The Chicken Disses the Hat
The refusal of the Chick-fil-A issue to leave the headlines and its tendency to embrace more and more facets of the culture wars mean it will become increasingly about something other than what it started as: an attempt by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to strong-arm a business into parroting the Chicago line.
Chick-fil-A is now being denied permission to open a branch in Mountain View, CA, because of “zoning restrictions.” Maybe it is about zoning restrictions, and maybe it isn’t. It’s hard to tell anymore, since it has become the symbol of so much.
For Joe Ozersky of Time, who initially supported Chick-fil-A against Rahm Emanuel, the controversy has become symbolic of an excessive intrusiveness of private belief into a “nonfundamentalist real world.” Now he thinks Chick-fil-A must be taught that being religiously intrusive is beyond the pale:
Today is National Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day, at least according to Mike Huckabee. The evangelical minister and former presidential candidate — along with Rick Santorum, Sarah Palin and a host of other Christianist culture warriors — is mounting a counteroffensive after big-city mayors tried to shoo the Southern chicken chain from their borders, the Jim Henson Co. pulled its toys from Chick-fil-A’s kids’ meals, and the fast-food company has become a flash point for the whole LGBT community and all their sympathizers in the nonfundamentalist real world. …
The problem with Chick-fil-A goes beyond LBGT issues. A former worker recently filed a lawsuit against the parent company in which she claims that a franchise owner of a Chick-fil-A in Georgia fired her so she could be a stay-at-home mom. The corporate culture embraces an overt religiosity, from prayer meetings at business retreats to asking people who apply for an operator license to disclose their marital status and number of dependents.
I respect Chick-fil-A’s owners for taking a love-it-or-leave-it stance in regard to their religion; and, like a lot of people, I am choosing to leave it.
One man’s religion is another man’s ideology. Chick-fil-A is probably as tolerant, if not more so, of intellectual diversity than a publicly funded university or Time. But just who between the conservatives and the liberals are the Borg we will leave for another day. Suffice it to say, there’s a difference of opinion. In that context Ozersky is within his rights to choose to oppose Chick-fil-A. But also, for that matter, are people who’d like to express their view of Time’s religiosity — excuse me, ideology — by never buying that magazine.
Just the latest example of ‘progressives’ no longer even attempting to enter a marketplace of ideas. The gloves are off; it’s all about the control, all the time.
Sooner or later, a spark will hit the tinder and dried underbrush. It is a simple matter of probabilities and time now.
Let’s not leave out Boston!
There are people who cannot tell (I punish you) the difference between private actors and government. The owners of Chik-fil-A may be great guys or bullying bores but they are not the government. Richard Fernandez is not the government, which is why the First Amendment does not apply here when people yell how dare he object to bullying or offensive or tendentious speech. Rahm Emanuel and Michael Bloomberg are government officials. The Constitution exists to protect people from the government.
If Gensler had placed his hat inside his own front door with a sign that read “Bow and Enter” then no one would have had cause to object. Gensler was sent by the Hapsburgs who thought that they owned everything. The problem arose because in premodern societies the Monarch claimed their land as private property. Subjects only had rights of tenure to property under the Sovereign by sufferance in return for pledges to serve and obey. That is how feudalism was structured. The King owns everything and loans a portion to a noble in return for fealty. The noble grants land to the peasant to till and permits the merchant to trade. The last 1,200 years have seen steady pressure to limit the ability of the Sovereign to arbitrarily revoke the hereditary property right of their Subjects. First was making noble titles and grants inheritable and then came granting of rights to commoners. When people were seen, largely during the Reformation, as having rights in their own person as coming from God and not on the sufferance of the King or his representative then they were transformed from subjects into citizens.
Leftists look at the power of a property owner to abuse people and call for a stronger government to provide balance. Markets do fail. There are abusive jerks out there. The answer should be to multiply the ability of the market to provide choices that reduce the power of jerks to abuse their customers or employees. If Gensler runs the local Noble’s Post Office and makes customers and employees bow to enter then allow a private competitor to open the “No Bow Postal Service.” Smart Kings and Emperors did encourage and protect private Merchants to reduce the power of the Nobles.
In Islam the entire universe is temporary and subject to instantaneous revocation by the arbitrary and unfathomable Allah. There is no government separate from the religious community and the power of the ruler is in imitation of the power of Allah absolute and arbitrary. The individual has no rights that cannot be revoked by Allah’s representative. Since everything is temporary there can be no permanent rights for individuals and there can be no true or safe inheritance of property. The most that can be hoped for is that an accumulation of evidence, poverty failure and defeat, will be taken as proof that Allah does not approve of the ruler and that revolt is justified. Failure will be taken as proof after the fact that Allah was not on your side. That is the opposite of constitutional government that protects individuals and encourages innovation and wealth creation. In both Islam and Socialism the individual lacks permanent rights including the right to inherit property that limit the scope and power of government.
Chic-fil-a is not the Woolworth’s lunch counter of the 60′s. Homosexual’s are not being denied service at the counter. THe owner is simply stating objection to homosexual marriage. I wanted to go to Chic-fil-a yesterday but it was too busy. As a christian living in the south, I would like to support businesses that at least publicly profess my shared beliefs. However, what I really want to know is how many of my fellow christians would have supported Chic-fil-a if they would have denied service to homosexuals. It would tell me just how far we’ve come from the lunch counter at Woolworths.
It may be worth pointing out that the government in this country now only allows us to pretend we own, and can inherit and pass on, property. The fact is that the government, through the IRS and certain other agents, has prior and enforceable claim on everything you think you own.
Winter Springs, FL 8/1/2012
I tried yesterday at 11:39 – too crowded
Again last night at 4:45 – unbelievable crowds; but fast service delivered my order in 12 minutes.
Everyone in line said: Screw Rahm, we agree with family values.
What comes to mind is that we have had many recent examples of corporate management who displayed no particular scruples or beliefs of any kind. the mannagement of Lehman Brothers probably would have told you they were enthusiastic homophiles if you had asked them. No doubt so were the leaders of General Motors, the Boston Fed, Bear Stearns, Bernie Madoff, et. al.
But in the end they met the standards of the Left by being amoral, or at least nonjudgemental, of everything. If all things are of equal value, and you are driven by which protest group shows up at your door and which mayor will not let you in his city, than it all becomes easy. And they also ran their companies into the ground and let the taxpayer bail them out. But at least they did not state any beliefs other than the popularly approved ones.
How fitting that Rossini’s overture is also indelibly associated with the Lone Ranger: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCO6smQrjJ8&feature=related
I think a lot of people still identify with the Lone Ranger as a fighter against injustice– and the Chick-fil-A stores are certainly ringing up the silver!
4 – “THe owner is simply stating objection to homosexual marriage.”
Except he’s not even doing that. He’s stating what HE values: normal marriage between a man and a woman and the resulting family. The Left has obligingly filled in the blanks – “Well, we know what you mean, nudge, nudge, wink, wink” – with every lurid stereotype of the narrow, Puritanical witch-burning Christian of its nightmares, and then pretended to be the innocent, fair-minded recipients of an intolerable provocation. Like Sir Thomas More, it isn’t enough not to criticize, the mere absence of affirmation is now evidence of a crime. This was actually the position of Saint-Just during the French Revolution: people had to prove that they had actively helped the Revolution or be classified as enemies of the state.
Property/land taxes by government on my fee simple owned property/land effectively make me a renter from the government with or without inheritance taxes etc. I don’t know when land taxes started in this country and if/when they have been tested in front of SCOTUS but obviously Keogh showed we are only renters from the Gov.
Chik-fil-a is pretty close to a tea party moment and the TEA party has shown thru Ted Cruz that all the leftest/centerest need to pay attention. They won’t because of self dillusional blindness but we are near to an inflection point. The pendulam is about to change direction. We have had 100 years of this direction, since the Wilson election, and it is very wrong.
Perhaps the American version of Storming the Bastille is lining up to buy a sandwich and waiting patiently without trying to cut in front.
The focus of the Left is on winning the argument not solving the problem they express concern about. Both the problem and the argument are, for them, a means of gaining power. Since they mostly talk among themselves they will occasionally frame the discussion poorly and the con, cant, and strong arm tactics become more obvious.
The discussion about roads and bridges is an attempt to recast the argument. Conservatives talk about the importance of the Core Functions of Government. The Left now wants to pose as the protector of these Core Functions and that Conservatives threaten these Core Functions.
The actual problem, of course, is the government take. The DC take has been growing for decades. The take is not just taxes but borrowed money used for government consumption (which they call investment because the word has a nice ring to it — one they are quickly turning to a clank). The take is also power and control: they take away choices. They say they are pro choice when actually they are pro their choosing and you doing. The DC take is growing so large it is becoming (unexpectedly!) a millstone around the neck of the economy.
Most people do not understand how the infrastructure of the nation was built. Often it was private companies building potable water systems and, of course, gas, electric, and telephones. Major Transportation infrastructure was financed by private capital and the bonds repaid by charging tolls. Commissions were put in charge that were modeled on private corporations. The Bank of America basically financed the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge and tolls were used to repay the bonds and keep bridge in good repair.
Also the administrative techniques of effective and honest government were first developed in the private economy.
