Someone on another forum had mentioned closing their Amazon account due to Amazon pulling their services from WikiLeaks, and I started to think, what if this started a trend, and people decided to boycott Amazon, PayPal, Visa, and anyone else who pulls their services from WikiLeaks?
My problem is that: I use Amazon frequently, my card is a Visa, and I also frequently use PayPal, but those are things that can be avoided (except my one and only Visa card).
Thoughts on this?
I love Amazon, I just spent $100 on it 10 min ago and I feel better than I did 11 min ago.
Amazon sells everything except euphoria (that’s the free product that comes with buying from Amazon).
There’ve been many statements made on LRC against this idea. Basically the point is that Amazon et al. are also victims of the State here.
If you’re going to boycott Amazon, why not boycott everyone who willingly pays his taxes (under implicit or explicit threat of State punishment if he does not)?
In theory, the idea sounds good. I’ve heard it multiple times that when people want to see real change in the marketplace, the best way to vote is through the use of their earned dollars.
Although it may look bad that many businesses are dropping any association with Wikileaks, I would like to really understand why they’re behaving as such before I make any judgement on my spending habbits through their services. They could be facing a formidable amount of heat from various governments if they don’t discontinue service, and we all know how much public officials love to tamper with the marketplace. If I ran a business and had the option of facing peeved off consumers or a peeved off government, I’d take my chances with the consumers.
Let’s boycott every company that gives in to the government, that is, every company that pays taxes.
The “why don’t you boycott everything” excuse is fallacious and improper use of the reductio ad absurdum, if you ask me. It ignores the strategic significance of the boycott practice-- and I’m personally against boycotting Amazon here. My thoughts expounded here:
http://abolitionofpolitics.blogspot.com/2010/12/not-sold-on-campaign-against-amazon.html
Too negative a focus in my opinion. I think you’d find it considerably more effective (and easier) to expressly support those groups and organizations that are in favor of WikiLeaks if supporting them is your goal.
I don’t think it is fallacious since it is not an argument. It’s a question, how ever rhetorical it may be.