or a restaurant, or a TAXI decides they will not serve blacks or Catholics or hatever, this is a violation of the law.

Similarly, it would be a violation of my rights for a restaurant to demand that I say grace before eating. And what Muslim cab drivers are doing in Minnesota is nothing more or less than imposing their religious belifs on a public they are supposed to be serving impartially, and which they implicitly agreed to serve when they took out a taxi licence..

44

[QUOTE=Valteron]
Obviously, I can do what I like on my property. I have no problem with people telling visitors they cannot smoke in their house. Anybody, Muslim or not, has a right to tell another person they cannot bring booze into their car. Or wear a red jacket, or brown shoes. IN A PRIVATE VEHICLE.
[/QUOTE]

Taxis are private vehicles. :rolleyes:

I’m sorry you can’t wrap your mind around these very clear principles, but I’ll reiterate it for others in this thread. Private property owners have the right to ban alcohol from their private property for whatever reason they like. When private property owners are engaged in public commerce, the state has an interest in regulating the exercise of private property owner’s rights. However, the state cannot engage in regulation simply for the purpose of supressing the private property owner’s religious beliefs. This is a concept called separation of church and state. I’m sorry that you don’t believe in this concept.

Taxis are private vehicles. If the owner wants it to serve the will of Allah, then that is his right. You don’t get to tell him that he can’t use his cab to serve the will of Allah.

If the way he is using his cab interferes with a public interest, then the state will step in and make him change his behavior. WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED HERE.

Yes, it is a private vehicle. It is a private vehicle engaged in public commerce, and therefore subject to more regulation than other private vehicles–but it is still a private vehicle.

It’s against the law because skin color and religion are protected classes. Alcohol carriers and girls wearing hoochie shorts aren’t protected classes.

Making a demand is a violation of your rights? The restaurant is free to demand and you’re free to refuse. In California, it’s probably a violation of the law to refuse you service after this, but apparently now you want to curtail people’s free speech rights as well. :rolleyes:

What the cab drivers attempted to do was exercise their own religious rights. Banning alcohol from places is a routine occurence in this country. It happens all the time. So, they tried to do it for cabs. Big deal. And MAC said no. Great. That’s the way things work. People try to exercise their freedom of religion ON THEIR OWN PROPERTY and the state infringes on their freedom of religion when there is a reason to do so.

Apparently, you want people not to be able to freely exercise their religion. When you decide to support separation of church and state, get back to me.

45

Valteron, i believe that the job of a pharmacist is to dispense any and all legal drugs in accordance with prescriptions legally completed and signed by a licensed medical doctor.

Quite a few pharmacists in America refuse to fill prescriptions for contraceptive pills, morning after pills, and RU486 (mifepristone) based on their personal Christian convictions about the immorality of contraception and abortion.

Do you believe that they should have to prescribe those pills, irrespective of their beliefs?

Also, do you believe that their refusal to prescribe those pills is indicative of a danger posed to church-state separation, and to western civilization in general, by the Christian faith?

46

[QUOTE=BrightNShiny]
What the cab drivers attempted to do was exercise their own religious rights. Banning alcohol from places is a routine occurence in this country. It happens all the time. So, they tried to do it for cabs. Big deal. And MAC said no. Great. That’s the way things work. People try to exercise their freedom of religion ON THEIR OWN PROPERTY and the state infringes on their freedom of religion when there is a reason to do so.
[/quote]
In this case however, if the supply of taxi medallions/permits is limited, then I think the case is a little different. Also, in Portland, the airport sets aside a spot for taxis and makes sure that they stay in line. If I were a passenger with duty free alcohol, I’d be pissed if the cabby (or cabbies) first in line would not serve me and I had to wait.

But Tomndeb has argued very eloquently that the Somalian’s belief is cultural rather than religious.

47

[QUOTE=Valteron]

So, if their right to refuse to carry a passenger with alcohol is a right that cabbies possses, what about the Muslim man who believes that women should not speak to strange men in public? Can he refuse all female fares?

What if a Muslim (or conservative Christian, or whatever) cabbie refuses to carry “immodestly” dressed women in his cab (e.g., women in shorts and tank tops in the heat of summer)?

