Honolulu’s Café 8 ½ appears to be serving dishes with an anti-democratic relish after the election. To the delight of many of its customers, it has barred anyone who supports President-elect Donald Trump from eating at the Hawaiian restaurant. The sign on the front door reads “If you voted for Trump you cannot eat here! No Nazis.” The sign has caused a firestorm of controversy for the relatively small restaurant.
The owners appear to maintain that there are now 62,979,879 Nazis in the United States since everyone who voted for Trump is now deemed nothing more than knuckle-dragging fascists. They will not be able to enjoy such curious delights as “Italian stir fry.”
The restaurant was founded by Robert Warner and his wife Jali. He is a former hair stylist for Vidal Sassoon in San Francisco and former restaurateur in Seattle. His wife and co-owner is quoted as saying “Robert just wants to express how much he doesn’t like Trump. If people take it personally or it hurts them, we cannot help. That’s why we say they have [a] choice if they want to come or not come. We don’t force them.”
Well, it is hardly that simple. What the owners are saying is that they wish to exclude people who disagree with them politically and further dismiss anyone who voted for Trump as nazis. It is Robert who appears to be channeling his inner “Soup Nazi” in banning customers based on their political beliefs. Many people voted for Trump because they are sick and tired of the establishment (including the Clintons and Democratic establishment). Others feel strongly about issues like immigration or health care even if they did not agree with other aspects of the Trump campaign. There were a myriad of difficult choices for voters to make this election and it was made a close election by the Democratic establishment pushing one of the most establishment figures in the country at a time when voters were demanding change.
Democracy does not guarantee results or, as shown by Robert Warner, civility. However, we are all bound by a common article of faith in our democratic traditions. The position of Warner is that our restaurants and public establishment should be able to exclude people based on their beliefs — an approach that (if followed by others) would create a balkanized system of stores and restaurants for Democrats, independents, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians, and even subsets like Sanders supporters. The alternative is to celebrate everyone’s right to choose. Indeed, with so many people not voting, all voters have a shared value in caring about the direction of their nation and participating in these elections. We do not have to agree on the next president to eat (or even talk) together. That is something Robert Warner appears incapable of understanding.
“real issues like the oceans dying and the disappearance of the rainforests ”
Wasn’t Obama supposed to fix all that?
Wasn’t his election ‘the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal’?
No?
Put a leftist in charge of the Sahara desert, and you soon run out of sand.
Thread winner. Thanks!
Next thing you know Prof Turley will be sounding the bell because a restaurant has a sign which says “No shirt, no shoes, no service.” Purely an undemocratic position discriminating against the homeless, the unkempt, and bums. They should be sued out of existence or jailed, i suppose. Surely, Prof, you can find, in this chaotic world a more important issue upon which to expound. Just jamming real issues like the oceans dying and the disappearance of the rainforests at hand to produce a daily column is arduous, but that’s your job. Fer cryin’ OL do it! Otherwise, mostly good stuff. Everyone needs a critic.
Um, no, actually that’s NOT his job. You want a daily column on environmental issues, by all means crank one up FFS.
“discriminating against the homeless, the unkempt, and bums” and
All of whom should be discriminated against.
O ye of little faith in the capitalist system. Capitalism = Darwinism. The fittest survive. The rest go away. Warner will alienate, not just Trump supporters of which there are few in Hawaii, but also anyone offended by his immaturity. His business, like the dinosaurs, will become extinct. The really stupid part of this is that Warner’s restaurant will go out of business for reasons unrelated to the product it puts out on the market. It is Warner himself, not his business, which is unfit, but I guess that does not matter to Darwin.
Contast Warner’s approach with the approach taken by intelligent capitalists in North Carolina who, when faced with economic boycotts over the bathroom bill, elected a governor committed to overturning the legislation. One continues on and becomes more vibrant; the other meets the Dodo bird.
It is Robert who appears to be channeling his inner “Soup Nazi” in banning customers based on their political beliefs.
The Soup Nazi banned customers for talking back to him and holding up the line (as well as doing so for completely arbitrary reasons). He could get away with it because the soup was great. I doub’t Italian Stir Fry is great. The Soup Nazi ended badly:
Ever take a look inside a restaurant kitchen? Burnt aluminum pots & pans. Slop everywhere. Old rotten meat products. Reuse cooking oil & grease. Pay for a meal you can prepare fresh at home for 90% less. Who are the Nazis?
Another leftist intolerant self-identifies.
More proof of Fen’s law:
“The Left doesn’t really believe in the things they lecture the rest of us about.”
They don’t believe in public accommodation in business (e.g. bakeries must support gay weddings).
They just want to stomp out any disagreement to their worldview.
It is really looking like the left wants a civil war.
