The Cab Driving Theologian

Monday was a beautiful day, as I drove into the yard to start my shift, a good day for Cab Driving Theologians. There were a few of them waiting around for their cars to come in from day shift as I walked past them to enter the office. I looked up at the board and saw that I was scheduled to drive a spare, so I asked the dispatcher what ride I was looking for.

"Whatever Number 7018 is driving." Keith told me.

I went back outside and stood with a couple of the other drivers. Number 7243 had the floor and he was ranting about the Pope’s visit to the country, so I turned on my tape recorder to catch what he was saying. He used to be a methamphetamine manufacturer, but after he got busted for possession he quit and became a born-again Christian.

"My personal feelings about the Pope’s visit are ambivalent. I feel that the Pope is the titular head of a major element of Babylon the Great, much like the Dalai Lama. For that reason, I have no regard for the Pope. I feel that he and his ilk are an element of the Anti-Christ, and as such are beneath my contempt. Thank you very much."

Before anyone could react to his pronouncement, he announced that his cab just came in, and he walked off. After he was gone Number 7444 started talking about the Texas polygamy case and I kept the tape running. I should explain that Number 7444 was a repo man and private investigator in Oakland for 30 years before he retired and moved to Oregon.

"This whole thing with the polygamists in Texas really concerns me, it really does. All this is based on a tape that they can’t find, on an individual that they can’t find, and they’re using that as their justification. That’s number one. Number two. Now I’m not Mormon. I’m not a polygamist. But I look at what has held this country together for the hundreds of years that it’s been in existence.

"The founding fathers were I believe some brilliant men that were inspired. I don’t know whether God inspired them, or whether they were smoking pot, but they were inspired, but whatever it was, they saw far enough into the future to see problems within government, and they addressed those problems before they arose, and I think that’s brilliance. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights have held this country together. I voted for George Bush, but I’m seeing with the Patriot Act and all this, I’m seeing problems that aren’t going to be problems for me within my lifetime, but they may be problems for my grandchildren and great grandchildren. I see this as one of those kinds of problems, where the government is going in and saying, we don’t agree with your religion. They won’t say those words, but that is basically what they are saying. Now I don’t give a damn if you are f---ing three women.

"First of all, I feel sorry for any son of a bitch that has to put up with three women at the same time. I couldn’t do it. One is a challenge. I mean can you imagine what kind of a f---ing list of honey doo’s those guys have got, and each one of them trying to outdo the other? If someone is molesting those children, then they need to find out about it, but they had somebody inside of that compound for over a year. They had snitches in there, so if there was molesting going on, don’t you think that they’d of known about it? You know that they’d of known about it, because the snitch would have told them about it. I believe that they’ve stepped over a very dangerous line.

"There was a Lutheran pastor named Martin Niemoeller in Nazi Germany who made a statement – ‘They came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.’ My thing is, that as Americans we need to say, I’m not a polygamist, but you can’t do this to an American citizen. If we want to leave a legacy to our children and great grandchildren, of the freedom that we have enjoyed throughout our entire lives, because otherwise it will be taken away from us by the government."

"Yeah,” I told him, “but the government wouldn’t let Utah become a state until the Mormons agreed to abolish their practice of polygamy.”

"I’m not saying that I’m agreeing with what they’re doing, because I don’t, but to me the most important factor is, when is the government allowed to step in and take your children away from you?"

About this time Number 7444's cab came in so I was standing by myself, until Number 7018 drove in with my cab. He was listening to the Mike Savage radio show, and as he vacuumed the cab and I checked the oil, he was talking about his feeling about the Compassion Forum that had taken place a week earlier.

"Hillary and Obama are nowhere near qualified to be talking about anything," he said. "And John McCain has gotten senile."

I finally hit the street at 3:17 p.m., and called second down.