Time Immortal

This time from Clifford D. May, opinion columnist for the Minneapolis newspaper, the Star Tribune:

The assault on free speech has gone global

…On campuses and within Western governments it is increasingly taboo to label terrorists who slaughter in the name of Islam “Islamist terrorists.” In Canada, “human rights commissions” attempt to enforce this taboo by putting such writers as Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant on trial for the “crime” of expressing opinions that offend Islamic grievance groups — and also for quoting Islamists accurately and thereby casting them in an unfavorable light. If that’s not Orwellian, what is?

Be sure to thank your local HRC, O Reader, the next time you have the chance. Thank them for making Canada into an international pariah which people believe has done away with that bedrock principle of free society: freedom of speech.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Apparently, those times are now over — segregation is the hot new trend in enlightened progressive thinking. Who knew?

In the old days, Harvard would have laughed if some Catholic or evangelical mother urged “girls-only” campus workouts in the name of modesty. Today, Harvard happily implements Sharia swim times in the name of Muhammad.

At Harvard, that’s called progress.

Well put. And thus “progress” comes full circle. In Minneapolis last year, the airport licensing authority, faced with a mainly Muslim crew of cab drivers refusing to carry the blind, persons with six-packs of Bud, slatternly women, etc, proposed instituting two types of taxis with differently colored lights, one of which would indicate the driver was prepared to carry members of identity groups that offend Islam. Forty years ago, advocating separate drinking fountains made you a racist. Today, advocating separate taxi cabs or separate swimming sessions makes you a multiculturalist.

At this point, I find myself wondering something. I’d very much love to have children — Grace and I definitely plan to have kids, in fact, and we’re presently trying to decide between two and four young’uns. But I have to wonder: in however many years there are between this moment and the moment we drop our first child off for his/her first day of school, will I still feel comfortable sending my child to a school with Muslim students? Will I be comfortable sending my child to a school where a goodly percentage of the students might be Muslim?

I grow less and less comfortable with the trend I see in society, where supposed progressives and people who supposedly value the equal rights of all persons, back down in the face of peculiar and nonsensical demands from Muslims. What needed to happen at Harvard was that an administrator needed to tell the people lobbying for segregated swimming that segretation ended back in the 1960s or 1970s, and that at any rate Harvard is not in Alabama — female Muslim students are welcome to choose between using the facility according to the existing schedule or not using it. What happened instead should properly be condemned as sexist.

In a strange way, though, stories like this also make me smile. It’s nice to realize that most Christians aren’t paralyzed and neurotic about the concept of co-ed swimming in public facilities. If the followers of the false prophet want to be uptight about it, more’s the better — one day, people will begin to see them for the fools they are.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

In 1997, in New Orleans, a blind woman tried to enter a taxi with her seeing eye dog. The Muslim taxi driver physically attacked her and further injured an already-broken wrist. At trial, the judge described the driver’s behavior as a “total disgrace” and sentenced him to 120 days of community service at the Lighthouse for the Blind.

In 1999, a Muslim taxi driver in Cinncinati refused to transport a blind female passenger with a seeing eye dog. The woman complained; CAIR defended him as having acted in accordance with his religious beliefs. (dogs are considered impure and contact with them is considered to render a Muslim ritually unfit for prayer.)

In 2000, in Edmonton, Canada, a blind woman tried to enter a cab with her seeing eye dog. The driver first claimed ‘allergies,’ but then stated that “taking a dog conflicted with his Religion.” At trial, he failed to produce the necessary proof from an allergist. However, the case against him was dismissed because it had been improperly filed.

We also know that in 2005 and 2006, some Muslim taxi drivers in Minneapolis refused to pick up airport fares whom they suspected of transporting alcohol or pork. In 2007 the Metropolitan Airport Commission of Minnesota then unanimously voted to crack down on such drivers who “declined to transport passengers with alcohol or pork.”

What next? Will Muslim taxi drivers refuse to transport “naked” women? “Naked” as in with their faces showing?

But, what’s true of some Muslim taxi drivers is also true of some Muslim convenience store owners.

For example, in 2003, in Edmonton, Canada, a blind woman tried to enter a convenience store owned by a Muslim and was forcibly ejected by the owner who stated that, “this store is also my church because I pray and eat here and my religion will not allow dogs or any animal to come in here.” In 2004, at trial, she stated that he started yelling at her and did not allow her to explain why she needed the dog, what the dog meant to her, or to enunciate her legal rights.

In 2005, a blind man in Brooksville, Florida, who tried to enter a store with his seeing eye dog, was similarly thrown out by a raging Muslim.

Other correlates of “raging Muslim” behavior also exist: Poverty, a limited education, (but this is not always so), dim prospects for a brighter future — coupled with a very specific cultural and religious zero-frustration tolerance, hostility towards non-Muslims, and paranoia when non-Muslims are in control. However, “male” and “Muslim” are also correlates of this behavior.

Please understand: Nothing that I am saying has anything to do with “race.” Muslims come in all colors and ethnicities.

Some people have already hit the “last straw” point — some of the bloggers I read have vowed to request, from any cab company they patronize in the future, a non-Muslim driver. Others will not patronize businesses obviously run by Muslims.

I’m not at that stage yet, but I think it’s fair to say this much: there’s one strike left. One more incident, like any of the above, within the greater Edmonton area and I will never again patronize any cab, nor any business, operated by an adherent of the Islamic faith. I would strongly encourage what few readers I have to consider doing the same.

(In Soviet Russia, hat tips you: Kathy Shaidle)

Update: Welcome, Steynians!