Using her Twitter platform and government position to focus attention on a small restauranteur is somehow taking the high road?
If she were to approach me and ask me to work for/serve her in some way, I’d say no. Not because of politics, but because of her own, very public actions and words. I guess I don’t have the right to say no?
“Take the high road” at this point is just a way for those who do bad things to try and limit the damage, by turning it around against the person they hurt.
I also suspect that, if this was in a place where the owner felt comfortable asking her to leave, her tweet will backfire heavily and actually give him more customers. He had LGBT staff, so it’s probably an LGBT-friendly area.
At one point in my life, I lived in Harrison, Arkansas. There is a guy who lives there named Tony Rob, who is the head of a KKK klan. And people do business with him. One thing I argued at that time is that, if Harrison wants to stop having a reputation for being racist, they need to stop doing that. Hell, when I read stuff about Harrison today, like those two different KKK-sponsored signs with clear racist messages, I remind people again.
I applaud this business for doing this, and I very much hope this helps them out tremendously, so maybe this will become a thing. Not for everyday average Joes. But if you’re famously horrible, then you’re banned. Let our actions match our speech that such things are unacceptable.
Because of her tweet, people have been stupidedly harrassing a NJ business with the same name as the Virginia establishment that refused her service.
A responsible press secretary would have the foresight to see that something like this was bound to happen, so she would have kept her big mouth shut. But because she isn’t a responsible person, now innocent bystanders have to fend off attacks. This is no one’s fault but Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Fake News!
Who knew that mob justice would have collateral damage? Well, that’s the era we live in.
Then the bitch should have stayed off Twitter.
Such a fragile snowflake, can’t handle her principles being thrown in her face.
And that’s what passes as “taking the high road” these days.
Now a “Red Hen” in DC is preemptively trying to save itself from the wrath of Sarah Sanders’ “high road”, and I hate to think of the repercussions on the real Red Hen when the Trumpists get done with it. If this is Sanders’ “high road” I’d hate to be a victim of her “low road”. And, she brought all this on through her government PressSec Twitter account. These people not only have no ethics, they have no shame.
People like the OP are acting like these are normal times and Trump and his team are just like other Republicans Administrations. In normal times, I wouldn’t approve of refusing to serve a White House press secretary. It wouldn’t think it was illegal or anything, but I would frown on it.
***These are not normal times. *** And it’s not just a matter of degree. Ms. Sanders has voluntarily assumed the role of defending the most disgusting, incompetent and dangerous person ever elected president. People are going to react badly to that, and they should. If she has an ounce of self-awareness, she will ask herself why these things are happening.
The statements about ‘protected classes’ are overly legalistic IMO. Few (one post here did seem to say it) are saying businesses should be legally compelled to serve public figures whose politics they don’t like, or even everyday people whose politics they don’t like. Although I suppose there would be a least a little less polarized reaction if it were a non public figure a restaurant owner happened to know was left/right, GOP/Dem etc and told them to leave because of it.
Anyway although a) legally there’s no question to begin with whether you can ask a customer to leave because of their politics and b) legally there’s no question you can’t do that for a reason a duly passed law prohibits it, I think the concept of tolerance and a cohesive society is still challenged by actions like this. No laws were broken by the restaurant obviously (same for the ridiculous contention of the ‘ethics expert’ v Sanders for mentioning it). But that’s not the point.
As for the argument that it doesn’t count because Sanders is so evil, the counterculture started using that argument when I was a kid. People in favor of the US Vietnam policy were not mistaken, they were MURDERERS. It hasn’t become any more convincing as a form of real argument to me since. It’s just led downhill. Trump himself is IMO a new step down, but not the start of it, and him simply going away won’t be the end of it. You can always over-moralize the day’s political issues into a license to treat fellow countrymen like shit. But the eventual result isn’t generally to anyone’s liking if that keeps escalating like it’s been in US society.
From the link.
Truly, they must be intellectual giants.
