Q&A of the Day – Chick-Fil-A Boycotts equal Bigotry
Each day I’ll feature a listener question that’s been submitted by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
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Today’s entry...
I loved your stance on boycotting when talking about the Chick-Fil-A charity situation. I have always felt that when you boycott something you have to be very careful because you could put yourself in a corner that you might not be able to boycott yourself out of. You used the cellphone technology as an example, but you did not expend on why. I’m interested in hearing why you used that. I am a 34-year-old conservative and I want to defend my boycotting stance over fellow conservatives that act holier than thow because they boycott so much injustice in this world. Thanks, and appreciate your work!
Bottom Line: This is a topic I’ve long been passionate about discussing. On one hand you can make the case that nothing’s more American than the freedom to protest anything you disagree with unlike over 80% of the world’s population. Recent protests in countries like Hong Kong, Iran and Venezuela are easy to illustrate examples... There’s a difference between having the right to boycott vs. engaging in them and encouraging others to do the same. I believe that boycotts bring out the worst this country has to offer. Maximum divisiveness, angst and negativity that often hurts employees, and in this case potentially needy people who’d benefited from donations of Chick-Fil-A over the years. We have freedom of choice and I don't believe we should be doing anything to eliminate others from having consumer choice – which is what boycott efforts aim to do.
You asked about my example of technology companies... The employees of most technology companies along with the leadership at them are heavily left leaning. To illustrate the point here’s a breakout of political donations from the 2018 election cycle via data from OpenSecrets.org. For America’s twenty largest technology companies.
Percentage of partisan donations provided to Democrats:
- 82%
In fact, over 90% of all partisan political contributions by these companies and their employees go to Democrats: Microsoft, PayPal, eBay, Tesla, Facebook, Salesforce, Google, Lyft, Stripe, Apple, Airbnb, Twitter & Netflix. Now, how would you like cutting out any product created by any of those companies? I know I wouldn’t. Over the years talk radio and specific hosts myself included, have been targets. They haven’t worked but they have caused a lot of angst for all involved. No one really wins in orchestrated boycotts. Instead, I prefer the approach of individual choice. We all can choose or not choose to patronize a company based on our beliefs and preferences and I believe that’s the way we should exercise our voice. Not by denying other’s their choice. That’s the textbook definition bigotry. In other words, virtually all boycotts are engaged by bigots.
big·ot
/ˈbiɡət/
plural noun:bigots
- a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions.
So, you can ask your friends if they want to give up all of the technology products they use and if they’re really desirous of being bigots. I suspect not. But to be clear, those who pushed boycotts against Chick-Fil-A due to charitable contributions to the Salvation Army and Fellowship of Christian Athletes are bigots – in this case against Christianity. We should all be better than this. Especially conservatives which espouse belief in limited government and individual liberty.