Or what about a Christian cabbie who refuses to carry a passenger holding a Koran, a book that clearly denies that Jesus was the Son of God?

[/QUOTE]

It is their business and it is their right to refuse service to whomever they please. They are not a city-sanctioned bus service. They do have public services catering to them, such as a lane to park the taxi at the airport, which (I presume) could be revoked if they do not follow certain guidelines. I don’t really see the controversy if this is what has already occurred.

48

[QUOTE=DanBlather]
In this case however, if the supply of taxi medallions/permits is limited, then I think the case is a little different. Also, in Portland, the airport sets aside a spot for taxis and makes sure that they stay in line. If I were a passenger with duty free alcohol, I’d be pissed if the cabby (or cabbies) first in line would not serve me and I had to wait.
[/QUOTE]

I hadn’t realized that. If I had, I might have said I agree with MAC. Oh, wait. I only said it like seventy-kadjillion times in this thread. I already said that the goverment can regulate behavior of people engaged in public commerce for non-religious reasons. What they can’t do is prevent people from exercising their religious beliefs solely because it’s an Islamic belief.

Ok, so it’s cultural. Whatever the reason, it’s still a common practice in the US to ban alcohol. Why should I go into a panic because some group of cabbies in Minnesota wants to ban it for religious reasons? That’s what this really is about. People routinely ban alcohol for all sorts of reasons–having to do with everything from economics to nuttiness to religion. But I’m supposed to go into a tizzy if people try the exact same thing because of Somali cultural beliefs. I’ll decline, thanks.

49

BrightNShiny is completely correct.

This is simply a case of private property rights (Taxi owners setting conditions on their fares) versus the rights of the state to set conditions on commerce. The fact that the desire of the property owners was religiously-based is almost* immaterial. After all, there are plenty of secular arguments for abstaining from alcohol, or simply for keeping booze out of your cab.

Because the state artificially limits the amount of cabs, I have to agree with this ruling. Cabbies have reduced competition, so it’s only fair that they can be less choosey with their fares. If anyone could decide to hire out their cars, or if getting a cab license was trivially easy, then I’d have to argue for the cabbies.

This is why I’m undecided on the issue of pharmacists who refuse to carry birth control. Just how controlled is the pharmacy trade? How easy is it to set up a pharmacy? I don’t think the state limits the number of pharmacies in a given area, but I believe pharmacists do have to be properly certified, which can amount to the same practical result.

*I say “almost” because religious rights are also protected in this country, so such a claim arguably deserve an extra dose of protection if it’s religiously based, lest the first amendment get tread upon.

50

[QUOTE=Valteron]
My point about him was just an aside, but obviously gave you an excuse to bury me in moral relativism. Perhaps you should examine what the lady has to say more closely.
[/QUOTE]
Why? I am sure that she is speaking from the perspective of her cultural background and I do not doubt her personal experience (although, as I have pointed out on a couple of occasions, now, people who are mad about an organization or an institution are not always the best sources about that organization).

If you want to show just how terrible Islam really is, get her to debate one or two women from Dearborn or Toronto or Ankarra or Kuala Lumpur. (Or, if you’d like, I will dig up some comments from a “recovered” homosexual who has been working with some religious group or another to warn us of the Homosexual Agenda and all the nasty things “those homosexuals” are trying to do to our society.)

The point is that it is not difficult to find individuals who firmly believe terrible things about groups with whom they have had relationships. The fact that you can find women who are or have been Muslim who will point out the “bad” things about Islam means nothing more than that there are women who are or have been Muslim who are unhappy with that condition. They might be entirely accurate–for the particular society from which they came, or they might not, but dragging out dissatisfied individuals simply does not make your case for the world-wide horror of Islam. If the situation is as bad as you want it to be, why are not 80% or more of the Muslim women in Dearborn fleeing their families and seeking shelter. (I am sure that you could respond that they have been forbidden to do so, to which I would note that you have no clue what life in Dearborn is actually like and you are simply using your predisposed (and unsupported) beliefs to trot out your canned answer.)

