What’s Wrong with the World

There is always more sharia to accommodate...Some years back a German intellectual name Thierry Cherval offered this bit of trepidation, from the Left, at the sight of creeping dhimmitude in public life:

In the confrontation with Islamism, the Left has abandoned its principles. In the past it stood for cutting the ties to convention and tradition, but in the case of Islam it reinstates them in the name of multiculturalism. It is proud to have fought for women's rights, but in Islam it tolerates head scarves, arranged marriages, and wife-beating. It once stood for equal rights, now it preaches a right to difference – and thus different rights. It proclaims freedom of speech, but when it comes to Islam it coughs in embarrassment. It once supported gay rights, but now keeps silent about Islam's taboo on homosexuality. The West's long-due process of self-relativisation at the end of the colonial era, which was promoted by postmodernist and structuralist ideas, has led to cultural relativism and the loss of criteria.

The evidence presented in the article does not support the claim that Mr. Fields was punished for refusing to attend a Muslim prayer service. The reported meeting transcript indicates that he was punished for refusing to designate two officers and a supervisor to attend the event. Mr. Fields himself could have been the designated supervisor or he could have designated someone else. Here is the relevent portion of the article.

Four days later, Fields found himself explaining his actions at a meeting in Jordan's conference room. There, Webster asked -- on tape -- if Fields had solicited volunteers to attend the Islamic center's event. “Yes, I have,” Fields replied, to which Webster asked, according to the suit, “Okay, and the response?” "Is zero," replied the captain. “All right," said Webster, "And so that makes this fairly easy. Are you prepared to designate two officers and a supervisor or yourself to attend this event?” "No," said Fields, to which Webster replied by slapping the captain with the aforementioned punishments. Since then, Fields has toiled, according Muise, from 8:45 p.m. to about 7 a.m. on the "graveyard shift."

No evidence presented in the article supports the claim that Mr. Fields was punished for "refusing to attend a Muslim prayer service" as you claim. Instead, the evidence suggests that he was punished for failing to identify three of the approximately 25 persons under his command to attend the event.

Is it unconstitutional to ask a local police supervisor to identify 3 people under his command to attend such a service? I am not sure; I am no constitutional scholar. In any event, the facts presented in the article are clear and none of them support the claim that Mr. Fields was punished for failing to attend the event. Please keep this in mind in the subsequent discussion.

Scott, the story contains several different statements. First, it says that "he was to order at least a few of the men under his command to accompany him." (Emphasis added.) Then it says that he could have forced (remember, everybody said "no" when it was voluntary) someone else instead. It is not better for him to be punished for not *forcing* people under his own command to go. "Identify three people" on your part is misleading. They all refused. He would have had to force them. It would be fairly easy to explain why a Christian employee would object to being forced to force other people to attend an Islamic prayer service at a mosque.

Furthermore:

On Feb. 24, the department made the Islamic center event voluntary for all officers, although with a catch. Officers could give a medical excuse for not going, but not one based on religious grounds, the suit states.

In other words, all healthy officers are now required to attend, which presumably includes Mr. Fields. We don't know if everyone else has given in or not.

Moreover: It is entirely plausible that all other "supervisors" are equal in rank to Fields. If this is correct, then forcing another supervisor wouldn't even be an option offered him (and, as I mentioned, doing so would hardly be likely to square with Fields's conscience anyway). Instead, the idea would be as follows: If no other supervisor was _willing_ to go (which we already know was the case), then his own superior officers were telling Fields that he _must_ go.

Seems like an open and shut case for filing a Section 1983 lawsuit against their department. They ought to not only sue, but have their attorneys go to the US Attorney for their district.

That looks right to me, Mike.

You know what's wrong with the world? Muslims in Oklahoma. How did we even get to this point?

Some people would say that I ought to tsk tsk at that statement, Jeffrey. How xenophobic of you!

Instead, I will simply finesse it: How did we get to the point where Muslims in Oklahoma are there in such numbers and with such influence on the leaders of the community that the Tulsa police department would even consider browbeating its officers to attend a 45-minute prayer service at a mosque?

How did we get to the point where Muslims in Oklahoma are there in such numbers and with such influence on the leaders of the community that the Tulsa police department would even consider browbeating its officers to attend a 45-minute prayer service at a mosque?

