# Does this make me evil?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-make-me-evil/369398
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [August 20, 2006, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-make-me-evil/369398 "2006-08-20T00:13:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@pbbth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pbbth)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2006, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-make-me-evil/369398/1 "2006-08-20T00:13:21Z")
Today I went to the local pretend-this-is-the-50’s-and-eat-while-sweltering-in-the-heat car hop place on my lunch break to get a drink and some fries, and I saw a big pink sign on the order board that said something like, “Today you are being served by people from X Community Church as a fundraiser for their trip to Y.” I was a little bit apprehensive about even placing my order at this point, but I went ahead and ordered my fries and limeade because it was 100,000 degrees and I was thirsty. (When I was in high school my theater troop did the car-hopping as a fundraiser thing and I remember that being one of our major sources of funds when we went to conventions and contests and such, so I understand how the situation works: the fast food place gets to get a day’s worth of free labor and the group that is fundraising gets all the tips and sometimes $1 for every #5 combo that is ordered or something like that.)
The actual waiters and waitresses at this place make at least minimum wage and get the occasional tip and I try to give them whatever change I have since they are trying to support themselves or go to college or whatever. I don’t believe I have ever tipped more than 75 cents or a dollar since they are carhops-they spent less than a minute bringing me my food and my money is not supposed to be their sole income since they get paid more than 2.13 an hour. This time however, I was not quite sure what to do. I am not Christian and I really don’t want to give my money to support something I don’t agree with. I also don’t want to be cheap since I would normally give the waitress something, but this person is not using the money to take care of their kids, they are using it to fund a cause I don’t support. I ended up having exact change so I didn’t tip the woman who brought me my order. Even though I don’t feel like I should support their church and I am reasonably certian that the people who were car hopping today would protest if a pagan or hindu group was fundraising there, I still felt bad about not giving her money.
Does the fact that I didn’t tip her make me evil? Since the money would have directly supported a cause I don’t agree with does that negate the evil, leaving me no more or less evil than I was before? Does the fact that I didn’t tip but I also didn’t say anything to her about why I didn’t tip or throw something at her even it out? What would you do if a religious group you don’t support was asking you for money?
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### Author:  [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2006, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-make-me-evil/369398/2 "2006-08-20T00:50:57Z")
The regular car hops are using their money for things you don’t support. You should have tipped her the same as the regular ones. Don’t eat there if they offend you so much. They didn’t try to convert you, or give you a sermon.
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### Author:  [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2006, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-make-me-evil/369398/3 "2006-08-20T00:56:12Z")
> [@pbbth](#):
>
> What would you do if a religious group you don’t support was asking you for money?
Nobody was \*asking \*you for anything. A group of people were having a fundraising event, and you voluntarily participated. To answer the question in the post title, no, you are not evil. But I think you were cheap and a bit vindictive.
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### Author:  [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2006, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-make-me-evil/369398/4 "2006-08-20T01:01:40Z")
Yeah, another vote for cheap. You could have foregone your snack if you didn’t want to contribute to their cause, but to withhold a tip _when you otherwise would have left one_ was IMO kinda shabby.
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### Author:  [@imthjckaz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/imthjckaz)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2006, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-make-me-evil/369398/5 "2006-08-20T01:11:56Z")
> [@pbbth](#):
>
> Since the money would have directly supported a cause I don’t agree with does that negate the evil, leaving me no more or less evil than I was before?
So you have something against people raising money to fund a trip?
It was a fund raiser, they performed a service for which people normally tip.
You are not evil.
Just cheap.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2006, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-make-me-evil/369398/6 "2006-08-20T01:18:04Z")
> [@pbbth](#):
>
> I also don’t want to be cheap since I would normally give the waitress something, but this person is not using the money to take care of their kids, they are using it to fund a cause I don’t support.
Next time you go to a restaurant, before tipping the waitress be sure and ask her what she intends to do with the money. If it’s something you approve of, go ahead and leave a tip!
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### Author:  [@Kat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kat)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2006, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-make-me-evil/369398/7 "2006-08-20T01:47:39Z")
> [@Suburban Plankton](#):
>
> A group of people were having a fundraising event, and you voluntarily participated.
But **pbbth** did not go there to participate in the fundraiser. He went to purchase food from a commercial business, a business that was not primarily established for the purpose of fundraising. And also apparently a business whose employeers are not considered the traditional “tipped employees”; based on the OP’s wording (“get the _occasional_ tip” - emphasis mine), they sound more like they’d be classed with fast-food employees, who are not customarily tipped (if at all).
