Friends and foes of bacon usually get along fine in this world. But a poster at Front Post Forum couldn’t abide a sidewalk sign posted by one Sneakers Bistro and Cafe that said “Yield for Sneakers Bacon.”
Did somebody say “bacon”?
“Given the large number of Muslim families in Winooski,” complained the complainer, “as well as many others who do not eat pork
it seems unnecessary for this insensitive business sign to be at the city’s main crosswalk.” Oy, the unnecessary insensitivity!
Winooski, Vermont, cafe owner Marc Dysinger replied with mollifying courtesy and forthwith removed the sign. The unnecessary and insensitive cave-in failed to extricate him from controversy, though, provoking as it did a spattering backlash by those of pro-bacon, pro-toleration-of-bacon-promotion sensibility.
HotAir blogger Mary Ham suggests that such capitulation can only embolden unreasonable complainers eager to impose their tetchy sensibilities. “If the word bacon can be deemed offensive by one person — a single member of one’s community — and thus eliminated from the public discourse, there will be plenty of other formerly innocuous words deemed the same, and then exactly how free is your speech?”
As slippery slopes go, this one isn’t quite a toboggan slide. Not yet. But silly, trivial precedents can lead to slightly less innocuous precedents, and so on. Therefore, just to be on the safe side, all those in favor of bacon say: “Bacon!” Maybe even on a yard sign.
And don’t let anybody cow you into silence about it.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
11 replies on “The Latest Sizzling Controversy”
That slope is a lot steeper than you think. Try saying one of those banned, innocuous words as a student in one of our conformity factories and watch what happens.
The disease of intolerance is a cancer eating at the fabric of our society.
the word “Islam” is pretty offensive to me.
I have to disagree with your saying this isn’t quite a toboggan slide. Where does it end?
We have already seen travelers denied cab rides because the drivers were ‘offended’ by the sight of liquor bottles in travel bags. Is that a trivial precedent? I don’t think so.
Lots of people don’t eat pork. So what? Lots of people are vegetarians. Does that mean beef cannot be advertised, lest it offend someone?
Whatever happened to the principle of ‘to each his own’.
Personally, I eat more bacon than in the past, precisely because some people find it offensive.
I find ‘sharia’ to be highly offensive. Let’s ban it, shall we?
A driver offended by bags of liquor and declining to give the bearer of such a ride is absolutely not on the same order as publicly chastising a restaurant for advertising bacon. The person who complained is obnoxious, but her comment would have had no effect but for the obnoxious mea culpa and immediate cave-in of the restaurant owner, who likes bacon. The taxi driver may well have experiences with winos that he does not wish to repeat, and no inclination to inquire further to determine whether the person with the brown bag is of the same ilk who had given him trouble in the past.
When I grew up it was a polite society that didn’t discuss people’s religion, erectile dysfunction, etc. What you ate or didn’t eat was your business. If someone placed a Menorah in the window or Kwanza decorations or a manger scene on their lawn no one was grieved. It was all part of being the melting pot & the freedom of being American. Now we can’t call Christmas, Christmas but Winter Solstice vacation. We can’t proclaim a love of bacon because it offends Muslims? When will it end?! Our freedoms are eroding & this example of politically correct pressure is just another example.
I just view it as idiots bickering over nothing(kind of like most talk radio). Let them waste their time and energy on nothing. It gives the rest of us a better shot at something that matters.
Please stop “moderating” comments. That’s annoying and non-user friendly to posters. If a comment is offensive, just remove it, as is done on most other discussion boards.
🙂
Appeasement only encourages the “perpetually offended” toward further grandiosity.
“HotAir blogger Mary Ham”
Seriously? How insensitive of her to have that name.
More bacon for me!
Do these people also have complaints when they cruise past the Oscar Meyer products in grocery stores? Or is that the next “insensitivity” objective? Will we have to go behind a divider wall to purchase pork products, increasing prices even more?
One question — if God does not want us to eat pigs, why did he make them so yummy?