There are three problems with rewarding those who use accusations of bigotry as a political cudgel. First, those who seek to protect religious liberties are not bigots, and going along with false accusations that they are makes one a party to a lie. Second, it is an excellent way to lose political contests, since there is almost nothing — up to and including requiring algebra classes — that the Left will not denounce as bigotry. Third, and related, it rewards and encourages those who cynically deploy accusations of bigotry for their own political ends. […]
An excellent illustration of this dynamic is on display in the recent pronouncements of columnist and gay-rights activist Dan Savage, who, in what seems to be an effort to resurrect every lame stereotype about the shrill, hysterical, theatrical gay man, declaimed that the efforts of those who do not wish to see butchers and bakers and wedding-bouquet makers forced by their government at gunpoint to violate their religious scruples is — you probably have guessed already — nothing less than the consecration of Jim Crow Junior. “Anti-black bigots, racist bigots, during Jim Crow and segregation made the exact same arguments that you’re hearing people make now,” Savage said. Given the dramatic difference in the social and political position of blacks in the time of Bull Connor and gays in the time of Ellen DeGeneres, this is strictly Hitler-was-a-vegetarian stuff, the elevation of trivial formal similarities over dramatic substantial differences. The choices for explaining this are a.) moral illiteracy; b.) intellectual dishonesty; c.) both a and b.
Adlai Stevenson famously offered this definition: “A free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.” We do not live in that society. […]
When there is no private property — the great legal fiction of “public accommodation” saw to its effective abolition — then everything is subject to brute-force politics, and there can be no live-and-let-live ethic, which is why a nation facing financial ruination and the emergence of a bloodthirsty Islamic caliphate is suffering paroxysms over the question of whether we can clap confectioners into prison for declining to bake a cake for a wedding in which there is no bride. The people who have hijacked the name “liberal” — the étatists — always win when social questions are decided by the state rather than in private life, because the expansion of the state, and the consequent diminution of private life, is their principal objective. […]
Gay couples contemplating nuptials are not just happening into cake shops and florists with Christian proprietors — this is an organized campaign to bring the private mind under political discipline, to render certain moral dispositions untenable. Like Antiochus and the Jews, the game here is to “oblige them to partake of the sacrifices” and “adopt the customs” of the rulers. We are not so far removed in time as we imagine: Among the acts intended to Hellenize the Jews was a ban on circumcision, a proposal that is still very much alive in our own time, with authorities in several European countries currently pressing for that prohibition.
It is what they are, it is what they do.
You are not truly free until you can make others do what you want.
We objectively know you’re not hateful bigots. But we called you that anyway because, in order to keep our righteousness shiny, someone had to play the role of Bull Connor, and you were the best fit we could find.
Selma Envy
I’ve detected that impulse in left-wing aspirations for decades. “Recreate 68,” for example. It’s exactly the same impulse that kept the Crusades going for generations. Having been raised on tales of glory fighting for Christ against the Mohammedans, younger generations wanted to partake in that kind of righteous battle, because it awarded you unquestioned virtue without having to struggle against your inner demons.
Humanity sucks. Sweet Meteor of Death, strike us now.
In this modern progressive movement we have the re-birth of Savonarola in the guise of a lasciviite.
What could be more fitting than for the ghost of a prude to become the template for progressivism?
Cheap grace meets modern hyperinflation.
Check out the fate of the guy who berated the girl at Chick-fil-A: Unemployed and on food stamps.
Remembering Private Property (aka: ‘The Stupid Serenity Of Servitude’)
I hope we shall never be so totally lost to all sense of the duties imposed upon us by the law of social union, as, upon any pretest of public service, to confiscate the goods of a single unoffending citizen. Who but a tyrant (a name expressive of ever…
I hope he finds something soon to help him get his life in order and support his family. Unlike some, I’m uncomfortable seeing people’s lives destroyed over such things.
>I’m uncomfortable seeing people’s lives destroyed over such things <
did the dude ever apologize to the victim of his harassment?
Let’s not concede the Left’s terminology. He didn’t ‘harass’ the ChickFilA chick (which implies repeated annoyance over a period of time), he just walked into the store and acted like a dick to some minimum-wage worker. While deplorable… happens every day.
The public shunning is because he posted the video and was proud of his behavior. (If I’m not mistaken, which I very well could be.)
I’m reminded, on the eve of Good Friday, that we have always had ugly mobs.
Lord have mercy.
Well, that didn’t work out. Here’s what I was trying to link: https://www.bible.com/bible/59/luk.23
> He didn’t ‘harass’ the ChickFilA chick (which implies repeated annoyance over a period of time) <
the dude did harass her and posted it to the internet to prove it. your "period of time" point is mystifying .
the dude made $200k / year. he gave that up to be a sjw. eff him.
(from Meriam Webster):
harass
: to annoy or bother (someone) in a constant or repeated way
: to make repeated attacks against (an enemy)
Using phrases like “victim of harrassment” when unwarranted is conceding the Left’s abuse of language. See also their attempt to redefine ‘rape’ as everything above and including “an icky nerd asked me for a date and I’m *so* out of his league!”
The ChickFilA chick isn’t wasn’t a ‘victim’ — at any point she could have just left and fetched her manager — and the guy wasn’t engaged in harrassment. He was being an obnoxious douche, sure, but that’s a different thing.
Scratch harass.
Check.
I think the Memories Pizza people should offer the guy a share of the generosity shown to them. Can you imagine the reaction from the left?
Wait, that’s only one word? </Ted Kennedy>
“: to make repeated attacks against (an enemy)”
Define “repeated” in this context.
Is it one insult an hour? One every 30 seconds?
Bob Dylan Shelter From the Storm
>The ChickFilA chick isn’t wasn’t a ‘victim’<
yea she was a prop for the sjw venom
eff them
Like a Rolling Stone
Had breakfast at a CFA Dwarf House location this morning. Tasty.
As I was leaving the chief of police was getting out of his car to go in. We said good morning and I got the hell out of there.
Well, I just googled the chief of police and turns out the guy I saw must have been an underchief. But still…