Conscientious Consumerism

Scott Hardie | April 19, 2015
When a business donates money to causes that you don't support, or otherwise engages in practices that offend your political sensibilities, do you stop patronizing it? Do you believe that you have an obligation to do so?

Samir Mehta | April 19, 2015
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Erik Bates | April 20, 2015
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Scott Hardie | April 21, 2015
Personally, I don't understand how liberals get around the hypocrisy inherent in their boycotts of Chick-Fil-A and other businesses who are supposedly intolerant of gay people. Let's promote tolerance with intolerance? Let's discourage discrimination by discriminating? If I want Chick-Fil-A to come around to sharing society with people they disagree with, then I need to do that first, by sharing my business with Chick-Fil-A. In truth, I don't actually patronize Chick-Fil-A very often, but that's because I've disliked most of the half-dozen meals that I've had there, not because of their politics. :-)

Ok, I do understand it a little bit: It's at least a little about not wanting your money to go to causes that you disagree with, since some of the profit from your purchase gets donated. But what about boycotting Papa Johns because the CEO laid off staff over how much more ObamaCare was going to cost him? What about boycotting Hobby Lobby because they fought against funding contraceptives in their health care plans? I hope the rationale isn't "I have a right to do what I want with my money" because that's the same rationale that these companies use. I need to hear a better argument.