One could start with the cult of immigration. Most Americans, including most conservatives, believe the previous waves of immigration were successful. I disagree with that. One need only look at the way which New England bears absolutely no cultural resemblance today to the New England of 1776 to see how deeply poisonous the German, Irish and Italian immigrations were on that region. Even if you strain with all of your might, you cannot see a society that would produce men like John and Sam Adams; rather you'd see an alien society in which such men would be considered de facto terrorists.

We could probably claw back some of the "progress" made here by the forces that made the Muslims so numerous and powerful by supporting a policy of releasing the non-violent drug offenders from federal prison and replacing them with as many local, state and federal employees who commit section 1983 actionable offenses as possible. Put them in prison right next to the banksters and such. Personally, I'd rather have a small time drug dealer as a neighbor than that sort of "civil servant" as one. The drug dealer would probably be far more respectful of your space and property.

Lydia,

Yes, your "finesse" improved my little outburst considerably. That is precisely what I was thinking.

Mike T,

You and I are simpatico when it comes to immigration, including previous waves of mass immigration (and Ben Franklin is on our side!) I just wish you wouldn't somehow bring every policy discussion back to our drug laws and policing policy. That's where I lose you...

Yip, you wouldn't want to let the Irish into America...I'm still not sure if it's a good idea to have us in Ireland. We poison cultures by building thatched cottages, making little shoes and hiding pots of gold at the end of the rainbow...ah hey, diddle diddly!
But banning the Italians? And the Germans? America without Hamburgers and Pizza? The very idea is preposterous, sir!

Apologies to Lydia, Jeff S and Mike T for having to tolerate my sense of humour.
I can't see American Muslims having the clout to pursue this strategy. So I assume that this is state enforced pluralism. American secularism is an odd beast. Perhaps any strategy is justified if it "keeps Christians in their place."

In the UK secularism actually seems to have decided that "prayer" is a dirty word. Mo Farrah and Usain Bolt both prayed, quite ostentatiously, after and before their races. Yet BBC commentators simply reported that each man was having "a quiet time of reflection"...if they acknowledged the prayers at all.

Farrah is Muslim and Bolt Christian, but I do not think that either man is particularly pious. Neither could be accused of proselytising. Heaven knows how the BBC would report Tebow! It seems that the secularists at the Beeb cannot even bear to have "prayer" mentioned!
There's hope for Ireland, though...Katie Taylor's evangelical faith is at the centre of the media's attention. They even dare to suggest that it had a positive influence on her character, and that it might have given her the character to achieve Olympic Gold.

Graham

The underlying problem, as I see it, is that those in positions of political power constantly feel the need to "do something" about anything and everything. It's the "justify your job" syndrome.

In my opinion, it's a fundamental flaw of government. In a country such as ours - with runaway government expansion - what's really needed is a government that is constantly down-sizing and getting its nose out of people's business (IOW, one that does less!) Unfortunately it works just the opposite: government (like cancer) is constantly growing - always taking on new tasks, perpetually looking for areas to intervene (infect) and "make a difference" (destroy life as we know it).

This situation in Oklahoma was just a symptom of the political cancer that ravages this country.

Lydia:

Do you have knowledge of facts not presented in the article? I am genuinely curious. For if Mr. Fields was punished for refusing to attend a Muslim prayer service while working as a public employee, I would be as disturbed as you. This is why I took the time to read the article. But what I read in the article does not convince me of your repeated claim that all of the 25 or so persons that Mr. Fields could have designated had refused to attend. I see where Mr. Fields solicited volunteers and no one he solicited volunteered. I do not see where it states that all of the 25 or so persons refused.

I work in an environment similar to Mr. Fields' work environment. I am regularly solicted as a volunteer in many different ways. Sometimes I am told by my supervisor that I was "selected" as a volunteer for a project. This isn't volunteering. If this is what was being asked of Mr. Fields, then his rights have clearly been violated as you claim.

Other times I recieve an email sent to my entire department asking for volunteers. These emails often get "zero" response but that doesn't mean that everyone who recieved the email refused--they may just be hoping that enough others will volunteer that they will get off even though they don't object to participating. To know that all of the officers in question had refused, we need to know whether Mr. Fields' solicitation was more like the former or the latter. If you (or anyone else) knows the details as to how Mr. Fields solicited volunteers, please share.

