As I said, “the victim” is an unspecified person in a group of potential victims. So “they” is in reference to the group of potential persons you are referring to. When referring to a specific, identifiable person, referring to him/her as “they” only became proper very recently.
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Agreed. In addition to which doing so is ridiculous.
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Here’s the ultimate issue about the banking thing. It is driving a wedge down the middle (or near middle) of our country where there doesn’t need to be one. Only the most extreme people on either side really care, but by caving to either extreme, woke corporations get the normal people on both sides (and even some in the middle that don’t even know what side they are on) upset because common sense says “there’s something not right about this.”
When it comes to boycotts, they don’t work, so it’s a bad strategy on the part of the red states here. It would be much better to hammer them in the public square for their hypocrisy. “Oh, you won’t do business with a coal mine, Bank of America? The HVAC system at your data center outside Dallas couldn’t run for 2 hours with the solar panels you have on the roof. How can you say you’ll refuse to even consider giving financing to Alpha Metallurgical Resources while using the things they produce to power your buildings? How far do you want to take this fight? They’ll never do this, because they actually have a commitment to everyday Americans, but what would happen if Alpha decides they won’t sell coal to the power plant outside Dallas that powers your data center? Do you really want to start a fight that will harm so many Texans just trying to live their lives with reliable energy?”
These are battles of ideas that need to be won at the high levels now, because the boycott really won’t work when BoA decides to stop doing business with Joe’s Gun Shop. There is no leverage for Joe when it comes to that fight.
If the woke corporations win this, the ultimate “solution” that will emerge will be parallel markets (right wing and leftist) for lots more things than it makes sense to have parallel markets for. It’s already a thing for banking, and has been for years, because money has always had a weird moral feeling to it - there are several religious banking institutions that are pretty large and I know of at least 2 big left-leaning banks that are growing pretty rapidly as well. It’s okay if that emerges on its own (like it has for banks), but not good if people are forced into one or the other because of their actions - specifically actions that were not controversial for hundreds of years and are now only controversial to ~25% of the populace.
I can’t think of a more terrible organization than planned parenthood. I imagine my feelings toward them are akin to how many on the left feel about the NRA. I have NO qualms whatsoever using the same financial institution that also services planned parenthood and treats them as they would a childhood cancer charity. I have no idea who PP banks with and wouldn’t be upset if my local pro-life org tried to get me to care. Allowing someone I think is dispicable to be your customer doesn’t bother me one bit. I don’t get the people that are bothered by it.
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That’s one huge compounding problem these days - the insistance that “doing buisiness with” is a synonym of “endorses and adopts the beliefs of”.
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So the following example:
Are you saying such use is also very recent? I’ve used this for as long as I can remember.
Doing business with = enabling. It may not be a conscious endorsement at first, but once you know you are enabling something horrible and don’t stop, it becomes an endorsement.
You are “concealing the gender” by using “a friend”, not by using “they”. You use “they” in reference to all your friends you could be talking about. Making it plural usage, not singular. Exactly what I’ve said 3 times now.
Even though you might know the specific person you are thinking of, you are not actually talking about that person, you are talking about an unknown person in a group of potential subjects. If you want to talk about that specific person, you would say “My friend George…”, in which case “they” would not be proper usage. (Until recently, as already noted).
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Your bleeding heart is bleeding through. I do business with someone to satisfy my own needs. What you refer to is otherwise known as “charity”.
When you donate to a cause, yes, it implies your support of that cause. That is not a business transaction.
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I pulled that example from the same wiki article, and your explanation doesn’t make sense to me. The example is talking about a specific friend, not a group of friends, and using “they” without revealing the friend’s name because the speaker wishes to conceal the gender. But OK, I think this horse is long dead…
I’m not talking about charity. I’m talking about IBM doing business with the Nazis, for example. This may be OK in your book, but it’s not OK in mine.
No, you are not talking about a specific friend. You may be thinking of a specific friend, but you are talking about “a friend”, which is quite non-specific.
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And inaccurate. I suppose if they identify as multiple objects, then maybe. At that point, they may be better described as a herd, flock or murder … or, I guess, confused.
