No, I’m equating Trump supporters to unpopular political groups. IMHO, people who don’t think it’s divisive to put up a sign telling Nazis and racists to keep out but think it’s horribly mean for a restaurant to communicate the same thing to a faction who seems totally fine with a president who has aligned himself with Nazis and racists need to question what exactly they have a beef with. When is it appropriate to call a deplorable out for who they are? Are they only a deplorable when they are jackbooting across your dead body? Or is voting for a jackboot thug who has proudly bragged about his jackboot thuggery sufficient to be called out as evil?
Yeah, yeah, the sign said “Trump voter”. I concede this isn’t the same thing as “Trump supporter”. But this is a difference only in degree, not kind. The average Trump voter probably isn’t a bad person. But if Trump runs for office in 2020, the average Trump voter isn’t going to be able to feign innocence. There’s only so many times I can hear “Buh-buh-buh I’m desperate and economically anxious!”
Ferchrissakes, I did nothing of the sort. I said that they did a shitty thing, not that they are shitty people. Please reread what I wrote.
Unless you think that voting is a morally neutral act, and that one candidate is necessarily just as good as another, of course it’s appropriate to believe that a vote for a particular candidate is a better or worse moral act.
Reactions to a sign that refused service to participants in a riot?
I know, I know: riots are illegal, voting for Trump is legal. And I know, I know: you put paramount importance on the legality of an act.
I don’t. I’m more concerned about the ethics of an act, about its real-world effect. As near as I can tell, a vote for Trump is a lot more damaging than average participation in a riot.
Again, though, I don’t support this sign. Not because it’s super-important to be the type of person who respects the dignity and autonomy of everyone no matter what kind of terrible vote they cast, but because it’s super-important to persuade some of these people not to cast such a terrible vote next chance they get.
There is a point on the spectrum where it goes from “This person shouldn’t be barred from polite society” to “This person should be barred from polite society.” I think most people would agree that if an actual Nazi came to your restaurant, there would be nothing wrong with refusing to serve them. Most? of us would say the same about David Duke. Some of us (I am included in this one) would be completely okay refusing to serve Donald Trump if he came to our restaurants.
But I would not refuse to serve someone who voted for Bob Dole or Mitt Romney for president. I would not refuse to serve someone who voted for GW the first time. I would not refuse to serve someone who voted for GW the second time, though I think that person is somewhat bad. I would not refuse to serve someone who voted to put Sarah Palin within reach of the presidency, though I think that person is bad and scary stupid. So all of those votes are on the “won’t refuse to serve” side, and Trump and a Nazi and David Duke on the other.
So, is voting for Trump close enough to voting for Bob Dole/Mitt Romney to fall into the same category? Or is voting for Trump close enough to being a Nazi or David Duke or Trump to fall into that category?
For me, while voting for Trump is much, much worse than voting for Bob Dole and Mitt Romney, much worse than GW the first time, quite a bit worse than GW the second time, and somewhat worse than McCain/Palin, it still falls into the same class.
I think these voters are either terrible people or willing to suck up to terrible people.
But I also think that we have such a polarized electorate that people struggle to assess party representatives without powerful blinders on. And I think many people look at their responsibility for their votes as tenuous. They say “Well, there are only two real candidates, so damned if you do and damned if you don’t, so you can’t blame me for choosing one of the two.”
I don’t agree with this thinking, but I understand it. And there’s a point, I don’t know where exactly that point is, where continuing to vote Trumpishly crosses the line from Bob Dole voter territory to Nazi territory. I can’t say where that would be for me, I just don’t think we’re there yet.
Sure. But this is the reason I place paramount importance on legality: your views on what’s damaging are not mine. I regard rioters as a priori more damaging than Trump voters, and this derives from the fact that your views of policies to avoid in politics are not mine. Neither of us can claim that our position is objectively correct; we cannot agree on how to weigh the various damages against one another.
But we can certainly admit that a certain law exists, or does not.
As long as you are unwilling to make the Trump sign (or the Obama sign) illegal, then I’m fine. And if you want to argue that both should be illegal, I’ll listen. But the only sharp disagreement you’d spark from me is by arguing that the Trump sign should be legal but the Obama sign should be illegal. (Or vice-versa, although I’m confident you won’t be advancing THAT idea).
We’ve had and rehashed the argument over whether legality should trump (scuse me) ethics many times; I’m not sure it’s worth rehashing here, except to point out that it may lead us to different conclusions.
I have no interest in making either sign illegal, so we’re good in that respect. (FWIW, I also think a sign that disinvites rioters should be legal as well).
Yes of course, but that doesn’t mean those Germans support everything Hitler did. I know people who voted for Trump because they thought he was less likely to get us into another war than Hillary.
I bet there was at least a couple of Trump voters who would have just sat on their ass at home if they didn’t feel personally insulted by Hillary.
I vacillated between Trump and Clinton, unwilling to vote for either one, and went so far as to destroy my first ballot and needing to request a replacement before finally voting.
Certainly some of the things motivating my unease in voting for Clinton was the deluge of insults that included ‘deplorable.’
While I grant I was ultimately not pushed over the edge, I came extremely close, and a factor in my decision making was the contempt evidenced by the insults.
If that’s true for me, it stands to reason that someone else, slightly more incensed by insults, did in fact end up on the other side of the fence.
Hillary went into Pennsylvania coal country promising to shut down all the mines … The Donald went in promising to keep them open … how does this make coal miners evil? … “Judge not lest ye be judged, for that which you mete out will be measured unto you again” …
If my favorite Mexican restaurant put up a sign “No Whities” … I’d still go in and hope they serve me … the other place across town is strangely devoid of local stray cats … and that worries me to be honest …
So, in other words, “I enabled him but it’s not my fault what he did.” Handy excuse, that. Especially considering that anyone with half a brain could see he was totally unsuited to being President before they voted for him.
Just about the most untrue and delusional thing I’ve ever heard. (What they thought, not that you heard it.)
Heh she was (and probably still is) the antichrist to that ilk. I highly doubt they needed any more motivation to vote for the King of the Deplorables himself.
Because they’re willing to help sicken or kill their neighbors, if not all humanity, just so they don’t have to suffer the inconvenience of finding a new line of work.
I would eat there, the sign doesn’t bother me. In my opinion, one cannot vote for Dolt 45 and be a good person, there is simply too much evil that comes out of every pore of his body. I don’t care if you are worried about your precious guns aor abortion or whatever- those pale into insignificance when compared to the true evil hat he represents as do most of his satanic entourage.
If they feel they can treat SOME customer like this, they’ll find reasons to treat everyone badly.
What **BobLibDem **doesn’t get is that someone willing to put up that sign will let him in, and then spit in his food for some small real or imagined slight.
This is ridiculously hyperbolic. You do know Hillary voted for the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq, right? It’s a bit rich for you to say Trump is Hitler 2.0 when his opponent was a woman who literally never met a war she didn’t like. The notion that no decent person could possibly vote for Trump (or, perhaps more meaningfully, against Hillary) is simply moral myopia bolstered by arrogance.
To the truly devout a competing religion leads its followers to hell or an equivalent. Why serve or accommodate the type of evil that would lead groups of people to eternal damnation? Because the law says so? If there’s a compulsion to serve those who lead people to hell why not a compulsion to serve people that had the evil in their heart to not vote for the left wing approved candidate?
That’s nice. But it’s 100% irrelevant.
Did you say satanic? Where’s Dana Carvey’s church lady?