Posted on 03/18/2007 8:05:44 AM PDT by aculeus
My very own newspaper is asking for feedback regarding the refusal by certain Muslim cashiers to handle pork. This latest development, coupled with the problem of certain Muslim cabdrivers at the airport refusing to take passengers who have alcohol, was apparently too much for the newspaper to understand.
As an institution, we must have gotten into a room and scratched our heads.
In asking for help, the newspaper printed an anonymous e-mail from a reader, a cruel and thoughtless e-mail that featured the word "savages," which suggested to me that the newspaper not only doesn't understand the depth of the controversy but presumes it to be just another "talk radio" conversation held by the Greek chorus of the great unwashed.
That's the impression I got. The newspaper — I don't know who feedback@pioneer press.com is — seems to take a not very thinly veiled position that here again is a poor minority immigrant community victimized by an unfeeling majority and why don't you all tell us about it and maybe we can help enlighten you.
By the way, the paper said there were recent stories of Muslim cabdrivers who refused to take drunk passengers, again, seemingly offered as an admonishment to a public that the newspaper believes would be so demanding. I am unaware of any stories about cabdrivers, including Muslims, refusing to take drunk passengers. Any cabdriver, including a Muslim cabdriver, has the right to safety and if that means refusing to carry a slobbering drunk, then more power to the cabdriver.
In any event, as long as the newspaper is asking for feedback, I might as well weigh in.
Actually, who might best weigh in is a spokesman for Muslims, which is part of the problem. There are many. As I understand it, there are many imams, just as there are many priests or rabbis. And while it is true that pork is forbidden in the diet, it is my understanding as well that there is no prohibition against touching pork.
That's problem No. 1. If there is no directive against touching pork, then why in the world is a Muslim cashier refusing to scan a package of bacon? And if he or she is practicing a tributary branch of the faith that prevents touching pork, then most of us have the same question we have about the cabdrivers. Why did you take a job where you might have to touch pork or be in the same car with a bottle of vacation rum?
Besides which, when you get a package of bacon home, you practically need a garden shears to open it. We spend billions of dollars a year in this country marketing and packaging products. Handle the package of bacon by the shrink-wrapped, double-sealed, triple-glazed hermetically encapsulated cardboard corner and slide it across the scanner. There. The price gets registered, and you haven't touched any pork.
Or, as ridiculous as we might wish to get, keep a pencil handy and poke or guide the bacon across the scanner.
This is America. We get inventive. And we get inventive in order to keep things moving along. That's the way we do business. Please join us.
That might touch at the heart of our shared frustration. We are basically a large blob of 300 million or so people who conduct our commerce in a secular fashion while practicing, pretty much in private, an astounding variety of religious obligations. Great. Worship grasshoppers for all I care, but when I am standing at the counter with a dollar in my hand, reach behind you and get me that O-ring I need for my lawnmower.
As wave after wave of immigrants arrived in, say, the Twin Cities, I can find no historical evidence that they demanded that America accommodate them. On the contrary, they assimilated, worked hard and benefited from America. I can find no historical evidence that other immigrant groups wished to have such a religious presence in the material marketplace, or, to put it another way, we have not previously been this expected to accommodate such a public component of one particular faith.
That's what stuck in the craws of most of us, and most of us are weary of being thought intolerant by the likes of newspapers.
The author misses the point completely. He assumes the complainers are sincere. I contend they are not. They are just doing their little part to Islamify America, directed by their local Imams.
If I encountered this problem at the supermarket,I would ask to speak to the manager.I would explain to him(or her) that I would be taking my business elsewhere until the problem was corrected.The power of the marketplace will correct a lot of this BS,and pretty quickly.
Why don't you send them a link to this thread? It seems like you covered a lot of the key points in your own editorial.
In addition to you point about them not even being able to touch the pork as it is being sold in the stores (that would be a violation of some Food and Drug law I'm sure, as they aren't licensed butchers), I would like them a fully address the alcohol issue.
How can the cabbies even put fuel in their tanks? There, they surely get alcohol on their hands as they fill in the 10%, or whatever, of alcohol content fuel.
That said, we all know it isn't about alcohol, or bacon, or any of these other issues.
It's about something WAY BIGGER.
And THAT's why the Pioneer Press is loath to talk about this openly.
There is nothing in the Constitution that gives a non conformist a right to have a particular job.
Fire them and eat more bacon I say.
Don't forget to load up your basket first with every pork product in the store.......and walk out and leave it all on the counter.
leave the full cart unloaded at the checkout and walk out. That will get a lot of attention.
If this absurd demand is accommodated, where will it end? This truly is a slippery slope.
I saw an account of this in our local paper. I wasn't surprised.
A long time ago on this site I argued that if we let pharmacists refuse to fill prescriptions for legal drugs such as contraceptives or the morning after pill, that the next logical step would be cashiers refusing to ring up such items.
You have to prevent ALL instances of allowing employees to impose their religious beliefs on their employers and the public. If peoples' religious beliefs don't allow them to sell bacon or fill prescriptions for the morning after pill, then they need to take jobs that don't require them to do this. Employers need to be able to fire them if they won't perform their required duties.
No, no not unloaded. Make sure it is all loaded on the belt! And take 2-3 friends with you and have them all do the same thing at the same time. Make it really inconvenient for them.
I almost had to stop reading after I got to this:
"...here again is a poor minority immigrant community victimized by an unfeeling majority..."
I think I would also take it a step further by increasing my consumption of pork and pork products and then shopping more frequently, causing them further problems.
Islam is not just a "Religion". It's a whole way of life - Religious, Cultural and Political all rolled into one. People need to understand this in order to deefend themselves against it.
The idea of loading your cart with pork products and leaving it is excellent! However, we need to go one better. Go out of your way to GO to a supermarket with a Muslim working the cash register. GET the pork, get in his line, when he refuses to check you out, make your fuss, walk out.
Oh, I forgot... they probably would not like the Jewish influence there.
This is like me crying foul when the lawn service job I wanted wouldn't accommodate my 'severe grass allergies'.
This is also a key part of the big story I referred to inpost #6:
"Six Muslim imams who were forcibily removed from a US Airways flight last year and are now suing the airline for discrimination may also be suing some passengers who were aboard the flight."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1802737/posts
I almost had to stop reading after I got to this:
"...here again is a poor minority immigrant community victimized by an unfeeling majority..."
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Apparently they don't allow "sarcasm alerts" where this was published since that's clearly what the author was intending.
Awh, man...this is beautiful. Get your friends to go with you and all line up at the same checkout and repeat until the jerk gets fired.
I need to drive around town until I find one of these idiots.
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