Opinion

The making of a Mayor

Thank you, Kevin Williamson.

While attending a new musical Wednesday night, Williamson found himself surrounded by a group of chattering, cellphone-texting patrons. At intermission, his date asked the theater staff to speak to the offending parties and remind them that cellphone use — including texting, which casts a distracting light — was forbidden.

The staff did so. Nonetheless, one lady continued to use her cellphone.

Williamson politely requested that she shut it off. The patron told him to mind his own business. In response, Williamson snatched the device and tossed it across the room, far away from its boorish owner.

Williamson was then removed from the theater after the phone-tossing.

In so doing, he stayed true to the first principle of civil disobedience: Commit an infraction — no matter how justified — and accept the consequence.

Now, we generally don’t advise people to take the law into their own hands. But we sure do understand how a defiant breakdown in social manners could provoke Williamson, a writer for National Review, to act. We also understand why that action has made him a folk hero, especially for those who increasingly feel themselves held hostage in our public spaces by the boorish and the inconsiderate.

Nearly 50 years ago, the founder of Williamson’s magazine, William F. Buckley Jr., famously ran for mayor on the Conservative Party line, knowing he would not win but hoping to advance arguments no one else would. Maybe Williamson should consider a run. He’s already shown more spunk than most of the others in the race.