I'm Tolerant of Kinks, But Civility Fetishism Goes Too Far

Sarah Wilkinson, the owner of Red Hen restaurant, has stepped down as head of the local downtown improvement association in Alexandria, Virginia.  Meanwhile, Sarah Huckabee Sanders's supporters are showing their devotion to civility.  I nearly added "and Christian values" there, before I remembered that incivility is a Christian value based in Jesus' teachings and conduct, so no sarcasm.  I must say, I'm pleasantly surprised that the Alexandria police arrested one of them for dumping a bag of chicken shit on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant.  Usually the police let the bigots run wild while beating up and arresting their opponents.

I expect that many of the guardians of civility who've been lecturing America for the past week will inform us that Wilkinson should have expected that her action would have consequences -- one such is quoted in the article I linked above -- while insisting that Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the rest of the Trump administration should never, ever have to face even the mildest consequences for their actions.

If anyone still wants to take that stance, fine; it's a free country, sort of.  But anyone who does so without acknowledging up front that Sanders, her supporters, and the rest of the Christian Right are scum, has (it seems to me) forfeited any claim to be taken seriously.

Rereading that last sentence the morning after I wrote it, I wonder if it might be a bit ... excessive.  But as far as I've seen, most of the guardians of civility have done their best not to criticize Sanders.  They don't have to call her "scum" specifically -- I leave it to them, as professional writers and articulate citizens, to come up with their own contumely -- but ignoring her defense of and participation in Trump's agenda, treating her as if she were just an innocent bystander unjustly declared guilty by association by Stalinist oppressors, is dishonest and, again, discredits them as commentators.

Speaking of guilt by association, remember that the Red Hen did not eject the rest of her party; they could have stayed if they wished, though it would have been surprising if they had.  But the Red Hen discriminated between Trump's paid liar/collaborator and her guests.  Deciding questions like to whom it's proper to refuse service is complex and difficult, but the staff and owner of the Red Hen showed infinitely more discernment than those who are now wringing their hands over their supposed incivility.

Constructive Criticism

I'm sorting out some ideas I might post to Facebook.  If they turn out to hang together, I'll just post them here.  It may take a while, but I hope that before too long I'll finish venting and can return either to slacking off or writing on other subjects.  For now I'll try to be entertaining, at least.

It's easy enough to pick on people who are upset because Sarah Huckabee Sanders was refused service at a small restaurant in Virginia.  I've tried to explain why they are fundamentally wrong, but it might help to suggest how they could do a better job.  A better job of framing the problem and the controversy, if you will.

For example, instead of fixating on the nonexistent injustice Sanders suffered, let's try a different perspective.  Having been ejected, civilly and politely, from the Red Hen restaurant, Huckabee Sanders decided to use her bully pulpit as White House Press Secretary, her government Twitter account, to stomp on the restaurant and its owner.  A worker at the restaurant had already posted about it on Facebook, but most of the corporate media didn't pick on it until Sanders notified her vast audience that she'd been treated with disrespect.

If a journalist really wanted to raise the alarm about civility, he or she could have begun by pointing out that, inconvenient and unpleasant as it was to be refused service, it was incomparably more unpleasant for the Red Hen to be put in the crosshairs of the Trump base, and vastly more uncivil for Sanders to put it there.  So a really fair journalist might say something along those lines: We sympathize with Mrs. Sanders for having her dinner plans interrupted, though of course she is completely in favor of less godly persons being refused service, but civility and indeed democracy are under threat when a powerful government official takes petty revenge on a small business for putting her to inconvenience.

My Right Wing Acquaintance, RWA1, lamented on Facebook that "We are all the losers" when this kind of incivility takes place.  He was not, of course, referring to Sanders's abuse of her office to trash a small business, though one might have thought that as a (retired) small business owner himself and a critic of big-government abuses (when they hurt the wrong people, that is), he might have thought of the chilling effect her behavior could have on small business owners who dare to disrespect POTUS and his crew.  He might write something like: I would never refuse service to anyone, but Mrs. Sanders's conduct is uncivil and inexcusable, even if she does feel that she should have been served.  As a believer in small government, I shudder to think that small business owners should hesitate to exercise their rights for fear of being attacked by some unaccountable bureaucrat in Washington.