I don’t think it’s going to go their way, however.
I want and would welcome a divorce between mid America and the coasts. Let the lefties have their multicult utopia!! I want no part of it.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/27/nazis-vs-trumpkins-the-prom-tearing-apart-the-alt-right.html“The press is perceiving it as an alt-right Nazi event,” he said in a phone conversation with The Daily Beast. “The alt-right is criticizing us for being what they call ‘cucked’ and wanting this to be a big tent and constructive for Trump and all Americans.
“The subtext here is that Trumpists and the alt-right are having a bad breakup,” he added.
After this fracas spilled out into the open, he’s concerned about “people in the alt-right who want to go there and ‘Sieg Heil’ and sabotage the event.” “
The left has become so accustomed to stomping its foot and getting anything it demanded, that they are now incapable of taking no for an answer. They are reacting like infants, because their leaders pampered them like infants. (see “gaslighting”)
Bull’s eye! Now the Left will get to see how it feels to be on the outside looking in at those who control everything.
On the topic of food and politics. Both Clinton and Trump have pedestrian taste in food. Trump likes fast food[ McDonald’s and KFC]and Hillary keeps that waist and thighs thick w/ pizza. She reportedly loves to scarf mass quantities of pizza after her 5th martini. And, she doesn’t care what kind of pizza, frozen is just fine.
If your not having fun in the Internet age….no soup for you!
Thank you Professor Turley for bringing in Life we may have missed!
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/yelp-users-get-revenge-after-hawaii-cafe-bans-trump-supporters/article/2610440?custom_click=rss
I see no problem with this warning. I would not knowingly support or go to a restaurant that favored Clinton over Trump, so they are doing Trump voters a favor. Also, since the restaurant owners are advertising that they are Leftists they are helping people to avoid unsanitary conditions, adulterated foods, and cockroach and rodent hairs in their food.
There was a restaurant and bar in Saint Louis called Culpeppers. It was owned by Herb and Mary. They sold it many years past. When they owned it there was a simple sign on the door. NFK
That had to do with barring kids. You can only imagine what the letters N and F stand for.
K was for Kids. No __ Kids.
The Dums, left and libs continue to prove they offer the most danger to this nation.
The restaurant owner is just looking for free publicity. If they’re offering “Italian stir-fry,” they’re probably hurting for customers. Personally, I would avoid a restaurant that mixes the dining experience with politics. When I go out to dinner, I want good food, a relaxing environment, and a respite from the regular issues of the day. So whether the restaurant banned Hillary or Trump voters, I wouldn’t go there. Just stick to the cooking, please.
Tin, BINGO! And it’s probably pronounced “Eyetalian” stir fry by this mouth breathing, knuckle dragger.
The diner must be making $$$ hand over fist if it can chase away 50% of its customer base. Maybe we are watching the beginning of its demise.
And it can join the other 97% of restaurants that CLOSE in its first couple years.
Agreement with me or my opinions is hardly a requirement for any of my friends or, anyone I engage with personally or socially. Diversity of thought and opinion makes for a much better conversation. Oddly tho, I have learned from this election season I am both “deplorable” and a “nazi” is the eyes of many on the left of the political spectrum. hmmmm..I wonder how the restauranteur would feel about signs posted at businesses which said “No Blacks” or “No Jews” are just “No Democrats” allowed?
http://dcist.com/2016/12/sold_out_pro-trump_deploraball_part.php “Americans rose up together to embrace these labels (especially ‘Deplorables’) to meme our way to the Whitehouse [sic] and elect Donald Trump.”
The inauguration celebration will take place on January 19 at the National Press Club, which organizers tweeted “has been very professional and easy to work with so far.”
Tickets for the Deploraball—”the biggest meme party you’ve ever seen”—are already sold out. According to the event’s Twitter account, 1,000 tickets were sold.
In addition to the D.C. event, the idea is for other Deploraballs to pop up around the country to celebrate the “happy warriors who, without byline or book contract, advanced liberty across the country and the world via blogs, social media, guerrilla art, music, video, and good old-fashioned hard work.”
One of the organizers is Mike Cernovich, who is doing his best to turn Pizzagate into a verb.
“The National Press Club will be the venue for a private, client-paid inaugural ball for supporters of President-elect Donald Trump—as we have for incoming presidents of both parties for decades,” NPC President Thomas Burr said in a statement. “This is not an event sponsored or endorsed by the National Press Club.”
“Anybody can book an event at the press club. We don’t have anything to do with the event. We’re just the venue,” NPC event booker Patty Powers told DCist last fall, in regards to the National Policy Institute, a white nationalist group, holding its conference there.
