The Venti Socialist: Starbucks Founder Howard Schultz (by ContraSuggest)

Editor's Note: No fair trade coffee was harmed in the writing of this article.

Can you imagine a world in which people wished for social improvement while advocating empty panaceas?  A world in which exists an ever-changing, make-believe decency, cut off from the source of true decency?  A magical place where the hungry are fed, the homeless are housed, all is free, and everybody frolics around amidst the butterflies and daisies, sipping four dollar cups of latte?  Unbeknownst to most people, there actually exists such a world: the world of Starbucks founder Howard Schultz (here forward referred to as Howie).

In the interests of full disclosure, I need to divulge a few things before continuing.  I love Starbucks products.  I continue to spend long hours sitting comfortably in my local Starbucks, sipping tea, reading, writing, and talking to friends.  I am a Starbucks Gold Cardholder since 2011.  In my experience, Starbucks baristas are generally well-trained, hardworking and courteous people, making their coffee shops a comforting refuge from a stressful world.  So it isn’t Starbucks's products or employees that I object to, it’s Howie's endless spewing of empty leftist platitudes, forever cloaked in a manufactured, condescending righteousness.  His obedient devotion to, and advocacy of,  the full range of leftist shibboleths is well known.  From Obamacare, to same sex marriage, to snake oil environmentalism, there isn't one loopy left policy that this crony capitalist hasn't supported.  Despite all of this, Howie's java giant has been responsible for some laudable actions, such as charitable giving, and I would never presume to take that away from him.  This of course does not justify his full throated support for every toxic socialist scheme that comes down the pike.

You see, Howie always phrases all of his political statements very, very carefully, so as to sound sensible, dispassionate, and inoffensive to the average coffee drinker.  He bears the key hallmark of a first rate demagogue, the ability to sweet talk people into agreeing with his radical opinions.

Most recently, Howie expressed outrage at President Trump's executive order shutting off the issuance of all new immigrant and non-immigrant visas for 90 days from a mere seven unstable, terrorist  producing nations: Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, and Libya.  Was Trump's move a sensible one?  Sure.  Constitutional?  Check.  Will it make us safer?  Likely.  So what's Howie's beef?  His response was one designed to create a straw man, attributing the plight of refugees worldwide to Trump's EO, which applies only to a portion of the refugees that terrorist organizations have vowed they would infiltrate in order to attack us.  Howie stated that he won't "stand by, nor stand silent" for this, and that he's "...developing plans to hire 10,000 of them (refugees) over five years in the 75 countries around the world where Starbucks does business."  Well gee, that's all fine and dandy, but exactly how does Starbucks plan to conduct standard employee background checks on those he plans to hire from the countries on that list?  Is he going to check with ISIS's human resources department?  Maybe he can call Bashar al-Assad for references.  Or could it just be that Howie is a mere nattering propagandist with a political axe to grind?       

In his usual patronizing, sanctimonious style, he continued to admonish Trump's agenda by decrying the proposed overturn of Obamacare and the building of a security wall on the US's border with Mexico.  No matter that Obamacare has been an utter and complete disaster for Americans, causing businesses to curtail employment, millions to be dropped from their policies, fines charged for violating mandatory participation, millions pushed onto government welfare rolls, soaring premiums, increased co-pays, loss of choice, and a half a billion dollars cut from Medicare.  Howie would have us believe that the only laws that shouldn't be enforced are our immigration laws.  That the US federal government does not have a right and an obligation to protect the American people from actual and potential external threats, and that the US border should be nothing more than an imaginary line on a map.

In the future, the Starbucks CEO should be a little more mindful that us low-brows who voted for Trump because we couldn't bear the thought of President Hillary, make up a fair number of the people who patronize his establishments.  So perhaps he should think twice before spewing forth another nauseating, cliché-filled lecture disguised as a press release.  Not all of us who drink your overpriced coffee are interested in being preached to by an arrogant uber-liberal know-it-all.  Oh, and have a nice day.