First Principles

In search of the Unified Theory of Conservatism

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There Are Reasons to Boycott Restaurants, and Then There Are Reasons

August 29th, 2012 · 25 Comments

I didn’t know about this until recently, but every Friday in Idlewild Park here in Reno is a little food truck gathering. There is plenty of room to lay out a picnic blanket, open a bottle of wine, and enjoy some tasty and unique cuisine from small business owners who are showing some nice innovation over the standard brick-and-mortar diner or the stereotypical roach coach. I especially like supporting them after they’re being harassed – via crony “capitalism” inspired regulations – by their less innovative competitors.

But there is one I will never support, and neither should anyone else who opposes mass murder. I’m talking about the Dish Café truck, which looks something like this:

If you don’t understand why this is offensive, first go write angry letters to every history teacher you’ve ever had.  Then consider the reaction you might have for a sandwich chain that went with something like this for their ad campaign:

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I honestly don’t understand the ignorant attitude towards communism in this country.  Why is it that if you say, “I hate Nazis,” the response is universally, “Well, duh.”; but if you say, “I hate Commies,” the response is, “What are you, some kind of crazy right winger living in the past?”  Gah.

Here, let’s try this.  Quick! Name the two most prolific mass murderers of the 20th Century!

Nope.

The real answer is these two fine gentlemen.

To be fair, you could quibble about Hitler v. Stalin, depending on how you calculate or credit deaths in their various regimes. But then you’re quibbling about who isn’t “so bad” when comparing tens of millions of prematurely dead people.

When you add in all the “lesser” Commies like Pol Pot, the Kims, and Fidel Castro, Communism has killed around 100 million people, give or take. It’s not just a flawed philosophy, it’s an evil one that rejects both human nature and human rights.

Supporters, apologists, or minimizers of Communism are on the same moral plane as supporters, apologists, and minimizers of Nazism. Indeed, if body count matters, Communists are worse. And unlike the Nazis, Communists are still around, and still acting evily. To tie your ad campaign into such evil, even as a “joke,” is to minimize, make light of, and ultimately excuse such evil.

No one who truly cares about human rights should give a dime to such ignorant (at best) fools.

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I’ve had a version of this post bouncing around my head all summer, since I first saw the Commie Truck. But in light of the recent brouhaha over the (failed) Chick-Fil-A boycott, the Dish Café truck took on an added meaning to me.

By any objective measure, adopting the art, style, and language of a despotic form of government responsible for the murders of tens of millions is (or at least ought to be) far, far worse than supporting a longstanding definition of marriage held by everyone from Mitt Romney to Ron Paul to Barack Obama (until about 5 minutes ago when it was politically expedient to change his mind) to the majority of California voters, of all people. (Dick Cheney, on the other hand, has supported gay marriage for years, which I just always enjoy pointing out.)

And yet, we hear no lefty calls for a boycott of Dish Café in the name of “human rights”. Why, it’s almost as if all the Chick-Fil-A outrage has more to do with political posturing than any actual commitment to or understanding of what “human rights” actually are, or what real threats to those rights actually look like.

And yet, if Bob Cashell or Gino Martini ever tried to do what Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel or Boston Mayor Thomas Menino did, and threaten to withhold business licenses based SOLELEY on Dish Café’s political expression (as repugnant as it may be), I would eat at Dish every day. A government which requires “correct” political beliefs on pain of preventing someone from making a living is not one which respects human rights, no matter how much such a corrupt government supports gay marriage. If “liberals” actually were, they would recognize this.

In attempting to use this issue to distract from the inevitably dismal record of a liberal incumbent, the whole Chick-Fil-A thing had another effect. It let the mask slip, and showed just how deeply the totalitarian tendencies of the left really run.

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In the meantime, I’ve heard rumors of a new schwarma food truck that might be coming to town. I wonder how the lefties who ignore the horrors of communism and wail and gnash their teeth over a fast food chain owner’s stance on the definition of marriage will react to this ad campaign…

Tags: 1st Amendment · Communism