Replies

I have done this (buying store brands) but it is a pain (at least in my part of the country).

I get the store brands, but when you return the cans for the deposit, their machines at their store won't accept other store's brands and reject them. And what is an irritating task turns in a real pain in the keister when you have product from multiple store brands that you have to sort out. (Honestly, in this case, I would rather just throw all the damned empty cans in the trash, but my wife won't let me do THAT)

I had been a high level Pepsi consumer since childhood, and as an adult, could go through up to three or four 12 packs a week. Then, when I realized Pepsi was a Leftist company, I began buying Coke. Then I saw the nauseating Coca Cola Pool Boy Commercial and I swore off Coke, but...when I began looking at brands, when you go into a gas station or rest area when traveling, there are LOTS of choices, but when you examine the labels almost all of them reveal the parent company is Coke.

I'm not drinking water. Can't stomach it unless I am parched, and I am DAMN not going to spend $1 or more on a plastic bottle of water. At work, I keep a dozen or more plastic bottles in a fridge with filtered water I manually fill them with, and I wash the bottles out after use and refill them. I don't drink tea, or power drinks like Gatorade, and so on.

Grr. I know people will say don't drink soda, it is unhealthy, it is a waste, it doesn't add anything to life, and so on. A lot of things I like are unhealthy, wastes in the eyes of some, and don't add anything to anyone else's life, but it is MY life.

I believe in the freedom to choose and am sick and tired of being ideologically backed into corners which is what the Left is deliberately trying to do. I can deal with well meaning conservatives who want to force people to boycott, but only because I keep in mind that their hearts are in the right place, and they did not force this crap on us, the Left did.

I have always been 100% for personal boycotts, but I believe these should be individual choices as befits a conservative mindset. I don't judge others on their choices, or at least, I try not to.

That said, my anger in this is nearly completely focused on the Left. I try not to judge conservatives who insist on boycotting this or that and trying to force others to do it with them, because I almost always personally boycott as much as I can anyway since I am ideologically and intellectually aligned with my fellow conservatives and am of a like mind, even though I don't believe I should tell people how to spend their own money.

My whole life, as long as a company treated me as a customer and kept their politics to themselves (which they almost universally did in the past) I was happy to patronize them.

I had been using Bank of America for decades and had passed large amounts of money through them, and convinced my wife to let me find another bank when they began to go after gun manufacturers, and with all the things we had in that banking system, it was a pain and took months to extricate ourselves from it, but we were both happy to do it. I wanted to move away because of their Leftism, and my wife wanted to move away because their woke service with inept and incompetent employees who had no business working in that field irritated both of us to no end.

Then the NFL and pretty much all sports at all levels. Been watching NFL for 50 years as an avid fan. Had to stop.

Then cars. Don't buy this brand because they are woke. Don't buy that brand because they have scumbag UAW workers who give money either with or without their consent to political candidates who want to destroy this country.

Then clothes. I have never been into branded clothes and wouldn't be caught dead wearing any clothing with a visible manufacturer logo (except for maybe 5.11 brand) because I have a low opinion of people who wear clothes as a billboard for a company, especially leftist companies.

Then food. Don't go to MacDonalds, go to Chik-Fil-A. They have principles. Or did. Until they caved and apologized.

I could go on and on. Recently, I purchased a 3D printer, and finding one that was made in the USA was hard enough, but spending three times what I could have spent to buy a similar printer that was made in China was a cost I incurred, but was happy to do so, and I have been happy with the printer and especially with the service. I guess the lesson there is, you may pay less for a Chinese printer, but you will pay more in stress and irritation getting support on that product from China, so that is a benefit.

Sorry to go on. This entire crap is what Leftism has brought to this country, and it makes me angry in ways I simply cannot elucidate. I am trying to walk-the-walk and talk-the-talk, but this is becoming so damned confining and irritating. I have so many other things I would rather spend this intellectual time and energy on, but the Left has forced me down this road, and it fills me with anger and resentment since not fighting it is in essence paying for their cultural sabotage.

So we have to fight. This is just one of the ways that Leftism has divided people and infringed on freedom. Leftism is a toxic pox on society.