That bear is NUTS.

The BBQ Pit
1

The Bear In Question

Seems the mental health community is up in arms, so to speak, about this “crazy for you” bear sold by Vermont Teddy Bear. The bear, in case you haven’t seen it, comes complete with straitjacket and committment papers for $70. I think the only thing that’s offensive in this scenario is that there is a stuffed animal for sale for $70.

Really, if you don’t like the thing, YOU DON’T HAVE TO FUCKING BUY IT. But now, nobody can, which isn’t a GREAT loss, but why should a company have to pull as innocent a product as a damn teddy bear, because it makes a few people, um, crazy?
Fuck that. Let the market handle it, if it’s not a danger to the public (i.e. won’t choke kids or spontaneously combust) then who cares? Obviously they’ve been selling this bear for some time with relative success, and the only ones bitching are the so-called advocates. Fuck 'em. Get this, you PC hack assholes. YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT NOT TO BE OFFENDED.

In FACT, YOUR non-existant right not be offended is ABSOLUTELY TRUMPED by the ‘offending’ persons’ FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS. Sure, it may not be tasteful, but the only things that ought be forced out of the market are things that are a danger, and the things that the market will not, um, bear (oh boy, that was bad).

Anyhow, screw Vt. Teddy Co. for caving, and screw the advocates for whining about it.

2

This would be great on a t-shirt.

I like the bear, but you’d have to be crazy to pay seventy bucks for it!

3

Reading the story, did you get the sense that the mental health community is, well, crazy?

4

Dammit! That would have been perfect! Why do I always hear about these things when it’s too late?

I would’ve paid $70 for it. My wife would have loved it. It’s so…us.

le sigh

5

It would just need one tiny addition:

6

Do you mind if I use that as a sig line?

7

As of this morning, the Crazy for You bear is sold out. (I heard it on local radio)

So they didn’t cave the entire way.

8

bj: *Anyhow, screw Vt. Teddy Co. for caving, and screw the advocates for whining about it. […] Let the market handle it. *

Looks to me like the market just did, babe.

Amazing how all you free-market advocates keep complaining that people should exercise consumer pressure and appeal to public opinion instead of depending on government regulation and the courts, yadda yadda yadda yadda. And then when a group of consumers actually does that, and persuades a company voluntarily to discontinue a product in order to avoid negative publicity, you start whining about how people “don’t have the right not to be offended.”

'Course they don’t. But if they are offended, they have a perfect right to complain about it to the people who offended them. If they can persuade those people to change their policy, what’s wrong with that?

9

Ohh, I’ve got a story to share. I was thinking of starting a thread over this issue; but hadn’t done it yet. It fits with this story.

Ford has pulled a planned Super Bowl ad for their Lincoln Mark LT truck because of whiners. The ad begins with parishioners leaving a church and the priest shaking hands as they leave. Then he goes in to check the offering plate and finds the keys to a car. He walks out into the parking lot to find the Lincoln Mark LT pickup. The song “Guilty”, featured on the Amelie soundtrack, is playing in the back ground "Is it a sin, is it a crime, loving you like I do? After he slowly walks around the truck gently touching it smooth curves and admiring it’s lush interior, a man with a small girl in tow walks up and touches his shoulder, pulling him back to reality. The man smiles holds his hand out for the keys and says “Kids”. The priest smiles sheepishly and hands the keys back. The man and girl leave and he walks to the marque which says “Sunday Sermon: US”. He holds up an L and a T (get, it? the truck is the Lincoln Mark LT) and now the sign says “LUST”

View the ad here (Registration required)

Well apparently Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests has called the ad offensive to them and complained. Ford pulled the ad.

Of course you are surprised. There is nothing offensive about the ad and those who objective are freakin’ nuts.

Now I’m sure there are a couple of folks on this board who consider me one of the easily offended. I’ll grant that I don’t cut much slack over preceived anti-gay attitudes. But even I have thicker skin that this. It’s absurd.

10

Nope. Go nuts.

11

They’re already on eBay, fetching upwards of of $300. Just be sure if you go that route that it’s in the original padded cell otherwise it’s not mint.

12

I would disagree. The “market” kept the bear in business. Pissy PC whiners with access to the press and the straw cause of offending the mentally ill put the squeeze on the company. They forced them to take a product off the market that the potentially offended group probably wouldn’t buy or shop for anyway.

What’s more, it isn’t as if straitjackets are commonplace anymore. Some might compare them (as in articles I’ve read researching this pitting) to a “lynching noose” which is as ludicrous as it gets. Some things are worth putting excess pressure on, this, IMO, of course, ain’t one of 'em.

13

Pfft. $70 I’ll do, but I’m that crazy. I didn’t even bother with ebay, I knew they’d be through the roof.

14

As a retard, I’m pretty offended by that bear.

15

Boy, that’s a heck of a lot of assumptions you’re carrying around with you there. Want some help with them?

Now, I can’t speak for all “free-market advocates.” But I think the whole point of the free market is that, so long as a product is safe and works as advertised, nobody has any business at all trying to force retailers to pull products from the market, or of depriving consumers of access to whatever product they want. I have no more brief for private censors than I do for public censors. You don’t like a product? Don’t buy it. You don’t like a TV show? Don’t watch it. You don’t like a book? Don’t read it. That’s the extent of your “right” to prevent a product from reaching the market. When someone takes it upon themselves to decide what I can and cannot have access to, because it somehow offends their morality, then I have a huge fucking problem with that.