If that is a mistaken assumption, and the employees _are_ customarily tipped (something I would actually expect for car-hops, but again, I’m working off the OP’s wording)…well. it’s just not nice to have to choose between _knowingly_ supporting a cause that you disagree with (sure, the regular car-hops might use the tips for a cause that he doesn’t support, but they’re not announcing that to him) and feeling cheated out of lunch at an establishment that you visit regularly, so I’d still sympathize, especially since he was on his lunch break and might not have had time to go somewhere else.
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### Author:  [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2006, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-make-me-evil/369398/8 "2006-08-20T03:19:03Z")
I think **pbbth** was very restrained, and not evil. I myself would have assumed that the fact that management gave its okay to the fundraiser indicated they supported the cause, and I would have left and never gone there again.
And what of the actual waiters at this place? Did they get the day off, with pay? I’ll bet not.
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2006, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-make-me-evil/369398/9 "2006-08-20T03:40:29Z")
“Cheap” is the wrong word. That implies that **pbbth** declined to offer a tip pnly because he didn’t want to part with the money, and that really had nothing to do with it.
If NAMBLA asks you for money and you say no, does that make you cheap? No, it just means you don’t want to give money to NAMBLA. This was no different. It was a group trying to hustle loose change for a cause that the OP didn’t agree with. They were essentially soliciting donations. There’s nothing “cheap” about declining to donate money to a cause you don’t agree with just because the solicitors have insinuated themselves between you and your hamburger.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2006, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-make-me-evil/369398/10 "2006-08-20T03:44:20Z")
> [@pbbth](#):
>
> …I saw a big pink sign on the order board that said something like, “Today you are being served by people from X Community Church as a fundraiser for their trip to Y.”
> …
> Since the money would have directly supported a cause I don’t agree with…
>
> What would you do if a religious group you don’t support was asking you for money?
It occurs to me that you haven’t really told us, and perhaps you didn’t know yourself, exactly what “cause” you would have been supporting. A group of people from a church were going on a trip—but was the purpose of the trip recreation, or education, or proselytizing, or doing some good work like building houses for the homeless? Without knowing this, you don’t really know whether it’s something which you would consider good, bad, or indifferent. And thus, refusing to give them anything could be anywhere from 100% justified (for example, I wouldn’t want to support Fred Phelps’s “church” for one of their trips) to kind of petty (like refusing to support a theater troupe that’s affiliated with a rival school).
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### Author:  [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2006, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-make-me-evil/369398/11 "2006-08-20T03:59:47Z")
> [@](#):
>
> If NAMBLA asks you for money and you say no, does that make you cheap? No, it just means you don’t want to give money to NAMBLA. This was no different. It was a group trying to hustle loose change for a cause that the OP didn’t agree with. They were essentially soliciting donations. There’s nothing “cheap” about declining to donate money to a cause you don’t agree with just because the solicitors have insinuated themselves between you and your hamburger.
It makes you someone who is not offended enough by NAMBLA to refrain from patronizing an establishment that volunteered to be used by it for a fundraiser – not offended enough to forego the burger, in other words, just offended enough to stiff the server. And that’s the key distinction for me, and why I put the point in italics in my initial post: IF tips are generally left (and it sounds like he does generally leave a tip, although not a big one), then by declining to leave one you are stiffing your server, no more or less. IF tips are not generally left but donations are being solicited _in this instance_, then yes, I think you can decline to donate. But if a tip is _deserved_, it doesn’t become less deserved based on what it will be used for.
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### Author:  [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2006, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-make-me-evil/369398/12 "2006-08-20T04:08:42Z")
For the people that wouldn’t go to a place that ever held a fundraiser, it must be hard to buy much. Most charitable organizations do something positive for somebody, and that’s a plus for the betterment of the human’s as a whole. I’ll support anything that doesn’t hurt me and mine, but helps others. You get back what you give.
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2006, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-make-me-evil/369398/13 "2006-08-20T04:23:44Z")
> [@Jodi](#):
>
> It makes you someone who is not offended enough by NAMBLA to refrain from patronizing an establishment that volunteered to be used by it for a fundraiser – not offended enough to forego the burger, in other words, just offended enough to stiff the server.
Well if you want that product, it isn’t your fault if they’ve staffed the place with panhandlers for the day. You should have a right to buy the product without having to donate to a church.
> [@](#):
>
> And that’s the key distinction for me, and why I put the point in italics in my initial post: IF tips are generally left (and it sounds like he does generally leave a tip, although not a big one), then by declining to leave one you are stiffing your server, no more or less. IF tips are not generally left but donations are being solicited _in this instance_, then yes, I think you can decline to donate. But if a tip is _deserved_, it doesn’t become less deserved based on what it will be used for.
