Jaquandor is back with his Sentential Links, which he had temporarily discontinued during the election season because he feared that he’d “do nothing but link political stuff.” Interestingly, though, the link that caught my attention did have to do with politics, of a sort.
John Scalzi, in his Whatever blog, which is often entertaining, wrote: “There are places that don’t get my business, or will ever get it, because I find their corporate beliefs or practices problematic. But I’m not going to stop going to the local ice cream shop because the owners put a Romney sign in their window.”
That got me thinking about how I felt about that. I can imagine that, if it were 1972, and someone had a sign for noted segregationist George Wallace in the window, I might have decided to take my money elsewhere. But I don’t recall whether I even saw business establishments with Richard Nixon signs.
Locally, I see lots of stores with signs of a local candidate or another. I’ve often wondered, especially in those more transient stores, whether the sign REALLY represents the proprietor’s position, or did he/she just stick the sign in the window because the first person in that race asked?
I saw relatively few retail stores with either Obama OR Romney signs this year. Seems like a no-win action, to possibly alienate a good chunk of your potential market over politics.
The ABC Wednesday post for R was about voting for Romney/Ryan. I suppose I could have put the kibosh on it, but I was disinclined. I did make comments, such as West Virginia has only five electoral college votes, not six, and that it has gone red every year that begins with the number 2.
In the last month, I went to the barbershop. Folks in some barbershops really DO talk like people do in the Barbershop movies. One of the other barbers asked my barber, who is the shop owner, whether he would “perform a gay marriage.” I am unaware that he is even licensed to marry anyone. The answer was “no”, which was disappointing. Yet I fully agree that a Catholic priest should not be forced to marry a Catholic to a Protestant, e.g. I support the premise, and it was a “what if” question; still, the response bugged me. I haven’t been back, but I haven’t gone anywhere else yet either, and I’m overdue for another trim.
I’m perfectly willing to boycott big businesses over their policies – I’ve done it for years – yet, on the local level, I’m a bit more…pragmatic? Forgiving? Or maybe the sin hasn’t been egregious enough.