My daughter and I went to the Chick-fil-A outlet in our part of town last night – around five PM, thinking that we’d be after the lunch crowd and before the dinner crowd kicked in. We did have to wait about twenty minutes, as the line went to the door … but by the time we finished and left, the line was out the door, and half-way down the sidewalk. We did talk a little to the people in line near us: everyone was very courteous and in a very good mood. I was there because I am a cranky libertarian-Constitutionalist; what Mayors Rahm and Menino and other city officials said and did crossed a clear line. A political estabishment ought not to be dictating that companies who want to set up a franchise must have their CEOs or owners mouth the party line. I detest being forced to kiss the ring of political correctness anyway. On the other hand, my daughter was there because she was absolutely furious about Rosanne Barr’s disgusting tweets, wishing that everyone who ate Chick-fil-A would die of cancer. My daughter said that she felt that everyone coming out yesterday to Chick-fil-A were basically giving a big F-U to the cultural and political powers that be.
And just think – they turned out in 100+ degree heat to stand in line for chicken sandwiches. Wait until they come out to vote in November … and I think most of them will, there were a lot of Tea Party-types participating in this. You shouldn’t need a weatherman to know how the wind is blowing.
Casting aside the hype, it’s about money. Abrosexuals have tried using the power of the purse before. It always failed. I suspect a lot more fried chicken will get sold due to the sodomites actions.
Some reports say that people standing in the long lines yesterday were swapping stories of their own experiences of leftist intolerance. If some sort of network arose out of this, defending First Amendment rights the way the Tea Party promotes fiscal restraint, then the result from yesterday could be lasting. It could be as you suggest, Richard: the start of something big. If nothing else it has put the lie to the narrative in which conservatives promote intolerance and liberals oppose it.
“It is morphing into an overt test of whether the cultural elite can have its way.”
Well put. Gay marriage is an attempt to destroy an existing, weakened human institution by arbitrarily redefining it. Its an attack by the rich and powerful on the institutions of the bourgeoisie. Gay marriage exists only in the minds of its propagandist and people who believe the propaganda, not in real life.
The problem we face is one of a simple lack of representation. When one member of the House of Representatives represents 200 thousand plus, he represents only himself and his own interests.
Somewhere along the line, congress determined that by limiting the number of representatives, it could neutralize the voting populace. Of course, this alteration was presented as a streamlining of government, of making government work again.
That is how we citizens lost control of our government. Instead of a massive House of Representatives that could and would block all but the most commonly accepted legislation, we have a small, elite body that represents government itself.
Dear Rahm, et.al.-Please keep pushing this particular envelope until 11/6/12.
Now that the left’s Plan “A” has failed, look for their typical Plan “B”-”reports” of rampant anti-gay statements and sentiments expressed by customers and CFA employees during the Appreciation Day. Remember all those Tea Partiers spitting on black legislators after the Obamacare passage?
Mayor Ed Lee warns Chick-fil-A against coming to San Francisco
“Very disappointed Chick-fil-A doesn’t share San Francisco’s values and strong commitment to equality for everyone”
…except Christians!
“excessive intrusiveness of belief”
Jeesh, if that isn’t the crux of statism. We are increasingly living in a world where we cannot afford individual freedom of thought any more than we can wait for its representatives in congress to act on behalf of a righteous belief. The Won and it proponents are cruel victors. I am afraid that they’d scream bloody murder if the shoe was on the other foot. But they know that the moderate class of co-conspirators like John McCain would never let that happen. They are moderating to any extreme that may prevail and the ratchet only turns in the direction of despotism. Until that is, the machine is broken into a thousand pieces with a hammer. I for one would rather be free in a garbage heap than affluent hand in glove with tyranny. If homosexuals must be tyrants, then like girls who spit in your eye, there is going to be blood in spite of their fairer sex. And that is essentially at work here. Homosexuals are not looking for equality. They are claiming to be the fairerest sex of all with special rights and protections. A noble class by birth. They spit in your eye and cry fowl. Rohm may soon become the Rev. Jesse Jackson of the LGBT political faction. Replete with banners and goose waddle.
People are fed up both with the thought police and with the ever moving bars of what has become acceptable. It started with ending legal discrimination against gays, which was the right things to do. Then it elevated to open displays of gay behavior, including public displays of affection. Then we were told civil unions were needed, but of course that would not lead to marriage. In blue states public school sex ed programs began teaching that oral and anal sex are no big deal. Around the same time every TV comedy series seemed to have added a gay character. Nor could you escape them on reality TV as HDTV, the Food Channel and even dog training shows on Animal Planet seemed to highlight gay couples. As a result of this TV barrage recent polls have shown that some Americans now overstate the percentage of gays in the population by as much as the power of ten! Now the elites are imposing gay marriage by fiat but of course religions will never be forced to participate. Anyone want to bet that right after the election there will be lawsuits against religions who refuse to marry gay couples in those states where gay marriage is legal. At every step along this progression people who suggested caution was in order were called bigots.
@3: The answer should be to multiply the ability of the market to provide choices that reduce the power of jerks to abuse their customers or employees. If Gensler runs the local Noble’s Post Office and makes customers and employees bow then allow a private competitor to open the “No Bow Postal Service.”
Competition is not the answer to market mischief in all its varied and sundried manifestations. The evolution of the derivatives markets – all unregulated – was highly competitive. Which explains the growth and bust of (segments of) those markets. And brings us to the present day.
wretchard: I believe Ozersky is wrong when he thinks that the surge in Chick-fil-A’s patronage is due to the machinations of “Rick Santorum, Sarah Palin and a host of other Christianist culture warriors”. The personages he mentioned were riding the wave, not creating it.
Not going to deny the Bible Belt element their due, but this subject is more fundamental. “It’s the sex, stupid.” People don’t like being told that what they do with their opposite-sex spouses is equivalent, along multiple vectors, to a set of behaviors they find seriously repugnant. There is no end of (opportunistic) dressage applied to the subject (thought we were mercifully done with it) but it remains – down dirty and deep – a matter of human esthetics – and the guilt/shame complex. Formal studies might be able to capture some of what I have observed anecdotally, the reliance on truth-telling being critical, but the extent of bisexual behavior seems rather large. If it is true that the absolute magnitude of homosexuality is overestimated, as alleged, one can legitimately wonder about the extent of heterosexuality. People swing in mysterious ways. The Christianity thing strikes me as a veneer. The truth is much more visceral.
I predict the comments will run well over the 100 mark.
Note @3: Gessler, not (Gary) Gensler, the head of CFTC.
22 – “There is no end of (opportunistic) dressage applied to the subject (thought we were mercifully done with it)…”
Opportunistic dressage? I think that’s what we used to call “politeness”. It was based on an unspoken quid pro quo: I’ll control my facial muscles and comments if you agree to a similar sacrifice by abstaining from publicly detailing your sexual adventures. Adding insulting references to MY sexual activities was not even included in the equation – refraining from that was just assumed as a basic requirement for civilized people.
What the cluck just happened?
A most satisfying taste of free speech
Michelle Malkin
—
23. Dr. Mabuse,
You suffer from a sun dried guilt/shame complex.
Sorry
What the cluck just happened? Neither Chick-fil-A nor the cultural Left nor the mainstream media were prepared for what hit them yesterday.
It was a bona fide feeding frenzy — and one of the most remarkable, peaceful and massive First Amendment protests in modern American times.
The Tea Party notably harnessed social media to organize mass protests in 2009 and 2010. Activists on the Right are scoring more and more wins in the Internet battlespace against false media narratives. But what made yesterday’s nationwide Chick-fil-A protest a milestone was the speed, volume and breadth with which the movement amassed.
On his radio show, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee announced that his online call for a “National Chick-fil-A day” had garnered 20 million views.
Through Facebook and Twitter, tens of thousands of First Amendment and free-enterprise supporters spread the word over the last 10 days.
Various Chick-fil-A-related hashtags trended all day long.
From dusk ’til dawn, Chick-fil-A fans from Atlanta to suburban Chicago (where thug Mayor Rahm Emanuel voiced his opposition to Chick-fil-A) to Hollywood tweeted astonishing photos of drive-thru lines snaking twice around the restaurants; police directing miles-long traffic; standing-room-only dining rooms, and overflowing mall franchises and parking lots.
Appreciation Day turned to Appreciation Night, with thousands still packing their local Chick-fil-A stores for dinner. At my Colorado Springs location, cars occupied three blocks, and hundreds stood outside waiting for their waffle fries and chicken sandwiches at 7:30 p.m.
“It’s all about freedom!” a cheery driver shouted in front of me.
Ohioan David Nicholson tweeted from a line of 500 at 8:30 p.m. in Toledo, Ohio. Michael Meadows of Wentzville, Mo., posted a photo on Twitter of families and senior citizens in a line “wrapped around the inside of the building and out the door” at 7:30 p.m.
Evangelical minister and author Rick Warren tweeted last night that he’d received a call from Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy reporting that the company “has already set a world record today, with 7 more [hours] to go in the West.”
The dirty Occupiers who pride themselves on “community organizing” could take a lesson or two from their polite and joyful social-conservative counterparts. The only threat of violence that occurred at the fast-food restaurant chain’s hundreds of franchises across the country came from the anonymous nutball who phoned in a bomb threat to a West Virginia outlet.
