In the 1820s, you could buy sugar not produced by slaves - and a sugar bowl letting other people know that the sugar you used was not produced by slave
At least this part of your rant is accurate.
The rest is pure garbage.
Dear Conservatives
You know, it’s not like us liberals are doing this to make you feel guilty.
The world is a very unfair place. Most of the products we consume, the foods we eat, the gas we put in our cars, the clothes on our backs, are infused with pain and suffering of people, people as real as us, who are way less fortunate that us, some who are enslaved by oppressive regimes or extreme poverty. I’m not talking about things my ancestors did, I’m talking about the injustices that are happening around us right here, right now.
I do not feel guilty about this, it’s not my doing, it’s the way the world is. But as someone that reaps the benefits of our unfair world, I think it’s important to be aware of what’s going on beneath my feet. And I think it’s important, as a beneficiary, to take some responsibility -by doing things like paying my fair share in taxes and supporting private and public initiatives that help those less fortunate than myself as well as fostering compassion and empathy within myself. I believe that in an inequitable world, any gesture towards equity, no matter how small, is welcome. I don’t see responsibility as a burden.
That said, I think it’s important to pick your battles. I eat at Chik-Fil-A sometimes, I like their salt bomb chicken sandwiches. Still, I sometimes mention the boycott and reasons behind it to friends, because I believe that knowledge and information is a good thing. If I have a friend that won’t eat there, I’ll respect the fact that they’ve made a different calculation regarding the underlying issues. I’ll even go somewhere else with them, because when I go out to eat with friends, it’s about conversation and companionship, not chicken sandwiches.
But, to all you conservatives out there, I’m not accepting what I feel is my responsibility ( if I were religious, I might say God-given responsibility) towards my fellow man in order to make you feel bad. Get over it, it’s not about you. Not even a little bit.
If my striving to be a good citizen of the world makes you uncomfortable, you might want to ask yourself why that is instead of looking at me to change my worldview, to be a worse person just to make you feel better about who you are. Because I’m not going to do it, and if you impugn my motives and try to make my awareness of the inequities of the world into a joke just so you can justify being a whiny self-centered snowflake, I’m not playing that game.
He explained how the conversation went, so unless you think he’s lying, you do have a general idea of what kind of discussion he had.
Or - and this is a crazy idea - they changed their plans because they wanted to eat lunch with their friend, and their friend didn’t like the first restaurant that was suggested.
It’s not hard to image a lot of things. I spent a good part of yesterday imagining I was a pirate. That doesn’t make it likely that I’m going to receive a letter of marque and start raiding Spanish shipping along the Caribbean coast.
As it happens, I’ve been in that exact situation. We were doing some crunch time, working late, and the boss offered to go pick up some Chik-Fil-A for dinner. Now, I don’t like supporting Chik-Fil-A, because they’re actively trying to break up my marriage, so I didn’t want to get that for dinner. On the other hand, I still wanted to fuckin’ eat. So, what’s my play in this situation? Just give up and give money to an organization that’s actively trying to harm me? Just don’t eat? Lie about my reasons for not wanting Chik-Fil-A?
Also, as it turned out, one of my co-workers objected before I could, and it turned out literally everyone in the office at the time (about four people, IIRC) knew about Chik-Fil-A’s homophobia and were already on board with not eating there. My boss was the only one who hadn’t heard about it.
Still cancel culture?
I don’t know about that. @k9bfriender seemed set to destroy some woman’s dog cleaning career for making a statement about perceived biases.
As a small business owner I can relate to not wanting to spend time every day with a racist.
See, that’s exactly the sort of hyperbolic overreaction that keeps me from taking snowflakes like you seriously.
It’s quite bizarre that you think this is a cogent argument. What ethical principle do you imagine prohibits someone, or a group of friends or colleagues, from taking into account their subjective opinion of the quality of someone’s character in making a decision to do business with them?
You don’t even seem to understand the usual criticism of alleged “cancel culture”. To play devil’s advocate, it alleges widespread and disproportionate overreaction, usually through viral transmission on social media, to speech that is claimed to be within the bounds of civilized discourse.