This September, though, NPC declined to host an NPI event amid security concerns. When that organization gathered in D.C. following the election, it celebrated with Nazi salutes and held its conference at the Ronald Reagan Building. “
wttucker
Most on both sides do not label most of the other side as nazi or whatever the nom du jour is for a liberal. However the extremes on the left seem to be identified with political and public correctness going too far, too much social service, too liberal interpretation of how men and women and women and women and men and men should be identified, treated, and given rights, etc. Whereas the extremes on the right do include the majority if not all of the white supremacists, nazis, bigots, racists, ignorant, mindless, pizza eating, beer drinking, couch living, big tv screen watching, types that made the difference this time around and elected their champion. Calling a spade a spade or a deplorable a deplorable sometimes is accurate and doesn’t necessarily paint the entire right wing with the same color.
One simply has to ask one’s self if the extreme left can be reigned in more easily than the extreme right, or if the extreme left is more dangerous than the extreme right, or if the capacity for learning and evolving is greater on the extreme left or the extreme right. It seems that the center left and right share much of the same perspectives. The country is going to be run by a bigot that was elected by the extreme right. He may do well or he may do poorly. So far he has shown that he will do what he wants. Herein lies a right wing hypocrisy. Obama was accused of ‘doing what he wanted’ for almost eight years, much of the time with traitorous Republican power mongers being the reason. Now DDT has the whole shooing match. Your champion will either work with a representation of the right side of the issues or in the dictatorial manner he has exhibited thus far, lying, cheating, screwing those in his way for the greater enhancement of his narcissistic, megalomaniac self. The clues are there from the phony orange skin and ridiculous hair piece to the profitable bankruptcies and tax evasions. We will see. But whatever we will see we will have to live with for a long while. The dysfunctional American system of government is growing more dysfunctional and is almost the complete oligarchy that is Russia. While listening to the greatest oligarch of all promise to get rid if all the oligarchs, and drain the swamp, the swamp creatures just elected him.
Let’s just be honest, you regard the extreme right (as you define it) as being much more dangerous than anyone on the left, so acts such as these by the restaurant owner are ok in order to suppress them (ie no trump supporters allowed). This is why speech codes, safe spaces, hate speech laws are needed. That is also why a no gays sign would not be ok.
If people such as I, are so wicked and deplorable, let us go, so you can create your multicult utopia.
I want a divorce!!
The restaurant biz is tough. My family operated one for 60 years. It’s even tougher when you are stupid and shoot yourself in the foot. This place won’t be in business for the midterms.
The restaurant business is tough enough without alienating approximately 40% of your potential customers.
Bet that the sign will be gone soon.
Though recognize that this restaurant is in the People’s republic of Hawaii – stupidity reigns supreme there and customers might like that sort of thing.
Trump received 30 percent of the vote in Hawaii and much less in Honolulu. Might help business.
No, it won’t help business. You alienate the 30% and you only attract the utter jackwagons among the other 70%.
But if the sign said “No Gays”, you’d be okay with that?
Of course it wouldn’t be ok and most leftists see absolutely no irony in that.
If I have to bake the cake for a homosexual “wedding”, his restaurant has to serve me provided I am dressed appropriately, act civilly and have money.
Of course, many liberals will say this is different and see no irony in that statement.
And these same liberals will call me an evil, racist, sexist, homophobe whom they would out and try to get fired if they could, for merely making this observation.
I love the “tolerance” of the left.
Of course this is stupid but not much different than a Democrat having to avoid a restaurant with Trump/Pence stickers on the windows. Legally a customer cannot be refused and simply has to take it with a grain of salt, or eat somewhere else. I was recently at an event that was attended by a rabid Republican who was heaping praise on DDT, “The people have spoken.” “If we can only get two decent judges on the bench we can reverse all the damage done by Obama.” etc. It was a family affair so I kept my mouth shut and distanced myself from the pri*k. This does bring back the thumpers refusing to sell cakes to gays. Let’s hear a few comments on that.
What a loving and tolerant attitude this fine Demo has, exclude people he disagrees with. Yep, makes sense to me.
It’s certainly not very good business judgment, but what about the free-speech issue? I don’t know that the exclusion would be illegal, and there’s been quite a bit of reaction on this blog to suppressing beliefs. This isn’t about race, ethnicity, gender or religion under any civil right’s act. It’s about a political belief and he’s giving voice to it.
If you owned a restaurant, would you reserve the right not to serve certain people? Maybe he’s not into people who voted for a guy who doesn’t like women who bleed (“[t]here was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever”) and wants to carry them like a six pack? I know I’m not. Trump’s a punk.
Jus’ sayin’.
With that sort of thought process, why was the bakery sued successfully for not baking a cake for the homosexual couple? How is this any different?