As a test of the rigor of this consequentialist morality, I noticed while in a public restroom earlier today that the toilet paper holder and the toilet paper were Georgia Pacific products. Georgia Pacific is a subsidiary of Koch Industries, which is owned almost wholly by the Koch brothers, billionaires who pump billions of dollars into right wing causes.
If you had sat down on the toilet and already taken care of your business, and then noticed the Georgia-Pacific logo, would you use the toilet paper or not? If it’s truly a moral issue you’d be obligated to find some alternative solution, because using that toilet paper means the owner of the public restroom will eventually order more, so you’re contributing, knowingly, to a right wing cause.
“Poisonous tree ideology”? That’s… not what it means. Anyway, that’s beside the point. You’re the one telling people not to boycott, not me. I’m just saying that if Cathy chooses to mingle his business operations with his private assholery, his company is fair game. If he kept them separate - no matter that the money may ultimately go to him - it’d be different.
If I really felt that strongly about Georgia-Pacific, then I’d wipe my ass, get out of the bathroom, then either request that the business purchase different paper or else I’d refuse to patronize their business and let them know why. But in the bathroom at the moment of discovery, I kinda need a clean asshole.
The business bought that paper, I didn’t. I can’t control what they do, I can only control my relationship with them.
You keep wanting to make the personal boycott argument a necessarily consequentialist argument, and it’s not. And nobody here is using Cathy’s use of money as a justification for any sort of “horrific” act. In fact, a good portion of us are morally castigating Menino and Emmanuel for merely intimating that they’d do something we consider unfair and undemocratic, which is far short of horrific.
Bullshit. Nobody has a moral duty to investigate every single entity involved in the logistical chain of every business they have a relationship with. Due diligence has to have limits, and “I have no reason to suspect anything untoward” is a generally reasonable limit.
I didn’t say anything about SSM. I’m talking about gay rights as a whole, and you’re on record as saying (among other things) that the adopted children of gay couples should be taken away from them. You and Cathy are of a kind, even if the exact expression of your deep-seated bigotry is not identical to his.
Perhaps you can view the boycott in terms of incorporating moral externalities into the free market. In the same way that one might be willing to pay more for organic produce to encourage more sustainable land use, or buy cage free eggs to encourage more humane treatment of animals, one might chose to purchase their fast food and paper towels from an alternative source to discourage the funding of bigotry.
On the overall moral balance, going around in public with an unwiped arse is a bit worse than consuming a few cents worth of the product of a company I don’t like.
Also, discovering the truth right in the middle of a transaction is different from entering into the transaction in full knowledge. Getting blindsided like that doesn’t count. It’s like having sex with the nice partner…and then getting billed for it. If the economic deal wasn’t advertised right up front, then I am not guilty of “hiring a prostitute.”
But, yes, you have some good points. The idea of a boycott makes me uncomfortable. It’s a tool that should be used only judiciously. It’s a big, ugly, blunt weapon. It blurs the line between individual and corporate speech.
Now, in this case, it’s been established that the company donates to certain causes, and that makes them fair game.
But what if it were merely the owner of the company who made donations in his own name…yet his income derives from corporate profits? Where is the line? Shouldn’t he have the right to support any cause he wants? He isn’t equivalent to the company; there should be some moral insulation there. As you observe, the “guilt by association” needs to attenuate with distance. No big company, anywhere, is wholly free of any undesirable association. Once you start dealing with hundreds of vendors and other business partners, you know that at least a few of them are associated with unsavory persons and causes.
Think of it this way: we all have our favorite causes. One guy might be all about gay rights. Another about abortion rights. Another about ecology and pollution. Another about religious issues. We can’t all focus on everything, and so we specialize. For those who feel the most strongly about gay rights, the CFA boycott is front and center. For those who care more about environmental issues, there are other companies that might better be boycotted. You do your best with the limited influence at your disposal.
And, since this is the pit, um… Ten thousand rampaging gophers up yer nostrils, or something.
Given that this example of a retarded flounder who learned to talk is on record saying homosexuality is a mental disease, gays should have their kids taken away, all gays are pedophiles, all gays have HIV, and all gays regularly visit the emergency room to have animals removed from their bowels, SOOOOOMEHOOOOW I don’t think a dispute over the efficacy of “incorporating moral externalities into the free market” is the motivating factor in his position.
Good grief. I realize it would probably be a fair amount of work but I would love a few links to such a marvelous collection of stupid claims. Particularly the one about animal removal from the bowels.
I’ve thought poor Martin was a nitwit for some time but I had no idea how much fun I had missed.
I’m happy to let him use his own money if he wishes.