The important thing is, this never seems to have occurred to either RWA1 or the centrist pundits who've been piling on the Red Hen with Sanders.  It's not surprising, of course: RWA1 and his kindred spirits always side with the bigots first.  They may pay lip service to the bigots' targets, but only on the way to offer comfort to the already comfortable, who suffered so greatly by not receiving the obedience and servility that is their due.

RWA1 was very indignant, for example, when Ben Carson encountered resistance to his giving a commencement address at Johns Hopkins and decided to forego the honor.  "I'm for gay marriage," RWA1 commented as he linked to a fatuous and mendacious essay by the centrist writer Michael Kinsley, "but Kinsley is right about PC heresy-hunting in academia and elsewhere."

Carson took flak for a Fox News appearance in which, among other pleasantries, he compared same-sex marriage to bestiality and pedophilia.  He addressed these themes further soon afterwards on MSNBC.  In addition to declaring that they don't make homophobes like they used to, Kinsley pointed out that Carson is a distinguished neurosurgeon and not your stereotypical toothless redneck bigot.  As if he suddenly realized the absurdity of that defense, Kinsley doubled back and acknowledged that even a university-educated military officer of impeccable pedigree can be the commandant of a death camp, but hey, this is America and we should be tolerant of bigots as long as they have advanced degrees and dress nice.  Kinsley also claimed that he and Andrew Sullivan invented gay marriage in 1989, I suppose to establish his bona fides as an Ally, howbeit a delusional one.  That claim was revised in the online version, but only the first time (of two) he made it; as far as I know, the second instance is still there, later in the text.

But I dissected Kinsley's claims at length at the time.  What I still find interesting is that 1) though antigay bigots must know by now that they will get in trouble if they compare homosexuality to bestiality on national TV, they just can't seem to stop themselves from doing it; 2) though apologists for bigotry will admit the absurdity and viciousness of the bigots' discourse, they will still insist that no one should get upset about it and the bigots should suffer no consequences whatever ("why can't [gays] just laugh off nutty comments like Carson's...?" Kinsley asked); and 3) RWA1, who is not as stupid as he often seems (though as time goes on, I'm beginning to reconsider that judgment), could still post Kinsley's gabbling as an exemplary diagnosis and refutation of "PC heresy hunting in academia."  I was going to wonder just how vile someone would have to be for RWA1 and his ilk to refuse to defend their freedom of expression, but then I remembered the Westboro Baptist Church: RWA1 is always ready not just to place them behind the pale, but to deny their First Amendment rights and to hint coyly that it would be nice if someone were to shoot them in the face or something.  So there are limits, but only for "demon-possessed preachers" and unruly rabble on the left.

There's the consistent pattern in the centrist-media outcry about the death of civility in America, into which people like RWA1 fit comfortably: they always side with the bigots first.  Their balanced, but-on-the-other-hand analyses may admit that perhaps the bigots have gone too far now and then, but that's no reason to say mean things about them or make them uncomfortable in public.  This is a consideration that they do not extend to left-wing agitators, let alone the bigots' targets.  We are supposed to grow thicker skins; the bigots and their apologists can feel a pea through thirty mattresses, and that sensitivity is protected by all the norms of democratic society.  It doesn't take an advanced degree to detect where their sympathies lie.  They're entitled to lay their sympathies wherever they like, but so are the rest of us, and if they want to be taken seriously, they should start being honest about their real allegiance.

This Is Not a Story / Ceci N'est Pas un Histoire

Now, this is symptomatic of political discourse in our elite media.  "This is exactly why Trump won" is frankly idiotic, and when challenged, Peters admitted, "There are countless, unquantifiable reasons he won" before doubling back down: "But my problem with the bulk of these criticisms about reporting on the Trump coalition is that the left doesn’t want to hear it explained unless the answer is 'they’re all racist and stupid.'"

To see why it's idiotic, try reversing the terms.  The mainstream, to say nothing of far right-wing opinion in the US, has constantly "dismissed controversies that seemed small and exaggerated" when they involved the complaints of minorities: gay people, transpeople, women, people of color, the poor, and so on.  "But they were galvanizing for [those groups,] who are highly reactive to being told by the media 'this is not a story.'"  Which is exactly what we have been told by the corporate media, sometimes explicitly, sometimes simply by neglect.  Poisoned water in Flint, Michigan?  Unarmed people being shot in the back by police?  Stagnating wages and underemployment?  Not a story.  I myself sometimes forget how much this is true, because I forget that most people don't use the alternative media that I rely on to fill in the vast, gaping omissions of the mainstream.