That’s true to an extent. But pretty much anyone these days who suffers any consequence whatsoever of saying whatever stupid thing they felt like saying claims they’re a victim of cancel culture.
Of course. As I say, I was playing devil’s advocate. But @msmith537 hasn’t even made a coherent allegation against something resembling “cancel culture”. He’s claiming that a single individual or a group of friends or colleagues should not discuss or taking into account the quality of character of the people they do business with.
I’m having a hard time following all these rules as to what I can and cannot say in order to support free speech.
If I mutter to myself in the dark of night, “I don’t want to eat Chik-fil-A”, is that acceptable, or should I feel like a bad person for having an opinion?
It’s simple, really - it’s like how unfettered market forces will cure all that ails us, except that powerful private corporations should face stringent regulation if they do something that conservatives don’t like.
If you and I were headed out to lunch and you didn’t like my suggestion of Chick-Fil-A it wouldn’t bother me in the least. The important thing is that I’m going to lunch with you and I want to make sure we go someplace we’ll both enjoy so please speak up if you have a preference. I’m not going to feel cancelled.
I wish my friends would bring their politics into everyday decisions much more than they do. I stopped shopping at Home Depot when I became aware of the retrograde politics of their CEO, but I shopped at Lowe’s instead until one of my friends pointed out that their politics also were opposed to mine. But I don’t spend my days and nights examining companies’ politics, so I’m grateful when my friends help me out.
I should probably choose my friends more than I have been doing on the basis of their politics, but I’m a sentimental guy, find it hard to cut friends and family out of my life, though I’ve done so with both.
Warning: Calling other posters snowflakes is absolutely against the rules. Do not do this again outside of the pit. Actually as you push attacking the poster rule to often in GD and P&E. Consider this a full warning instead.
I did a quick review of your flags, and you do this far too often. Try to address this habit.
Modnote: I see why k9bfriender over-reacted and attacked you. This is also attacking the poster and not the post. Do not do this again. I don’t see or recall a series of flags for this for you. So just a modnote this time.
Then I loooove “cancel culture”. More, please.
This.
See, I don’t really agree with any of this. I am attacking the post, not the poster here.
The virtue or lack of any purchasing decision, and the existence of any company, I think typically is complicated and multifaceted, as most people’s lives are thought to be, at least until 2022. Whether Home Depot or Loews overall is a virtuous company or not SHOULD be multifaceted and not simply be checked by what someone may know about the CEO.
In my own life last night I did some charity work with one of my kids. At the instigation of my church (bad, according to some here) for the benefit of a public school (good, according to some here.) So judge away, or not. I have no idea how effective or necessary what we are doing is. I hope it was better than doing nothing, but sometimes such efforts are wasted. And we could have spent our time doing something else, or doing more, or whatever.
Virtue should be more than just a dopamine hit. A lot of what is passing for virtue here I view as nothing more than a dopamine hit. It feels virtuous to shun and shame, the person gets their hit and so they do it. Do people here really think that no Republicans have ever saved anyone from drowning? Is that what you truly believe? Or is the answer “yes, they may have in the past, but it’s 2022 and it’s a new normal, not anymore” that is so implied in some people’s attitudes?
If I need help I might have to take it from whomever I can get it from. Like the story of the Good Samaritan, it matters what the person does, not the label they have. But we’re all past that now, in 2022 we’ve finally got good and evil sorted out permanently. It’s a dopamine hit.
What does it matter to me if the guy who’s calling me an abomination once saved some other person from drowning?
According to who? Or is this just another one of those vague and unsupported accusations?
Did you get a dopamine hit from doing so?
That’s your judgment. It’s extremely misplaced and off base, in my opinion, but you are welcome to it.
Does it give you a dopamine hit to make that judgement?
No, why would you even think that to be the case? Is there something that actually you can point to to support that accusation, or did you just rescue a strawman from drowning?
Is it their attitudes, or is it your judgement of those attitudes that is at issue here?
Sure, and if someone needs help, their politics don’t matter to me.
Good to know, please do go on.
In your judgement, sure. Just out of curiosity, what did you get out of making this particular post?