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Name all the businesses you’ve purchased from in the past year and I bet I can find things done by half of them that you disagree with. At some point, the degrees of separation have to matter, don’t they? Clearly you’re not going to become an NRA member anytime soon. No one expects you to directly support an organization whose mission you disagree with. But if you don’t disagree with the mission of a non-partisan financial institution (assume you’re indifferent), if the bank where you hold most of your assets also is the main institution for the NRA, would you leave that bank? If you found out that the local fair trade coffee place you love down the street (and know and agree with the owner’s politics) uses that bank for payment processing because they are the most economical, would you stop buying coffee from them? If the best man from your wedding (a graphic designer) also buys that coffee, are you going to end your friendship? If you kid’s private school (whose values you clearly agree with, that doesn’t support the NRA, doesn’t bank with their bank, doesn’t buy coffee) starts using your best man’s graphic design firm, are you going to homeschool your kids?
What’s your limiting principle on enabling businesses/people that don’t live up to your purity standards?
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Sure. Let’s start with just one degree.
How far do you draw that line though? Do conservatives boycott Chevron because a bunch of PP supporters gassed up at a Chevron station before a protest, and Chevron didn’t refuse service? Do liberals boycott AMC because a bunch of NRA buddies decided to go see a movie together and took pictures that they shared on social media?
When a business decides to boycott a law-abiding customer solely on the basis of their political beliefs… I begin to seriously worry about the future of our country. This is exactly what the Chinese, the Russians, et al want. They want to show that diversity of opinion tears a country apart, and that their policy of squelching dissent is the way to go. They love seeing this division in the US. We can’t let this happen as a country - we are all in this together and we have to start respecting differences of opinion rather than using it as a hammer to punish those that we disagree with.
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Right, except for the people who would punish you for freedom of expression / opinion. Those people you have to kill or disenfranchise or re-educate, or else your tolerant society can’t exist.
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What a frustrating read. Just make me King and I’ll take care of everything. 
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In examples where a business serves various customers and the customer’s beliefs have no bearing on performance or business had no way to know who they were serving, it’s hard to hold the business accountable for the actions of their customers. Especially when the business (movie theater or gas station) has little in common with the customers’ area of interest like Chevron/Planned Parenthood or AMC/NRA.
But if the business directly works for the organization itself rather than its members, it’s a more direct link. If AMC sends coupons to the NRA to distribute to its members, or Chevron gives discounts to PP employees, it cannot claim the same disconnection. Same if the business gets sponsored by the organization. They clearly have a deeper relationship than just random customer-business transactions.
And, if that same business makes political contributions to the customer’s organization, that’s a definitely clearer endorsement and they should totally expect to be held accountable for them.
And I think there’s also variation in degree of organization/causes people disagree with. A somewhat limited relationship with organizations they are strongly against may matter more to them than a closer relationship with organizations they only slightly dislike.
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That is all very theoretical. What do you think of the specific example of banks refusing to work with fossil fuel companies?
As an aside. IMO fossil fuels are in no small part responsible for the tremendous wealth of modern industrialized countries. They’re also playing a large role in lifting Third World countries out of poverty. we saw at the recent climate alarmists COP26 meeting that these countries will have nothing to do with shutting down fossil fuels unless they receive huge compensation.
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I think it’s an idiotic and pointless gesture from said banks. There’s a need currently for fossil fuel production. Say the fossil fuel producer stopped all production overnight? Is that the goal? We’d be screwed with global chaos in a matter of days. Unless you provide an alternative to fossil fuel energy right now, it’s really stupid and self-defeating. And there will be other banks doing business with them anyway so it’s not like boycotting fossil fuel companies is gonna have any real impact on fossil fuel production.
Also that move is disconnected from promoting cleaner energies. You can support the petroleum industry for what it’s enabled us to do so far and the fact that it’ll actually enable research and transition to more renewable energies. And at the same time, you can strive for the currently-completely utopist scenario where we managed to completely do away with fossil fuel production and only use renewable energies. It’s delusional to pretend we can wean ourselves off fossil fuels so may as well work with producers but at the same time promote renewable energy research.
Now would I boycott banks who won’t work with fossil fuel companies. Probably not. That’s a PR stunt IMO that will cost them business directly and possibly indirectly but I respect their right to make this business decision however ineffective I believe it to be.
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