Posted on 05/18/2014 4:49:15 AM PDT by Kaslin
Conservatives have long sat by as radical progressive liberals curb-stomp anyone who disagrees with their ideology. On principle, we refuse to boycott anything. That’s a tactic of the left, and the right likes to stick to the high ground, even though it means losing ground every day to the forces of tyranny.
Well, enough is enough.
Scientists who practice actual science and demand something crazy like proof before advocating for government regulations and taxes on what you exhale are harassed out of their fields. Science has devolved from posing a theory and setting about proving or disproving it to a vote by people dependent upon government grants seeking to please their master in the hope of keeping the funding spigot open.
But you can’t boycott government, you can only hope to change it.
The Senate Majority Leader is using taxpayer dollars to attack private citizens for opposing the progressive agenda and donating to causes in which they believe, while using his position to advance the self-enriching agenda of a progressive billionaire dangling $100 million in campaign funds in front of his nose.
But you can’t boycott Harry Reid, you can only hope to remove his majority.
The New York Times can champion “equal pay for women” in 90 different pieces as they pay their first female executive editor significantly less than the man she replaced, and the men with whom she’d worked previously. They serve as town crier for victimhood as they perpetrate the victimization they decry.
But boycotting the New York Times is like protesting to the Captain about the bumpy landing of the Hindenburg – it’s going down on its own.
The IRS has been weaponized against American citizens who seek only to have their voices heard by a government that wants nothing more than to shut them up, in direct violation of the document that created that government.
But you can’t boycott the IRS because, well, you know why.
The White House routinely ignores or changes laws to advance an agenda voters consciously sent representatives to the nation’s capital to oppose. Ruling by decree, the president bypasses Congress and violates the Constitution to impose an unwanted litany of progressive usurpations of power through the regulatory process as he sheds crocodile tears over a lack of bipartisanship.
But you can’t boycott the White House because, well, see the IRS…
The media has been reduced to press release regurgitators, an incurious mob willing to go to any length to ignore, defend or champion any issue or action a Democrat demands. The “fourth estate” is a 5th column
Boycotting the media would be pointless because it is subsidized by entertainment programs and large corporations who don’t care if they lose money.
Which brings us to the entertainment world.
Musicians, actors, executives, agents and the rest of the parasite class who make more for 30 days’ work than some mid-sized towns make in a year, drive Hummers to press conferences demanding government tax the middle class’s “carbon footprint,” then demand the rich pay their “fair share” before hopping on a private jet to fly to Canada to film a movie set in New York because Vancouver offered them tax breaks to do so. Their hypocrisy is legend.
But boycotting the entertainment industry would not be practical. People need distractions and fun in their lives.
There is an opportunity offered through the entertainment industry to send a message, a shot across the bow to let the left know you’ve had enough.
I’d never heard of the Benham brothers before they had their yet-to-be-launched HGTV show pulled before it aired because their Christian, pro-traditional marriage views were deemed unacceptable to progressives. HGTV caved to pressure, which is its right, and progressive activists cheered, as is also their right. But the progressive activists weren’t content with keeping these brothers in obscurity. They wanted oblivion for them.
After blocking their TV show, progressives set out to destroy the Benham brothers. Before they (almost) had a TV show, the Benhams had a successful real-estate business with Sun Trust Bank, contracting to sell properties for the bank. Then, on Friday morning, under pressure from progressives groups, Sun Trust dropped the brothers, potentially ruining them.
It wasn’t enough for progressives to keep the brothers from being on TV (a real-estate show where their views never would have been an issue, or even known by the audience). They think wrong, so they had to be destroyed. But they can’t destroy them on their own, they needed accomplices. Enter Sun Trust.
I don’t know Sun Trust Bank. I don’t use it. But I was prepared to pledge to never use it, and to call for you to join me in that unless and until they reversed their decision. Well, by the end of the day on Friday that decision was reversed by Sun Trust because people who refused to be bullied threatened to do just that.
There’s a lesson here if we’re willing to learn it.
Conservatives resist boycotts because they believe them to be a liberal tactic, which may be true. But they work. By refusing to use them, conservatives render themselves irrelevant.
I have no love for the Benham brothers, nor do I particularly agree with the statements they’ve made that birthed these events. But I wholeheartedly support their right to hold these views. They didn’t hurt anyone. They didn’t commit violence or a crime. They simply strayed from what progressives deem acceptable thought, and for that they have been targeted. That is un-American.
It doesn’t matter what you think of gay marriage, abortion or any religion. The idea that people could be targeted and harmed for simply differing on these issues should bother you. Because, while today it may be something you don’t care about, it someday will be something you care about. You either speak up now or be prepared to find no ears when you most need your voice to be heard.
Sun Trust was willing to cave to progressive pressure on this issue because it’s usually the only real pressure ever exerted on companies. And if companies are willing to cave to a little pressure from the left, what issue won’t they cave on? What issue will progressives next apply pressure on them to suppress? When will that intersect with something important to you? Are you willing to wait till that happens?
Companies should not be caving to such left-wing pressure, but the only way to stop them, to send the message of “no more,” is to apply the same pressure from the center and the right. A threatened customer exodus from Sun Trust will put it on notice, but it also could put on notice every company who gets a letter from GLAAD, the National Action Network, People for the American Way, PETA, MoveOn, Media Matters or any other fascistic group, that capitulation could have consequences.
Progressives use boycotts because they work; pretending they don’t is folly. The only way to change that fact is to send a clear message to companies that doing so will have repercussions too. Not sending a message now will be sending the biggest message of all – those who oppose the progressive agenda are a toothless, deaf, blind guard dog, a doormat for their whims. To do nothing would be like drawing a red line only to see it crossed and pretending you never drew it in the first place, or pretending a Twitter hashtag will cause terrorists to change their ways.
Evidently the author is not a member of F.R.
Did you really think he was? He probably doesn’t even know we exist
Liberty allows us to boycott many things. I have 'boycotted' the MSM for years. I don't have cable and I don't buy newspapers. If it were not for Mark Levin or Rush I would not know about most of the talking heads in media. But I don't turn it into a 'big' boycott.
This is what the libs really don't 'get' about America - it is about individual decisions, not 'directives' from anyone but God.
I have a long list of companies that I boycott, and I’m proud of it. All economic activity is a political statement, particularly since America’s enemies use taxes collected through our economic activity to subsidize their efforts to control us. GM is on my permanent boycott list because of the massive corruption of their bankruptcy/bailout. All TARP banks are on that list, along with a number of other corrupt and/or liberal companies. Anyone who doesn’t care enough to boycott evil isn’t much of a person.
I have two companies that I boycott and these are Tyson foods which I have boycotted since the 70s and GE. I refuse to buy any GE product.
You are kidding, right? Or you do not have any idea what you are talking about. Boycott hurts the enemy no matter which side does it. It hurts progressives who sponsor evil anti-American statements or contribute to Anti-American politicians.
GE is a TARP company, so it’s on my boycott list. Why Tyson?
for the mot part, it’s like pissing in the ocean. no effect, even marginal
Evidently the author is not a member of F.R.
Did you really think he was? He probably doesn’t even know we exist
Unless he's boycotting FR over something
It was rhetorical, drawing attention to how many companies have been called to be boycotted on F.R.
The last time figures were available, F.R. had a membership of just over 300,000, most of whom were not active, frequent posters. Millions upon millions of citizens don’t even know we exist.
Then there was the Dixie Chicks boycott...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.