rumor control

[Douglas <dougwils@moscow.com>]

Dear visionaries,

Now that some progressives have been revealed as malice and/or ignorance
mongers with regard to Bucer's, I want to add two cents on the individual
rights front -- because this is where a far more important issue is. This
also relates to our other discussion on hate crimes -- which is
increasingly relevant because local psychics have informed us we have had
a homophobic murder committed right here in Moscow. Perhaps the local
psychics were also the source of the rumor about Bucers.

In a free society, we have the right of free association. When I see that
common restaurant sign -- "We reserve the right to refuse service to
anyone" -- it reminds me that we are supposed to be such a free
society. I would appreciate the meaning of the sign even if it were the
basis for asking me to leave an infidel establishment because I was a
Christian. If the infidel owns the joint, or is paying the rent, he has
the full right to limit my access to the service he is providing. In such
a free society, were it to exist, people would have the right to be
jerks, moral, high-tone, and so on, provided it was on their own dime.
Owners of restaurants, being numbered among the people, also have the
right to be jerks, moral, toney, and so forth. This means that they
should have the legal right to refuse service to little old ladies, Nazi
war criminals, and people without shirts or shoes, respectively and in
that order.

In the topless debate, one theme in the general hue and cry against the
ordinance has been the fact that topless women on their own
property might be arrested for violating the law. But what are we to
do about topless women wandering in off public property of Main Street
into privately owned establishments? Establishments that are the private
property of others? Regardless of whether Moscow has a topless ordinance
or not, a proprietor of an establishment has the fundamental right to ask
such a person to leave. If I were that proprietor, I certainly would. But
if I asked someone to leave the establishment for coming on to my
property in order to insult my values, this would be widely regarded by
progressives (where were we going again?) as a violation of that
customer's civil rights.

All this is relevant to hate crimes as they are currently debated. I
agree that certain forms of malice make a crime more egregious, and
consequently do not have a problem with the law distinguishing between
various forms of murder. Sometimes there are mitigating circumstances and
sometimes there are aggravating circumstances. My problem is that
progressives (onward, through the fog!) are on a hair trigger when it
comes to identifying what they are pleased to call hate. In their
lexicon, hatred ranges from disagreement up to genocide, and their
"diversity or else" approach often reacts to disagreement as
though it were genocide.

So if I owned a restaurant and a homosexual couple came in, I would not
ask them if they were homosexual. But if they began behaving in such a
way as to demand my explicit or implicit approval of their lifestyle,
which my silence would provide them, would I ask them to leave? You bet I
would. And progressives have so trashed the word hate that my
attempt to maintain a decent establishment would no doubt be called a
form of hatred. But I would do the same with heterosexual women with
their tops off, heterosexual men with their trousers off, and any members
of Congress.

Cordially,

Douglas Wilson


"How's that again?"

        

Joseph
Stalin