And the only hate surrounding the unprecedented event came from Hollywood celebrities like Roseanne Barr, who wished cancer on Chick-fil-A consumers, and Eliza Dushku, who egged on Boston Mayor Thomas Menino to punish the restaurant chain by illegally denying it building permits — plus assorted lefty malcontents who sent messages to every conservative they knew on Twitter hoping they’d die from choking or diabetes.
Biased reporters cast the nationwide support movement as “anti-gay.” But consumers across the fruited plain weren’t engaging in bigotry. They were fighting repressive “civility.” They stood up for free enterprise and the First Amendment.
And man, did it taste good.
“You shouldn’t need a weatherman to know how the wind is blowing.” The fire definitely seems to be blowing towards the fringes of the Left. It is a martyrdom in which no one cares.
I remember a time when public displays of affection were frowned upon by heterosexual couples. My girlfriend and I were chastised for making-out in public at this time. [I think around this time there was constant kvetching about the rain forest]. This, of course, was driven by the facts that some people expressed discomfort with public displays of affection between what were generally homosexual women amongst children. So we were all asked to “knock it off” for their sake. There is no law against feeling discomfort nor is it amoral. What is at stake is who in society gets to call themselves normal.
I went to the Chick-fil-A in downtown Hollywood, on the corner of Sunset and Highland, about two blocks from where the Academy Awards and American Idol are filmed at 9:30 in the evening. This location is practically within spitting distance of heavily gay West Hollywood. The place was absolutely packed. So I guess the protest is not limited to the Bible Belt.
Tammy Bruce
Laura Ingraham
Sally Ride
Anderson Cooper
The only day of the year when “if it bleeds, it leads” gets knocked off the front page, is the day Berkeley holds its nude gay parade. You don’t see any of the people listed above at the festivities.
More complete list here.
First the Tea Party. Now the Chicken Revolution. What’s for dessert?
“nonfundamentalist real world”
What a loaded phrase. It implies that fundamentalists are not part of the real world.
Rahm must be channelling Vidal. Considering that religion in it’s broadest sense( US Supreme Court) is present in every normal human, it begs the question of Who is a fundamentalist and who has the authority to define that.
That is leaving aside the question of who’s perception of the world is “real” (yes, sneer quotes). Abrosexuals think their numbers are MUCH greater then they actually are. The now departed but not missed for decades Vidal claimed that Everyone is a closet queer. If that was fact, the split would be 50/50. Instead, by all valid measurements it is about 2% abrosexual and 98% hetro. The GLTwhatever claims much larger numbers. EVERY time a homeosexual issue is brought to a vote they lose. Big time.
So who lives in the real world? Notice that the real world doesn’t care. It does as it does, without concern nor imput from any human.
Celer, Silens, Mortalis.
26. Unsk,
Adam Carolla says Christian Values never stopped him from enjoying an In and Out Burger, despite his professed “atheism”
LA now has the chance to elect a CONSERVATVE Mayor, Kevin James.
…who happens to be Gay.
I’m trying to recruit folks like Prager and Hewitt to give him the millions of dollars worth of free advertising Hewitt gave Arnold.
“LA now has the chance to elect a CONSERVATVE Mayor, Kevin James.
…who happens to be Gay.”
IMPOSSIBLE!
22. JaneMT
The chicken restaurant operates their business on the principle “whomever can pay for their meal is OK with us”. Their customers are free to hold any opinions that they please, before during and after their chicken dinner. The problem is that Rahm Emmanuel thinks you should not be allowed to sell chicken if your opinions are different from his. Rahm Emmanuel is the problem, not the seller of chicken dinners.
Rahm Emmanuel is being silly, anti-democratic and acting like some tinpot dictator. Quite properly, most people won’t stand for that kind of nonsense. Why on Earth should they?
Once a Rahm Emmanuel inspires public scorn by being stupidly arrogant over the right to sell a chicken dinner, then scorn may turn to outrage and the peasants get restless. The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again.
“What is at stake is who in society gets to call themselves normal.”
Wrong. Like Doug, you have the cart in front of the horse. It isn’t how you label yourself but how society labels you based on your actions.
People that display normal actions get labelled as normal by Society. People that display abhorrent actions get labelled as such;
ab·hor·rent
adjective
1. causing repugnance; detestable; loathsome: an abhorrent deed.
2. utterly opposed, or contrary, or in conflict (usually followed by to ): abhorrent to reason.
3. feeling extreme repugnance or aversion (usually followed by of ): abhorrent of waste.
4. remote in character (usually followed by from ): abhorrent from the principles of law.
It isn’t what you say, it’s what you do. American society worships freedom of speech. There is no freedom of deed. Nor should there be.
Next time you have the urge to suck face in public remember you are sucking on a tube 23 feet long, in which the bottom 3 feet are filled with feces.
JaneMT 22,
I struck a nerve? Good.
“The cure for the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.”
- Al Smith (D)
The cure for the ills of competition is more competition. – BFtP
There are problems in the Market. That is why we have courts. Simple laws that define Professional Responsibility and Abuse of Trust and the Common Law protections against Theft are all we need. More complex regulations are not created to track down criminal Puppet Masters but to enable the criminals by creating a thicket for them to hide in. Simplicity is the best defense.
Gessler vs. Gensler? So I made two puns today? Does that mean that I’m over achieving and the union will get me?
When you press the notion that Christianity = anti-gay, you abuse Christianity. I dare anyone to read the Sermon on the Plain and come away thinking, well we gotta give money to people who want to convert the queers.
= Treat others how you want to be treated
= Love your enemies
= Remove the beam from your own eye, before attending to the mote in others
= Don’t judge and you won’t be judged, don’t condemn and you won’t be condemned, forgive and you will be forgiven, give and you will receive
That’s the Christianity that I admire. That’s the Christianity that speaks a message of love and caring for all people. 180 degrees away from the condemning, judging, hating Christianity that Chick-Fil-A is proudly giving money to uphold.
@32: Once a Rahm Emmanuel inspires public scorn by being stupidly arrogant over the right to sell a chicken dinner, then scorn may turn to outrage.
Reminds me of the Nazi march in the Chicago suburb of Skokie, IL in 1977, when “one out of every six Jewish citizens in the late 1970s was a survivor–or was directly related to a survivor–of the Holocaust.”
Ideas have consequences. The tension between group vilification vs civil liberties is not a subject to be over-simplified.
@34: What you struck was confusion. The Gensler/Gessler thing had me going for awhile, until I figured it out. Thought others may have been scratching their heads for the deeper connection.
Property ownership is dependent on contract law which requires a functional banking system, as markets depend on functional financing and investment infrastructure. Neither the civil nor the criminal code is adequate to sanction the dysfunction leading to 2008. That requires regulatory code. And legal penalties. The kind that strike nerves.
From dusk ’til dawn, Chick-fil-A fans from Atlanta to suburban Chicago (where thug Mayor Rahm Emanuel voiced his opposition to Chick-fil-A) to Hollywood tweeted astonishing photos of drive-thru lines snaking twice around the restaurants; police directing miles-long traffic; standing-room-only dining rooms, and overflowing mall franchises and parking lots.
I’m waiting for PETA to protest the slaughter of millions of oppressed chickens to feed the carnal and speciesist appetites of the swarms of h8ters and bigots who visited their local Chick-fil-A yesterday.
Wonder when Mittoast is going to show up at Chik-a-fil (only after his wet finger up in the air tells him which way the wind is blowing). Just remember who was there first, before Huckabee’s call to action:
http://iwitness.abc13.com/Media/View/2513211
As she as always done the past three plus years, Mrs. P is the pathfinder, locating and marking the targets. Which is why the Left hates her so much.
BTW In Orange County, CA the Chik-a-fil locations were swarmed. For once the In-N-Out burger joints had to look enviously across the street at the lines at another buisness.
“Chick-fil-A is probably as tolerant, if not more so, of intellectual diversity, than a publicly funded university or Time Magazine.”
And ain’t that about the truth! It seems to me the Lavender Mafia and their liberal comrades have overplayed their hand again. Keep screaming for the straight world to prostrate themselves at the altar of exalted sodomy and watch the kickback.
The head ballerina in the Windy City ought to start a midnight basketball program for the legions of murderous gangbangers in his city. Maybe give them some free Chick-Fil-A sandwiches.
Hey Calamity Jane, I’ve been looking for verification of your slur that Laura Ingraham is gay , but haven’t found it. You want to enlighten us or maybe quit slandering people? Or did Harry Reid’s imaginary pal Tommie tell you about it?
35. Undertoad
Goody for you. So you get to boycott Chik-fil-A. It is your prerogative.
Otherwise you are missing the point. Chik-fil-A is not the problem — the abuse of power by its detractors in government is.
Since folks are guessing at what motivated the Democrats’ big-city machines to malign Chick-Fil-A in the first place, I’ll throw my speculations onto the pile.
We know it’s not some metaphysical, moral imperative to enact gay marriage. No, it’s something more rote and disturbing than that.
I think Rahm et al’s public statements were driven by an impulse to protect their multinational political patrons, Tyson Foods and Pepsi Co. from commercial competition inside their respective cities. To research the veracity of my guess, one’d only need to ask two questions of the franchise’s owners: which soft-drink company did they sign with? Pepsi or Coke?, and who supplies your chicken filets?
