The Abolition of Private Life

As Kevin D. Williamson writes on this year’s current crop of nihilistic protestors, “They’re coming for your Denver omelet.” And your highway, and your business:

Sensible people would tell these pathetic bullies to mind their own business, but minding your business — and Google’s business — is literally Jesse Jackson’s business. (Literally, Mr. Vice President.) It’s what he does and how he eats. And it’s the Left’s best growth industry: Build nothing, create nothing, nurture nothing, and then shut down I-93 until you get your way, whether that means money in pocket, which is what the Castro protesters and Jesse Jackson are after, or whether that simply means luxuriating in the addictive pleasure of moral preening, which is what idiot white college kids in New York are after. The latter requires an audience, thus the Occupy a Denver Omelet movement.

What’s hilarious is that the protesters themselves are getting a lesson in why private life matters. When an enterprising WBZ-TV reporter, Ken MacLeod, started tracking down the Boston protesters who shut down the freeway and found them at their homes — often their parents’ homes, mansions in Brookline — he was accused of “harassment,” told “I need you to leave our property immediately,” etc. Which is to say, the protesters, having inserted themselves into public affairs, wished to enjoy the courtesy that they refused to extend to those who hadn’t inserted themselves into public affairs. When it comes to dopey Trustafarians, there’s more that’s tangled than their hair.

Speaking of protests and food, as Ace’s co-blogger Drew McCoy tweets, “awful but necessary,” linking to this Denver Eater (a spinoff publication of far left Vox.com, alas) article titled “Cake Shop Faces Legal Action For Refusing to Make Anti LGBT Cake:”

The man came in and began ordering a cake. After he found an image of a Bible-shaped cake to his liking, he showed the bakery employees the message he wanted displayed on the cake, the gist of which is hateful toward the gay community. Uncomfortable with the incident, owner Marjorie Silva offered to make the Bible-shaped cake and sell to the customer a decorating bag so he can complete whatever message he wanted himself. He immediately threatened legal action and left. He returned twice and had to be “excused” by the owner’s brother the last time. The man filed a discrimination complaint Colorado’s Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA).

In a nation of over 300 million people that doesn’t lack for bakeries, in a simpler time, one would simply shop for the baker who would be happy to print whatever message the customer wants. Who wants to buy a custom-made product obviously made under duress? Especially food — who’d want to risk eating a cake made in protest after it was complete? But if one group is legally forced to create products against their wishes, it’s understandable that they’d want to use the left’s Saul Alinsky-inspired tactics for a little pushback. After all, as Ol’ Saul said nearly half a century ago, “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” Evidently he didn’t realize how quickly the far left would emerge as the default bourgeois class in many parts of America, and conversely, religious conservatives the radical fringe position, at least as far as the law is concerned. Speaking of which, there are still more cakes waiting to be baked in the bakery wars:

@NathanWurtzel @exjon @allahpundit An anti-SSM person should go order a SSM cake at a halal bakery. Force everyone to the table.

— Drew McCoy (@DrewMTips) January 22, 2015

@seanmdav include an image of the Prophet for good measure? @DrewMTips @exjon @NathanWurtzel @allahpundit

— Jimmy (@JimmyPrinceton) January 22, 2015

Just print up a Charlie Hebdo cover, ask for it on the cake, and tell ’em your having a “Stand With Charlie” party. Though you might want to rent a P.O. box first so as not to give out your home address…

Which brings us back to the conclusion of Kevin D. Williamson’s article:

During the Civil Rights Movement — the real one, not the ersatz one led today by Jesse Jackson et al. — politics did genuinely intersect with brunch. On one side of the issue were people who argued that the social situation of African Americans at the time was so dire and so oppressive that invasive federal action was necessary. On the other side were well-intentioned conservatives such as Barry Goldwater and any number of writers for this magazine, who argued that if the reach of Washington were extended into every mom-and-pop diner in the country, it would constitute a step toward the abolition of private life, that the natural and inevitable extension of the principle at work would ensure that rather than being treated as private property, businesses reclassified as “public accommodations” would be treated more like public property, that the greasy snout of politics eventually would stick itself into every last precinct of what had been considered the sphere of privacy beyond the public sector.

As it turns out, both sides were right.

Or to put it another way, as one approaches peak socialism, increasingly, “The only person who is still a private individual..is somebody who is asleep,” to coin a phrase.