I tip based on what I think of the server. If I don’t like the server, I don’t tip. I don’t see why I’m obliged to tip one server just because i’ve chosen to tip _pther_ ones in the past. Let’s be honest, carhopping isn’t really a very essential or important srevice anyway and no one _deserves_ to be tipped for carrying a bag of hamburgers out to a car. When you do it, you’re just being nice. Well, I see nothing wrong with deciding you don’t feel like being nice by giving unearned money to a cause you don’t agree with.
In a way this kind of thing reminds me of those guys who run out to your car in intersections and start cleaning your windshield. It has the same kind of shakedown feel to it.
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### Author:  [@A.R.Cane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A.R.Cane)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2006, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-make-me-evil/369398/14 "2006-08-20T05:12:13Z")
I can visualize myself acting just as pbbth did. You patronize an establishment only to feel that you’re being manipulated. Why expend your time and trouble to go elsewhere, just conduct your business and opt out of being used. Tips are meant to reward an expected delivery of service, not as a charitable donation. If they want to raise money for charitable purposes, then offer a service with that objective cleary understood, a car wash, bake sale, etc. Then potential patrons can choose to participate or not. Principle is not always an easy thing to exercise. I can’t recall ever seeing something like that described in the OP, but I think I would react the same as pbbth. It’s deceptive.
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### Author:  [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2006, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-make-me-evil/369398/15 "2006-08-20T05:17:13Z")
> [@](#):
>
> If NAMBLA asks you for money and you say no, does that make you cheap? No, it just means you don’t want to give money to NAMBLA.
However, if I knew that NAMBLA was selling lemonade, I’d patronize another lemonade stand. I wouldn’t get the NAMBLA-promoting lemonade and then not tip.
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2006, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-make-me-evil/369398/16 "2006-08-20T05:24:09Z")
> [@Shoshana](#):
>
> However, if I knew that NAMBLA was selling lemonade, I’d patronize another lemonade stand. I wouldn’t get the NAMBLA-promoting lemonade and then not tip.
Your analogy doesn’t work. This group wasn’t selling the product. Buying the product did not put money in their pockets. What they were doing was more analogous to _poring_ the lemonade that you were buying from someone else. There is no contradiction or hypocrisy in buying the lemonade but declining to offer a donation to the NAMBLA perv who poured it into the glass.
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### Author:  [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2006, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-make-me-evil/369398/17 "2006-08-20T05:32:55Z")
Okay. I amend my analogy to read, If I knew that NAMBLA was going to pour the lemonade and it was the social custom to tip the lemonade-pourer, I’d go elsewhere.
> [@](#):
>
> You should have a right to buy the product…
I’m pretty sure you don’t have any “right” here.
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2006, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-make-me-evil/369398/18 "2006-08-20T05:38:47Z")
> [@Shoshana](#):
>
> I’m pretty sure you don’t have any “right” here.
Really? You don’t have a right to decline to give a donation to a church? Cite?
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### Author:  [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2006, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-make-me-evil/369398/19 "2006-08-20T05:51:35Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Well if you want that product, it isn’t your fault if they’ve staffed the place with panhandlers for the day. You should have a right to buy the product without having to donate to a church.
There’s the complete quote. I didn’t suggest that
> [@](#):
>
> You don’t have a right to decline to give a donation to a church
I suggested that if a business that offers a product or service and associates it, for a day or every day, with a cause you don’t want to support, you don’t have a “right to buy [the] product.” You certainly may excercise your freedom of choice _not_ to buy or to buy elsewhere, but you have no “right” to, say, demand that they stop their support of the disdained cause. You even have a _choice_ to make your demand. Not a _right._
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2006, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-make-me-evil/369398/20 "2006-08-20T06:14:02Z")
> [@Shoshana](#):
>
> There’s the complete quote. I didn’t suggest that
> I suggested that if a business that offers a product or service and associates it, for a day or every day, with a cause you don’t want to support, you don’t have a “right to buy [the] product.”
You certainly may excercise your freedom of choice _not_ to buy or to buy elsewhere, but you have no “right” to, say, demand that they stop their support of the disdained cause. You even have a _choice_ to make your demand. Not a _right._
[/QUOTE]
What I said was, I have a right to buy the product WITHOUT having to donate to a church, just like I have a right to walk down the street without having to donate to a church. My point was that a hamburger joint can’t force me to donate to a church just because they sold me a hamburger.
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