Scott, you're pushing it. Obviously, if Fields could have obviated the whole problem by saying, "Oh, I forgot! I'll bet Tom, Dick and Harry will be happy to go if I just ask them (and Harry's a supervisor, so that'll let me off the hook). I just didn't give them a personal call in case they didn't see the e-mail or were too lazy to respond" he would have preferred that to getting punished. You think any career officer _wants_ to be put on the graveyard shift, docked two weeks' pay, and made ineligible for promotions for at least a year? Just so he can have the notoriety of filing a lawsuit with a pro bono legal firm, or what? Here are two statements in the article. This isn't a matter of my needing to have some kind of occult additional knowledge. Emphasis added:

On Feb. 17, Webster sent out another email stating that attendance at the event was no longer voluntary, and that Fields was to order at least a few of the 25 or so men under his command to accompany him, there.

On Feb. 24, the department made the Islamic center event voluntary for all officers, although with a catch. Officers could give a medical excuse for not going, but not one based on religious grounds, the suit states.

I don't know how much clearer this needs to be. You, sir, are caviling.

Scott, by default, when no one volunteers to a general request for volunteers, everyone has refused to volunteer. Fields doesn't say anyone refused when required to go because he refused to follow the illegal order.

You left out what happened before the meeting you quote:

On Feb. 17, Webster sent out another email stating that attendance at the event was no longer voluntary, and that Fields was to order at least a few of the 25 or so men under his command to accompany him, there.

So, initially he was told to attend with an undetermined number of other officers. At the meeting you quote, he was told either him or another supervisor. Now, as Fields believed requiring someone to attend what was a proselytizing event by the mosque was illegal, he refused. Refusing to be complicit in something illegal is not wrong.

Madness has overtaken this country.

And by the way: If what Fields was being ordered to do when he was told to "designate" two officers to go wasn't "volunteering" someone in _exactly_ the objectionable way you are talking about, making it no longer voluntary for them, I don't know what is. And that after an e-mail that, we're told, definitely said that it wasn't merely voluntary anymore. Again, I don't know how much clearer this needs to be.

One wonders what, exactly, you think he's being punished for, Scott? Not going personally to each officer and fellow supervisor and leaning on them to go to the mosque? Not sending out an urgent S.O.S. e-mail saying, "Save me! Save me! I'm being held hostage! If three of you, including a supervisor, don't volunteer to go to a mosque prayer meeting, I'm going to be punished severely!"

Good grief.

I just wish you wouldn't somehow bring every policy discussion back to our drug laws and policing policy.

The War on Drugs is responsible for most of the problems with policing today from totally FUBAR priorities, to almost every single solitary last institutional issue with use of force and militarization. Another reason I bring it up is simply due to the fact that we always seem to have more room in prison for drug users and dealers, but curiously don't seem to have the money to keep recidivist child rapists, serious violent criminals and those types in prison for however long it takes to make them safe to reintroduce to society (which in many cases is "never").

To Chris--Failing to respond to a general email soliciting volunteers is not refusing to volunteer; one is an action and one is inaction. I don't want to rehash the reasons for thinking that not buying healthcare is not a kind of economic activity but suffice it to say that the same reasons apply to thinking that failing to respond to an email soliciting volunteers is the same thing as actively refusing to volunteer.

To Lydia--What do I think he is being punished for? I think he is being punished for failing to get the participation from his department that he was expected to provide. I see this happen at my job all the time. The boss wants participation from all departments for some fundraising campaign, PR event or whatever. So he goes to all of the department heads and says "Tell me who the volunteer from your department is." Then my supervisor comes to me and says "I know you don't really want to do this but if you are willing to volunteer I will help you out with whatever . . ." Then I agree to volunteer. If my supervisor goes back to the boss with no volunteers, my supervisor would be reprimanded.

I admit, this whole scenario is stupid--welcome to the world of multi-level management. However, the transcript of the meeting makes it clear that Mr. Fields was punished for not getting the desired participation from his department. It might be that what was expected of Mr. Fields was something like what is expected of my supervisor when he is asked to get volunteers.

Does this matter to the constitutional issue? I honestly don't know. But I suspect that the social reality surrounding the solicitation of volunteers would matter. If what was expected of Mr. Fields, and he had full knowledge from past experience that this was the expectation, was that he would go to his 25 or so people and find 3 that didn't have religious objections to negotiate a satisfactory agreement that they would accept under the auspices of "volunteering" and he did not do this, then I am not sure his right to religious freedom has been violated. This is why I am interested in seeing some facts about the nature of the solicitation.

