Sharia through the back door

It seems to me our Flare, Terrye, is wise when it comes to American character. So, when in the course of a couple of days I both read Terrye say she has doubts this is going to be a very long war because

Americans like their way of life, whatever their politics when push comes to shove they will not give up the booze, the gambling, and the Constitution.

and also read that Muslim taxi drivers in Minnesota are now refusing fares carrying (presumably duty-free) alcohol, I figure something in this nation of Whiskey Rebellions is about to break.

Via Dhimmi Watch:

Minneapolis-St. Paul is concerned that its taxi service is deteriorating. Citing their religious beliefs, some Muslim taxi drivers from Somalia are refusing to transport customers carrying or suspected of carrying alcohol. It started with one driver a few years ago, but the average number of fare refusals has grown to about three a day, says airport spokesman Patrick Hogan. "Travelers often feel surprised and insulted," he says. "Sometimes, several drivers in a row refuse carriage."
[...]
The airport is expected to propose today that drivers who wish to avoid alcohol-toting passengers change the light on their car roofs, possibly to a different color. Hogan says the move will help let airport employees and customers know which taxis serve alcohol-carrying passengers. Drivers refusing a fare won't have to go to the end of the line. "Airport authorities are not in the business of interpreting sacred texts or dictating anyone's religious choices. ... Our goal is simply to ensure travelers at (the airport) are well served."

Well, aside from the fact that liberal airport authorities are interpreting sacred texts whether they know it or not (where do they think their ideas about freedom, equality, service and reciprocity ultimately come from?) didn't you always think that when Sharia made its first steps into America there would be some nice official to make it all sound completely reasonable? "Sure it's an important service you're being refused, Mr. Bottle, but it will only be a minute before a non-Sharia cab comes along..."

What, however, if most taxis go Sharia, or there is only one cab available when you are out and about warming up on a Minnesota January night? What if you're a single mom dressed for July and trying to get a cab when ladened with non-Halal meat? Would the liberal compromise seem workable then?

Might you then ask yourself, is postmodern liberal relativism anything more than a refusal to make a clear choice between one system for relating to the sacred and another? And what is the price we pay for refused choices and half measures imposed by a liberal authority no longer aware of the sacred sources of its authority? After all, Islam cannot be fully lived without Sharia, just as Western civilization could not be what it has always been if put under the rule of Sharia.

I say this by way of introducing a quote from the redoubtable Fjordman:

Centre Democrat Ben Haddou, a member of Copenhagen’s City Council, has stated: “It’s impossible to condemn sharia. And any secular Muslim who claims he can is lying. Sharia also encompasses lifestyle, inheritance law, fasting and bathing. Demanding that Muslims swear off sharia is a form of warfare against them.”

Read that statement again, and read it carefully. Muslims in the West consider it “a form of warfare against them” if they have to live by our secular laws, not their religious laws. Will they then also react in violent ways to this “warfare” if they don’t get their will? Moreover, since sharia laws ultimately require the subjugation of non-Muslims, doesn’t “freedom of religion” for Muslims essentially entail the freedom to make non-Muslims second-rate citizens in their own countries?

We are entering a brave new world where many such questions are just now in the air. Yet is it already time such musings depart the blogosphere and enter the wider public debate? People are scared of such questions for they portend the unveiling or apocalypse of the long-reigning ideology of liberalism. And many fear what might come next. However, it is only when we are honest with our questions that we can hope to discern the first signs of the new and greater order of reciprocity that will replace the present impasse. It is only when we are honest and courageous in insisting our politics focus directly on the fundamental questions posed by our conflicts that we can hope to engage parties in a serious exchange that will allow us to substitute this ongoing exchange for final answers. As Scenic Politics puts it in response to the recent abuse of the Pope:

The emerging question among those serious about our enemy (i.e., not liberals and leftists) is whether the view that we are fighting “extremists” who have “distorted” an otherwise “peaceful” or at least “reformable” religion remains sustainable, even as a polite fiction–or, are we simply at war with Islam? My view has been, and remains, that we should defer this question for as long as possible, and meanwhile craft policies which will be effective regardless of what the answer turns out to be; and policies that, furthermore, will supply us with data that will ultimately enable us to answer, when we have no choice. For this very reason we need to take actions that let us see whether your average Imam who screams “Death to America” every Friday does so because he knows there is no price to be paid and a cheaply won popularity to be gained, or whether he indeed wishes to “engage” us. We must begin to force the question, in other words, even as we continue to defer any definitive answer.