Injustice in the Name of Justice
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
The Houston Chronicle has a a short story about a taxi driver protest that must be read in full to be believed:
Frustrated local taxi drivers descended on City Hall today, protesting security requirements at Houston's airports that they say threaten their business.As Mark Steyn once put it, "[W]henever something goofy turns up on the news, chances are it involves some fellow called Mohammed."
A few hundred drivers, toting handmade signs and chanting demands for "justice," marched around the reflecting pool at 901 Bagby, before filing inside with plans to vent their concerns in front of City Council.
The group's chief issue, leaders said, is a recent requirement that drivers picking up passengers at Bush Intercontinental and Hobby airports have new photo identification badges.
"It violates the constitutional rights of the cab drivers in that in enacts a very, very strenuous background check," said Deric Muhammad of the local Ministry of Justice for the Million More Movement, a group helping represent the drivers. "Many of them are being put out of business and not being allowed to work at the airport system for something they may have done in the past."
Airport officials say everyone else doing business in their facilities is required to wear a badge and undergo criminal background checks.
"We believe that security of something everyone needs to be focused on in this day and age," said Mark Mancuso, a deputy director at the city's Aviation Department. [bold and italics added]
In a better, more rational world, it would not be up to the government, but to the private owner of an airport, whom he allowed to work there, and the owner would not have to worry about such niceties as treating everyone equally. He could simply just refuse entry of Moslems wholesale to his airport. And the government wouldn't control who could work as a cab driver, either.
But we do not live in such a world. That being the case, if the government is going to screen transportation workers, it is not unreasonable for it to have uniform standards. It is furthermore not unreasonable for the government to run a background check on such employees. Having said that, I think it is fair to say that some of the drivers represented by Deric Muhammad probably have things better now than he could reasonably expect in a free society, and yet he petulantly demands more.
Indeed, according to his very words, he feels that it unfair to bar someone from employment on the basis of his track record. The last time I checked, even the government recognized that as a reasonable basis for denying someone employment!
In a world where someone named "Mohammed" is often behind acts of terrorism, and yet it somehow remains controversial to regard Islam as a motivating factor, is it really any wonder that someone with that name plainly regards a moral blank check as his birthright? The left, after all, has taught us for ages that passing judgement is the root of all evil.
I am nearly speechless here. This is a protest against the virtue of justice being carried on -- literally -- in the name of justice!
-- CAV
PS: Pursuant to a reader comment, I note the following on Muhammad's background and tactics: (1) Muhammad is a Black Moslem (e.g., "Lead organizer was Deric Muhammad, of Muhammad's Mosque No. 45..."), who works for a leftist organization that features a video of Louis Farrakhan on the entry page of its web site. (2) Moslems do not monopolize this form of irrationality. Indeed, the left perfected it and the Moslems are now cashing in, which is a very profound point that should not be overlooked.
Updates
Today: (1) Added PS. (2) Made two small corrections.
4 comments:
I normally agree wholeheartedly with your commentary. I agree with the substance of your post here as well, but I think your emphasis on the name and assumed background of the cab driver based on his name is unfair and irrational.
First, it appears that you are simply assuming he is Islamic because of his name.
Second, if you posit that his actions do seem to provide additional evidence for an Islamic background, then lets be honest: crazy demands and ideas are not by any means the sole purview of people of Islamic background. The man's statements could easily have been made by a large percentage of today's non-Islamic American population.
It is counter-productive to imply that only Islamic people have a lock on this sort of irrationality.
Did I know that this man is Moslem when I wrote this? No. But I did strongly suspect he is a militant Black Moslem, which turns out to be the case. ("Lead organizer was Deric Muhammad, of Muhammad's Mosque No. 45...")
You make a good point that I should have confirmed this suspicion before playing up his name. And you are correct to mention that Moslems do not monopolize this form of irrationality. Indeed, the left perfected it and the Moslems are now cashing in, which is a very profound point that should not be overlooked.
Having said that, if this man, whose actions so clearly aim to undermine America and benefit Islamofascists, and who works for an organization that features a video of Louis Farrakhan on the entry page of its web site, turned out not to be a Moslem, he'd have ranked as the world's biggest (and most appropriately-named) Useful Idiot. Past a certain point -- and he was well past it -- it almost doesn't matter what his faith is. (And that can be said of much of the Left, who have already largely obeyed the command of Islam: to submit to it.)
In any event, I thank you for giving me the chance to clarify myself and for causing me to do a bit more digging. Houston seems to have now, alas, one of the worst kinds of "civil rights" "leaders" imaginable despite the fact that it seems to me to have the best race relations of any place I have ever lived. That saddens me.
It is indeed a profound point that the Islamists (not to mention the Christians, Scientologists and other like movements) are exploiting the cultural weapons and cover provided by the Left. This is the secret to the true relationship between the Left and conservatism/religion; they are not opposites at all. The Left is the AIDS to religion's opportunistic infections; not until the immune system of the Enlightenment is cleared away can these infections take hold once more.
Ultimately, the Left does not care who ultimately delivers the final death blow to the remnants of the Enlightenment... only that it is delivered.
Exactly.
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