A network of male feminists in northernmost Sweden is threatening to boycott local petrol stations that sell pornographic magazines. It began as a one-man show when season worker Niklas Svenlin—with the help of a hardcore socialist labour union—forced his employer to remove all men’s magazines from the shelves.

Small groups of moralists have set a new worrying trend in recent year. A few years ago, a group of socialist postal workers in Stockholm refused to deliver material from political parties they disapproved of. The postmen were organized by the same labour union that assisted Niklas Svenlin in his cultural war.

A few removed magazines might not seem worth the rage, but what is upsetting is that when moralists are free to set the agenda, there’s no end to it. Who knows what’s next? Perhaps a small group of Catholic shop assistants decides to put an end to condoms in the supermarket. They are just as upset over contraceptives as the leftist feminists are over men’s interest in sex and nudity.

In a free society, everyone is free to purchase what he or she wishes. If you don’t like erotica, you don’t buy it. If you disapprove of certain political parties, you throw out their propaganda. The same thing goes for the employer-employee relationship. If you don’t like your job, you leave it.

Sales assistants and postal workers know what they sign up to do and have no right to use their key position to censor the public’s access to information. To act like Mr Svenlin and his friends is nothing but an expression of self-righteous narcissism. It’s all right for him to not like erotica, but it is not all right for him to decide what is best for everybody else.

More in Swedish here.