# What do you refuse to do out of principle? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 6, 2010, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-refuse-to-do-out-of-principle/549428 "2010-08-06T17:56:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2010, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-refuse-to-do-out-of-principle/549428/141 "2010-08-09T18:34:35Z")
In honour of this thread, I feel like buying an Israeli-cut diamond and giving it to a Japanese beggar so he can afford to buy some meat at Wal-Mart. 😛 I will then write a best-selling novel based on this experience, which will be recommened by Oprah ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2010, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-refuse-to-do-out-of-principle/549428/142 "2010-08-09T18:39:47Z")
> [@Balthisar](#): > > > [@Superhal](#): > > > > I refuse to buy American cars until they stop ripping off consumers. I worked in a gas station, and Ford had some balls putting out the garbage that they do (80’s.) > > Dude, it’s almost three decades later, and one constantly hears Ford mentioned with Honda and Toyota. Can’t blame you for continuing to avoid Chrysler, though! Also, Ford didn’t take the bailout. My next car will probably be a Ford. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2010, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-refuse-to-do-out-of-principle/549428/143 "2010-08-09T19:03:10Z")
> [@Emily\_Litella](#): > > I never go any place where they’ve sent body bags ahead of time. What about hospitals? ---
**Author:** ![Surly\_Chick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Surly\_Chick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surly_Chick)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2010, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-refuse-to-do-out-of-principle/549428/144 "2010-08-09T19:04:19Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > In honour of this thread, I feel like buying an Israeli-cut diamond and giving it to a Japanese beggar so he can afford to buy some meat at Wal-Mart. 😛 > > I will then write a best-selling novel based on this experience, which will be recommened by Oprah Which I will not read. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Jelly\_Roll](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Jelly\_Roll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jelly_Roll)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2010, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-refuse-to-do-out-of-principle/549428/145 "2010-08-09T19:14:58Z")
I refuse to wear clothing that advertises the store they came from and I refuse to let my daughter be a corporate shill either. Well, for now; she’s 2 and if she wants to wear clothing emblazoned with a store or brand when she’s older (as most teenagers do) then I probably won’t fight that battle. I also refuse to buy a foreign car. My dad is a retired GM worker and I just can’t buy foreign. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2010, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-refuse-to-do-out-of-principle/549428/146 "2010-08-09T19:49:45Z")
I just thought of another one: I don’t cross picket lines. My grandfather was a union man with Greyhound, my brother was a UPS driver who went on strike in the 90s. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2010, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-refuse-to-do-out-of-principle/549428/147 "2010-08-09T19:56:32Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > I just thought of another one: I don’t cross picket lines. My grandfather was a union man with Greyhound, my brother was a UPS driver who went on strike in the 90s. Oh, yes, I will throw in with this one as well. Union proud! ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2010, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-refuse-to-do-out-of-principle/549428/148 "2010-08-09T19:57:19Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Are you serious? Yes, I was serious, but we took it to another, more relevant thread. ---
**Author:** ![vandal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/858c86/32.png) [@vandal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vandal)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2010, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-refuse-to-do-out-of-principle/549428/149 "2010-08-09T20:28:17Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > > [@Emily\_Litella](#): > > > > I never go any place where they’ve sent body bags ahead of time. > > What about hospitals? Body bags typically get sent to the coroner’s office. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2010, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-refuse-to-do-out-of-principle/549428/150 "2010-08-09T20:35:57Z")
I will not listen to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Free Bird if I can escape it in any way. It’s just a promise I once made to myself that I have so far managed to keep. I strive to spell all things correctly at all times. If I’m texting, I spell everything out. If a business or a person spells their name in some way I don’t like…too bad, I have to use their version because they are the authority. If I see a misspelled sign or TV commercial, I don’t do business with that company for as long as I can remember not to. I only buy the eggs of free-range chickens, and I don’t eat veal or foie gras. According to my principles, I really shouldn’t be eating meat at all…but at this time I choose not to pursue that thought any further. I don’t bring up the topic, but if religion is being discussed, I identify myself as an atheist instead of keeping it a secret as I once did. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2010, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-refuse-to-do-out-of-principle/549428/151 "2010-08-09T20:49:48Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > I don’t bring up the topic, but if religion is being discussed, I identify myself as an atheist instead of keeping it a secret as I once did. I will never understand this. Being an Atheist is probaby the coolest thing I can think of. For someone to say to you, “my god is the all powerful being of the universe and you must bow or burn” and then you to respond, “Nah, I don’t think so.” Is just cool. Everytime I hear someone say they are ‘in the closet’ about it, I’m thinking, come on out! Ok, I had to do a lot of googling and wikiing in this thread to understand a lot of it. I still don’t understand why one poster won’t use an ATM. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2010, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-refuse-to-do-out-of-principle/549428/152 "2010-08-09T21:01:05Z")
