I agree. I do think that the fight has to be carried out on a personal level, and for one person versus another, I believe it is for that person to determine where the battle should be fought.
I got to experience just recently how I had to surrender on something that runs counter to a principle I have long held: the concept of denying, limiting, or increasing the cost of health care to someone due to choices they may have, or been perceived to have made.
My health care plan is holding out a financial carrot to people who undergo a health care screening at work (blood sugar, Body Mass Index measurements, signing a form that says you don’t smoke, and so on.)
I vehemently oppose that on the principle. Sure, they say they aren’t charging people MORE for their health care plan if they have high blood sugar, are fat, smoke, or skydive...they are simply offering a discount for people who take the test. (I am sure they are using the tests and questionnaires for “research” and other internal mechanisms)
I have refused to participate in this since they started, and have been paying more for my health care simply because I wouldn’t participate in their screening. So, by default, the provider is charging me more because I won’t participate on principle. My feeling is, if one lets the camel’s nose into the tent, how long would it be before they deny something because you are overweight, smoke, ride without a bicycle helmet, eat liver pate, consume some food with hydrogenated fat or sugar, or drink any kind of soda?
My wife and I view this quite differently, she views this as money, I view it as principle, and a strongly held one, because I don’t think it takes a fertile imagination to see where it will go. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday it will, I guarantee it.
Well, my wife is not happy, because we are spending hundreds of dollars more than we should each year because I won’t just pick up a pen, sign a form, have my weight taken, and get my finger stuck. I see her viewpoint, but it was principle for me, but it was creating an undercurrent in my marriage that I didn’t like. She backed off and didn’t pursue it after a while, but anyone with a spouse knows how to read that spouse, and she wasn’t happy about it. So I gave in.
Point is, there are a LOT of things I simply won’t do, products I won’t buy, and establishments I won’t frequent due to various political considerations. (Examples: Target and JC Penney...won’t buy, won’t go in.) To my wife, she sees there is a sale at JC Penney for some kind of thing, and she leaves me a flyer and a note, asking me to pick something up. I just don’t buy it, or I go somewhere else to get it at a different price. But I have to do what I can, and I have to pick and choose.
I just think it has to be personal, and I can’t bring myself to judge anyone else for these kinds of decisions.
I find myself doing much as you have. I've picked several targets - Target is most certainly one of them - and chosen to boycott them. It shouldn't, but it does give me pleasure to see Target having significant financial difficulty. What was more telling is that the boycott is about the only excuse for poor performance mentioned in any of their quarterly reports for Q2....will be interesting to see what Q3 and 4 hold for them.
I don't, however, pay a whole lot of attention to the "Boycott This or That" crowd on FR. They'd quickly have us living in caves and foraging for food. Almost every corporation in the world does something that some conservative, somewhere, will find distasteful. So, I pick my battles.
JC Penney was one, awhile ago. They're slowly working back into my good graces, as the fools who made a litany of bad decisions (and nearly destroyed the company) are all departed. As I said, though, the decision to boycott is a personal one.