Terry Jones is the infamous Qur’an-burning pastor. I am not a supporter of Terry Jones; I oppose burning books. I believe in free speech and free discourse. The thuggish, authoritarian Left shuts down opposing views and censors those whom it hates. Burning books is the kind of thing they do, if not literally, then by shutting down, smearing and defaming those whom they hate. I am not inclined to emulate them.
All that said, however, Terry Jones lives in a nation that has the First Amendment in its Constitution. It is not illegal for him to dislike Islam or to burn Qur’ans. There is the strong sense in this article that he was rightly fired by Uber (the Post reporter, a Muslim, even called Uber and alerted them to who Jones was, and so is likely responsible for getting Jones fired) for having negative opinions about Islam.
So now your Uber driver has to love Islam; is it acceptable for your plumber to take a dim view of Buddhism? The Left is becoming so totalitarian, so inhospitable to the slightest dissent, that even when a critic of Islam is doing something that has nothing to do with Islam, Leftists move to shut him down. Jones cannot run his french fry stand and he can’t drive for Uber; what can he do? The Left just wants him dead, that’s all. Similarly, when I was scheduled to speak several years ago at an education conference that had nothing to do with Islam, the Left-fascist Nathan Lean of Georgetown University (who has several times posted a link on Twitter to what he thinks is my home address, in an obvious attempt to get me killed by jihadis and/or frighten me into silence) successfully got the host, a Catholic bishop, to cancel the event (it was held at another location) because of my work on Islam. The Left, quite simply, wants to make it impossible for critics of Islam to do anything, impossible for us to make a living, impossible for us to exist. Leftists want us dead. Then everyone who comes after us will be too intimidated to utter the slightest critical word against the advancing jihad.
As for the argument that Jones was endangering passengers because of the death fatwas on his head, it is just more surrendering to violent intimidation, which will only encourage more violent intimidation. Want to render a man unemployable and destitute? Threaten him with death, and the cowards will shun him wholesale. Ask the folks at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire. People who ride with Jones are incurring a risk? People who are doing anything on the planet are incurring a risk. The idea that Jones cannot hold a job having nothing to do with Islam because he would put people around him in danger of being attacked by Islamic jihadis will only result in encouraging Islamic jihadis to issue more threats, since they see how well they work in our cowardly, pusillanimous society.
Note also the dishonesty of Post reporter Faiz Siddiqui: at the beginning of his article he says that “Jones admits he had been sharing his anti-Muslim message with passengers,” but at the end he quotes Jones saying he only talks about it if people ask him to. That’s Washington Post “reporting” for you — all in a day’s work for the establishment propaganda media.
“The Koran-burning preacher has been driving for Uber,” by Faiz Siddiqui, Washington Post, February 4, 2016:
Even the Koran-burning preacher himself was surprised when he was approved to drive for Uber last month.
“I don’t know how much research they do,” Terry Jones, 65, said from his Florida home Saturday.
If the name sounds familiar, it’s because Jones made headlines worldwide in 2010 when he organized International Burn a Koran Day. It sparked death threats and global protests and earned him a No. 2 spot on an al-Qaeda hit list. There’s a $2 million bounty on his head, and a radical Iranian cleric has called for his execution.
Since then, his financial pursuits have been under scrutiny. He was hoping to relocate his “Fry Guys” french fry stand from one Florida mall to another when managers began figuring out who he was. It was 2015, shortly after the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris, and his fry stand became the pulpit for his anti-Islam message. He made the local news.
He recalled how one mall manager took “one good look at me” and said “Fry Guys,” and Jones knew he wouldn’t get the sought-after location.
But Uber, he said, didn’t follow up about his past when he sought work to subsidize his “semi-retirement” earlier this year.
“I wondered if this would be a similar thing,” Jones said. “They didn’t ask.”
After inquiries from a Washington Post reporter, Uber suspended Jones on Saturday to investigate his account and activity on the platform. Jones admits he had been sharing his anti-Muslim message with passengers and carrying a 9mm gun for self-defense — in violation of Uber’s firearms prohibition policy.
The Post learned of Jones’s employment with the company after it was contacted by a customer who had ridden with him, recognized him, and was disturbed.
“If you’re driving people around, it doesn’t hurt to have some type of defense,” Jones said, adding that he didn’t know about Uber’s firearms policy.
Jones had been driving for Uber in the Bradenton, Sarasota and Tampa Bay areas since late last month, around the same time the ride-hailing firm was defending itself for giving rides during a taxi protest of President Trump’s travel ban, and reaffirming its support for immigrants and refugees.
“As Uber’s community guidelines make clear, we maintain a zero-tolerance policy against discrimination,” an Uber spokeswoman said in a statement Saturday. “We expect drivers and riders to always treat each other with respect and nothing less. What’s been described here is totally unacceptable and has no place in our community. We’ve removed the driver’s access and are looking into this matter.”
Jones said he enjoys the opportunity to make money on his own time. He estimates that he made $400 last week, working a little more than 50 hours.
However, the fact that Jones was able to gain employment with the company raises renewed questions about the effectiveness of the company’s screening process for its drivers. Jones is outspoken in his condemnation of Islam, and the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League have both placed him on their watch lists of hate groups.
Jones has not tried to hide his beliefs, and he insisted in an interview Saturday that he believes Trump’s travel ban should go even further and stop “all Islamic immigration into America for right now.”
Uber said Jones passed a background check in late January and had been active on the app for less than two weeks. The screenings, which encompass local, state and federal databases and motor vehicle records, go back seven years. While it condemned Jones’s actions, Uber said his past behavior was not disqualifying because two recent arrests of his were dismissed.
One passenger who rode with Jones recently feared for other riders because of the threats on Jones’s life. The passenger included a screenshot of Jones’s account and vehicle information, which The Post confirmed but is not publishing because of concerns he and others could be targeted.
“An innocent customer could get caught up in that insanity,” said the passenger, who asked not to be named out of fear of retaliation.
“This is not a good situation, and I have lost all faith in Uber.”…
Dave Sutton, spokesman for “Who’s Driving You?”, a taxi industry initiative that lists offenses committed by ride-hailing drivers on its website, feared for customers who might ride with Jones.
“With the bounty, you’re potentially placing a target on your unwitting passengers’ heads,” he said. “Someone with these type of extremist views is not going to mix well with his fellow drivers but is very likely to get into an inflammatory argument. That’s a bad setup, it’s a terrible setup.”…
Jones said multiple passengers have recognized him since he began driving. While his views are unchanged, he said, he doesn’t bring them up unless customers ask. In one recent instance, when a customer asked if he believed there were any “good” Muslims, Jones replied: “Yeah, I think there’s good Muslims and bad Muslims, but I don’t think there’s any good Islam.”…