I wish there were more like you, **Nzinga**. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-refuse-to-do-out-of-principle/549428/153 "2010-08-10T04:29:04Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > In honour of this thread, I feel like buying an Israeli-cut diamond and giving it to a Japanese beggar so he can afford to buy some meat at Wal-Mart. 😛 > > I will then write a best-selling novel based on this experience, which will be recommened by Oprah That actually reminds me of another one. I never give to beggars here. It’s all a scam, and they turn the proceeds in to their minders at the end of the day. There is a true beggar mafia straight out of Dickens, and if a real beggar appeared on the streets of Bangkok, he’d probably get the bejeesus beaten out of him for violating turf. They tend to run in monthly themes: Children with puppies, girls with babies etc. The babies are usually not theirs. A transvestite beggar in Pattaya got caught renting “her” neighbor’s baby to go beg with. I had a nodding acquaintance for years with the lady beggar set up in the same spot with her fake wound. Many are Cambodians brought in from the border area just to beg, as they tend to look pitiful; the police once rounded them all up across the city and, in what must have been a real treat for them – their first plane ride! – flew them all back to Phnom Penh for the government there to deal with. ---
**Author:** ![newcomer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e5b9ba/32.png) [@newcomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcomer)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-refuse-to-do-out-of-principle/549428/154 "2010-08-10T05:05:40Z")
Listen or take seriously rap music Pay attention to stupid back home cultural protocols or customs Discuss religion Pretend IQ is not important in social situations ---
**Author:** ![Sven\_of\_the\_Jungle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecb155/32.png) [@Sven\_of\_the\_Jungle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sven_of_the_Jungle)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-refuse-to-do-out-of-principle/549428/155 "2010-08-10T05:26:02Z")
I don’t give to beggars. I’m more inclined to give a cigarette than a dollar, and since I’m quitting smoking in two weeks, then that too will dry up. I will, however, invite them to lunch if I’m headed that way. I haven’t been taken up on that offer yet, but I’ll still offer. There are more than enough people genuinely in need, and I won’t enable some people to milk others for their kindness and compassion. But I won’t ignore them, either; they’re just as deserving of respect as anyone else. Needing $2.35 for the bus at 2:00AM (when the busses here stop running at 1:00AM and the fare’s $1.75) doesn’t make you any less of a human being. It just makes you a liar. I won’t own a car, unless I ever have children. Even if I had the money, the most I’d probably get is a decent motorcycle. No point in buying 3,000 pounds of metal to move my 160 of meat around, when 20 pounds of bike will do just fine. I don’t fill out forms passed out by street-corner canvassers. I once got registered Republican during the first Bush campaign under the pretense that I was just changing my address on my voter registration card, and I decided from that point on that if I cared enough about an issue, I would look it up myself. Apart from that, I’m pretty principle-free. ---
**Author:** ![InterestedObserver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@InterestedObserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InterestedObserver)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-refuse-to-do-out-of-principle/549428/156 "2010-08-10T05:38:02Z")
1. Take a random drug test. I HAVE actually done it, once, for a temp job I really needed…never again. I did and would test clean, but I have long felt strongly it is a violation of my constitutional right to be free from “unwarranted search and seizure of my person”…I could care less if its a corporation or the government violating me. If I am doing my work well, it is none of their fucking business what I do on my own time/what’s in my piss. :mad: 2. Support factory farming in any way. (I don’t eat meat at all, with the exception of wild, line-caught tuna or salmon now and then, and buy only cage-free, drug/hormone free eggs.) 3. Do business with a bank as opposed to a credit union. 4. Keep extra money inadvertantly given to me in change by a checker/teller/server…I know that comes right out of their pocket. 5. Cross a picket line. 6. Cheat in a relationship. Way I see it, break up first if you aren’t happy. I’m sure there’s a few more, but it’s actually a bit suprising to me that I really had to think to come up with those…lots of things I refuse to or avoid doing, but rel. few based on principle. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-refuse-to-do-out-of-principle/549428/157 "2010-08-10T06:17:18Z")
> [@vandal](#): > > > [@Alessan](#): > > > > What about hospitals? > > Body bags typically get sent to the coroner’s office. Nope, hospitals have plenty of body bags on hand. I Know because I was an EMT and I’ve helped nurses zip up and move bodies to the morgue before. When people die, they get leaky and it’s for everyone’s interest to get them in a big ziplock bag ASAP. ---
**Author:** ![vandal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/858c86/32.png) [@vandal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vandal)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-refuse-to-do-out-of-principle/549428/158 "2010-08-10T06:44:16Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > Nope, hospitals have plenty of body bags on hand. I Know because I was an EMT and I’ve helped nurses zip up and move bodies to the morgue before. When people die, they get leaky and it’s for everyone’s interest to get them in a big ziplock bag ASAP. Yes, people die in hospitals, and yes, hospitals do have body bags on hand for when such an occurrence happens. However, when people die _outside_ of hospitals (which is what we are talking about here), their bodies typically do not get sent to a hospital. Not much a hospital can do for someone who is already dead. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-refuse-to-do-out-of-principle/549428/159 "2010-08-10T14:10:07Z")
Here’s one. I flat out won’t discuss religion or abortion at work. Religion if you ask me, I will most likely say I am an atheist or on occasion have simply said I was a non-believer. Abortion? Even if you ask me directly most of the time I will say, “I don’t feel comfortable discussing this at work.” People have pried but I stick firm. Hell, if you know me at all you’d guess my inclinations but it is such an emotional topic it can’t be discussed. I still remember my normally calm History teacher in HS bawling me out because I dared to say maybe abortion wasn’t that bad all the time. Nice one, dude - taking it out on a 17 YO. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-refuse-to-do-out-of-principle/549428/160 "2010-08-10T14:21:08Z")
> [@vandal](#): > > > [@madmonk28](#): > > > > Nope, hospitals have plenty of body bags on hand. I Know because I was an EMT and I’ve helped nurses zip up and move bodies to the morgue before. When people die, they get leaky and it’s for everyone’s interest to get them in a big ziplock bag ASAP. > > Yes, people die in hospitals, and yes, hospitals do have body bags on hand for when such an occurrence happens. > > However, when people die _outside_ of hospitals (which is what we are talking about here), their bodies typically do not get sent to a hospital. > > Not much a hospital can do for someone who is already dead. Sometimes they can get the organs, the sweet, sweet organs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-refuse-to-do-out-of-principle/549428.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-refuse-to-do-out-of-principle/549428.md?page=9)