Both Tyson and Pepsi went political back in the late eighties, and, especially in foreign markets throughout the nineties, where faddish anti-Americanism skyrocketed, this political pose took decidedly anti-GOP turns. Turns that the Democrats’ built on to sustain Bill Clinton’s presidency, derogate Bush’s and get Obama elected in 2008.
So, it’s just a guess. I admit it…and I have a lot more digging to do to prove or disprove it, but…if Chicago loses any of that Pepsi Foundation money, or if Tyson Foods won’t underwrite Obama’s campaign this year, then failed manufacturing centers like Chicago’ll be in a world of hurt. And if Obama doesn’t win a second term, then California probably won’t get it’s planned bail-out either.
FYI: I see the WaPo found a non-profit source of sugar-water this week. As goes their media, so goes the Democrat(ic) party!
So now fast food CEO’s all over the country are trying to figure out what they can say that will piss off Rahm EEEeeeeemanual at them so they can get a spike in this quarters profits?
I am most struck by the intolerance of those on the left- the same ones who preach tolerance for gay rights. Being tolerant is different than giving approval, but approval is what they seek. They insist homosexuality is normal behavior- it is not. My own view is homosexuality is like dyslexia, the equipment works but not in the manner it was intended. I certainly don’t want homosexuals discriminated against any more than Dyslexics. But at least most Dyslexics realize there is a problem and seek help.
The medical professionals changed the classification of homosexuality from being a mental disorder, based on ZERO scientific research and completely for political reasons. Therefore, it is completely rational to suspect there is an agenda in play.
I seem to recall some researchers (recently) claiming they found a genetic link to homosexuality and there was speculation it could be used to abort unborn babies who were predisposed to homosexuality. What a conundrum for the left; support abortion on demand or homosexuality?
35. Undertoad, I see your sermon on the Plain and raise you 7 major bible references.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/homglance.htm
If you want you can find similar parts in the Qu’ran. There are no major religions that do not proscribe homosexual actions. That is why homosexual lose whenever they face a vote.
#35 Undertoad Love in no way excuses sin, see many epistles, particularly Paul. You can use selective quoting from Matthew and Luke to excuse anything, but that is not how it was intended. The left today are just liberal Pharisees, Sermon on the Mount (or as you would have it, Plain) Pharisees.
With a bit of indulgence, I submit a link I stumbled across yesterday that reveals how the public school system, by direction from the federal level, has been programming children to “go with the flow.” I think it has relevence when a social movement such as this one is in play. Very, very scary stuff here people. And it has been going on for 20 years? Explains how Obama got elected at least. It is an hour long but worth it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErL9zPHdH4A&feature=related
Prior to the Civil War, our country was already riven in twain: Republican North; Democratic South. We could no longer abide one another politically, culturally, economically.
In 1860, Republicans won at the ballot box. In 1861, in response, the Dems reached for the ammo box. They lost there, too.
We are in similar straits, today. Republican South and Center. Democratic West Coast and NE. We can no longer abide one another politically, culturally, economically.
In 2010, Republicans won big at the ballot box. In 2011, how did Dems respond? Did they accede to the will of the people and work with Repubs to come up with solutions with which we could all live? No, because they can no longer abide us. They decided to block everything. They said so. The Republican House passes bill after bill, only to see them DOA in the Dem Senate. They refuse to even pass a budget. They said so.
Now, they know this will damage the country, like with the two credit downgrades. Know it, mind you. In fact, they are counting on it. They want to be able to go to the public and say, “See? You elected the Republicans again, and things got worse again. You have to put us back in charge!”
What kind of people sabotage their own country for political gain? How do we have a reasonable conversation with such treasonous bastards?!?
We can no longer abide one another.
So, could this start a revolution? I suspect not, even though conditions are right. No, civil-minded people will try to work this out at the ballot box. It is afterwards where the danger lies.
When the Dems lose huge in November, how will they respond in the months which follow? If you think they cannot abide us now, just wait until they are severely trounced at the ballot box. Their fury will peak. They will be outraged and feel justified in their rage. They reached for the ammo box last time. What will they do, this time, when they can truly no longer abide us and are deluded and enraged?
We can no longer abide one another.
Emanuel and his fellow Democrat politicians in other cities have dropped their masks and revealed themselves for what they really are. The Democrats are America’s first “Totalist” party.
I really need to read Kurtz’ new book about the War on Suburbia. Rahm gave us that wish a few years ago, he wants the collar counties under Chicago.
Marc @ 48,
“Gay Marriage” is the ultimate affront, Marc. It’s the smoke-bomb let off in a pre-agitated audience. And its purveyors know it: they want the civil war.
Problem is, “gay marriage” is only window-dressing hung to obfuscate the nation’s clear view onto a socialist political movement (‘gm’ is only popular among a discreet subset of self-identifying ‘gays,’ that of ‘urban gays,’ and it offers nothing to most actualized ‘gays’ who have recreated the benefits of classical marriage without the need for government recognition).
So absent any real substance to justify it, its obfuscatory power must derive only from the affronts’ value as a distraction. As with “global warming,” the more we take umbrage to the flutters and sheens of the gauzy veil, instead of to the historic, tangible, socio-political ruin that the movement behind it has wreaked here and elsewhere, the more we encourage the spawn of the next affront, and the cycle of antagonism gets ramped up one more notch.
I like to think we can turn off this civil war if we choose to. And all it may take is turning the TV off.
4. KWB said:
“However, what I really want to know is how many of my fellow christians would have supported Chic-fil-a if they would have denied service to homosexuals. It would tell me just how far we’ve come from the lunch counter at Woolworths.”
We want people with same sex attraction to come to Chic-fil-a. Sinners need to be saved.
6. geoffgo said:
“Everyone in line said: Screw Rahm, we agree with family values.”
Remember what Pauline Kael said about Nixon’s election in 1972.
I’m waiting for someone to make the obvious observation: There are utterly NO reports of LOGISTICAL problems CFA had serving such a huge number of meals in so short a time. Everything I have read indicates that CFA restaurants had 10 days notice between huckabee’s call and CFA Appreciation day. What’s obvious to me is that someone in CFA had to have made the decision to spend REAL MONEY to getting the restaurants stocked up in advance to satisfy a response that NOBODY else forsaw. If there were a lot of bets made on what would happen Yesterday, it’s obvious to me that CFA Logistics and Supply made the bet that won the most.
Undertoad, I am thinking of two nine digit numbers. Reproduce them correctly in your next post, and I will acknowledge your ability to read the minds of all those people at CFAs all over the country and your assertion that EACH ONE was TRULY motivated by anti-gay hatred rather than in response to your compatriot’s (AND YOUR) SLANDER of THEM and their STATED reasons. Until THEN, my money is on that tounge-talking Pentecostal or Charismatic in CFA’s logistics divison being told by the Holy Spirit to move those pallets of plucked pullets OUT, to move them out FAST, and to move out LOTS of them.
The Joe Ozersky of Time referenced by W is a food writer. His usual fare is empenadas, sushi and an occasional proto erotic leg of lamb. So why the heck should anybody care what somebody who writes about hamburgers has to say about private business owners who “can’t keep religious beliefs from their business.” Nothing at all except to say that Ozersky’s article is a walk back and public apology for saying in a previous article that he would not boycott Chick-fil-A. How dare he wander off the liberal reservation, even for a moment. The fascist PC crowd got to the powers to be and fixed the “problem.”
What really sucks about this brouhaha about nothing is what is almost certain to come next. Big city Democrat politicians are openly telling business owners that they had better tow the Party’s ideological line – or else they’re going to be hurt economically. Has there been any real consequence for these fascists in Boston, Chicago or San Francisco? None that matters. And there won’t be.
August 1 has come and gone virtually unnoticed. That is the day that starts official state control of religious institutions in the former Republic. Consequences to the fascists? None that matter.
It has been for some time a career killer in academia and the media to admit that your worldview is motivated by Christian, or heaven forbid Catholic, values. Now we can add chicken sandwiches to the list of politically correct enterprises. There’s a big long list of other professions wanting to be detoxified, and an army of bureaucrats and Party faithful ready willing and eager to get to it.
Solzhenitsyn said that maybe if the guy coming to knock on your door in the dark of night thought there was going to be a pitchfork waiting for him behind it that far fewer Party faithful would have signed up as door knockers. You muster enough pitchforks and the door knockers go away.
Nobody wants it to come to that but that sure seems to be the trend.
@51: ‘gm’ is only popular among a discreet subset of self-identifying ‘gays,’ that of ‘urban gays,’ and it offers nothing to most actualized ‘gays’ who have recreated the benefits of classical marriage without the need for government recognition
If the “need” is soi disant (in name only, a NINO) then the suspiciously loud protestation of the opposition is directed at what is little more than a meaningless gesture, at most, a “take that, you nasty person” type of rebuke. None of it seems very adult, let alone worthy of so much ink. This is a chick-a-dee tempest in a teapot, worthy of W.C. Fields but little else. Rainbow Iscream for dessert.
36. JaneMT
“Ideas have consequences. The tension between group vilification vs civil liberties is not a subject to be over-simplified.”