Because what if I want to own that bear? Why does their right to piss and whine about how some toy hurt their feelings trump my right to own that toy? I’m sick unto death of these self-appointed busy-bodies deciding what books I can read, what music I can listen to, what movies I can watch, because they find it offensive. Fuck them. What gives them the right to make that decision for me?

16

Buttonjockey308, you do not understand the problems of stigma that people wiht mental illness have to endure. Mental illness is caused by bad brain chemistry, yet people who have it are maginalized and treated as inferior by people like you, who buy into the idea that it’s socially acceptable to mock people with a terrifying, crippling illness.

I work for one of the mental health advocacy groups that protested against the sale of these bears, which make fun of people afflicted with an illness that already makes them outcasts in our society. Stigma against the mentally ill only exacerbates the popular prejudice against people who struggle each day against the bigotry of people who view illness as a badge of inferiority. From the NAMI Website:

Your OP perpetuates ignorance and antagonism against people whose brain-based illness makes them targets of people like you.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

17

As someone with multiple personality disorder, I’m not offended by that bear.

I am, though.

18

Oh, I dunno. There’s no law, legislative or economic, that says that price is the only signal the marketplace can send about supply and demand. If I were a merchant, I’d want to hear from customers who might otherwise purchase my products but won’t for some reason. That knowledge would allow me to assess whether the apparently offending product is making me as much product as I think it is – perhaps sales of it are brisk but its existance is costing me even larger sales for my Valentine Bears and Graduation Bears and whatnot.

In the unlikely event that VTB has a trademark on the entire concept of a stuffed bear wearing a straitjacket, I don’t think it would hold in court. Make your own bear. In fact, I think that’s a pretty darn good idea, as I think VTB may have assessed their signals from the marketplace incorrectly and made a poor decision. Find a backer and a contractor who can make up some bears PDQ, set up a website and let CNN know. Ride the free publicity to millions. Get a couple of follow-up products ready and you’ve even got a sustainable business plan.

They have no such right. They do have the right to make their opinions known to the company, which in turn has the “right” to “make that decision for you” just as they have already made that decision for you as regards any number of hypothetical bears which they have in the past considered but not marketed.

19

bj: *I would disagree. The “market” kept the bear in business. Pissy PC whiners with access to the press and the straw cause of offending the mentally ill put the squeeze on the company. They forced them to take a product off the market that the potentially offended group probably wouldn’t buy or shop for anyway. *

Miller: But I think the whole point of the free market is that, so long as a product is safe and works as advertised, nobody has any business at all trying to force retailers to pull products from the market, or of depriving consumers of access to whatever product they want.

(My emphasis.) Sorry, but this is ridiculous. Consumer activity is not limited solely to individual choices about whether or not to purchase something. Consumers also have the freedom to form voluntary associations to concentrate their purchasing power, to institute boycotts, to generate positive or negative publicity, and in many other ways to pressure the market to get what they want. This is a perfectly legitimate part of market activity.

If the advocacy groups involved here were lobbying legislators for a “Ban Insensitive Toys” law, or suing manufacturers for the pain and suffering caused by insensitive toys, I’d be squalling about it just as loud as all y’all. But they’re not. They’re simply using the free press and the free market to exert pressure on a company to voluntarily change its actions. Good for them.

The only way you can make this sound like a Bad Thing is by inaccurately describing it as “force”, which it ain’t.

Miller: Because what if I want to own that bear? Why does their right to piss and whine about how some toy hurt their feelings trump my right to own that toy? […] What gives them the right to make that decision for me?

Ridiculous. Neither of you has any kind of “right” to get your way in this matter. You don’t have a “right” to own any toy that the manufacturer doesn’t want to sell. And in this case, the piss-and-whiners successfully convinced the manufacturer to change its mind about selling the toy, which they had every right to do.

Of course, you have just as much right to institute or participate in a counter-campaign designed to pressure the company to change its mind back again, so you can get the toy you want. But it looks as though the pro-Crazy-Bear side couldn’t be bothered to mobilize, so too fuckin’ bad. They won. You lost. Nobody violated anybody’s rights. Suck it up, Whiny-Boy.

[Or, in preview, what manhattan said.]

20

They have the freedom to do so in the sense that there is no law against it, and I don’t think there should (or could) be a law against it. It’s still a fucked up thing to do. It’s petty, DIY tyranny, and I’ve got zero respect for anyone who engages in an organized boycott. Such people are showing absolute contempt for the principles of individual freedom which are the foundation of this country.

No, fuck them. I don’t care if they’re using the government to enforce their morals on the rest of the country, or if they’re using private pressure groups. The end result is the same: a vocal minority gets to impose their ideas of what’s right on the rest of us, without our consent.

Like hell it isn’t.

But the manufacturer does want to sell it. Else, they wouldn’t have made and marketed it in the first place. Instead, a small, vocal pressure group has bullied them into removing the product using the threat of massive negative publicity.

Yeah, 'cause the bear is the real issue here. That’s what I’m pissed about. The bear. I really, really wanted to own this bear, and now I can’t, and that’s what I’m angry about.

Fuck you, you mealy-mouthed limp-dick.