First of all, I hate complaints about why isn’t there a thread yet. Hey, someone has to start the thread – might was well be you, OP.
Second, I’m not sure what the debate is. I assume it’s: Did Sarah Sanders violate ethics rules when she tweeted about a personal issue using her government twitter account?
I think she did. It’s inappropriate to use her government account to complain about a personal issue. Anyone want to take the other side of this?
I love that her father called out the restaurant for bigotry (bigotry? It’s pretty specific bigotry – members of the Trump administration? Female members of the Trump admin.?), after tweeting about Pelosi starting her campaign with a picture of those guys from MS-13. Hey, Governor Pastor, get that bigotry beam out of your eye!!
Yes, it is indeed possible that the owner kicked Sanders out because she hates her using polite words. Kicking her out at all for such personal reasons isn’t going to win any politeness awards though.
SHS isn’t going to win any politeness awards either, at least if the politeness awards judges have ever seen one of her press briefings.
ETA: and the accounts I have seen indicate that owner asked her to leave in deference to the restaurant’s employees’ feelings of LGBTQ issues. How rude, right,?
No one in any way restricted Sarah Huckabee Sanders right to free speech. She was politely asked to leave by a small business owner whose staff felt uncomfortable serving her due to her public statements, and she apparently agreed to leave without argument, only later using her position as a public figure to attack the restaurant owner. Suggesting this to be a case of some kind of unwarranted attack on Trump supporters is just another in a long line of examples of supplicants of Trump like the o.p. claiming to be victimized or having their rights repressed while they actually victimize and repress others, and consistently work to undermine democratic norms.
Donald Trump insults opponents (even within the ranks of his own party), insides supporters to violence, demonstrates recalcitrance to even the barest criticism of violent demonstrations by self-identified white nationalists and neo-Nazis, and lies so constantly about demonstrable facts that it would be easier to try to keep track of the occasional accidental truth that he might express. Sarah Sanders unapologetically defends it all while attacking the integrity of the media even as she unabashedly dissembles and relays mistruths and deceptions from a public pulpit, paid for by taxpayers. If Sanders is redirected to only being able to eat out of vending machines, it is still too good for her and those like the o.p. feigning offense on her behalf.
Stranger
I don’t understand the problem. The restaurant was within its rights to refuse service to SHS. Further, SHS has a right to inform others of the restaurant’s actions. Likewise, if anyone disagrees with the restaurant’s decision, even though lawful, these people have the right to refuse to eat at the restaurant and may encourage others do to so.
How is this any different than liberals boycotting Chic-Fil-A after finding that the owners lawfully supported conservative Christian organizations?
You really need step back and take a reality check. Current times are no more and no less normal than when Obama was in the White House or when Bush was in the White House or when Clinton was in the White House or when Bush or Reagan or Carter or Ford or Nixon or whoever were in the White House. You’ve really got to go back to WW2 for abnormality.
As a private citizen or as a spokesperson for the Administration, using her PressSec Twitter account?
Why did she need to inform the entire nation rather than a private griping sessions with friends?
Why did Daddy need to come galloping to the rescue of his fragile daughter?
No. That’s the disconnect. Bush, Regan, Romney Obama, (even Chaney, for God’s sake) were relatively normal people with a range of political views that could be considered normal or rational, even if there were inevitable diagreesments about policy, ethics, and competence.
If you don’t see how Trump is different, you’ll never understand why Ms. Sanders was refused service at this restaurant.
As I recall, you’re not an American. So the future of American as a country worth being part of may not be as important to you as it is to us. What is happening here is chilling and disturbing, like nothing else in our history. (And yes, I’m including the Civil War).
ETA. It’s not just Trump, although he’s terrible. It’s the people and the politicians who want to normalize and defend him that puts our county in grave peril.
I still can’t wrap my head around someone thinking that a restaurant owner asking someone to leave, presumably politely and somewhat privately, is somehow the low road, and that someone then using her government position to publicly complain about it to the nation, stirring up opinion and retaliation against that business owner, is somehow the high road.