I agree with Peters that we shouldn't call people "racist" or "stupid" at random.  The trouble is that Trump and his base are overwhelmingly, demonstrably racist and often stupid (which is why Trump keeps calling his enemies stupid and "low IQ", as kneejerk denial).  They want to be racist, but they don't want to be called racist.  They want to be stupid, they hate the pointy-headed intellectuals, and they don't want to do the necessary work to be smart.  (This is not to say that people who are less intelligent should be insulted or derided -- I've written before about the misuse of the word "ignorant" as an insult. Everyone is ignorant of more than they know; everyone has some valid and important knowledge that must be respected.  But it's patronizing to pretend that they know what they don't in fact know.  On the other hand, the Right refuses to respect the knowledge that others have.)

"But my problem with the bulk of these criticisms about reporting on the [vast majority of the population] is that the [center and right don't] want to hear it explained unless the answer is 'they’re all [lazy welfare moochers, Social Justice Warriors, and communist elitists].'"  The corporate media are terrified of offending the Right, who, while they are certainly numerous, are not the majority of Americans.  They are not even the majority of voters, who, I have to keep reminding almost everybody, did not vote for Trump. The anti-democratic, anti-majoritarian Electoral College is "exactly why Trump won."  Anyone who chooses to ignore that is lying.

Significantly, the corporate media are not only not terrified of the mass of Americans outside Trump's base, they reject and ridicule us when we too become "highly reactive."  Or even slightly reactive.  It's just unbearable to them that the Right should be upset by a little restaurant in Virginia that refused service to Sarah Huckabee Sanders.  The feelings of Trump's base are sacrosanct and must be handled with kid gloves.  Everybody else's feelings?  Mnyeh, who cares?  We are just oversensitive, humorless injustice collectors.  No story here.

Indeed, it's one of the major complaints of the Trump base that they've had to hold in all their bigoted opinions for too long, afraid of being called names by Social Justice Warriors, and they're not going to tolerate it any more.  Their complaint is not that they want their feelings to be respected also; they want only their feelings to be respected, and everyone else's ignored.  It's summed up very well by this photo; as the person who posted it to Twitter noted, the operative word is "your," not "feelings."

If you disagree with me, consider: Trump and his base are so furious about Huckabee Sanders's being refused service, not because they believe that businesses should serve everybody without exception - they believe the exact opposite - but because they are outraged that anyone should disapprove of them and refuse service to them. When their own rules are applied to them, it doesn't make them reconsider their beliefs, it makes them more determined to punish everybody else.  They demand civility from everyone else, but they pursued what they wanted by being assholes.  And it worked, so why should they change now?

I suggest that one problem is that the vast majority of people, no matter where they are on the political spectrum, don't know what to do when their opinions are challenged, disagreed with, criticized, condemned.  It's not pleasant, but hey, I've gotten used to it.  Activists and writers and intellectuals are constantly denigrated because we know how to debate, by people who can only flail around frantically when someone disagrees with them.  It's not enough to say that you're mad as hell and you're not going to take any more: the question is what you do after you've declared your complaints and your anger.  That's harder, and it can't be done with slogans and memes and a neat ending.

I'm willing to let the Trump base frame the refusal of service to Sarah Huckabee Sanders as a major controversy if that will make Jeremy Peters happy.  In fact, I agree that it's important, and it seems to me that most people who approve of the Red Hen staff's decision feel the same way.  This is not trivial.  It is important that the Right get some pushback and some accountability for their actions, as much as they hate the idea.  The American "mainstream" -- really corporate media, political, and corporate/financial elites -- has been tiptoeing delicately around the feelings of the Republican Right for too long, while dismissing the concerns of the rest of the country. I'm not going to wax prematurely triumphant about this and claim that the culture war has been won before it has properly been fought, but there are many signs that the rest of America (those who are neither media/business/political elites nor the Trump base) have been "galvanized" and are looking for ways to confront, engage, and challenge the forces of American reaction.

