It's borderline disconcerting to see someone diagnose almost
everything wrong with American politics in a single
mighty blog post, but--let's face it--if anyone was going to
do it, it was probably going to be Radley Balko (or
Gene Healy!).
Here's how it went down: Balko points
out the flaws of logic in the Whole Foods boycott supposedly
gaining momentum after CEO John Mackey wrote
an op-ed in the
Wall Street Journal laying out some health care reform
alternatives short of socialization. Mackey haters take the
ill-advised step of visiting Balko's wonderful Agitator site to electronically
shout at him. After a reasonable grace period, Balko hands
them their backsides. (Which was followed up by another
good
summation at Reason.)
Crux:
Mackey didn’t deliberately offend his customers, as some have
suggested. He didn’t spit in your face, or, as one
commenter so delicately put it, he didn’t “squeeze a turd in
[your] punch bowl.” He just overestimated you.
I think this is where a hip young lady of, say, five years ago
would interject, "Oh, snap!"