Now you’re making me smile. The Law of Unintended Consequences doesn’t specify ahead of time which group of peasants may get restless and which group may be outraged. In this chicken fiasco, which group would you say is displaying outrage – the hate a chicken restaurant bunch, or the “let’s eat at the chicken restaurant” diners? Which group is doing the villifying? It ain’t the chicken eaters.
The outrage is coming from those people who hate the chicken restaurant. Given recent idelogical history – OWS – the haters of a chicken restaurant are way more likely to turn to violence than the people who are eating chicken.
The whole thing is pure Monty Python – theatre of the nonsensical.
57. stevesmith
The outrage is coming from those people who hate the chicken restaurant.
Why, judging from Undertoad, I would have said that the outrage is coming from those people who hate the chicken eaters.
“Has there been any real consequence for these fascists in Boston, Chicago or San Francisco? None that matters. And there won’t be”
That is up to us. You, Me and other conservatives. If we can get all those chicken eaters to the polls 96 days from now, it is over for the fascists. How about a chicken box lunch for everyone that will “Vote America, Vote Romney”.
IIRC, it was FDR that rode “A chicken in every pot” to the Oval Office.
As soon as the Olympics is over the election will really start. Up to now only the hardcore political junkies are paying attention. As witnessed by that dude that smacked his girlfriend for having Mitts picture on her lap top. Cell phone. Tablet. I-pad. Whatever.
Normal people (Political junkies missing normal by a bit) might pay attention after the conventions but the bulk of the voters won’t bother until a week before the election. By then the political junkies will have already voted.
I think I’m over posted. Richard, how about a bonus post when this thread goes past 100?
Haji can’t shoot.
44. SpeakEasy
The medical professionals changed the classification of homosexuality from being a mental disorder, based on ZERO scientific research and completely for political reasons. Therefore, it is completely rational to suspect there is an agenda in play.
The proximate cause for the change was that some gays got into leadership positions within the American Psych Assoc and forced the agenda, which went nowhere the first year. The following year they were ready with Gay Nation in full riot mode outside the venue. That’s science for you.
stevesmith 57,
You may be missing the blade hidden in Jane’s concern troll warning. The would be zampolits of the world depend on muscle to enforce their edicts. By declaring that a threat to public safety exists they set the stage for their assuming the power to decide whose rights need to be sacrificed. Instead of having the police protect patrons employees and business owners from a community organized mob they are likely to order the business to shut down and the patrons to disperse, for their own safety.
This has happened before. For example the anti-Muslim picketers, who I would probably dislike, were ordered to depart and then arrested by the local police in Michigan.
BTW the C-f-A on the campus of NYU, oh the irony, is closed for the Summer.
Hey lefties! Why the outrage at Dan Cathey? He didn’t build that business.
This is our Fort Sumter moment; except this time it wont be our General Lee handing over his sword at Appomatox but the leader of the depraved Federal Forces of Obama.
61. Blast From the Past
“You may be missing the blade hidden in Jane’s concern troll warning.”
As I am peeking over the Rockies at this whole fiasco from a fair distance, you may be right. Instead of “you didn’t build that” you suggest she’s saying “you’ll be sorry you built that”.
That’s not nice, is it?
@PA
Let us assume that your contention that it is at least a partially scripted demonstration of support. Let us also assume that the management of CFA did make the right call. I find it difficult to believe that the motivation was anything other than resentment at an over reaching and corrupt establishment that is trying to force a moral code that an overwhelming majority of the population finds unacceptable.
This is a very gentle warning against over reach. If it continues the lawabiding people will be forced out and the true revolutionaries will take the field. That would be in no one’s interest.
The cold civil war is not as much region versus region or red state v blue state as it is urban/academic/media enclaves versus suburban/rural sensibilities. It is even waged in my happy little valley where a small group of retired academic types fulfilling their fantasy of a home in the country insist the people already here don’t know anything worthwhile and they are entitled to run the place.
There may be no better example of this condescending elitist attitude than Adam M. Smith, an adjunct professor and corporate CFO. Smith posted a video he took of himself harassing the clerk at a Chick-fil-A drive thru yesterday, He asked for nothing but free water and then denounced the company. He appears to have expected plaudits from like minded people. From the speed at which pages have been yanked, what seems to have happened is that both of his employers have been flooded with demands that he apologize to the poor girl. For all his self proclaimed intelligence Smith forgot the internet is forever.
@42, Steveaz – Look up The Gill Foundation and read “The Blueprint.” Despite what may well be the personal proclivities of several prominent Democrats, the Ballerina and The One among them, there was a reason the Immaculation was in Denver. There are some really rich homosexual trust fund babies who’ve basically supplanted traditional Democrat Party fundraising and essentially own a lot of Democrat politicians.
I didn’t eat at Chik-fil-A yesterday but was reminded that there’s one just down the street, three times this past week. I’m not crazy about the strawberry shake so I’ll go back to having TEA with my #3. Dang, there sure are a lot of anti-choicers out there, aren’t there?
OT…
Yesterday Knight Capital executed millions of bizarre algorithmic trades — at a consistent loss leaving the firm financially impaired — right out of the blue.
Strangely…
This exact same gambit was and is a lynchpin for The Black KNIGHT Rises plot.
Plainly, some hackers have had their fun with the system.
Folks, we’re crossing into a new world: electronic crime is now writ large.
Blert @ 69:
There was some talk over at Zero Hedge that the Knight Capital foul up might have been due to someone hacking into their computer network and sabotaging their HFT algorithms, i.e. economic cyber-warfare. Prior to the Stuxnet virus, I would have dismissed such talk as tin foil hat conspiracy theorizing. However I’m more inclined to invoke Hanlon’s razor and attribute this to stupidity. Truth to tell, HFT should be illegal so it’s a good thing that Knight Capital got burned. If the SEC was doing their job, they’d ban HFT because it’s a threat to national security, i.e. Russian/Chinese hackers could wreck our economy by sabotaging HFT algorithms.
Tamquam @ 60 said:
“The medical professionals changed the classification of homosexuality from being a mental disorder, based on ZERO scientific research and completely for political reasons. ”
Homosexuality is a birth defect that effects 5% of the general population. It should have as much political traction as having epilepsy, i.e. none at all.
Hilarious tip-off about Time/Ozersky: who but a rabble-rousing zealot uses a word like ‘Christianist’?
Future historians can debate the precise tipping point; we can be sure it’s now very near. The crest of the wave Wretchard identifies is a lot bigger than the handful of disgusted Americans crudely identified by Time. The Time mags, Jon Stewarts, Emanuels and LBGT liars of the land are now SOL — the jig’s up and they know it. We have, in fact, already identified the Borg. All that remains is the denouement.
The open defiance will grow and we’ll soon find out just how large is the part of population that’s had it with the ‘shibboleths of political correctness’.
One thing is for sure, from the shocked, embittered reaction on the ‘net today, the lefties are a little surprised that they did not have nearly the control they thought they did.
It’s always refreshing to visit a Chik-fil-a. It reminds me of the earlier days of McDonald’s, etc when they were staffed by polite and bright kids with good work ethics and a consciousness of fundamental hygine. That was a time before the TJTC and current WOTC programs dumbed employee standards down to today’s third world level. As a well run private company, Chik-fil-a obviously hires its employees on the basis of demonstated ability, character, and desire to work. The company’s not interested in targeted redistribution and collecting tax credits but only serving its customers good quality fast food by polite, bright and clean employees. I suspect that as much as anything contributes to the angry position of the liberals.
Art Chance @67:
Speaking of trust fund babies I just finished reading “The Chalk Girl” by Carol O’Connell, the paper back edition. In it there are trust funds, foundations, and various tax free institutes being used for extremely corrupt purposes both financial and political, money laundering, tax evasion, and buying protection from the law. It could almost be a Roman a Clef for a number of big US cities. At another blog that I go to there has been a discussion about various Catholic orders and sub groups within those orders that have been taken over by communists and/or perverts.
I think that the covers and the masks are starting to be ripped away. Things could get very nasty in the near future.
Why isn’t Fred Phelps speaking out?
This is a chance to influence politics through honest expression by private citizens… Like Fred.
So why don’t the Westboro Baptists say anything?!?
I’d like to give Chick Fil A a try but their food has waaaaay tooooo much salt for this old hypertensive guy. Maybe the coleslaw but the sandwich menu, not a chance. Sorry folks, It’s why I had to give up FF long ago.Except for In-N-Out, they’ll cook my burger with no salt on the meat and trade their sauce for mustard.
Why doesn’t Phelps speak out? Because he is a narcissit and can’t be bothered to join any party where he won’t be #1. That said, if Chick-Fil-A was OWNED by Fred Phelps, it would still not give anybody the right to ban them from opening a shop anywhere they want so long as they obey the law.
@9, Dr. Mabuse:
You state a reality I’ve just recently come to, about the state’s increasing REQUIREMENT that people must ENDORSE PC, or as I and others are beginning to term it, cultural Marxism.
Starting with a very decent and well-respected word, tolerance, the cultural Marxists have morphed that word from its original let-and-let-live attitude (yet, if we’re disgusted by a given behavior, we may continue to denounce it as contrary to our personal beliefs). Tolerance, in the hands of cultural Marxists, came to mean acceptance of various behaviors, and then even RESPECT for them, and NO other viewpoint was to be allowed in the public arena (our film, TV, “news” media, and state-run university system codified that). And now, with the efforts of state actors to silence people who hold to non-cultural Marxist viewpoints, we have a DIRECT assault on our rights of free speech; in order to avoid the heavy boot of the state, all citizens must now bow to cultural Marxism.
