Some Commenters Are Saying I Misread, Or Over-read, AllahPundit's Post

Here's the specific section I found objectionable. Bolding mine. Some of the bolding supports commenters' claims that AllahPundit is just being neutral and analytical here, describing the situation as it is; other bolding supports my take-away that he's essentially grumbling the Trumpers are, well, deplorable:

The follow-up statement might be enough to protect them in court but the publicity damage has been done. Trumpers seem to have long memories -- about some things. About other things, like the conservative belief that businesses should be able to hire and fire whomever they please because they're private entities, memories might be shorter. But then, that’s true to the spirit of Trumpism, which to some degree is about making the left play by its own rules. Conservatives warned liberals for years that racial identity politics is poisonous to national unity, but Trump won because many working-class (and college-educated) whites voted the way other racial blocs do. Likewise, if the left wants to make it illegal for a Christian business owner to decline service for a gay wedding on conscience grounds, then laws prohibiting retaliation for political activity will be scrupulously applied to GrubHub too. Trump's formal campaign slogan was "Make America Great Again," but really, in practice, "It's Payback Time" would have worked as well.

What I guess I'm zooming in on is tone, which I see here as being grumbling, antagonistic, and condescending.

But "tone" is a very nuanced thing and I may in fact be over-reading here. I can't help but add in the external information I already have about AP's general stance about "Trumpian" spirits.

I don't see it as "Trumpian" to punish a Social Justice Warrior, as if this is some deviation from the Vow of Total and Complete Political Pacifism that exactly none of us have ever sworn to.

I consider it a rather obvious thing -- when they step over the line employing an untoward tactic, you are free to use that same tactic against them -- which has a long, long pedigree.

The idea that this vengeful, intolerant spirit of using the same Social Punishment tactics against those who themselves use Social Punishment tactics is a new thing created by Trump and only subscribed to by Trumpers is... let us say, ahistorical and without support in the literature.

There is a potent and respectable ethic of total pacificism and refusal to retaliate for wrongs in existence. Jesus' turn-the-other-cheek ethic is one example of it.

But that ethic is 1, extremely hard to live by and thus more of a Heroic Ideal than a rule which is observed by most on a day to day basis, and 2, often widely taken to be "metaphor" (I personally disagree -- I think he meant it), and 3, almost never observed in politics.

I would respect someone attempting to live by that ethic -- but I don't really respect the pretense that this is just something we all commonly do in our everyday lives, and failure to maintain fidelity to this ethic is some kind of flaw or deviation, either of the "Trumpian" variety or simple character flaw variety.

And where the hell do conservatives keep getting the idea that people get special rights to be free of all criticism or ostracism -- even if they're playing the game of ostracism and coercion themselves! -- simply because they own a business?

That's a similar rule to liberals claiming media workers have special rights that "civilian" citizens do not.

I don't care what your fucking job is. No special rights. The rules apply to all or the rules apply to none.

This Maloney asshole may implement his policy (in some jurisdictions, at least, where it's not illegal) -- but I am free to implement my policy as fucking well.

And my policy is that I reject and resist attempts to create a Second Class Citizenship for conservatives.

What's everyone else's? Are Principled Conservatives now on board with the project to turn conservatives into official, state-recognized Second Class Citizens?

This isn't a "Trumpian" issue -- this is an issue, if you haven't noticed, which has been going on for years, and in fact was #WhyYouGotTrump.

Trump was not the cause of the issue; the issue was the cause of Trump.

But some people seem to think, as people thought with Obama, that politics began precisely at the moment the results of the last election were called.

Eh. Decide for yourselves.

I think the biggest divider in this "political" discussion is not political at all. It's psychological -- do you lean more to the Deference side of things, or the Defiance side of things?

Obviously I'm on the Defiance side. And I'll be damned to Hell before I willing participate in -- validate -- a never-ending push to deligitimize me as a human being by claiming that I cannot do certain things but my Social Superiors may do them.

If this asshole can boycott his Trumpian employees, then I can damn-sure boycott his business.

No special rules for special people. Not another fucking inch more down that road.

I think it was Camus who suggested that the central affirmation of one's existence was the capacity to refuse, the capacity to say "No."

I'm saying no.

I refuse.

posted by Ace at 04:26 PM

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