I suspect that you think I am caviling again because you think that the two partially bolded quotes you refer to settle the matter. But those quotes are interpretations of the facts by the reporter rather than documentary evidence. Given that members of the news media are prone to sensationalization, I am suspicious of reporter interpretations until they are confirmed by documentary evidence. This is why I keep returning to the transcript of the meeting. And even if the reporter's interpretations of the emails are correct, the transcript of the meeting still makes it clear that Mr. Fields was not punished for failing to attend a Muslim prayer service but for failing to "designate" for attendence officers under his command. If the chief meant "command" or "order" by "designate", then you are right. If, however, what the chief meant by "designate" was more like what I describe above, then things are not so simple. In any case, since we have not been presented with facts that settle the matter, it is not a petty objection to ask for evidence pertaining to what was expected of Mr. Fields when he was asked to solicit volunteers or designate officers to attend the event.

it is not a petty objection to ask for evidence pertaining to what was expected of Mr. Fields

We do have evidence "pertaining to" that. And I believe the quotations in question are summaries of claims made by Fields's own lawyers in their legal brief. Which you may also consider to be somehow unreliable, but which, of course, they have to document by providing the relevant e-mails, etc., to the court.

Btw, it doesn't take much imagination to see how this would be a constitutionally problematic situation, when we're talking about going to a mosque prayer meeting:

If my supervisor goes back to the boss with no volunteers, my supervisor would be reprimanded.

"Hey, Twinky, looks like you didn't try hard enough to get volunteers to go to the mosque. As evidence by the fact that you didn't get any. You'll have to be put on graveyard shift and be docked a coupla weeks' pay for not living up to our standards of Effort."

This is bullying, pure and simple. And when it's bullying either to go oneself (remember, that was one option _expressly_ mentioned in the options given him) or to induce others to go or Suffer the Consequences for the crime of not rounding up enough people to go to a 45-minute Muslim prayer service, then we have a problem, Houston.

By the way, Scott, you'll hopefully forgive me for suspecting that you aren't exactly arguing in good faith when I remind you that from the beginning of your comments in this thread you made it sound as though the article contained no information which directly supported my claims in the main post. You referred to having taken the time to go and read the article, and you even said that the evidence in the article _does not support the claim_ that Fields is being punished for not going to the mosque! You then selectively quoted from the article itself. When I then presented direct quotations from the article that directly support what I said, you airily dismissed them as being unreliable because they were made in a news article and hence were evidently merely "interpretive." This is goalpost shifting of a fairly evident kind. I notice that your somewhat high-falutin' original comment was not, "Well, Lydia, the article does say very much what you claim, but I always disbelieve claims in articles on principle unless I have all the original source documents in front of me, and I can dream up a scenario in which what this article says is false, so I don't believe your post, either, since you cite the article as a source."

That wouldn't have sounded nearly as impressive, would it? No, it wouldn't. Instead, you preferred to come in making it sound like I was merely reading my own source carelessly, and then you backed up to, "Oh, well, I'm sure that's just some reporter's interpretation."

Sorry. This is unconvincing, to put it mildly. By that standard, we could never learn anything from news articles whatsoever. We would always have to read all the memos, e-mails, and listen to all the transcripts they purport to summarize ourselves, and until then we could tell all the bloggers that "nothing in that article supports what you say" because, er, because we don't believe what's in the article!

So, I have this small sneaking suspicion that you're wasting my time.

"One need only look at the way which New England bears absolutely no cultural resemblance today to the New England of 1776 to see how deeply poisonous the German, Irish and Italian immigrations were on that region."
I am not an immigration supporter by any means, but to me the problem with this analysis is the emergence of progressive liberal ideologies in the 1840s, well before much of this immigration had proceeded. The leaders of those movements were men like Charles Sumner and Horace Mann, not Irishmen by any means. I would agree that the large amounts of mass immigration did not help.

Thank-you Anymouse.

I am not an immigration supporter by any means, but to me the problem with this analysis is the emergence of progressive liberal ideologies in the 1840s, well before much of this immigration had proceeded. The leaders of those movements were men like Charles Sumner and Horace Mann, not Irishmen by any means. I would agree that the large amounts of mass immigration did not help.