51

[QUOTE=BrightNShiny]
I hadn’t realized that. If I had, I might have said I agree with MAC. Oh, wait. I only said it like seventy-kadjillion times in this thread. I already said that the goverment can regulate behavior of people engaged in public commerce for non-religious reasons. What they can’t do is prevent people from exercising their religious beliefs solely because it’s an Islamic belief.
[/quote]
Can we prevent strawmen from exercising their religious beliefs solely because they are Islamic?

52

[QUOTE=DanBlather]
Can we prevent strawmen from exercising their religious beliefs solely because they are Islamic?
[/QUOTE]

Sure. When I see a strawman, I’ll be sure to tell him.

53

[QUOTE=tomndebb]

If the situation is as bad as you want it to be, why are not 80% or more of the Muslim women in Dearborn fleeing their families and seeking shelter. (I am sure that you could respond that they have been forbidden to do so, to which I would note that you have no clue what life in Dearborn is actually like and you are simply using your predisposed (and unsupported) beliefs to trot out your canned answer.)
[/QUOTE]

Once again, to go back to my analogy with Nazi Germany, did you know that Germans (unless they were Jews) were pretty much free to leave the Third Reich if they felt like it? The Von Trapp family, by the way, did NOT leave hiking across the Alps to the strains of a nun singing “Climb Every Mountain”. They left by train, freely, as did a number of Germans who chose to exile themselves, such as Thomas Mann.

But I suppose you would not have granted credibility to the Von Trapps or Thomas Mann on the grounds that you can always find some people who are dissatisfied and willing to speak against their organization.

Since 99.9% of Germans did not vote with their feet and leave Germany, I suppose we could say that Naziism was not a dangerous and destructive philosophy. Who are you going to believe, a bunch of disaffected weirdos like Sigmund Freud, Thomas Mann and the Von Trapps, or the vast majority of Germans?

I do not personally know all the Muslims in Dearborn, Michigan. Perhaps you do?

I do know that many Muslim women do not even speak English even after decades in English-speaking countries. The wide of the Imam in my own city is an example. Twenty years in England and Cnada and she does not speak enough English to speak to a reporter when her husband is being interviewed by the local paper.

Now there is a oman who is likely to “vote ith her feet” if she ever feels like it! :dubious:

By the way, although I know that some Muslims dispue this, most Muslims seem to agree that the penalty for a Muslim leaving Islam is DEATH.

Whether or not there is an actual possibility of a woman being killed for leaving Islam in Dearborn Michigigan is another matter. But add to that the force of their indoctrination from childhood and their daily indoctrination, as well as the pressures of friends and family, and you get some of the reasons that Muslims in America stick with the religion.

I am not denying that some do quite voluntarily remain Muslims. They are deeply indoctrinated in their faith and its mission to submit the entire world to Islam. And that is why they scare the shit out of me!

54

[QUOTE=Valteron]
Once again, to go back to my analogy with Nazi Germany, did you know that Germans (unless they were Jews) were pretty much free to leave the Third Reich if they felt like it?
[/QUOTE]
But in your strained analogy, the Muslim women should be equated to Jews, not run-of-the-mill Germans. They are the ones whom you claim are being oppressed, yet they live in a location where there is no government action to prevent their movement and there are any number of halfway houses and shelters that would take them if they fled their horrendous situation. The women of the Muslim community in Dearborn have worked out an agreement with the local Secretary fo State’s office that permits them to wear the hijab when being photographed for their driver’s license. That was their decision. (They are not permitted to wear the face-obscuring niqab, or veil, but they have accommodated to that without setting afire the Henry Ford Museum or Greenfield Village.)

It is convenient that you simply dismiss their decision to not flee from your bogeyman version of life because you claim they are indoctrinated, but I suspect that the reality is much closer to the simple fact that the life is not nearly as oppressive as you need to imagine it in order to prop up your own fears of the unknown.

And while I am sure that you can cherry-pick any number of anecdotes where one woman or another has not learned English after some number of years, here, that is clearly not the norm in Dearborn. According to the U.S. Census, there are 86,000 residents over the age of five of whom 49,500 speak English in the home, (Oh, the horrors!.) Of course, when we start removing Spanish speakers and others, we find that while there are around 33,000 residents who are of Arab ancestry, among them are only 2,300 persons whose languages would include Arabic who do not speak English “very well.” (This means that even among people who speak another language at home, the overwhelming percent of them can speak English outside the home when necessary and some undetermined percent of the 2,300 can probably speak well enough to buy groceries and such, although they could not carry on a fluent conversation.) So, unless you are proposing that of 33,000 residents of Arab descent, there are only 2,300 adult women, claims that most of them cannot “escape” because of some language barrier are ludicrous.