That is to say, that our private beliefs about morality will be subject to state persecution, if those beliefs run counter to official state dogma. And the state has sufficient tentacles to enforce its tyranny, now in the military with the repeal of don’t ask don’t tell, within the EEOC, the Dept. of Education, and a host of other agencies and departments built up over the years with internal guidelines that punish traditional thought.
It is a truth that the fire is growing hotter and the people becoming more resistant. Overreach has a nasty way of biting despots in the but#. Just ask James II, about say, 1688.
70. Eggplant “Homosexuality is a birth defect that effects 5% of the general population. It should have as much political traction as having epilepsy, i.e. none at all.”
Same sex attraction disorder afflicts 2.8% of the population. Currently the debate on the cause of this syndrome divides the etiology into congenital and environmental causes, and proponents for each considers the other false. Given that man is the most complex living being on the planet it is more likely that there are 1,000 variables; genetic, physiological, emotional, spiritual, etc.; which interact in a variety of ways to cause the unfortunate symptoms we observe. The idea that the cause is one, simple, undifferentiated thing is ludicrous.
That there is nothing about the suffering of these unfortunate people that merits personal or political acclaim on those merits alone is absolutely true.
Homosexuals whine while chickens die.
Chicago deserves Rahm Israel Emanuel as its mayor. The city has been corrupt from its very beginning.
As for “Gay Marriage:” If marriage were nothing more than a sentimental fashion accessory applied to a torrid romance to give it the perfect touch of gravitas and pathos, then marry anyone (or any several) or anything; get your five minutes of fame on Jerry Springer, a nice reception and be done.
Marriage is not that.
The Gay Marriage movement is nothing more than another front in the war against Western Civ designed to undermine the foundations a collapse it in ruins.
#19,
“[Mayor Ed Lee is] very disappointed Chick-fil-A doesn’t share San Francisco’s values and strong commitment to equality for everyone”
Yeah, here’s a particularly delightful example of “San Francisco values”:
http://www.inquisitr.com/286533/excessive-amounts-of-poop-wreaking-havoc-on-san-francisco-escalators/
We need this turnout in November. Keep remembering that Obama was elected by only 30% of registered voters. There was a 58% turnout and of the people who actually voted, 52% voted for Obama. Multiply 0.58 and 0.52 and you get 0.30. Just 30% of registered voters saddled us with Obama. Forget about the polls and just vote.
#33 stoicheion: your posts are always very educational, however,”suck 23 feet of tubing, with the the last 3 feet filled with feces” was a little eye watering..What about those who like starting at the last 3 feet…Where’s the brain bleach….Yuck!
@71: I’d like to believe you are right, but way, way too often I encounter people who don’t understand the principles of democracy or pluralism or human rights, who don’t know or care why it’s a bad thing that government punishes people for expressing ideas. All they know is that they want what they want and it’s OK to trample on the rights of others as long as you can call them nasty names like hater or bigot. Intellectually they are spoiled children who fancy themselves as intelligent and sophisticated. And they vote.
@70: Homosexuality is a birth defect that effects 5% of the general population. It should have as much political traction as having epilepsy, i.e. none at all.
Who/what started the Gay Rights movement? Some history:
American gays and lesbians in the 1950s and 1960s faced a legal system more anti-homosexual than those of some Warsaw Pact countries.[note 1][2] Early homophile groups in the U.S. sought to prove that gay people could be assimilated into society, and they favored non-confrontational education for homosexuals and heterosexuals alike. The last years of the 1960s, however, were very contentious, as many social movements were active, including the African American Civil Rights Movement, the Counterculture of the 1960s, and antiwar demonstrations. These influences, along with the liberal environment of Greenwich Village, served as catalysts for the Stonewall riots.
Very few establishments welcomed openly gay people in the 1950s and 1960s. Those that did were often bars, although bar owners and managers were rarely gay. The Stonewall Inn, at the time, was owned by the Mafia.[3][4]…..
………….
@69: Folks, we’re crossing into a new world: electronic crime is now writ large.
Yep. This Gay Stuff is so 1980′s.
Re: 54 PA: Yet another example that small business understands logistics and that the left is clueless. This is a reason that I tend to discount the success the left will have loosing the mob on property owners. After day one, the mob will be very, very hungry and probably thirsty having nothing supplied from ObamaLand High Command and property owners defending their property via force of arms (like the Korean shop owners did during the Rodney King riots in LA). Cheers -
Chick-fil-A for Freedom!
My motivation isn’t so much an “anti-gay” thing, as it is about freedom. I personally am not even a fan of Huckabee. However, here you have a company that stood up to the bullying of government and the petty tyrants had their collective noses tweaked.
I get a chuckle out of that – and the 8 count nugget meal with waffle fries and sweat tea is da bomb!
Methinks there are a lot of analysts in the democrat party that are sweating bullets right now as they extrapolate this level of energy and support for a simple “buycott” out into prognostications regarding November…..and drawing conclusions as to why the people have become so incensed as to have such a reaction.
This level of resistance (and it can’t be called anything other than that) by the people to what is seen as overreach by government didn’t happen overnight, and by way of explanation for the negative prognostications in November – all the analysts have to do is point to the agenda rammed down the nation’s throat over the past 3 years.
A couple of more thoughts…..
I wonder what the long term ramifications will be on the sensibilities of thousands and thousands of young impressionable teenage workers will be upon their exposure to the hordes of ordinary citizens patronizing a business specifically in defiance of government preferences?
Especially when these people were polite, respectful, clean, well spoken, etc., as compared to any exposure to OWS types in the news or their personal lives?
What impact will this have on their developing attitudes towards government and leftist propaganda?
Consider what impact Woodstock had on pop culture – and I humbly suggest Woodstock was dwarfed yesterday by comparison.
You also have a substantial percentage of the people yearning for any chance to show their displeasure at how the petty tyrants wish to rule us.
This will rightfully be seen as a success – and success tends to beget success.
“Very disappointed Chick-fil-A doesn’t share San Francisco’s values…”
Thank God for that. Waitaminute, San Francisco *has* values? When did that happen? Oh yeah, they think Sodom and Gomorrah were bastions of Tea Party extremism…
I suspect Karl Malden is spinning in his grave.
KWB and Dr Mabuse I think get it right with–
“THe owner is simply stating objection to homosexual marriage.”
“Except he’s not even doing that. He’s stating what HE values: normal marriage between a man and a woman and the resulting family. The Left has obligingly filled in the blanks – “Well, we know what you mean, nudge, nudge, wink, wink” –
The question is whether we can still practice our religious faith per the unalienable rights given us in the First Amendment or must we bow to every whim of the Progressive Fascist Left’s poisonous hat from this time forward?
Jane goes all Consitutional-phobe like the true lefty she is with:
” Ideas have consequences. The tension between group vilification vs civil liberties is not a subject to be over-simplified.”
We “Christianists” as Left calls us, just want to practice our peaceful, loving religion as we see fit. It was the Left that, as Dr Mabuse said, “filled in the blanks” and claimed that we are all homophobes. It is the Left that created the narrative that this is issue about discrimination and not about preserving the Constitution.
Protesting that a deviation from the age old definition of marriage as being a man and a woman, is not group vilification, by any means. This protest fundamentally is about preserving our Constitutiional rights, not about discrimination or vilification of homosexuals.
However, in my mind, group vilification is perfectly fine and reasonable of any group, like our current set of homosexuals and their supporters, who want to take away our god given rights for any reason. Those of us who want to preserve the Constitution have every right to be angry. The Gay Commuity has crossed a bright red Constitutional line into Fascism and should pay whatever the consequences. They have committed a treasonous offense.
The line at a Chick-fil-A in Irving, TX
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoEhpVkGSAA&feature=player_embedded
If everyone who ate at Chick-fil A yesterday votes in November, we’re talkin’ historic landslide here. And history will record Emmanuel as the Gensler in this revolt.
77. Skeptic – Fred’s not saying anything because Fred doesn’t believe anything he says, nor do any Westboro Baptists. Whatever their agenda is (I think it’s security-related), they don’t mind smearing Southern Christians in the process. It would be fun to put them on record regarding “Chick” only to highlight their ethics problem.
Now, the way “news” usually works is this: Dan Cathy is actually a cultist of some kind. He was told to create controversy so that in 4 months he can be outed as gay, endorse Hope & Change, then go on Oprah to cry about it. There is no evidence for this at the moment- it’s just something to be cautious of before taking sides…
Here are my questions about Westboro Baptist: How can they afford to spend their time traveling the country stirring up hatred? Don’t they have to hold down jobs like normal people? Is someone bankrolling them? Maybe the reason reporters haven’t asked these questions is because the answers would disrupt the narrative. Just a guess.
re: this was staged (else how could they have fed all these people??)
