Just a sandwich: Why do people make everything so political?

By David McElroy · August 2, 2012

I didn’t eat at Chick-fil-A Wednesday, but only because I new the lines would be around the block on a day that was being billed as “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day,” which was a response to the groups that have been trying to get everyone to boycott my favorite chicken restaurant.

For as long as I can remember, Chick-fil-A has been an enjoyable part of my life. Back when they just had the sandwich, I used to throw away the bread and pickle, because the chicken was all I wanted. I switched to the nuggets and then to the strips when they were introduced. I have other favorites at other places. The Big Mac and the Whopper were pretty good if I wanted unhealthy burgers — as most of us do sometimes. And the old, discontinued Big Twin (which was an even better knockoff of the Big Mac) at Hardee’s was another favorite. (And speaking of Hardee’s, it’s hard to beat their sausage biscuits.)

There’s lot of food from a lot of places that I’ve loved over the years. But I have to confess that with every favorite I’d add to my list (or choice I’d remember to never buy again), the only thing that mattered to me was whether I liked the food. I never once considered the politics of the people who sold me the sandwich.

The people who serve me the food and the people who manage the companies I’ve patronized almost certainly hold political views that I find repugnant. As an anarchist of the libertarian stripe (anarcho-capitalist variety), I have to accept the fact that almost everybody holds political views that offend me.

Somehow, though, I’m able to do business with these people. Why? Because buying a sandwich isn’t about politics. It’s about buying a sandwich.

At this point, I’m pretty tired of the organized pressure groups on all sides — of just about every issue — trying to make everything in life political. If I want to eat at Chick-fil-A, it’s because I want their chicken, not because I’m making a political statement. If I don’t go there for a few days, it’s not because I’m boycotting anyone. I just might have something else to do. In other words, the transactions I make in the market are for one purpose only. They’re to satisfy the needs I have to buy or sell a product or service. Isn’t that as it should be?

People today have become so eager to make everything political that it’s hard to bring up anything — even to make jokes — without someone turning it in a political direction. Is that all these people think about? Can they not turn off their partisan brains long enough to experience good-natured fun or discussion that has nothing to do with the “team” they follow — Red or Blue or whatever?

I’m glad that Chick-fil-A is thriving and I’m glad that a lot of people supported the company Wednesday. The people I know who made it a point to go there did so because they didn’t like what they saw as bullying from political activists. I’m sure there were some people who went because they hate gay people, but I don’t know anyone who felt that way. The people I talked with merely felt strongly that a company owner should be able to do what he pleased with his own money and not be attacked for it.

I hate it that Mike Huckabee and his group will get credit for making “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day” a hit, because it’s definitely political to him. I wish both sides of the culture wars would just shut up about trying to turn our mundane little choices into political issues.

The food I eat has to do with whether I like the taste or not. My food isn’t a political statement. I enjoy not having to keep up with what the management and employees of the various companies believe. Frankly, I don’t care. I just want the food I like.

Now let’s go get some Chick-fil-A.

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If you have problems with high blood pressure, I’d like to encourage you to consider making serious changes to your diet. There might be some people who don’t have any choice but to start taking prescription medications for high blood pressure, but I’d like to tell you that I have completely eliminated my issue by eliminating all sugar and almost all carbohydrates. (A couple of months ago, my blood pressure hit 185/144, which was dangerously high — considered stage 3 hypertension.) By completely changing my eating habits, I’m down 22 pounds and my blood pressure is now in the “ideal” range — without taking any medication. In addition, I sleep better and I have more energy. Getting away from the sugar-laden mess that we generally refer to as “highly processed food” has been a life-changer for me. Now my challenge is to avoid slipping back into old habits — by eating in the dangerous ways that almost everyone in our society has come to see as normal.

When I first heard about this, I thought it must be satire. When I discovered it was real, I was appalled, but I still thought it must be a one-time thing from some nutty activist. But it turns out it’s the latest bit of pandering to a bunch of far-left activists who believe that a man can become a woman if he decides to claim he’s a woman. As everybody knows, men have prostate glands. Women do not. Period. End of story. Men can get prostate cancer. Women cannot. But political activists are so eager to pretend that a man claiming to be a “trans woman” is really a woman that they are insisting that “women” be included in public health messages about the issue. This is nothing but political virtue-signaling. If you’re a man, you know which parts you have. You know that you ought to be screened. Nobody is made any safer by dragging far-left gender ideology into simple medical reality.

Every time someone tries to tighten requirements around the use of absentee ballots, I hear screams from Democrats and others on the political left that such efforts are nothing but “suppression of black voters.” These protests have never made sense to me, especially because it’s never been a secret that absentee ballot fraud goes on all the time in certain areas. (Everybody knew it when I worked in politics.) The people who engage in such fraud are rarely caught — often because the local political establishment approves of the crime — but a Democrat who won a primary election in Clay County, Alabama, last year has pleaded guilty to this sort of cheating. Terry Andrew Heflin was running for a place on the Clay County Commission. He was caught ordering seven absentee ballots in the names of various voters and sending them to his post office box — after which he used the ballots to vote absentee for himself seven time. Did he have other people cast additional fraudulent ballots? We’ll never know. But in a primary in which he was able to win with only 141 votes, it wouldn’t take many fraudulent votes to change the election. The next time you hear “civil rights activists” claim that it’s just “voter suppression” to hurt blacks which is at the root of efforts to stop this fraud, remember Terry Heflin. If you care about fair and honest elections, ballot security and voter identity should matter to you.

A state legislator in Maine has been stripped of the ability to speak in the state Legislature — and her votes are not being counted on legislative issues — all because she made a truthful social media post. Rep. Laurel Libby (R-Auburn, Maine) opposes allowing boys to compete against girls’ teams in school athletics and she’s become known for making an issue of it. On Feb. 17, she posted on Facebook about a recent example that she found outrageous. She posted side-by-side photos of a boy named John who competed last year in a state track event and won fifth place against other boys two years ago — and a photo of the same boy (now called Katie) who won first place in the same event this year against girls. Whether you find this outrageous or not, Libby is clearly being honest and truthful about the objective facts of an issue of public importance. But the state Legislature censured her. Democrats decreed that she could not speak in the House and that her votes would not count on legislation — until she apologized for the outrage of telling the truth. She refused and her constituents have been unrepresented in the state House since then. The people who promote this ideology are out of touch with reality and won’t rest until they force the rest of us to join them in this delusion. But even if you agree with “trans” ideology, you should be appalled at this heavy-handed attack on political speech.

The late Steve Jobs was at the center of our culture’s transition from analog to digital. He co-founded Apple Computer. He led the team that revolutionized personal computing with the first Macintosh. As CEO of Apple, he led the development of the iPhone and later the iPad. You would think the children of such a man would be surrounded by technology. But Jobs and his wife Laureen didn’t let their children use iPads. Their home had few screens of any kind. Even though Jobs spent most of his time developing and selling Macs and iPhones and iPads, he was home with his wife and children for dinner when he was in town. The family ate together at a simple wooden table in their kitchen — and there were no digital devices or focus on popular culture. Instead, he’s said to have guided his family toward deep discussions of art, philosophy and education — with no iPads to be found. If the man who guided the development of such products chose a different path for his own children, does that suggest that his digital experience taught him that children need human connection, not screens? And does it suggest the possibility that we might be better off if we made the same choice for our families?

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