“How to Defeat Authoritarianism”
Trump on Russia

Denial of Service

By Jonathan B. Wight

Denying Sarah Huckabee Sanders service at a restaurant because of her ideology was abominable.

It was almost as grotesque as denying her service because of her race or religion.  (Denying service for politics or sexual orientation is apparently legal in most places, but not legal for the latter two reasons--thank goodness for some things.)

I admit that serving someone whose politics seems atrocious and seems to reflect a lack of common humanity and contact with reality would make it difficult to put on a smiling face.

But so what? However difficult, it must be done, and done without a gratuitous attack.

I remember the graciousness of Tip O’Neill, Speaker of the House from 1977-87, who could fight politics during the day and smile and dine with his opponents at night.

It does not help anyone, least of all the liberal Enlightenment cause, to retreat into the uncouth and rude behavior of DJT.

Boycott that restaurant in Lexington until the owner issues an apology, and a free meal to Sanders and her guests.

Comments

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The faux outrage over this is unreal. Or at least it would be if nearly everything else wasn’t already so unreal. Those people spent years in court trying to validate their perceived privilege to deny public service to ordinary citizens over political differences. Now they expect us to make an exception to this privilege with respect to the ruling elite, who apparently mustn’t be disturbed in their never ending quest to seek pleasure. Nonsense. Those people have built their public brand on the crassest incivilty and the crudest calls for violence in public discourse in my lifetime. I guess we’ve just got to accept that progressives have to be twice as good to get half the credit.

As an aside, I’m keen to see, JW, if this makes it past the increasgly heavy handed censor here.

"Heavy handed censor"? To my knowledge, no comment has been censored. Am I missing something? JW

I can’t say if you’re missing anything, Jonathan, but my comment lamenting Prof Morton’s recent post appeared, then, well, vanished.

Anyhow, if you’ve got a view on my comment this time around...

?? The only people who have the power to disapprove a comment are myself and Mark White (not John Morton). I did not remove it and I can't imagine Mark did. Do you wish to repost and we can try again? I'm not terribly tech savvy, but hope it can stay up this time!

(Note: the only posts I would disapprove would use foul language, attack the writer not the ideas, be completely off topic, etc.)

As for your comment on Denial of Service, I think progressives make a grave mistake when they go down the negative route that Trump has laid out. Being obnoxious does not help win hearts and minds to the progressive cause.

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