No, the U.S. supply chain / logistics system is a marvel to behold. There’s an optimized train-truck system that allows me to ship (with near hourly reporting and schedule of delivery) a ton of non-perishable goods from anywhere up and down the west coast to any east coast city (including northern Maine) for less than what I pay to ship the same goods (within one country) from Paris to Nice – to say nothing about across Europe (they use trains for people, not for freight – appears you can’t optimize for both.. so in the U.S. everyone benefits from trains, in Europe only a small fraction do). CFA does near-real-time inventory and pull from suppliers (like even the smallest U.S. companies do nowadays). Problem solved. Consider WalMart and Katrina – no magic involved, just a thinking executive applying a known capacity template from “last serious hurricane” event – and as triggered by private, not government forecasters (who get it / (and usually get it) wrong – since they don’t have (their own) money (insurance) personally at risk).
Markets fail only when there are not consequences (TBTF, insurer of last resort, disintermediated purchasers, regulation (that permits capture by the regulated, vice “one size fits all (blind) regulations”), 3rd party-pays, etc.) and a dire shortage of information (fraud and worse). In all cases markets have been proven better than the alternative (see M. Friedman’s recent memorials). This is best captured in Masonomics “When markets fail, use the market” (see Mercatus Institute work).
re: Knight Capital. Amusing software failure (buy high, sell low). You’d think they’d have a cap on total losses before human intervention. Unless it turns out most all these trades were with themselves (and them not witting to it, or at least not witting to it in the executive offices – likely the programmers are saying “what, you didn’t know??”). Knight is interesting because they are a market-maker – they don’t pay a fee for each trade. So this kind of silliness is certainly possible. What will be doubly amusing is if they figure out how to pocket the profits and get a bail-out from the taxpayers for the losses. No market worthy of the name here if this is the case.
“Tell split the apple with a bolt from his crossbow.”
You left out the most important part.
When Tell split the apple, Gessler noticed that he held a second bolt. He then asked Tell, “You needed only fire one shot, for what reason did you carry the second bolt?”
Tell answered, “Had my first shot missed, the second was for you!”
A riot broke out right then and there.
Grassroots Texans Trounce GOP Establishment by JoAnn Fleming
http://grassrootstexans.net/4576/Fleming__u201CFed_Upu201D_Grassroots_Texans_Trounce_GOP_Establishment/
What was it that Dan Cathy said that really spooled up the homosexual community and their fellow usurpers? In my humble opinion, it wasn’t simply about homosexual marriage. It was this:
“I think we are inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say ‘we know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage’ and I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about”
It was that deeply humble attitude that Christ tells us is the way to true freedom.
These folks know, deep down, that they are not free – as no immoral person truly is. They are captured by something even they wish deep down that they didn’t have to deal with. And that the only way out, is to stop relishing the lifestyle of secret codes and how to spot one another…
I liken it to a person with a conscience and a deep love for God, yet with the flesh at its weakest, has an affair.
The truth is obvious. There is only one way out. You’ve got to stop. Because when someone is trapped in that aberant lifestyle and realizes what a scum you’ve become, the only person you can turn to is just as much of a scum as you are – especially if both of you are Christians. That knowledge works to dissasemble the relationship. Perhaps it works differently for those already dead inside.
There is only one way out. That is a maddening discovery, and because of its difficulties the way out is too hard for some, so they continue. Some do escape. For some however, the love for God (or conscience)loses and the hautiness that one can live without Him comes next. Unfortunately, the “straight” culture continually sends a multitude of messages (vectors?) of disapproval. And that’s when the anger and resentment begins to form with confusion their bedfellows.
The Left knows this and since it is in their game plan that the culture is always at each other’s throats, they taunt both sides.
Tomorrow? Some say a “kiss-in” is planned, apparently to gross out the straight community. “The Empire Strikes Back.” What they don’t know is they lose that argument too, because no one was “arguing” from the beginning. We just said what we believe. We were honest.
I’m planning to be there for every meal as an extension of Wednesday. I’ll be respectful and I plan to take pictures like a crazy person. If this comes off and they appear in significant numbers, they will be bombarded with negative vibrations that will haunt them when they retire that night – even after their “high-Fives” in the Pub.
But for me, I am so tired of this charade, I’m sure I’ll just have to fake shock at their shenanigans…
This knucklehead got fired from his CFO job at Vante apparently for his rudeness:
It appears our readers weren’t the only ones disgusted by the actions of Adam M. Smith, the grown man who recorded a video of himself berating a female employee at a Chick-fil-A drive-thru in Tuscon, Ariz.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=thNqs9fPcgM
It looks like his former employers at Vante were just as displeased:
“Vante regrets the unfortunate events that transpired yesterday in Tucson between our former CFO/Treasurer Adam Smith and an employee at Chick-fil-A. Effective immediately, Mr. Smith is no longer an employee of our company.
“The actions of Mr. Smith do not reflect our corporate values in any manner. Vante is an equal opportunity company with a diverse workforce, which holds diverse opinions. We respect the right of our employees and all Americans to hold and express their personal opinions, however, we also expect our company officers to behave in a manner commensurate with their position and in a respectful fashion that conveys these values of civility with others.
“We hope that the general population does not hold Mr. Smith’s actions against Vante and its employees.”
Some folks still don’t “get” the power of YouTube.
#99 SD – I concur! Tomorrow is going to be “interesting times.” We may have protests within protests. If it truly becomes a “kiss-in,” and knowing the media – whatever bleeds leads – reactions are going to be curious. I sincerely hope nobody gets hurt on either side.
Don’t know why Chick-fil-a would even want to put a new store in California, with the regulations, taxes, high cost of living, and then sending their taxes to Sacramento, which is so anti business, and common sense that businesses are already voting with their feet to leave the state in record numbers.
It is the saddest and most ridiculous aspect of the Left’s promotion of Gay culture in all its multifaceted splendor, that they simultaneously embrace Islam with its vitriolic MURDEROUS and RELENTLESS persecution of homosexuals wherever Shari’a prevails.
Among Christians such persecution is the rare aberration; in Islamic countries, especially among the ARAB Islamic nations, it is official policy. In Iran in just the last few years, young men have been harassed, beaten, and murdered simply for displaying hairstyles regarded by religious fanatics as too feminine – a warning to any who might be drifting toward that forbidden lifestyle…
While there have been a handful of murders of homosexuals by individuals in the USA over the last few decades, it seems to be EXCLUSIVELY true of Islamic nations that their GOVERNMENTS arrest and imprison and EXECUTE homosexuals precisely for being homosexuals.
The LEFT cannot be allowed to pretend they have no responsibility for suppressing public discussion of this MONUMENTAL contradiction in their posturing.
I’m a professing Christian, and I have my own thoughts about whether Gays who love and honor each other should have the right to have their partnership and commitment acknowledged on an equal legal footing with marriages between a man and a woman. It makes sense to me; No Christian group speaks for ME, or gives Orders to me about what to think. But this issue is bullshit at this point in time, when Islam around the world is KILLING homosexuals and the LEFT refuse to even acknowledge this.
These lying bastards are cynically framing the gay marriage issue simply to demonize Christians so as to advance the LEFT’s political agenda WITHIN the US, while ignoring the REAL enemies of homosexuals. The Progressives don’t actually give a shit about homosexual rights. If they can find another more effective club with which to beat up on Christians (who seem to comprise the majority of conservatives) you can be sure they would abandon the issue of gay marriage in a heartbeat.
I want to ask my Gay friends if they’ve ever heard of an Imam ANYWHERE who has publicly stated his support for gay marriage.
?
So, what can we expect after we have both legal gay marriage AND Shari’a in the United States? Does ANYONE actually believe that Islamic communities in the US are going to be any more tolerant than they are wherever they’ve become a major constituent of a culture??????
Am I the only person whose noticed the news articles and photographs (never mentioned in US “mainstream NEWS” these days) showing homosexuals hanged by the neck from wire ropes attached to industrial cranes lined up in rows along the boulevards of Tehran, in the Islamic Revolutionary Republic of Iran???????
Marc M (48),
Except this time the ammo boxes are mostly in the other side’s hands.
We’ve been sucker punched — again!
Do you really think this uproar wasn’t a “plot” — ???
Do you really think that Mr. Clever — Mr. Rahm — had no idea what an uproar and backlash his outrageous comments would cause?
It was done very deliberately — to get us where they want us.
Let’s stop being suckers!
Stop all this attention to what the Dems want us to be discussing.
Of course, all the arguments about the government’s taking away rights and gathering more and more power unto themselves are — obviously — correct.
But — the Dems have won again — because they’ve — changed the subject!
Brought us right back to the Culture Wars — which is exactly where they want us to be —
It bucks up their “base!” and … helps persuade some Independents who are skittish about religious conservatives …
But, mostly, it
Distracts from discussing the O’s Failures!
We’re submitting to giving him a reprieve — for how long?
All through August?
Let’s stop all this and get back to what we need to talk about for the election!
(We can talk about this after we have a President Romney.)
You can write ‘Christian’, so why make up a word ‘Christianist’?
Meanwhile, at one restaurant, a kitchen worker (who had earlier complained that a boycott would mean less work and therefore less pay for her) was whining:
Bad supporters! How dare they hand over their money so willingly! How dare they not consider that none of the staff or management was able to watch any but mainstream new outlets! (Here, in Tasmania, I’d seen many articles and blog-posts and tweets about the proposed support.)