Unlike many people, I know that my opponents will never go away, but then, my opponents need to learn that everybody else won't go away either.  It's clearly what they want, but it's not going to happen.  So, the lines are drawn.  The question is what to do now.  We can't exterminate each other, and I don't really think that most non-Trumpers believe that we can or that we should.  I believe, though, that it's the Trump base constitute the real threat to everybody just getting along in this country and in the world.  I don't know how to get along with them without surrendering to them -- even total surrender wouldn't be enough for them anyway, they are unwilling to tolerate the presence of most of their fellow citizens -- but we're going to have to find a way if at all possible.  We are, I believe, in a very dangerous time, though all times have been dangerous if you look at our history.

The trouble with people like Jeremy Peters is that they are appeasers.  They hope that if we give the Right what they want, they'll let everyone else live in peace.  I think that the rise of Donald Trump is strong evidence to the contrary.  But literal war won't stop them either, even if they are finally defeated, and I'd really rather not see our cities firebombed and our towns leveled in the attempt.  We need to know where we stand, however, and anyone who exculpates the Right while telling everybody else that it's all our fault for upsetting the the Right is distorting reality.

The Poverty of "Moderation" and "Civility"

The media haven't yet found something to distract them from the horror of Sarah Huckabee Sanders being refused service at a little restaurant in Virginia, and far be it from me to wander away from the fold.

I'd wondered if any of my Facebook friends would have anything to say about it yet, but so far most of them haven't, as far as I've seen.  My Right Wing Acquaintance did not disappoint: he weighed in with a lament about the lack of "civility" in our society today, and the divisiveness we face.  I pointed out that Sanders was treated civilly by the owner of the Red Hen, and that refusing service is not in itself considered incivility by the Right as long as the right people are refused service; in that case, it's objecting to the refusal of service that is uncivil.  I also pointed out a couple of instances of RWA1's own incivility, along with the example of Ronald Reagan: a bigot and recreational liar much like Trump, whose attacks on the poor and other safe targets delighted his base in his day.  We haven't gone beyond that yet.

As for divisiveness, Jon Schwarz tweeted yesterday that the Right "never imagined that their all-out attack on America might one day have the most mild consequences imaginable."  Conservatives have been at war with most of their fellow citizens, sometimes literally, for most of American history.  When Fred Hiatt, editor of the Washington Post editorial page, tweeted "Breaking up families is repugnant.  But hounding public servants in their private life isn't the right response," among the replies he got were these:

Invoking "consequences" is slippery, though.  It's a popular move on the forced-birth Right, when they say that a woman who has sex needs to take responsibility for the consequences of her sin.  I put it ambiguously there because, though they prefer to forget it, most women who get abortions are married and already mothers.  Just having sex, in their eyes, is the offense for which a woman must be punished.)  It was also popular at the height of the AIDS epidemic: if you engage in dirty sodomitical sex, you must live with the consequences.  They never imagine that their own actions might have consequences that make them uncomfortable.

At the same time, I'm wary of using their own move against them, because it relies on the fallacious assumption that "consequences" are always a natural result of someone's action, rather than something imposed on them by the judgment and choices of others.  (It's a variant of the mind game "See What You Made Me Do," identified by Eric Berne.)  Those who want to impose consequences on Sarah Huckabee Sanders or other Trump team members must remember that they (we) are deciding what the consequences ought to be, and take responsibility for their (our) choices.  I can say, more in anger than in sorrow, that I'm not seeing much of that.

It's like karma, which despite all the caveats and disclaimers, seems always to be invoked for other people.  If I understand the concept correctly -- of course there are many formulations -- it includes not only what other people bring on themselves, but on how we choose to respond to their actions.  If I burn down your house because you're a bad person, I might be an agent of your karma, but I'm also building up bad karma for myself.  One could, I think, make an excellent case that the presidency of Donald Trump is the karma not just of America generally, but also specifically of those Democrats who arrogantly assumed that such a loser could never beat Hillary.

With that in mind, and with considerable fear and trembling, I agree that it's appropriate to put the GOP in the hot seat.  Which doesn't mean I'm approving in advance every sadistic or violent "consequence" liberals and progressives decide is appropriate for the Trump team.  Nor should we forget that Trump and his base will strike back.  That's the trouble with starting a fight: your opponent will hit back.  You need to think about how you'll conduct yourself after that happens, and it seems to me that few people do, especially among those who are nominally on my side.

