We’ve all read about or seen so many recent instances of MAGA hat insanity, people being assaulted or refused service just for wearing a hat with four capital letters on it. Make America Great Again is apparently a capital crime. What if I was a rabid Arsenal soccer team fan–there are probably millions–and I wanted to tout Make Arsenal Great Again? Would I still be refused service? Does the MAGA hat wearer have to be added to the ever growing list of government protected groups? What if I was black, or transgender, or cross dressing, and wore the hat, would I still be refused service, or assaulted or verbally abused? Nope, hat or not, those are protected groups. I’d call down the wrath of the local EEOC!
What if, as an unprotected and unloved straight white male, I wore a hat with two brims facing opposite directions, each having an entirely different message? One side is red, and merely says MAGA, the other side is black, and says #blacklivesmatter. I could wear whichever message was appropriate for the neighborhood, making friends of those walking towards me from the front, and enemies of those behind me. That’s one way to incite a riot. Or I could turn the hat sideways, illustrating schizophrenia. Ridiculous you say? More ridiculous than assaulting someone for their headgear?
I suppose the general rule for today’s culture is, “outrage makes anything acceptable.” Though of course, it doesn’t. Outrage is only your personal emotions worn on the surface. That doesn’t make anything done from that state of intoxication acceptable or desirable, no more than behaviors driven by being drunk/high on alcohol, meth, cocaine, heroin, or PCP, for instance. Outrage is intoxicating, and you are no less dangerous than the drunk or drug addict panting for a hit.
Oh, am I being intentionally naive? Don’t I know that MAGA stands for President Trump? So what? Does that give you the right to break laws because someone is wearing that message on a hat? Some normally law abiding business owners say publicly that they will refuse service to someone wearing a MAGA hat. Huh? Isn’t that illegal? No, it’s now illegal to refuse service to a man kissing another man, or someone flamboyantly dressed like the other sex (ah, a clothing crime, because they must be trans), or someone with a different skin color. I would like nothing better than to see Billy Porter, that black actor who considers him/herself to be the wife of a man, who wore that flamboyant “tuxedo gown” to the Oscars, wear a MAGA hat to a restaurant virtue signaling by refusing service to the hat!
Yeah, that’s likely! I can always dream. Isn’t that America?