The poor dear didn’t like the extra work, particularly as she is such a great supporter of legislative change, not dictates by fiat:
I don’t know whether this poor, suffering victim of oppression be a good cook, but she certainly does a fine job of repeating all the conventional points.
See “A Gay Chick-fil-A Employee Speaks Out”.
I always find the “your God” rhetoric amusing, as if there are as many Gods as people. Anyway, the Bible does not say that homosexuals shouldn’t marry one another. Rather it says, for example,
Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is an abomination. (Leviticus 18:22 KJV)
(26) Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. (27) In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
(Romans 1: 26-27 KJV)
I think “Gessler’s Hat” might be a better analogy for the HHS dictate that contraception insurance be forced on people and institutions with religious objections. For what little contraception costs, the mandate is simply a gross move to rub peoples’ noses in the power of the government to dictate what you will and will not do, First Amendment be damned. It has little to do with the cost.
OMG – The gay community is going to have a “Kiss In”.
Oh ya – that’s the ticket! That’l show ‘em! That’l convince everybody not to mess with the Gay community!
A completely disgusting obscene public showing of gay vulgarity will obviously do the trick.
This kinda reminds me of Otter’s quote in Animal House ( after Bluto’s “Let’s do it” speech):
“We gotta take these bastards. Now we could do it with conventional weapons, but that could take years and cost millions of lives. No, I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part! “
So; Palin, Santorum, etc., are warriors for Christian culture? That’s funny.
He needs to befriend some mujahideen that are the nuns of peace and tranquility spreading convivial Sharia, to help him in his understanding of what a warrior really is.
What a complete dope. Can he even wipe his butt without soiling himself?
But, he’s so chic with his subordinate talking points; Just like all the Obama administrations radical extremist media grunts.
3% of men and 2% of women, and we all have to change our entire outlook and behavior to accomodate their stupid, whiny, self-serving agenda.
ENOUGH!
Anyone who follows Leviticus on gays, and doesn’t follow Leviticus on everything else it says, is not really with the program.
My daughter-in-law was standing in a very long line at a Phoenix Chick Fil A. Her general impression was that most of the line was there because of feelings toward gays….not because of freedom of speech. A little girl, about 8 or 9 years old was behind her and was spouting vile comments about throwing buckets of water on gays…among other things. Her mother was with her and did not correct her or apologize for the things she was saying. I hope this was not a common occurence at the restaurant.
111. Cybergeezer
Please Cybergeezer, a little slower for this old man. I don’t understand what you are trying to say. I could wring my hands over it, but a plain sure statement of the crux of your animus (benevolence?) would help me to understand.
Are you speaking of that Christian “terrorist” Rick Santorum?
For if you are, you are perhaps in a very bad position if this thing ever “blows up.”
In a war, I won’t know what side you’re really on.
@105. Aqua: While I agree that Obama stands a better chance of winning by stirring the pot of the culture war than by running on the economy, I think it’s more than that. The HHS mandate was a full frontal assault on the freedom of conscience of Catholics and others, done in broad daylight in an election year. Some thought his timing was unwise but I think it’s precisely the point. I think he is running as the candidate who will put Christians in their place and is looking for the imprimatur of a reelection to do just that. Of course he would never say that. He would rather talk about “freedom of worship” while driving Catholic hospitals out of business and have his buddy Rahm draw a line in the sand on ideological conformity. But don’t underestimate the number of people who would like to see Christians marginalized and silenced (or worse) once and for all. And BTW that is why they are always on about how Christians are “haters”: pure projection.
47. Speakeasy: Most terrifying and enraging presentation I’ve seen in a long, long time. I don’t recall that used the word ‘indoctrination’ once, and yet, there it is.
114. donna quixote
I believe that there are probably folks in that line that haven’t thought any of this over in any meaningful way. Probably some showed up because of a face book post, or heard it on the radio and just wanted to participate in something that they felt “everyone was doing.”
Clearly, the little girl’s comments were formed by what she heard at home, and yet after 15 years of living in a Christian home, I was appalled at what occasionally slipped out of the mouths of my own babes at family gatherings. When the “What did you just say?” left my lips, the reaction (no matter the age) was a downcast gaze and an “I’m sorry,” ushered forth without any other comment. In short, they knew precisely what they had said was wrong. That said, and even with a gay relative present, I have heard any number of people (who are supposedly down with the current cultural trends) say when someone does something stupid…”Oh that was so gay.”
My sense in your post is that the parent agreed with her daughter’s comments and her lack of interaction validated the comment.
As a Christian, and one who actually tries every day (and fails…every day) to do the “right thing,” it was my duty to train my children what was “the Christian thing to do” in all instances.
I live in the South after having lived my first 22 years in Ohio. I used to believe that Southerners were just racists and Yankees were all honorable people. Being honest, I heard the “N” word on occasion growing up in Ohio and was once asked if I would like to play “strip poker” by a derelict in a park. However, it wasn’t my Christian faith that taught me that those were not things any of us ought to countenance or participate in – a no brainer, as it were. Although I was raised in a conservative, secular household, my Mom taught me the rules of right behavior all during my childhood years. Although she hated the thought of going to church, she taught me the moral truths that aligned precisely with my eventual Christian beliefs. It was her virtues that added to my understanding of Christ’s mission and eventually prepared me to teach the same Natural Law and Judeo-Christian ethic to my children.
And yet, as my awareness of the world has also taught me, the importance – not of values – but the VIRTUES of moral behavior and personal integrity. It has taught me that some of my brothers and sisters on this planet will not spend the effort in defining the sense of behavior that celebrates the “better angels” of our nature, nor of a personal ethic that aligns itself with the Creator of the Universe. And yet, it is my belief one does not have to be a Christian to be aware of those behavioral imperatives that “we can’t not know.”
C. S. Lewis (paraphrased) said this:
“I know that some people say the idea of a Law of Nature or decent behaviour known to all men is unsound, because different civilisations and different ages have had quite different moralities. But this is not true. There have been differences between their moralities, but these have never amounted to anything like a total difference. If anyone will take the trouble to compare the moral teaching of [many cultures] what will really strike him will be how very alike they are to each other and to our own. I need only ask the reader to think what a totally different morality would mean: Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You might just as well try to imagine a country where two and two made five. Selfishness has never been admired.
But the most remarkable thing is this. Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaining “It’s not fair” before you can say Jack Robinson. But have they not let the cat out of the bag and shown that, whatever they say, they really do know the Law of Nature just like anyone else?
And yet: None of us is really keeping the Law of Nature. [The fact is] we have failed to practice ourselves the kind of behaviour we expect from other people. Our behaviors are one more proof of how deeply, whether we like it or not, we believe in the Law of Nature. If we do not believe in decent behaviour, why should we be so anxious to make excuses for not having behaved decently? The truth is, we believe in decency so much – we feel the Rule or Law pressing on us so – that we cannot bear to face the fact that we are breaking it. Consequently, we try to shift the responsibility.
—————————————————————————————-
There are and will be those who disparage gays for their lifestyle, all the while many of us otherwise believe that the important fight is one against the power and usurpation of privilege not bestowed anywhere but in the mind of the arrogant. However, if the fight continues and escalates into sporadic violence, and then on into the streets, that eventuality frees the “arrogant” to bomb both sides. And with the passionate combatants elimination (who represent the most belligerent of either side) the arrogant will stride into the vacuum of the sheep, to dominate the compliant charges for their overlords.
Armed combat by either passionate side is the death knell for either of their goals. The arrogants know this and press for that conclusion.
Sgian Dubh (115), regarding 111 it’s pretty simple–you need to get your sarcasm detector recalibrated.
@95. spudnik
This is something that I heard from a professor so it is suspect but SEEMS to make sense.
Westboro Baptist is an organisation made up of the extended family of the founder and has a huge proportion of lawyers. Their MO is to go to a small community, behave in an outragious but mostly legal manner, and when the local authorities try to restrain them sue and wait for a settlement. From what I have heard this is quite profitable.
This is NOT a verified statement but it seems to make sense.
Hitchcock’s 1948 movie, Rope, based on the true life murder of an “inferior” classmate by two of his “superior” friends at the University of Chicago, explains the pervasive arrogance that motivates the marxist fascists. The murderers hold a party for their (murdered) classmate with the victim’s body hidden in a trunk under the very noses of the victim’s friends and family who await his arrival. At the party, the murderers discuss their professor’s ideas about superior beings and expand the philosophical discussion to the act of murder – and the right of superior beings to do what they will over inferior beings. Some of the guests are amused, others are horrified, and one guest, their former professor played by Jimmy Stewart, becomes suspicious.
Spoiler Alert: It doesn’t end well for the self-described brilliant superior beings.
Art imitates life imitates art.
Oh, dear.
“But only a tyrant can demand the veneration of his underwear.”
Or characters in a memorable moment from the Canterbury Tales. Having admitted some tricks of his dubious trade, Chaucer’s offensive Pardoner tries to pull a fast one by turning around & hitting up the Host, who responds:
Thou wouldest make me kiss thine aulde breech [underwear]
And sweare it were a relic of a seinte,
Though it were with thy fundament depeinte!
Maybe people wouldn’t throw around the term “fundamentalist” so often if they recalled that alternate meaning for “fundament.” On the other hand maybe they would–with more gusto.