Silly liberal, coffee is for conservatives
Are coffee shops too liberal? Are laptops, lattes, and deep conversation an affront to traditional Midwestern values? According to the Conservative Cafe they are just that.
The Chicago Tribune ran an article last week about the Conservative Cafe. Sick of liberal infested coffee shops that play folk music, the Conservative Cafe was created as a place where politics could be discussed without the nauseating liberal influence, t-shirts sold that say “Zip it hippie” and “Peace through Superior Firepower,” and Fox News played all the time. Midwestern values would be upheld - no silly laptops or ipods. And only strong basic coffee would be served - the only stuff real people (farmers and factory workers) need to get through their day - no frou-frou lattes (and I highly doubt anything remotely close to Fair Trade).
On one level the whole thing is utterly amusing. It’s a gimmick of course - and it probably works well in a Midwestern small town. I have no problem with the idea of creating safe space for people of a particular ideology to gather and discuss. But why exactly does such camaraderie have to be based on the ridicule of those not like them? One can hardly be for anything these days without referencing what one is against, must we be cruel in the process?
But then again I’m just one of those liberal hippies who drinks lattes, works on my laptop, and likes folk music. I guess my opinion doesn’t count.
Julie Clawson
Topics: Culture |
August 6th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
I wonder whether the Conservative Cafe will ever catch on in Britain. There’d not be the war references or the refusal to serve Fair Trade (Fair Trade being fairly compulsory here) but they’d serve the coffee (no lattes, no) utterly undrinkably stewed and revolting Like it Used To Be. As much as I deplore the faceless, global, multinational capitalist decadences of Starbucks and the like, at least they’ve significantly raised the standard of coffee in this country…
August 6th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
My experience of midwestern coffee is that it’s incredibly weak: hot brown water, really. Nasty stuff. Of course, that’s coming from a liberal.
August 7th, 2008 at 5:03 am
Well … the problem is many-fold.
First, it’s the assumption that anyone who is left of dead center is a liberal. That’s not so.
Second, there’s the assumption that liberals don’t work (which I also heard from my father-in-law yesterday). I don’t know where that comes from … most of the liberals I know work quite diligently, some for no pay!!
Third, there’s the assumption that the folks are “frittering away their time” on their laptops in those coffee shops. Most of them are in fact working when they’re there. Working there, because they have no office and are trying to make it the old-fashioned American way … bottom up.
My husband, who is a defense contractor, often works in so-called liberal coffee shops on his laptop. So does his boss … who is anything but liberal.
That guy (the owner) is an arrogant prick, who’s turned that arrogance into a great marketing scheme where he can rely on the inherent snottiness of his clientele (and even get people to write newspaper articles about his shop) … and yet … Papa is especially fond of him too. It sticks in my craw, but there it is.
August 7th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Julie, Julie, Julie.
Don’t you remember what Jesus said in the sermon on the mount: “Blessed are the peacemakers for the they shall be called…liberal hippies…” or something like that.
August 7th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Hi, I came to your site because of our shared interest in being a Friend of Missional. I am glad to make your acquaintance and visit your blog. God bless!
August 8th, 2008 at 1:06 am
@ Sonja: Did you read the article? The co-owner with the “prick” is a democrat. Some of the decor includes pictures of presidents who were democrats. Humm… I’ve been to my share of establishments–coffeehouses, bookstores, etc. that have countdowns to the end of GW’s presidency, cartoons that ridicule anything right of dead center, catch names for their coffees to promote liberal ideology. My point is–the extremes are easy targets. Let’s not any of us go there. Action is a much better argument than name calling.
August 14th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Of course what I’m reading here is mostly saying what people are against instead of what they are for. I’m a conservative, with a laptop and I like lattes. I get kind of tired of folk music and Fox News. Why do we have to label people and call them names? It seems to me there is plenty of snottiness on both sides of the spectrum!
August 19th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
and don’t you think “liberals” make fun of conservatives all the time? Doesn’t make it right but you are making out like only conservatives mock liberals. It goes both ways. And frankly, although I love my laptop and my ipod (which contains some most UNliberal music like Merle Haggard and Alan Jackson among others) the whole frou frou coffee thing has got me: just plain Dunkin Donuts with extra sugar and extra (skim) milk for this gal. And I get tired of the whole leftist political agenda crammed down my throat in places as diverse as coffee shops and record stores (why does anyplace that sells amusing t shirts and secular CDs among other things assume that all their customers are as left as left can be?)