The waves of immigration replaced the original British culture of New England with cultural influences from European societies that were substantially more statist than the original. Had that immigration never happened on anywhere near that level, it is very possible that such left-wing ideologies would never have found so much fertile soil in New England. I also question your timeline as I have never heard a historian claim that progressivism even really existed as a coherent movement in that time period, let alone with any substantial influence. Rather it is generally considered a post-Civil War movement that only started to gain momentum around the late 1870s to 1880s. By that point, the amount of immigration to the territory above the Mason-Dixon line was substantial. Heck, even if you want to blame the Civil War for this (and there are good reasons to cite it as an influence), it's highly unlikely that Lincoln could ever have won the Civil War without all of the conscripted immigrants in the Union Army.

In any case, since we have not been presented with facts that settle the matter, it is not a petty objection to ask for evidence pertaining to what was expected of Mr. Fields when he was asked to solicit volunteers or designate officers to attend the event.

If his directions were to designate officers, even if the language use were sloppy and no one meant to imply that he had to actually order officers to attend, that would be prima facie evidence of a federal civil rights violation. If you, as a local or state government manager, give directions which a reasonable person would construe as ordering them to violate their civil rights or someone else's, that's not a particularly ambiguous federal civil and criminal issue.

And if they didn't really intend to order him to order anybody to attend, one would think this misunderstanding would have been cleared up before slapping him with major career punishments. It's not like this was an emergency situation. There was plenty of leisure for discussion. "Why are you refusing? All we're asking is that you try a little harder to find volunteers by asking some more people personally. Then, if they all say no, no problem."

Irish immigrants were statist? Seriously? Who did they get this from? Wolfe-tone?
So what changed British political culture - and English political culture? UK politics shifted to the "left" before mass immigration.

Graham

Graham,

The subject of immigration is OT, but you raise such an interesting and, quite frankly, difficult question for me as a anti-immigration guy, that I promise you I will consider the matter and take it up in a new post soon.

Wolfe-tone indeed ;-)

"it's highly unlikely that Lincoln could ever have won the Civil War without all of the conscripted immigrants in the Union Army"
A good point. But the preexisting liberal middle class were emerging, and were substantial factors in the North at that point, as can be seen by the Example of Sumner and Mann.

Okay, okay, Tweet!! Stick to the topic, boys. You have my permission to continue talking about how silly Scott's "objections" are. :-)

What sticks out to me is the name: Alvin Webster. Doesn't sound Muslim at all. Amerika schafft sich ab.

You have my permission to continue talking about how silly Scott's "objections" are. :-)

Scott seems to be demanding far more evidence from the system for going after the people who gave this direction than they would ever demand of an action against a private citizen. The evidence seems to indicate that the officers felt reasonably coerced to attend. Perhaps their superiors had no intention of doing that. My response to Scott is simple, and in the spirit of how they would deal with him in a similar matter: intention is determined at the earliest before a grand jury, if not in a court room.

I don't think that Scott's concerns amount to very much. Unless he can show that the journalism is unreliable, your concerns stand Lydia. And this seems like (refreshingly!) good journalism. The sources are clear etc.
Futhermore, we don't explain anything away by saying "oh, this is one of the absurdities thrown up by bureacratic culture." That's the point. Why does bureaucratic culture tolerate some absurdities but not others? As mentioned, it's impossible to imagine an atheist receiving the same treatment for refusing to attend a Mosque or a Church.
Ed Feser begins "The Last Superstition" by arguing that secularism is thin on content. Secularism gains a coherent agenda by selecting something to oppose. In the US secularists seem to be concentrating their fire on Christianity. They will support other, minority groups because they challenge Christianity and the Church. In the UK secularists promoted multi-culturalism until the Church was severely weakened. With that goal achieved, they are turning on multi-culturalism.
So watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWUA1CXIku8&feature=relmfu
It is so unbearably twee that I expected Barney the Dinosaur to sing the second verse. But it is interesting because every religion is recognised - except Christianity. The American Dream does not include Christianity.

Graham

This mess in Tulsa resolves into a clearer picture when we understand that our muslim administration has sent out directives for the local police departments across America to partner with local muslim populations to help solve local issues affecting muslims such as the 'workplace violence' that occurred at Ft. Hood. America has never been asked to partner with the enemy before at the local or federal level such as is now happening with this administration.