Chick-fil-A Fiasco

[Stevinator]

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/07/27...itical-symbol/

Since we can't quote articles any longer, I'll summarize/comment.

Chick-Fil-A is a fast food place that makes great fried chicken sandwiches. It's relatively new to the chicagoland area, but for the past couple years seems to be making an effort to build as many locations as possible. When these places go up, the lines are just silly--but justified. Their #4 is a deluxe chicken sandwich that's heads and shoulders better than Mcdonalds, KFC, BK, etc. but after tax comes out to around 7.50 for the meal. Plus, they send people around to refill your drink for you.

They're so good, I often drive well out of my way to grab lunch there.

Now, unbeknownst to me until recently, the owner of the chain is hyper-religious. He closes his restaurants on sundays (which stinks, since that's often a day I could go for a tasty fried chicken sandwich) and apparently, he's a very vocal advocate against same sex marriage.

Well, chicago the city is pretty ***-friendly. I think civil unions are legal, and there's a bunch of neighborhoods that are known as *** areas, even out in the near suburbs (not so much out in my neck of the woods, but whatever).

Anyway, so Chick-fil-A wants to put up a new restaurant in the actual city of Chicago, and some *** activist group gets wind of this and convinces the local alderman to block it because a new restaurant will interfere with their efforts to boycott the chain. The Alderman says sure, and announces he's going to fight to make sure the new location isn't put up. Then Rahm, mayor of Chicago back him up saying he also doesn't agree with the Hyper-religious owner guy and that he's going to block the restaurant too. Not boycott; block. they were going to BLOCK the location from being allowed to open.

Now, since this blew up the other day, Rahm has backed down, mostly due to a FIERY backlash from the right, but I'm still a little teed off about it. First, yes, I support same sex marriage, and the Hyper religious guy sounds annoying on Youtube, but so what? You can't just say well we don't like how you think so you can't open a restaurant in our city. I mean, I get it that some people wanted to boycott it, fine that's their deal, but this is WAY over the line. It's SO bad it makes Jmerv's paranoia look nearly rational. Now, being where i am, I get to be affected by King Rahm's decrees, but I'm well outside the city, so I don't get to vote against him, but I'm upset that basically nothing will happen to him.


I'm also a bit irritated that now I have to hide the fact that I eat there from the marauding public (lest they mistake me for hippocritical--or a religious nutjob supporter). I don't care what the politics of the guy who makes my sandwich are (more specifically the guy who makes my sandwich's boss). I don't think it makes sense to boycott someone simply because they have some disagree-able opinion. It's not like he's out there telling gays they can't have delicious sandwiches, or firing them, or really DOING anything besides having annoying non-sandwich related press conferences). Some people will not agree with you. Please let me eat my sandwich in peace.

Finally, if anyone from chick-fil-a is reading this, please open a restaurant in my area (PM me for a good intersection) and schedule the heathens for sundays so I can have week-round sandwich heaven. That is all.

[stillman]

IMO, the problem is the idea of "nations" that force hundreds of millions of people to get along (at gunpoint) despite their countless different lifestyles, cultures, desired laws, etc. The state thinks it can force everyone to abide by some ideal rule system. Nations should be divided into thousands of smaller regions, communities, cities, etc, each with whatever laws they want. Then, people simply move out of regions they dislike into ones where they fit in. So there should be a city for deluded people who think they can produce a population without homosexuals, and another city for people who know better and are up to speed on the science.

There should also be cities supportive of every other conceivable political/religious/cultural viewpoint. Let people have their all-white societies if they want, and let others have their hyper religious communities. These giant umbrella laws simply don't work b/c they don't recognize the vast diversity of human cultures and preferences.

TLDR: pluralism is a fantasy.

[LozHinge the Unhinged]

stillman evinces support for a theory I've seen before and it's an interesting one ... but you need to look at the destination when determining a direction to go in as far as social policy is concerned. And at what level do you set the "differentiation"? Racial heritage, religion, sexual orientation, belief in capital punishment, which football team you follow?

Effectively, this "silo mentality" would have to lead to social and political fragmentation at a far lower level than the current one, namely the 200 odd separate nations we have on the planet. There are very, very few nations with homogenous or even mostly homogenous populations, depending on how you classify the differences. Each separate "population" within a nation would drift (or career) away from the other at various rates, due to differing laws, social goals and basic cultural differences, to the point where a "calving" would occur, devolution on a scale we haven't seen before.

