After all the talk in the MSM about freedom of association, it’s rather timely that they take notice of the Red&Black Cafe — an anarchist-owned establishment — exercising theirs. CNN’s view of this as somehow weird news is amusing, as the only reason it isn’t more common is that there aren’t many anarchist co-op restaurants. Hmm, I wonder what progressives think of this…
Props to Roderick. As for the cafe itself, I’ve never been to Oregon, but I could get behind the coffee if I did. Pity the rest of the menu is vegan though…
Hey, anyone wanna start up an anarchist co-op BBQ joint?
BBQ? I’m in, but how are we gonna protect ourselves from all the “real” anarchists who know deep down that all “real anarchists” are vegans?
Actually, I would like to know what Rand Paul would think of this; tax-subsidized, armed officials in uniforms are a sacrosanct class in Kentucky.
In terms of most progressives, i already know what they think: tax-subsidized, public employees are a sacrosanct class. After all, the anarchist can’t get to the cafe without traveling on public roads. The anarchist would risk dying of strychnine poisoning without public inspection of the coffee. The anarchist couldn’t even drink coffee, that is, with water, without a regulated public municipality. The Red and Black Cafe website wouldn’t exist without government, because the government invented the internet. Anarchists wouldn’t be able to read and write without public education.
Now if the cop would have been a minority instead of being white, then Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann would have done MSNBC special reports documenting the growing sinister threat of right-wing, militia Rand Paul vegans in Oregon…
In other words “all is as it must be, no different is possible, just ignore that people had to try to make things that way in the first place…”
I read several progressive blogs where they were appalled that Rand Paul would allow a shop to refuse to serve the President of the United States.
So yeah, I think that refusing to serve a cop would be prohibited in their books also.
To be fair, many of them would probably consider it wrong to refuse service to anyone on the basis of any factor that does not directly affect the functioning of the business (e.g. politics, religion, sexuality, etc). But then again, many progressives advocate boycotts of companies that are owned by Repubilcans (Buy Blue)
With Adam referencing POTUS, which is bringing partisan politics into the scope of the discussion, I think this introduces a different dynamic. I would speculate that if someone would have denied Bush service, on the grounds that they didn’t want be a part of a photo-op, then i imagine progressives would have cheered the dissent. of course, this dissent would be rooted in freedom of association, in this case the freedom not to associate with a political objective. So, in this case, you can see a clear first amendment issue, a case of political speech to dissent.
Adam: Curious reasoning, considering that the type of society they assume would exist without the ’64 civil rights act isn’t the type that would’ve put Obama in office.
Hell, even if by some fluke it turned out otherwise, if he seriously felt like eating at Cracker Al’s Diner his position would nullify any attempt to stop him. If push came to shove, the owner would be getting arrested, not the President.