Freedom and Chick-fil-A

I consider Aaron Worthing an expert on the impacts of abridgement of Freedom of Speech. Regarding the Chick-fil-A dust-up, he says:

So whatever you think about gay marriage, I ask people that believe in freedom of speech to come to Chick-Fil-A and order something this Wednesday.  Show these petty fascists that this kind of bullying actually helps the businesses they seek to punish.  In other words, give them the benefit of the Streisand Effect.

And the good people in those communities need to run these people out of office.  They need to show less tolerance for those who are intolerant of differing views.  Because it is elementary but apparently too many people just don’t get it: freedom of expression is essential to democracy itself.

They syllogism is simple, but it bears repeating:

1.         The right to vote implies the right to choose freely on every subject relevant to that vote.

2.         The right to choose implies the right to receive information and hear arguments about that choice.

3.         We cannot receive information and arguments about the choices we make in our democracy unless people are free to express themselves.

4.         Therefore freedom of expression is essentially to democracy.

And so when an official seeks not only to regulate behavior but even opinion and expression, then that person is seeking to create a very real tyranny, to strike at democracy itself.  And we should have absolutely no tolerance of that.

From all accounts, Chick-fil-A is having a banner day as Americans seem to be signaling that they may be a bit fed-up with the left’s culture war.

Of course, this provided a perfect opportunity for the someone to phone in a bomb threat. I’m sure “Tea Partier did it” will hit twitter any moment now…