Still, it's worth remembering that the American Right has been at war, sometimes literally, with most of their fellow citizens for a long, long time.  There are many possible responses to them, but it must be remembered that verbal "combat," even pretty heated, is acceptable.  So are shunning, exclusion, refusing service or fellowship.  I wrote yesterday that if Sarah Huckabee Sanders were starving, I would feed her -- but she's not starving.  If she were homeless and living rough, I would favor giving her shelter and proper clothing -- but she's not homeless; she's all too comfortable.  If Donald Trump were lying in the gutter on fire, I would not piss on him: I would try to put out the flames and call an ambulance -- but he's not (alas?) on fire in the gutter.  I think it's important not to trade in irrelevancies, like mocking people's appearance -- but even if someone did, it's not as bad as separating children from their parents and putting them in cages.  I would deplore fat-shaming Sanders, for example, but I'd still have a sense of proportion in my criticism of the tactic.

And I'm worried about the panicky and yet weirdly complacent irrationality I see among many liberals and progressives, even leftists.  It seems that they feel that Trump's crimes license them to do anything in retaliation, without any bounds.  I've quoted before Walter Kaufmann's paraphrase of Freud, "Not only is the criminal a human being like you, but you, alas, are like the criminal."  I don't have my copy of Without Guilt and Justice at hand now, but that sentence occurs in the context of a discussion of the human impulse to punishment.  The law of talion, "an eye for an eye," not only demands punishment, it limits it: no more than an eye for an eye.  Kaufmann noted that historically and cross-culturally, this limitation has often been needed, that people delight in inventing and executing baroque, sadistic tortures on people as a "consequence," as what they "deserve."  He also critiqued the very concept of "deserving," though not only with regard to punishment.  Given some of the gleeful fantasizing I've been seeing in social media the past few days about what Trump, Sanders, and other people "deserve," I worry about my putative allies' lack of self-awareness and its consequences.  This is not because I believe that we should be nice and give warm fuzzies to the Nazis (the straw man so beloved of many), but because failing to think about what we're doing will result in innocent people getting hurt.  We've had enough collateral damage already, thank you very much.  I can believe all this while rubbing RWA1's nose (figuratively) in the dirt and reminding him that Sanders got (a much milder version of) the same kind of behavior she defends and supports for other people.

It's pointless to squabble about "who started it."  I attack the Right for what they say and do, and I won't let them cast themselves as victims.  At the same time, the Mom's response to "He started it!" is "And I'm ending it."  We also need to think about ending this.  We won't get a better society merely by punishing, trampling, humiliating the Right.  Again, this has nothing to do with warm fuzzies, though there's nothing wrong with warm fuzzies per se: the point is that punishing and humiliating your enemy won't work.  You just get a punished, humiliated enemy who will plot revenge, waiting until your back is turned to restart the fight.  (Paradigm cases: the US Civil War and World War I.)  It's even open to question whether humiliating your enemy will make you feel better in the long run.  But leave feelings out of it -- the real challenge is how to end a conflict without just setting up the pieces for the defeated enemy's payback game.

I also remember that any pushback against our not-so-Shadowy Overlords is unacceptable to them and their lackeys.  Conor Friedersdorf of the Atlantic is busy chiding the uncivil on Twitter right now: "If civility were more highly valued in our political culture Donald Trump would not be president. If it becomes significantly less valued in the next two years he is a shoe-in [sic] for reelection."  When challenged he replied "on the 'civility works better' side I cite Ghandi [sic] and MLK and Nixon’s re-election. What would you cite for 'incivility gets it done'?"

Friedersdorf is conveniently confusing civility with an avoidance of conflict. Civility is how you handle conflict.  Granted, the Civility Police prefer it that our rulers never face repercussions or any kind of pushback at all, but they shouldn't get their way.  He's also buying into the confusion of moderation of tone with moderation of substance, which is beloved of apologists for harmful policies. E.g., it's okay to kill children with drones as long as you do it politely as Obama did, not nastily like Trump does. Since Friedersdorf's a Christian, he should remember a saying that goes "Because you are lukewarm, I will vomit you out of my mouth." Or look at MLK's remarks about extremism in the letter from Birmingham jail, addressing white moderates who sounded a lot like Friedersdorf does today.