If you are comfortable with this scenario, well, you're braver than I am.

I'm not arguing strongly either for or against "social integration". Psychologists might be able to tell you whether you can get along better with people who are different, culturally, from you by regular close exposure to them or by never interacting with them at a social level. I don't know the answer to that one (the long-term answer, anyway).

Edit: Gah, forgot to mention Steve's dilemma: a principled stand, where you are depriving yourself of the best chicken sandwich imaginable (in my case it would be the best BLT), well, it's just not worth it. No one should have to give up what they consider to be delicacies just because of some morality code they want to live by. I mean, Merv eats babies*, doesn't he? Point proved.

Disclaimer: No, merv doesn't eat babies.

[stillman]

I'm not sure what you mean by devolution here. Nothing is lost in the scenario, as people keep migrating to regions that better accommodate their set of values. There would even be cultures identical to the ones we have now, only smaller and filled with happy people who prefer this.

One problem I didn't mention was the old one that will mess up every system: warfare over resources and the mentality that one's culture is the right/best one which justifies invasion, occupation, genocide, etc. Other than that conundrum, it's about as close to freedom as we can get, imo. Nations hog up all the land, forcing people into broad rule systems that aren't refined enough. I believe most people scoff at segregation as a form of moral grandstanding. Of course, for people who truly want pluralism, they can move to a region where segregation is outlawed.

@ Stevinator, it may help to think not of the people at the top, but rather the servers and kitchen staff who either don't hold discriminatory views or are indifferent.

[LozHinge the Unhinged]

I refer to devolution of the current nation states into ever-shrinking sub-divisions, based upon race/religious belief/what-have-you. So instead of a couple hundred countries bickering at each other, you might have 500 or 1000 or even more, none of whom have very much in common with each other.
An extreme end-point, perhaps, but what mechanism would stop it?

[Stevinator]

@ Stevinator, it may help to think not of the people at the top, but rather the servers and kitchen staff who either don't hold discriminatory views or are indifferent.

Yes, I'm told they both serve and employ homosexuals, though i'm not sure an employee would want to be very open about it in that type of environment.

[BobCox2]

Reep what you Sow for the CEO of Chick-fil-a

I think IN-And-Out Burger does the "We are a Christian Business" without being offensive about it right.

Spoiler

In-N-Out prints discreet references to Bible verses on their paper containers. These consist of the book, chapter, and number of the verse, not the text of the passage, in small print on an inconspicuous area of the item. The practice began in the 1980s during Rich Snyder's presidency,^[32] a reflection of the Christian beliefs held by the Snyder family:

• Burger and cheeseburger wrappers Revelation 3:20—"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."
• Beverage cups and replicas John 3:16—"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
• Milkshake cups Proverbs 3:5—"Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding."
• Double-Double wrapper Nahum 1:7—"The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him."
• Paper water cups (no longer in use for customers; they are now used by employees only) John 14:6—"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me."
• License plate keychain 1 Corinthians 13:13—"And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity."
• French fry holder Proverbs 24:16—"For though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again, but the wicked are brought down by calamity."

I just got a
"In-N-Out Urge."

[LozHinge the Unhinged]

McDonald's also feature references to pop culture and fictional characters in their promotions, on a regular basis.

Don't see a problem here, myself.

[stillman]

I refer to devolution of the current nation states into ever-shrinking sub-divisions, based upon race/religious belief/what-have-you. So instead of a couple hundred countries bickering at each other, you might have 500 or 1000 or even more, none of whom have very much in common with each other.
An extreme end-point, perhaps, but what mechanism would stop it?

Why would you want to stop it? Division is the whole point. So it's devolution of something horrible and unworkable. Less of something bad can only be good.

I think there would be less bickering b/c people would be far happier in general. They all support 100% of the laws where they live, or else they move. Also, I would think the army mustered by a city vs another city is much less of a problem than nation vs nation armies.

[LozHinge the Unhinged]

Shortage of resources (real or a perceived one) plus the idea of lebensraum would lead to even more conflict than there is now.

A brilliant utopia, agreed, but fatally flawed when taking human nature more fully into account.