Mike Lester for March 01, 2014

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    Mneedle  about 10 years ago

    Earth to Tigger: the toons are written and submitted weeks in advance.

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    Dtroutma  about 10 years ago

    Hmmm, the caricature seems to represent an evil Muslim, so they’re the bigots in the ’toon.. interesting.

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    Snarky  about 10 years ago

    This was all the rage back in ‘06-’08, but then silence. Did anyone do a follow-up after the Appeals Court ruling?http://www.mprnews.org/story/2008/09/09/muslim_cabs_court

    The most recent reference I came across happened in Canada, but the same logic applies. One could easily see it happening here. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/12/12/blind-man-files-complaint-after-he-says-muslim-cabbies-repeatedly-refused-service-to-him-and-his-guide-dog/

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    lonecat  about 10 years ago

    I’m not a liberal, but I’m on the left. I say that if you run a public business you have to serve the public. I remember when I was growing up white barbers used to refuse black customers (we called them “colored” in those days) because they said they didn’t have the equipment to deal with the kinky hair. That was just an excuse. The great Oscar Peterson was refused service by a barber in Canada and took the case to the human rights tribunal.

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    alexzabala  about 10 years ago

    The Arizona bill was dumb on many levels….however…now MILITANT GAYS can sue companies…here it comes…are ya ready folks??

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    Jason Allen  about 10 years ago

    Still haven’t heard too many liberal comments on the Muslim barber in Canada who is being taken to court because he refused to give a lesbian a man’s haircut.I commented on it. The barber wasn’t refusing service because she was gay or because of the hairstyle she asked for. It is against his beliefs for a person to touch another person of the opposite gender for any reason unless they are married or otherwise related. He wasn’t refusing service because he thought she was sinful, he was refusing service because he believes he would be committing sin by touching her.

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    lonecat  about 10 years ago

    Enjoy the weather. It snowed last nignt where I live and I’ve spent the morning shoveling.+I find most political labels confusing. I’m no expert, but here’s what I mean when I say I’m not a liberal but I’m on the left. (Dr. C will have to answer for himself — or have his sister answer for him.) “Classical liberalism”, as I understand it, was an individualist doctrine, and it was completely compatible with capitalism. In my opinion, capitalism was a progressive development in its day, and it still retains a lot of value — markets can be a very good mechanism. But individualistic capitalism brings with it a whole host of problems. These were easily seen in an extreme form in the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Europe and in the US, and they are easily seen in extreme forms in some still today. Socialism grew up as a response to the problems caused by individualistic capitalism. So in this historical sense, I’m not a classical liberal, because I believe that we need social solutions to the problems caused by individualist capitalism. (Of course socialism brings its own problems, and these need to be solved by new political forms.)+But the word “liberal” also came to designate a particular political stance in the mid-century US. Liberals, as opposed to conservatives, were progressive without being socialists, and they agreed that a certain degree of government intervention in the economy was necessary, but not anything like real socialism. This kind of liberalism goes back at least to Teddy Roosevelt, through FDR, and into the Democratic party of our time, more or less. I was raised in that world; my father was a high-ranking government executive, who worked mostly on nuclear policy, and particularly on the test-ban treaties and disarmament policy. I moved away from this kind of liberalism for two reasons. First, I got involved in the civil rights movement (I was trained by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference), and I discovered that the liberals were only reluctantly in favor of civil rights. They were better than conservatives, of course. Second, most liberals supported US imperialism. For me, as for many others, the war in Vietnam was a turning point. I couldn’t support the kind of liberalism that supported the war.+So that’s a long answer — too long, but not long enough. Long enough for now.

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    Jason Allen  about 10 years ago

    “Yes, you did, on another post. But you’re about the only one. What did you think of my response.”The bakery and barber cases are different. The bakery refused service because they judged the customer as sinful. The barber wasn’t condemning his perspective customer. He was trying to avoid sinning himself. The case isn’t about him judging her or forcing his beliefs on her. If he employed a woman to cut women’s hair, would the lesbian in question still have been refused service? That would have made this case on par with the AZ bakery.

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    lonecat  about 10 years ago

    Hey, it’s Toronto. When we get snow, we call in the army.

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    lonecat  about 10 years ago

    Your comment is a simple logical error, but it’s not worth a reply, since you won’t read a reply, or understand it if you do read it.

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    lonecat  about 10 years ago

    Yes, I heard you were going to get hit again. But it has to end sometime!!! (With a heat wave, no doubt.)

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    Jason Allen  about 10 years ago

    Depending on how conservative they are, Muslims believe the two sexes should not touch each other unless they are related or married. Many also believe a woman should not show her hair to men she is not related or married to. All religions have traditions non-believers find odd.

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    Jason Allen  about 10 years ago

    “Why should their customs have any more value than the customs of conservative Christians? Just curious.”There was a case several years ago where Muslim cab drivers were refusing to serve customers who were carrying sealed alcoholic beverages. The cab drivers refused service because it’s against their beliefs to consume alcoholic beverages. The cab licensing bureau ruled that they were not allowed to refuse service on those grounds. In that case, as in the bakery case, the service provider was forcing his beliefs onto the customer. No one was forcing the cab drivers to drink alcohol and no one was forcing the baker to engage in homosexual activities. Their customs were not at issue.If the Muslim barber refused service because he found the lesbian’s “lifestyle” objectionable, I’d have a different opinion of that case.

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    lonecat  about 10 years ago

    The left does not claim to be liberal. Some on the left are liberals, some are not. If the linear model of politics has a use, then liberals are somewhat to the left of center, because (for example) they believe in a certain degree of government involvement in the economy, and they believe that government has a role in some social issues. There’s more, but that’s some of what makes liberals to the left. But there is a lot of the left to the left of liberals. I’m a moderate socialist (a non-Marxist socialist) so I’m on the left, but I’m not a liberal, for reasons I explained above. There are also Marxists, who are clearly on the left, but they certainly would not claim to be liberals. I think you don’t understand the meaning of the term. The grammar of your second sentence I find a little confusing. What’s the antecedent of "they’? It has to be “liberals” — so then you are saying that liberals have appropriated the term “liberal”, but that doesn’t make sense. Do you mean that leftists have appropriated the term “liberal”? That’s not true. Maybe I’m just not getting your point. Can you clarify what you’re trying to say?

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    lonecat  about 10 years ago

    You say that in the US today someone who believes in individual consequences for one’s actions would be called a conservative. Perhaps, but there’s another possibility. Perhaps some conservatives have found it useful to claim that liberals or leftist don’t believe that there are individual consequences for one’s action, even though that’s not true. I know a lot of people on the left, some are liberals, some are socialists, some are Marxists of various sorts, and I’m sure they would all agree that there are and should be individual consequences for individual actions.+But they would not agree that there should be individual consequences for social actions. When unemployment is low, then someone who doesn’t have a job and isn’t even looking for a job can fairly be expected to suffer the consequences of his laziness. But when unemployment is high, when there just aren’t any jobs, then people may be unemployed through no fault of their own. As a socialist, I don’t believe that individuals should have to suffer because the capitalist system can’t provide full employment. But as a socialist, I don’t think the answer is endless welfare. As I’ve said, when the economy is truly depressed, then the state should be the employer of last resort.

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    oneoldhat  about 10 years ago

    the eeoc says you can not force a muslim truck driver to deliver alcohol [ star trucking]

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    sw10mm  about 10 years ago

    Find another taxi, it’s called the free market. If his decisions cause him to go bankrupt…..

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