The tools kids have to wage their campaigns are very limited. They include, causing a scene, yelling really loudly, and just flat out lying to hopefully somehow change the perception of reality around them.
This brings us to what went on at Chik-Fil-A this past week. As I posted before, some people got all ticked off at Dan Cathy for making statements supporting his view of marriage. His statements shouldn't have surprised anyone as its no secret that the man is a strong Christian. However, the dum-dums out there began wailing about hate speech and intolerance. This is the lying in hopes of changing perception of reality. Cathy made no statements about hating anyone. Also his stores do not discriminate at all in regards to hiring or serving customers. That's tolerance. That's the definition of tolerance.
The yelling loudly, was mostly done in the way people yell loudly nowadays, on the internet. There were all these posts and articles denouncing Cathy and his company. Most of them distorting the truth. Media matters even posted forged documents. Then there was the moron who decided to film himself being a complete douchbag to a poor girl working at the drive-thru at a Chik-Fil-A.
But who is the real winner here? Chik-Fil-A. They posted record sales this week. They didn't really react to the same sex kissing thing except with a few amusing bits of giving sandwiches and lemonade to a few of the couples. That guy who made the video? He got fired from his job. So this little campaign against Chik-Fil-A has completely backfired. This is good, not only because it reaffirms that civilized folks won't cave to an irrational mob, but also because I love Chik-Fil-A. Its my favorite fast food place ever.
This of course isn't the first time groups have used these tactics. Remember the stupidity that was Everybody Draw Muhammad Day? That was been a bunch of people got ticked off that nutjob Muslims made death threats to artists making cartoons of Muhammad and a Dutch cartoonist was actually killed. This was a case of there being a legitimate issue, but the group that decided to take action did so in the stupidest way possible. The plan was to put so many pictures of Muhammad out there that Islamic rule about not depicting the Prophet (because they consider that idolatry) would be crushed in the name of freedom of speech and expression. What actually happened was stupid people got their lulz on and Pakistan shut down the internet in their country. Why did they do that? Because the people in that country did not want to see those pictures and it makes western civilization look like a bunch of douchebags. So the internet, being the biggest tool for free speech around, got shut down because of people abusing that freedom. Probably good thing because I don't want to see what kind of government gets elected over there riding a wave of anti-western sentiment.
And of course there the biggest example of people throwing a collective hissyfit like a gaggle of petulant children: the Occupy goobers. Remember when these pinheads were running around saying how they were going to change everything and weren't going to leave their little camps until things changed. They didn't even know what kind of changes they wanted made, but as long as people who had more money than them suffered, they were cool with it. Massive fail. The only thing that happened there was sexual assaults, people getting stuff stolen, money getting wasted, and dopes now have a police record. But at least some old hippies got to relive their glory days, right? And the pathetic thing is some people just can't let this one go. They want to be the liberal version of the Tea Party or something, but have netted zero results in anything productive. So, the all the lying, yelling, and causing a scene amounted to squat.
So what do we learn from this?
Being louder doesn't win a debate.
You can try to distort truth, but people will only put up with a certain amount of BS.
Causing a scene to try to bully an issue will always fail against having an issue or idea strong enough that a scene forms on its own.
The thing is, these three examples do have legitimate issues at the hearts of them. Equal rights for homosexual couples, artistic freedom of expression, and current economic/social-political climates are all things that should be up for intelligent discussion and debate so that one day, hopefully, we can make some meaningful progress that everyone can live with. However, there'll always be those that have that gut instinct to stand in the middle of the grocery aisle and scream and bawl because mommy didn't buy the Lucky Charms. When and if those people wise up and grow up we have another generation coming up and there's a lot of them with a very entitled mentality that leads to this sort of crap.
So be ready.
And eat more chicken.
