(Article by Kurt Schlichter republished from TownHall.com)
Don’t want none? Don’t start none. That’s one of my conservative principles. The corporations started it, and now it’s our right – our duty – to finish it.
The fussy Bow Tie Boyz of conservatism will tell you that this calls your conservative bona fides into question. Well, question away. If “conservatism” means I have to take guff from some goateed 20-something helming a unicorn start-up who thinks I have way too many rights and way too much privilege because my ancestors came from Stuttgart and I wield a penis, count me out of conservatism. I am utterly indifferent to whether the aspiring dictator who seeks to force me to obey is a government employee or a corporate CEO. Neither is acceptable, meaning I will not accept either.
The Big Tech jerks from Silicon Valley are crusading SJWs with a few billion bucks lying around, and they have decided that their target for domination is us. They created the new public square that is the internet in general and social media in particular (check out Glenn “Instapundit” Reynold’s new book), and now they have realized that when everyone gets a say, some people are going to say things their Bay Area pals dislike. As a result, the Instafacetwittertubes have taken to policing the electronic soapboxes against anyone who might cause tension at a Santa Monica Chardonnay tasting. The Bingyahoogles are busy tipping the search engine scales toward their preferred politicians and perspectives, all leftist with an SJW twist. And companies like Salesforce are deciding what legal products, like guns, you can and can’t sell (and therefore, buy) based on what political ideas are in fashion in Menlo Park.
I don’t remember voting for any of these people to run our country. Do you?
But even as they use their power to undermine our ability to participate in the governance of our own society, we are informed that our True Conservative™ principles foreclose our ability to use our own power (in this case, GOP control of the executive branch and the Senate) to defend ourselves. The reason? Oh, well these are private companies, you see, and they can do what they please to limit your ability to be a fully participating American citizen. You can’t fight back using your most powerful weapon, your dwindling political power, because reasons and because.
Nope.
You try to hit me with a bottle and I’m hitting you with a bat. The aggressor does not get to cite my ideology to demand that I limit my own ability to effectively defeat him. What would ever possess me to agree to that?
And the idea that the conservative gospel commands that private entities are somehow untouchable is ridiculous. Let’s dispense with this silly idea that it is utterly unconservative to regulate the actions of a private business via a simple question:
Are you cool with companies refusing to let black people sit at a lunch counter? With denying them a Twitter account because they are Jewish? With telling women “Sorry sweetie, this software is for men only?”
Of course not.
But at one time, the idea that the sanctity of property rights gave a private business complete autonomy to discriminate was a “principled conservative position.” But this is not a “principled conservative position” anymore; even National Review repudiated having held it a half century ago. Today, mainstream conservatives reject the notion that the government cannot regulate against discrimination based upon race or religion. And it is well-established in the law that the Constitution gives the Congress the power to enact laws doing so, except where the government violates the religious liberty of the business owner, so put that in your cake and bake it.
Read more at: TownHall.com
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