The Opposition Thread

Not only are they taking sides but they appear to be taking a loss. The shirts only cost $20 but it says that for every shirt sold they will donate $20 to Women’s March. So they’re paying for all the costs and then turning over all the revenue. I think I just decided what my next brand of sports shoes are going to be.

https://twitter.com/ezlusztig/status/830349089132933121

Here are some more “alternative facts” for us.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/shoppers-weigh-boycott-calls-buying-political-45440298

Let’s meet Courtney Taylor who believes this:

Courtney Taylor, 21, of Center Valley, Pennsylvania, said she believes shopping and politics should remain separate.

Oh except when she believes this:

But she has her limits. Taylor, who voted for Trump because she opposes abortion, said she’d stop shopping at her favorite store if it were to start donating to an abortion-rights group.

Which is exactly what the other Trump supporters do. They have their convictions and want to force them on others… until it works against them at which point they abandon said conviction because somehow that’s different.

Doublethink is great.

And by great, I mean the end of modern civilization.

Not that I agree with her, but I don’t understand your objection. When the article notes that Taylor believes that shopping and politics should remain separate, it clearly means that Taylor believes that shopping and politics should remain separate, with some exceptions. Which is fine.

I mean, in this very forum we have people saying that violence is bad, and then later making exceptions for punching Nazis. Honestly, it’s human nature to make exceptions when it comes to a personal code of conduct. People think lying is bad, except for certain cases, or helping people is good, except when it’s a real hassle, etc. We’re not robots.

Except she doesn’t believe that. She only believes that shopping and politics should be separated when it involves something that’s not important to her. As soon as it becomes important to her, she recants which means her conviction is empty. It is one again a bar to hold up to others but not herself.

Yes, that’s natural. Separating shopping from politics is good, but some things are more important. Telling the truth is good, but some things are more important. Helping strangers is good, but some things are more important. Those are all totally reasonable positions.

There is no indication in the article that she is judging anyone else’s shopping or holds her shopping as an example to others. I mean, I could see your objection if she were the president of The League to Stop Political Boycotts, trying to win everyone to her cause. But she’s just a random person who got asked a question by a reporter in a mall, and her answer amounts to “Well, it’s not black and white.” I’ll cut her some slack.

She obviously thinks abortion is a top priority. Somewhere out there is someone who thinks vaccines are a top priority. Another, unions. Another equal pay for women. Free college, affordable healthcare, GMOs, rain-forests, war, war orphans so… what issues do you think she was dismissing as not important enough too boycott a store even though there could very well be people out there with a conviction as strong as hers is about abortion? And how do you reason that not being hypocritical? She’s assuming that someone can’t hold an aversion to Trump at the same level as her aversion to abortion. That’s elevating herself pretty high isn’t it, that her conviction is somehow superior enough to invoke a boycott but not someone else’s.

This.

I tend to agree with magnet. I just don’t think this particular person has really thought this through, which I guess it the story of the world for last 18 months or so. She has internalized her own politics to such a degree that she doesn’t recognize it as politics. She feels very deeply that abortion is wrong, and would boycott a company that donated to causes that favor it, but all this other stuff that’s going on, well that’s just outside her sphere of influence, her world really.

All the issues other than abortion, obviously. I don’t see the problem. It’s her personal boycott, she can rank personal issues as she chooses. It’s not unreasonable to see abortion as the top or only priority, even if you disagree with that.

I normally don’t care about politics when I’m shopping, but I make exceptions for Jimmy John’s, Hobby Lobby, and Chick-Fil-A because I find them especially odious. But I know that lots of people are pro-life and anti-gay. Am I supposed I take that into consideration, and not boycott them? Or maybe give equal time to them, and boycott pro-gay companies too?

If I don’t care what other people think, am I elevating myself and my holding my convictions to be superior? Do I need to drop my belief that politics ordinarily don’t matter when shopping, and start researching the political actions every single company I come across?

I don’t think so.

No. But you are not supposed to get in front a camera and claim shopping should be separate from politics when clearly you, yourself, don’t believe that. If you can list a number stores that you are currently boycotting, you don’t believe shopping should be separate from politics. Period.

Whether or not everyone shares your political view is not the issue.

And not seeing the difference between the two is a reason we’re so polarized today.

[quote=“Nesrie, post:1122, topic:127656”]
If you can list a number stores that you are currently boycotting[/quote]

As far as we know, she isn’t currently boycotting anyone. The reporter asked a hypothetical.

Seriously? If anything, I blame the reporter who made his subject look foolish by leading her into a contradiction a few minutes into an interview. Any philosophy professor with a camera could do the same thing:

“Hey buddy, is lying wrong?”
“Yeah, of course!”
“Oh yeah, what if a Nazi officer asked you whether Anne Frank was hiding in your basement? Would you give her up?”
“No, of course not!”
“Yeah, well next time think harder before opening your mouth in front of my camera, dumbass!”

But she would, while claiming that people shouldn’t.

I’m not sure why this is such a strange concept. She’s a hypocrite. Her internal logic doesn’t really matter. She’s literally saying she would do what she just said people shouldn’t do.

The Nazi example is just silly hyperbole.

Oh come on with this Anne Frank stuff. You are giving this woman too much credit. In the case of the Nazis question, that individual would be AWARE they’re lying. In the case of Ms. Taylor here, she probably doesn’t even realize what she said.

You and @divedivedive want to give her a pass for that. I’m not willing to do it and here is why.

Her stance prevents us from disagreeing on the issue. Now we’re disagreeing on behavior, on what is okay and not okay to do as a citizen. Suddenly we’re at odds about something we both do except she won’t recognize that I’m not doing anything different from what she’s doing; I’m just doing it for difference reasons. That’s an important distinction.

If you asked her whether politics should normally influence shopping, she would answer no. That’s fine, I would agree.

If you asked her whether there are any exceptions to that rule, she would answer yes. That’s fine, I would agree.

We would disagree only on the specific exceptions. That’s fine too, lots of people disagree on the subject of abortion.

Neither she nor I are hypocritical. We are simple willing to live by general principles, which are occasionally superceded by other principles.

You’re not getting it. This is not about abortion, or Nazis, or Hobby Lobby, Jimmy John’s or Chick Fila. If you have go to to specific examples, you’re not understanding the point at all.

Isnt the traditional definition of hypocrite defined as “It’s wrong for someone else to do something but it’s ok for me to do it because…?”

Or has post modernism change that definition as well?

Then which of these things do we disagree on? That politics should normally not influence shopping? Or that there should be exceptions to that rule?

Because if you agree with both of the above, then we are all three in agreement. Apart from the abortion thing of course.