His citation of Gandhi (why is that name so difficult for many people to spell, by the way?) and King is actually absurd. Both men were radical troublemakers whose activism was seen as extremely uncivil by the nice, moderate public servants they opposed and by their servants in the media.  The civil disobedience King practiced was deplored by reasonable moderates while he lived -- I mean, the sit-ins, interfering with Bidness, so extreme and uncivil!  I feel sure that if he'd been active then, Friedersdorf would have lectured him on it.  King embraced the label of "extremist" in his letter from the Birmingham jail, and his rhetoric there, while free of "fuck" and "cunt," was anything but conciliatory.  It's only in retrospect, with considerable deliberate amnesia, that King and Gandhi can possibly seen as "civil" by Friedersdorf's standards.  It might be possible to make a good argument against the Red Hen owner's ejection of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, but so far I haven't seen one.

My House, My Rules

Y'know, I think I've learned a lesson this weekend, watching some of the fuss over a Virginia restaurant's refusal to serve Trump's press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.  That lesson is that many reasonably well-educated people have no idea what "civility" means.

If you haven't heard, Sanders and seven other people drove up to Lexington, Virginia (pop. 7,000), and walked into a small (26 seats) restaurant called the Red Hen.  The staff recognized her and called the owner, who was at home. The owner arrived, asked Sanders to step aside with her, and politely asked her to leave. Sanders politely agreed.

Sanders went back to the table, picked up her things and walked out. The others at her table had been welcome to stay, Wilkinson said. But they didn’t, so the servers cleared away the cheese plates and glasses.

“They offered to pay,” Wilkinson said. “I said, ‘No. It’s on the house.’ ”

One of the servers mentioned the incident on his Facebook page, and the shit hit the fan.  Sanders tweeted about it: "I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so ... Her actions say far more about her than about me."  Other reactions were predictable: Trump fans were outraged, predicted that the Red Hen would soon close for lack of business, many Trump haters were delighted.  Large numbers from both groups posted reviews of the restaurant on social sites like Yelp, even though as the Washington Post article notes, few if any had ever eaten there or ever would.  Some Democrats, also predictably, attacked the owner for lack of "civility," saying that Sanders should have been served no matter what.

I saw a lot of online complaints about the lack of "civility" the Red Hen's owner supposedly showed.  I don't think there was any incivility or lack of respect (as I presume Sanders meant) involved.  The owner was both civil and polite, even respectful.  She explained her reasons and politely asked her to leave.  One of the basic mistakes many of the commentators make is their apparent belief that you can't disagree with, let alone cut off socially or in other areas, a person without being civil -- that civility means maintaining friendly relations with anyone, no matter how vile.  And while Sarah Huckabee Sanders isn't as vile as Donald Trump himself, she's his press secretary, lying for him, defending his vilest policies.  She's personally and professionally complicit in his evil.  Even if you believe (as I do not) that the Red Hen should not have refused her service, civility is a separate question.  The same goes for "respect."  If Sanders meant (as I presume she did) that she'd been treated disrespectfully, she was mistaken.

The owner of the Red Hen did not scream profane abuse at Sanders.  She didn't punch her in the nose. She didn't overturn the table, spilling cheese and drinks over the party.  She didn't invite other patrons to throw food at them.  She didn't lock them into a wire cage and beat them, starve them, inject them with drugs to make them docile, or throw them out on the street months later, unwashed and infested with lice.  Since Sanders and her boss and the people they represent support the right of small businesses to refuse service to anyone whose lifestyle or beliefs they disapprove of, Sanders in particular has no ground for complaint at all.

If Sanders were starving, I'd give her food.  But she's in no danger of starving, now or ever.  There are, as her fans crowed on social media, many restaurants where she and her friends and colleagues will be welcome.  Someone, in a tweet I can't find now, speculated reasonably that she'd traveled outside Washington, where "everybody hates her," to find a place to eat.  It seems she made a small blunder in her choice of the Red Hen, and I wonder who recommended it to her.  According to the Washington Post article, "Lexington, population 7,000, had voted overwhelmingly against Trump in a county that voted overwhelmingly for him."  So Sanders somehow lighted on one of the few places in Red America where she might not be welcome.

