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Old May 20, 2009, 12:22 AM   #20
StratoCactus
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Join Date: January 30, 2009
Location: VA
Posts: 20
I see nothing wrong with customers sending their business elsewhere over this.

Quote:
What I don't get is the sweeping blanket approach going on here, you can take these approaches, but they aren't and will never be right.

...

We must destroy everyone who does not have our same viewpoint.
The people upset with the shop owner's stated voting decision have a distinct objective: uphold and preserve our RKBA to the fullest extent. And they know from past experience that this is ultimately a difficult objective to achieve.

When you have an objective, pressuring, coercing and punishing those who act against that objective is usually an essential tactic to achieving that objective. Period. It's not friendly, it's not feel-good, it doesn't jive with our post-60s morality of "live and let live." But it is largely how things get done. And it is entirely ethical when done through ethical means. It has a symbolic effect, a deterrent effect, as well as a corrective effect.

Yeah, I really did say pressuring, coercing and punishing. However there is a wide range of severity in how that can be done. Murdering the man in cold blood would obviously be at one extreme of the spectrum. Making harassing phone calls or putting a severed horse head in his bed, for example, would be less extreme, but still obviously over the line. On the other hand, encouraging others to spend their money at another establishment is about as tame, reasonable, civilized and ethical as one can imagine, yet still potentially effective.

Further, the bottom line is that boycotting and promoting boycotts are legal. People are going resort to this tactic when they feel it's effective unless you give them a more tangible disincentive than just saying "gee guys, that's not very cool." If you don't like boycotting, then support candidates who will run on a platform to ban boycotting. However, if you want to achieve this difficult objective, you may have to boycott business owners who don't support those anti-boycott candidates. I'm not trying to be funny here at all. I'm pointing out how the world works.

Quote:
Really? Because if it's true, then many people voted for Obama for reasons other than his gun views. If many people voted for reasons other than his gun policies, then why do we give a crap who voted for Obama?

You seem to be insinuating that if X voted for Obama, then X supports Obama's gun control. If that was the case, then X supports every single thing that Obama does, which is preposterous, because nobody supports every single thing that their chosen candidate does.
I would do more than insinuate that. An Obama voter may not feel in his heart that he supports gun control. He may not find gun control desirable. I certainly understand that position, given the range of important issues at stake in the election.

And yet, the act of voting for, or otherwise supporting a candidate with a clear anti-gun record IS an act of support for gun control. Period. I'm unwilling to budge on that point. It matters not what is in a person's heart! If you have an objective, all that matters are actions! If I voted for McCain, that was clearly an act of support for a longer occupation of Iraq, for example, irrespective of the fact that in my heart I might be opposed to a longer occupation. That act, not my feelings, not my beliefs, had the potential to literally determine how long Iraq would be occupied.

Now, for a voter who supported Obama in spite of the gun rights issue, that's all well and good. I am voicing no objection to that whatsoever. However, it does mean that, for this voter, the issues that attracted him to Obama were placed in a higher priority than the gun rights issue. The net attraction outweighed the net repulsion. Again, I'm not condemning the choice, but merely pointing out that this is in fact the case.

Those who object to the support for Obama are, in effect, saying the gun rights issue is placed in higher priority, in their view, than the other issues in the election. And that is really the essence of the battle here: the relative importance of various goals and objectives. As you point out, candidates' positions are unlikely to align perfectly with every one of a voter's goals, so these questions of priority arise. But, returning to the original theme, influencing the issue-priority of other voters is a useful and indeed ethical path to success.

Lastly, I support the right to ballot confidentiality. But as others pointed out, the owner chose to forfeit that confidentiality. When you do that, you open the door to anything that other citizens might legally choose to do in response, regardless of whether it fits your idea or my idea of "nice."

Last edited by StratoCactus; May 20, 2009 at 01:16 AM.
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