I weighed in on the debate about whether it was okay to punch Nazis in the face around the time that white supremacist Richard Spencer was cold-cocked while giving a sidewalk speech on the heels of his infamous "Hail, Trump!" moment during the president's inaugural festivities.
I said then, and I say now, that I thought it was a bad idea to encourage individuals to take the use of violent force into their own hands for any number of reasons. First and foremost was the recognition that force should only be used as a last resort in any situation. Indeed, the use of force should be an overt admission that peaceful remedies have been exhausted.
So far, the democratic process in this country is still alive, although, admittedly, not entirely well. It's certainly not so debilitated yet that we must turn to some sort of vigilante justice in order to accomplish political change. In spite of gerrymandering and voter suppression, we are still obligated to seek redress through the electoral process.
What troubled me most about the calls for punching out Nazis wherever one might find them was the utter naivete of the recommendation. The people who would have Nazis and others like them punched imagine that, when struck, they would simply fall to the ground and that will be the end of that. "Yay us," as they say.
But the reality is that the introduction of the use of force into an already heated situation is often the beginning of an escalating spiral of violence which may lead to a brawl and, if guns are drawn as they very well might in such circumstances, uncontrolled shooting into a crowd. The severe injury or even death of innocent passersby would be the price to pay for encouraging people to demonstrate their outrage with the use of their fists.
In addition, by implicitly deputizing anyone with a grievance with fascists to punch away, we are allowing that person to determine - only by their lights - who makes for a deserving target and what amount of violence they are permitted to apply in their quest for vigilante justice. Is this something we would really want?
Ethically speaking, when we advocate for a certain kind of behavior we are responsible for anticipating and weighing likely outcomes when others follow what they believe to be our well-considered advice. Crying out, "collateral damage," as the dust settles doesn't excuse us from responsibility for consequences that could have been easily foreseen and avoided. Blood that results from our encouragement for punching is, at least in part, on our hands.
This kind of analysis brings me to the consideration of the controversy of the day, the ethical question surrounding the decision not to serve high-level Trump administration officials, such as Sarah Huckabee Sanders, at a restaurant.
The debate has been labeled one about incivility in public life, but I don't feel that that accurately characterizes all the behaviors under consideration. Perhaps the word does apply to aggressive badgering and in-your-face harassment. They are tantamount to acts of violence in my opinion.
Here I'd like to focus on the question of whether a personal choice to deny someone a commercial service constitutes uncivil behavior. To ground my position ethically, I would emphasize that I believe that your labor and your services are fundamentally yours to either offer or to withhold as you see fit. Any regard for personal autonomy demands as much.
(I'll note in passing that denying emergency services to anyone for political reasons would be ethically reprehensible. Suffice it to say, recognizing this, Geneva Conventions long ago mandated the appropriate medical care of enemy combatants.)
This does not mean that your deciding to withhold your labor is without consequences. Your boss could very well fire you for declining to do your job. Likewise, you could run afoul of laws on the books that require your business, if you run one, to serve people who are members of groups which have traditionally been discriminated against. Ironically, in this case, your act would be described as one of civil disobedience, although I feel a misguided one. That said, you could also suffer civil and criminal penalties as a result.
Now it's up to each of us to decide when to deny service to a party for what we consider morally objectionable behavior. Who else could make that decision? Some people may want to draw the line at serving a county commissioner who has voted for a property tax rate increase for example. That's their prerogative, although it probably means that finding long-standing gainful employment may be a struggle.
But sometimes the transgression of the service-requesting party is an affront to universally held human norms, for example participating in the implementation of a policy that forcibly separates children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexican border. As I have written elsewhere, this behavior is so egregious that it constitutes a crime against humanity, one which, I hope, will catch the attention of the International Court of Criminal Justice someday soon.
In these circumstances, your withholding service not only may be ethically permitted, it may be ethically recommended. This of course depends on one's personal situation, namely what the impact of such a decision might as a result of loss of employment. There may be mortgages to pay and mouths to feed, after all. We have a word for people who, after deliberation, are willing to take the hit demanded by such moral action; they are called heroes.
It's useful to recall that the people who led and participated in the 1955-56 Montgomery bus boycott, were actually prosecuted for their "uncivil" behavior. They were accused of promoting a disruption of the public order, this for simply deciding how *not* to spend their own money. That boycott still serves as a prototype for how individuals can use their personal choices in the commercial sphere to effect social change.
I'll close by applying the consequence-based analysis I offered above to my argument here. Yes, indeed, I would encourage people to consider withholding their services from a person whom they believed was involved in a process that amounted to a moral crime.
And what about the consequences of encouraging this kind of behavior? One consequence would be salutary, leading, as in the case with the Red Hen restaurant that refused service to Sarah Sanders, to consultation between managers and employees about how to address important ethical questions of the day. That seems like a good thing to me. Of course, the rejected customer would have to go elsewhere for their meal. Perhaps they would even take the opportunity to reflect on what they had done to provoke the situation, although this is hardly something we could count on.
And finally, I'll say that I would welcome having the tables turned on me as far as such so-called uncivil acts go. I very well might find myself one day a prospective customer in a restaurant whose owner or employees find my positions on, say, LGBTQ rights or women's access to reproductive health care morally repugnant. How would I feel if I were turned away?
Honestly, I'd feel as though I had been done a favor. I'd feel as though I had been been prevented from giving my money to people who oppose the things I hold dear. I would thank the restaurant and its staff for letting me know where they stand and take my business elsewhere. With pleasure.
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