I 100% agree.
1. Some people support universal healthcare. 2. Some people are boycotting Whole Foods. 3. All the people boycotting Whole Foods support universal healthcare.
Therefore, all people who support universal healthcare are ideologues who are incapable of carrying on a rational debate.
Eh, I guess it appeals to the same sort of people who think Glen Beck is representative of everyone who votes Republican, though.
That's not what he wrote. He wrote:
Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending—heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.
Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat will help prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and are expensive to treat. We should be able to live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age.
I don't know enough about nutrition to discuss the second graf, but he doesn't imply that good nutrition negates the need for health care--people get diseases and injuries that aren't caused by bad decisions of their own the other 30% of the time--but it's equal "stupidity" to think "let's spend trillions of public dollars on treating each other for diabetes and heart disease instead of putting down the cheeseburger and going for a jog".
Thatcher presided over a country with socialized health care and heavily unionized coal mining, and complained about them.
In the US, we are now debating having the government run the health sector. I.e. "socialism".
I don't think that a criticism of socialized healthcare from someone who's been there is quite the same thing as "referencing the third Reich".
From http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp...
Our stewardship of the public finances has been better than that of any Government for nearly 50 years. It has enabled us to repay debt and cut taxes. The resulting success of the private sector has generated the wealth and revenues which pay for better social services—to double the amount being spent to help the disabled, to give extra help to war widows, and vastly to increase spending on the national health service. More than 1 million more patients are being treated each year and there are 8,000 more doctors and 53,000 more nurses to treat them.
That is the record of eleven and a half years of Conservative Government and Conservative principles. All these are grounds for congratulation, not censure, least of all from the Leader of the Opposition, who has no alternative policies.
The New Oxford English Dictionary defines communism as:
a political and economic theory of social organization that
advocates that the means of production, distribution, and
exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a
whole.
• policy or practice based on this theory.
• (in Marxist theory) a transitional social state between
the overthrow of capitalism and the realization of
communism.
Somewhat inflammatory, sure -- but hardly worthy of a boycott. The vast majority of the Mackay piece is a level-headed argument -- one that you can certainly disagree with, but I think calling for a boycott is schoolyard politics.
"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money." - Margaret Thatcher
Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020425140457434...
What I don't understand is the guy who compared Thatcher to the Third Reich. Do they forget what "Nazi" actually stands for? Anyway, what is even more frustrating is that unions now want to have John Mackay fired for having the gall to disagree with the President (http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/08/25/business-specializ...). Is this thuggery what counts as discourse in the US now? If you don't agree with the current administration you must be racist, stupid and ought to have your livelihood taken away?
I read an opinion piece in a local (Monterey, CA) weekly paper, trying to explain why the Whole Foods boycotters are completely different than the "teabaggers". It essentially was, "we think those guys are retarded, but he's why we're not retarded, even though you can't tell us apart by looking."
The ability to self-delude is a key attribute in taking part of silly "us vs. them" partisan politics. Issues like health care are amazingly complex, but it's easier to go with the groupthink and take up a rallying cry than dig into the issue and realize how nonsensical the "bumper sticker answers" are.
At the end of the day, people want to feel that they're being heard. And if they believe a boycott is the best option they have to get their opinion out, then we should support their right to do so.
In an ideal world, the appropriate response to political speech that one find's wrong, objectionable, erroneous, or otherwise misleading is to engage in political speech yourself. The cure for political speech is more political speech.
However, I agree with you that the average person does not have the same level of access to venues for political speech that Mackey does. It's not easy to get pride of place on the WSJ editorial page. Not even terribly easy to get your letter to the editor printed.
Nevertheless, we have to ask ourselves what the purpose of the boycott is. We can all agree that free people are necessarily free to spend their money where they like, going out of their way to avoid certain brands in favor of others. Usually, we avoid brands because the products that the brand represents are flawed, sub-par, or fraudulent. Obviously, this is not the case with the Whole Foods boycott. Boycotting Whole Foods for the political speech of its CEO is an action not directed at Whole Foods per se, but at the political opinion of one man responsible for the company.
Will affecting Whole Foods' bottom-line persuade Mackey? Will it persuade the rest of the public? Unlikely in either case. A boycott of this sort is not meant to persuade, it's meant to punish. This is why people like the author of the linked article and others think that this kind of boycott crosses the line from civil speech to incivility. The rationale seems to be: if we can't persuade Mackey or achieve a place on a soapbox comparable to his, then perhaps we can punish him enough that he will regret having spoken up.
Seeking to punish Mackey for expressing his opinion is not an equivalent act of free speech. It crosses the line into incivility.
Yes it is. It gets media attention to the opposing idea.
> It crosses the line into incivility.
No, it does not. Refusing to buy products from people you disagree with, and convincing others to do so as well is perfectly civil.
Refusing to buy products from John Mackey, or from Ben & Jerry, or from the Dixie Chicks because you disagree with their politics is the height of arrogance: "I am so 100% certain that the federal government should be running a health insurance company (or blowing up Iraq, or legalizing oil-drilling in Alaska) that I want you to lose your livelihood for ever expressing an opinion to the contrary".
That is not at all what is says. What it really says is this
> I am so 100% certain that the federal government should be running a health insurance company (or blowing up Iraq, or legalizing oil-drilling in Alaska) that I will not voluntarily support you with my hard earned cash for expressing an opinion to the contrary
The average person isn't likely to write as well as that article was written.
> a small minority of anti-reform fanatics have made sure that it is impossible to have an actual dialog in town hall meetings.
Those things are just marketing events, anyway. The "debate" is going to happen elsewhere.
> Debate would be great, but where is it going to happen?
. . . the same place it always happens: where it isn't televised. It happens in online discussions like this, and it happens in discussions amongst friends, families, and co-workers.
> At the end of the day, people want to feel that they're being heard. And if they believe a boycott is the best option they have to get their opinion out, then we should support their right to do so.
I support that right, even when I think it's being poorly used.
But then, unless you have the IQ of a watermelon, you really didn't need this to figure out that a lot of people on either side of the political spectrum already have their minds made up.
"This shows that folks in favor of government run healthcare are not really interested in a debate - they are interested in complete victory, with zero dissent. It's an ideology, not a rational position."
You have to recognize this happening on both sides of the aisle (Town Hall Meetings anyone?)
1. Demonstrating in front of the store and forwarding boycott emails targets consumers, trying to get enough pressure aimed at the Whole Foods founder to get him to recant or shut up and stop contributing to the debate based on his own principles.
2. Making noise at a "town hall" meeting (laughable misuse of the term for Presidential stumping for a Federal program) is just an attempt to make sure the President knows that there are many people who disagree with the idea, more directly addressing the figurehead for the whole policy.
Obama is in a position to directly affect policy; the founder of Whole Foods is only in a position to foster debate.