It’s the use of corporate money that bothers me personally. There’s no sacrifice there. Cathy doesn’t give up any of his own money when he donates to his pet causes. That $5 million didn’t come out of his pocket, it’s basically a bonus in addition to his regular income. It’s the same thing, but to a greater degree, as a CEO who buys a Porsche as a “company car.” Hell, the Porsche would be better; it costs less and doesn’t seek to cause harm to others as anti-gay donations do.
Arguably you can say that it’s his company, he owns it, and therefore it’s his to do with as he chooses. But this is why I’m increasingly growing frustrated with corporate personhood; the economic leverage they can wield on the sociopolitical landscape can be destructive. At least when it’s a company doing it I can boycott the company.
Here’s “homosexuality is a mental illness.” He also says in the same post that mental illness should be a bar to voting, so one could make a reasonable inference that he thinks gay people shouldn’t be allowed to vote. And hereMartin voices the belief that the adopted children of gay couples should be stripped from their parents. Not sure if he feels the same about the biological offspring of gay people.
As for “all gays are HIV-infected pedophiles who cram hamsters up their rectums,” I’ve not personally witnessed him saying those things. Give Martin Hyde’s almost total moral depravity, I wouldn’t be surprised if he believed those things. But, on the other hand, Condescending Robot is an immensely stupid poster who has demonstrated a constitutional inability to comprehend even the simplest of concepts. So, even odds if Martin actually said those things, or if Condescending pulled them out of his own asshole.
In context, it’s more of a parody/escalation of Condescending Robot’s own characterisations, plus the latter isn’t a generalisation. However, given Martin Hyde’s total turpitude, I wouldn’t take seriously anything he says on this matter or any other.
He also calls the transgendered and transsexuals mentally ill in several threads, comparing them to someone who believes that they are Napoleon, etc. Furthermore he’s assessed SRS as doctor-assisted self-mutilation…and more stuff; I don’t even have time to look it up. Given that posting history, it begs belief that he would support SSM in any fashion whatsoever.
Gee thanks and all, but doesn’t the descent from “I just don’t want to politicize sandwiches…” to “strip gays of voting rights, take their kids away, and put them all in jail for raping your children” within the space of a two-page thread prove that I’m not exactly being hyperbolic when I immediately question the moral character of anyone on the pro-Chick Fil-A side?
Well, no. Martin Hyde is one (very strange) person.
Suppose there is one person out there who supports gay marriage because he wants to marry his dog or toaster, and believes in the slippery slope talk that Santorum et al. like to engage in.
Does that mean the credibility of all people who support gay marriage is instantly suspect?
It’s patently obvious how I’m using the term. In legal circles the metaphor “fruit of the poisonous tree” came about because of an initial bad or improper act attaching its impropriety to anything subsequent to it. So if a police officer conducts an illegal search, anything that follows directly from it would be inadmissible in court. It’s obvious we aren’t talking about a court case or the legal system at all here, but the legal profession doesn’t have a fucking monopoly on metaphors. It’s obvious that here I’m referring to some people that seem to believe generally that it is immoral for money to flow to anti-gay marriage groups. To them, even if they aren’t directly donating, as long as their money goes through an intermediary to fund an anti-gay marriage group then doing business with that intermediary is, to them, just as immoral as making the donation themselves.
I’m using the metaphor and that’s how I’m using it. I’ve made my usage of it clear, and there is absolutely no logical reason to discuss such pedantic minutiae again.
I’ve gone back on forth (maybe not on the board, maybe so) on the issue of gay parents. Biological children of gay people, with an established relationship, shouldn’t be taken from their parents anymore than children should be taken from schizophrenic or bipolar parents. Yes, if the schizophrenia or bipolar is so bad as to make them unfit parents, take them away. We can’t just start taking kids away automatically following from a given diagnoses.
I think I’ve more fully clarified my opinion on the matter of voting. I think persons in mental facilities, under commitment, who are deemed unable to basically function in society should not be able to vote. If someone is currently competent enough to be out in society, I’m okay with them voting.
I have said those things in this thread, it’s obvious I will never have the same opinion on homosexuality as any of the boards gays, that’s just how it is. However I said those things in response to Condescending Robot as hyperbole, because he was basically acting like anyone who didn’t scream with a frothing mouth about how terrible Chick-fil-A was (not just because of this, but because of the quality of their food) that they were cross burners or whatever. He proceeded to say a lot of basically inflammatory, retarded, stupid things over and over again so I basically decided to ape the sort of reaction he wanted as a hyperbolic response to his behavior. I thought that was obvious in the context of the exchange.
Given I’ve never had any hesitation to express deeply unpopular views here, I don’t think it unreasonable to ask that people take me at my word that I don’t actually believe those ridiculous (and nonsensical) things.