That varied people with varied desires get to live their lives in varied ways – by right that is – is the very essence of what it is to be a liberal. This is not a liberal age as is shown by this nonsense about Jack Dorsey. He ate – you know, personal choice, a varied manner of living life – at a Chick-Fil-A restaurant. Not something I’ve ever done so no idea whether the chicken’s worth it or not but that’s rather the point here. It’s Dorsey’s taste buds, Dorsey’s choice, not mine. At which point people start shouting at him:
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey ignited a backlash online after revealing that he ate at Chick-fil-A this month.
On Saturday, Dorsey posted a photo on Twitter with the caption “Boost @ChickfilA,” showing he had saved 10% on a $31.58 order at the fast-food chain.
Critics immediately seized on Dorsey’s support of Chick-fil-A, whose CEO has come under fire for his views on same-sex marriage, during Pride Month.
Seriously? And do note that it’s the self-proclaimed liberals doing the shouting here. Those who insist that they should indeed – righteously too – be left to live their lives as they wish are insisting that another should not be left to do so.
Yet Dorsey still found himself on the receiving end of an online backlash to a tweet – and a later response – he fired off this weekend while promoting a feature of one of his companies’ products. After tweeting a screenshot of a Chick-fil-A “boost,” or cash back received by using a debit card from his mobile payment service, Square, some Twitter users noted how the fast-food chain, which closes on Sundays, has been associated with conservative causes. Back in 2012, Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy made remarks supporting what he called the “biblical definition” of family and gay-rights activists have been critical of the company’s foundation’s giving in the past.
We even seem to be getting the assertion that a company with different views should not be allowed to advertise. Or at least, not to advertise during one month of the year. How liberal, eh?
In 2012, Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy confirmed that the company does not support same-sex marriage because it goes against the organization’s religious values.
Now, you really should spend your money as you see fit. This includes spending, or not spending, your money with those whose views on life you agree with. For it is exactly and precisely your dollar which is a vote in this economy. There’s nothing illiberal at all about deciding not to spend where you don’t wish to. The illiberality comes from taking that a step further, into that world where others must accord to your desires and views. For that’s exactly what illiberality is – denying that very concept that others get to do as they wish for the very same reason that you get to do as you would.
Don’t eat at Chick-Fil-A because of their views on gay marriage? Great, do so as you wish. Do eat there because, as many tens of thousands have done in demonstrations? Great, good on ya’ and for exactly the same reason, you’re voting your desires with your dollar. But to try to clear the public square of those with different ideas? That’s illiberal isn’t it?
Well, yes it is, it’s illiberal just as denying others the bedmate of their choice is illiberal, which is the thing we were all originally complaining about. And quite how far it’s gone is shown by how we all seem to be shouting about a bloke having eaten a chicken sandwich.
Seriously?
Interesting story this because it demonstrates how your version of liberalism – varied people with varied desires get to live their lives in varied ways – doesn’t in fact work in the real world. That mildly prescriptive conservatism – as long as you don’t wave it in our faces & frighten the horses – is a better strategy. Giving people liberalism is a sure fire route to fascism. Because “I’m free to do what I want” rapidly turns into “And you do it too!”. So just maybe it’s preferable to have a few consensual rules, suit the majority. Even if… Read more »
Yep.
There are those whose belief system includes ‘shaming’ of people who do things they find disgusting or inappropriate or evil, with the intent of cutting down on such activities.
The problem arises when there is wide disagreement on what is disgusting, inappropriate or evil.
No. The problem arises here when merely holding a contradictory political opinion is any of those things. (Chick-Fil-A management believes in traditional marriage and closes their outlets on Sunday. Compare Brandon Eich being drummed out of Mozilla for contributing (years earlier) to a referendum campaign by which Californians reasserted that marriage is for one man and one woman (which got a majority vote but was overturned by a court). It’s a separate problem when an executive in retailing ignores the imperative not to give customers an unnecessary reason to go elsewhere, and is cowed into taking a specific side of… Read more »
But that is exactly what I said. There is a vociferous group who seem to think it good to shame people for doing very ordinary, quotidian things. Their view of what is evil (etc) is rather different from mine.
And some folk in the public view feel they have to take heed of the vociferous shaming hordes. Else their business might suffer.
But then if it’s the CEO of Twatter, I feel my loyalties split 🙂
Where is the Witchfinder General when we need him? Strap Jack into the ducking stool and let’s see of he floats.
Having achieved tax parity and parallel certification, the exact current state of the LGBT “movement” is “to try to clear the public square of those with different ideas” such as making it illegal for counselors to espouse or convert clients to different ideas (such as accepting the body they were born into). My state’s Governor just signed a bill giving cross-dressers the same employment rights as freed Negro slaves. ‘“Discrimination — in any form — is unacceptable and runs contrary to New Hampshire’s Live Free or Die spirit,” said Sununu in signing the bill.’ Were our state motto binding on… Read more »
Given that Twitter has managed to lose $2+ billion in the first 4 years as a public company, and given that Twitter’s stock has lost 1/2 its value over the same period (while the S&P 500 index doubled), one might expect Jack Dorsey to forego the fucking around of tweeting his lunch and concentrate on figuring out how to get to sustainable profitability.
At present Twitter is only useful as a measure of how much potentially productive time people are willing to waste. That goes double for Dorsey.
@Dennis
Interesting. Maybe folk are starting to catch onto something. Social media companies rely on selling harvested data for targeted advertising. People do a lot of social media are not doing a lot of other things. Like doing productive work. Productive work pays wages to productive workers. Non-productive workers get less or none. Advertisers like to target ads at people who have money to buy product.
Moreover, Bloke, whenever a social media company has gotten serious about “monetizing” its assets of non-productive workers, they have flittered away in short order and found somewhere else to congregate. (Unless Twitter was never supposed to make any money but is just another leftie vanity project like Time Magazine.
Bizarre, isn’t it? Companies said to be ‘successful’ and ‘powerful’ (etc) lose money hand over fist. Perhaps BiS has a point 🙂
Now, are such companies ‘intended’ to make money? For those at the helm, most certainly (whether directly or indirectly). For the company as a going concern? Irrelevant….
Similar issue where a small group of protestors have stopped military and police from marching in the Pride parade in Edmonton. If they fee that unsafe having them in the parade, maybe the police should take it a step further and refuse to police the event as they don’t want to upset people, of course that would mean cancelling the event I suppose.
Can you imagine the uproar though if the police chief had refused to allow police to march in uniform
There is more intolerance from the Tolerance Community today: an assertion that no gay person should eat at Chick-Fil-A: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jun/13/noah-michelson-huffpost-editor-shames-gay-people-f/
If you want over the top ranting about Chick-Fil-A, try this one from the New Yorker a couple of weeks ago. Tough when your fellow New Yorkers so let you down by eating somewhere you don’t think meets NY values.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-gastronomy/chick-fil-as-creepy-infiltration-of-new-york-city