55

[QUOTE=BrightNShiny]
Do you have any conception of private property rights?
[/QUOTE]

Yeah. It’s the principle that says “if you want to pick up passengers at our airport, you will follow our rules”.

56

[QUOTE=Steve MB]
Yeah. It’s the principle that says “if you want to pick up passengers at our airport, you will follow our rules”.
[/QUOTE]

If you’re not going to bother to read my posts, why are you responding to me? :rolleyes:

57

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
So, unless you are proposing that of 33,000 residents of Arab descent, there are only 2,300 adult women, claims that most of them cannot “escape” because of some language barrier are ludicrous.
[/QUOTE]

Please show me where I said that “most” of the Muslim women cannot escape because of some language barrier. I fail to see where I said that. I only postulated that language barriers may play a part. I never said “most.”

The greatest powers of imprisonment that religions possess are fear, indoctrination and family/peer pressure. And as we know, many Muslims believe that the penalty for a Muslim rejecting Islam is death.

58

Of course this does not mean anything. Just an incident, right? There is no undeclared war between the medieval fanaticism of Islam and the West, is there? Read the news fresh from today at this news site.

Meanwhile we argue about the "right " of Muslim cabbies to impose their booze rules on the travelling public in America.

59

[QUOTE=Valteron]
And as we know, many Muslims believe that the penalty for a Muslim rejecting Islam is death.
[/QUOTE]
Gee, I can’t imagine why you’re backpedalling, here:

So you’ve moved from most to many in just one afternoon (without providingg a shred of proof (carefully cherry-picked from some anti-Muslim site or another) of either situation.

As to whether “most” Muslim women or “some” Muslim women are trapped in the isolation of their homes in the West by barriers of language, (even if we could imagine the unlikely scenario that the women who did not speak the local language were also unaware of any other Muslim women or that they all failed to speak the vernacular), you are the one who keeps bringing it up as some sort of relevant point rather than recognizing that it is just one more anecdote you have carefully chosen to add to your list of unrelated incidents in order to build a facade of issues.
(For an alternative view, I could probably find a number of stories about Muslim women in Dearborn who were living the “American” life and who have chosen to return to more conservative Muslim ways. Should I waste everyone’s time collecting and linking to those anecdotes so that we can wage a war of irrelevant stories? Or, perhaps, you could simply set aside your panic and consider that the world is not the fearsome black-and-white world you appear to prefer?
(Actually, I would note that it is probably the overt hostility that you and your similarly minded citizens direct toward Islam that does far more to strengthen the more conservative elements. Persecution (or the fear expressed as hatred that precedes persecution) is one of the best recruiting tools provided to any group. Why do you think Catholics in the U.S. were so tight-knit until the 1960s? The low-level persecution in the U.S. kept them together until Kennedy became president (and Cole and then Gerstenberg became the presidents of GM) that showed Catholics they could “let down their guard” and more easily assimilate. Similar history follows the Jews in the U.S. So keep up your rants; you will create the situation you most fear.

60

[QUOTE=Valteron]
Of course this does not mean anything. Just an incident, right? There is no undeclared war between the medieval fanaticism of Islam and the West, is there? Read the news fresh from today at this news site.

Meanwhile we argue about the "right " of Muslim cabbies to impose their booze rules on the travelling public in America.
[/QUOTE]
I am aware of and have never denied the danger of the medieval fanaticism of Islam. I simply point out that however many news nuggets you can dig up, medieval fanaticism is not the norm among the Muslims of the world–although you and yours are working hard to make it so.

By the way, why are you making up lies that we are arguing about the “'right ’ of Muslim cabbies to impose their booze rules on the travelling public in America”? No one here has been arguing that they should be permitted any such thing. The Somali immigrants who have attempted to impose their unique understanding of their religion on American travellers have been rebuked and no one has defended them. No wonder you fear Islam so much, you make up enemies and opposing sides even when none exist.