Another theme that raged in the line exchanges was Who's A Hypocrite Now?  Both Trumpists and liberals invoked the Masterpiece Cakeshop Decision.  The Trumpists asked how libs could object to refusing to bake a wedding cake for a gay male couple, yet accept refusal of service for Sanders.  The liberals asked the reverse: if it's okay to refuse to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple, then why isn't it okay to refuse to serve Sanders?  Of course I think the liberals have the stronger case.  Some liberals argued that the two cases are obviously totally different and if you can't see that then there's something wrong with you.  I agree that there are differences but I don't agree that they're relevant: the refusal to serve Sanders doesn't constitute legal or unjust discrimination.  And since the Right has been opposed to civil rights laws all along, they can't suddenly change their mind without some pretty hefty explaining.

Contrary to some complaints, it is not clear that "discrimination" was involved, and certainly not "prejudice."  "Prejudice" means pre-judging someone without evidence, or based on irrelevant evidence -- assuming that a pale, rather chunky woman will be a Trump supporter for example.  But the objection was to Sanders herself, a public figure, who has defined herself by her words and her willingness to defend the indefensible.  "Discrimination" is similarly slippery.  Some opponents of public accommodation laws like to point out irrelevantly that we all discriminate all the time.  That's true.  But unlawful discrimination is determined and defined by civil rights laws, and it's rather narrow.  People may use the word sloppily, but Sarah Huckabee Sanders was refused service because of her words and actions, the kind of person she has shown herself to be.  Someone irrelevantly quoted Martin Luther King's "judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" line at me.  I don't like it much, because we can never really know the content of anyone else's character.  But they (and we) do show something of our character by our actions, our words, the people we choose to associate with and work for, and Sanders has shown us enough about her character to judge her by.  It's discrimination, all right, but not the kind of discrimination civil rights law is meant to prohibit.

It raises another important question.  Public officials at all levels almost never face any accountability for crimes even greater than Trump's, for moral cowardice even greater than Sanders's.  The feeling of many Democrats (leave the Trump fanatics aside) that Sanders should face no accountability, no consequences for her actions or words, also has to be evaluated in the context of the refusal of the Obama administration to punish Bush-era figures who justified and ordered torture and other war crimes, or to punish the fraud and other crimes of business figures who nearly destroyed the economy in 2008.  Between doing nothing at one "extreme" and, oh let's say public execution by fire (the kind of extreme that centrists will think of to show the impossibility of doing anything other than nothing), there are many possibilities.  Compared to the imaginable extremes, being ejected from a restaurant is pretty small accountability for Sanders, and one that I'm sure she will be able to live with.

Glenn Greenwald posted a challenge today:

Everyone accusing each other of hypocrisy over the gay-wedding-baker and Sarah Sanders cases: please state the general principle you support when it comes to the right of business owners to refuse service to customers. That would be a more constructive way to have this discussion[.]

I think this is a good question.  As I expected, the responses were mostly not very constructive, to put it mildly, except insofar as they showed that most people have no general principles on this issue.  People they dislike should suffer, those they don't dislike should not suffer, and there's an end on't.  "It's very simple," one person said to me, and "Seems pretty straight forward," another said to Greenwald, thus showing how little they had thought about it.  Which is understandable -- how much do most of us think about difficult issues?

This takes me back to a question I've been grappling with for some time, namely under which circumstances it is all right to refuse service to someone, or to remove them from a job for actions or words committed outside (or even during) working hours.  Someone scolded me online that it's never right to refuse service to anyone.  This is obviously false, and absurd.  Bartenders refuse service to people all the time, for example.  At the same time, I disagree, and I think most people would disagree if they took it seriously, that any business owner should be able to refuse service to anyone for any reason. The absolutes are unworkable, so we have to judge actual cases in the middle.  This bothers many people, not only on the Right, who want moral absolutes, with no middle ground.

I don't think that general principles can definitively answer Greenwald's question.  That may be our problem.  General principles are useful but they only take us so far, and from there we must wing it, make judgments that may or not turn out to be right.  There don't even seem to be reliable ways to decide whether a judgment is right or wrong.