Kathyrn, excellent post. I wish to add my thoughts on two things. First, why is the airline boycott different than a PayPal or an Amazon boycott?
In the airline case, the enemy is TSA and it controls the gateway to air travel. To boycott one is to boycott the other. It is to stand up for one’s rights. Every person who feels invaded by their procedures stands to gain by not subjecting themselves to it. In other words, I boycott air travel because it directly invades my rights to have to be inspected. I absolutely refuse to be x-rayed. I will not stand up and hold up my arms like a criminal. I also think it’s about the dumbest thing imaginable. I won’t be groped either. So I have little option but to boycott the whole thing. Amazon isn’t invading my rights. It’s not even clear it’s invading Assange’s rights. But that gets to topic #2.
My goal is public education on a number of levels. That’s the reason I’ve spent 5 years writing and writing and writing and continue.
If I thought that the boycott of Amazon provided an educational message, I’d approve it. I think it muddies the water. Why? Because the role of conscience vs. law in that case is not clear.
I believe that there are higher moral obligations, or a higher right, than man-made law. We are to act justly, not simply obey laws that may be unjust. Call this “conscience.” There is then a higher right than the business-as-usual obligations that a company undertakes. But I’m unsure who has it in a company or how this obligation presents itself. Who articulates it? Who exercises it? For a person, we speak of conscience. A person is responsible. For a company of persons, I don’t know how it locates a conscience or how it makes the compromises we all have to make with our consciences. Let’s say that it’s lodged in the Board of Directors by the owners (they may be one and the same).
I certainly wish heartily that none of these companies like Amazon and PayPal had caved in. Corporate voices against government would be very welcome. But I do think that the notion that people get together to conduct a limited business operation and they exclude matters of religion, politics, and many other things like that from their business is a reasonable notion. They exclude certain elements of morality that we exercise as individuals. It’s not their “business” or aim, as long as they in the business are not operating something immoral, such as using slave labor or polluting the property of others. They are not into taking a good many religious and political positions, and that seems like a reasonable thing, because then they cater to anyone who is a customer, regardless of what those customers believe in. That’s an efficient way to conduct a business and provide a service. The managers know what they are to do and whom to serve. They go ahead and do it. (Parenthetically, it’s quite possible that some businesses in a free society will organize and serve only the clienteles they want to. They might discriminate, and as long as the government did not aid and abet and enforce that discrimination, it could happen.)
Now, what Amazon and PayPal have done is NOT to cater to everyone. They’ve excluded Assange, and that, on its face, is wrong, judging it from the perspective of individual conscience. Instead what they’ve done is cater to what they see as the government and its laws. Now, that to them is right. They are obeying the law as it stands or as they see it. (Maybe they are bowing to other pressures and considerations too. That’s not germane to this argument.) They are not protesting that law. This corporate decision has a moral element: go with Assange or go with the government and its laws. Like most people, the companies choose the latter. A few of us side with Assange, but we are anti-government to begin with.
If I am after public education on various levels concerning morality, ethics, the law, politics, and government, which I am, I am going to have a hard time with boycotting Amazon because that critique of them depends on my choosing Assange, not government, whereas they are choosing the opposite. But the opposite is the conventional acceptance of government. To explain to the general public why a boycott of Amazon is a good idea, I am still going to have to get across that government is the problem. I am still going to have to get across the idea that anybody who supports government in this matter is going against free speech. I am still going to have to provide a critique of government secrecy. I will still have to “peel the onion” and get to the core.
I may be wrong. I make many mistakes. It is possible that the public understands that boycotting Amazon equates to a defense of free speech. I do not know. It is possible that it will have high educational value, but I don’t see how it can because deep down, even if people don’t say so, a lot of them will be thinking that Amazon is doing the right thing by obeying the law. To educate them otherwise, I will still have the problem of showing that the government and its laws are wrong. Had Amazon said the government is wrong or PayPal said this, that would have been beautiful, but business companies do not typically take sides in such issues. That’s not their business. Corporations are not set up to have personal consciences.
