Anyone who's visited LRC lately can find a ton of articles bending over backward urging readers not to boycott Amazon because of its actions toward Wikileaks. I would be satisfied with their explanation that they were bullied by the state. However, it would seem that none other than Lew Rockwell himself has offered a refutation for his own argument, although this was related to governmental cooperation by Smith & Wesson instead of Amazon:
Now, you might make the case that S&W was only acting in its own self interest. The company has seen what happened to cigarettes and to Microsoft, and by making a deal with the devil, it was only trying to head off a worse fate. However, if that was the strategy, it hasn't worked, since several states have already said they will go ahead and include the company in the developing class-action liability suit. In any case, gun makers and owners are doing liberty a favor by making sure that S&W's concessions do not pay off either politically or financially. They are certainly within their rights to do so, just as the NAACP is within its rights to avoid doing business in South Carolina, and Linux fans are free to shun Microsoft. In a free society, people are free to buy or not to buy, to promote or boycott a product. The boycott of S&W is a sign that freedom of association is thriving.
Now, you might make the case that S&W was only acting in its own self interest. The company has seen what happened to cigarettes and to Microsoft, and by making a deal with the devil, it was only trying to head off a worse fate. However, if that was the strategy, it hasn't worked, since several states have already said they will go ahead and include the company in the developing class-action liability suit.
In any case, gun makers and owners are doing liberty a favor by making sure that S&W's concessions do not pay off either politically or financially. They are certainly within their rights to do so, just as the NAACP is within its rights to avoid doing business in South Carolina, and Linux fans are free to shun Microsoft. In a free society, people are free to buy or not to buy, to promote or boycott a product. The boycott of S&W is a sign that freedom of association is thriving.
So besides the 800-pound gorilla in the room, how come this logic applies to Smith & Wesson for making a deal with the government over trigger locks but it does not apply to Amazon for taking down a Wikileaks server?
maybe the LRC is telling people not to boycott it because the LRC website has numerous money generating Amazon ads up on their site...
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Ignore this, I misread. Pardons.
I see no more fault in Amazon for ceasing its support for Wikileaks than I do in every other company/individual on Earth for not supporting Wikileaks in the first place.
I think LRC did the right thing, though they ought have put it in a better way.
Amazon is a victim of the State, not an accomplice. They were forced to oust WikiLeaks from their servers at the point of a gun: Senator Joe Lieberman of DHS fame threatened them in no uncertain terms in public and God only knows what they were threatened with in private: labor-related lawsuits? Antitrust?. While I understand many of you were disappointed I sympathize with Amazon. Big, succesful firms are much easier to blackmail than small guys. Just think what Mattel's cronies did to the Bratz dolls while failing to go after all the Chinese workshops churning out Barbie knock-offs by the truckload. Think if your firm, what you worked for years, was threatened with immediate destruction. Not everybody is a martyr or a hero of the revolution.
the only organization people should boycott is the state.
(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)
Would you stop being friends with a mugging victim because s/he handed cash over while at gunpoint?
The article doesn't explain the terms of the deal between S&W and the government, or how the deal was forged.
EDIT: A quick Google search turned up some interesting items, including a link to the Congressional Record for April 11, 2000. Representative Cliff Stearns (R-FL) referred to an op-ed in the Washington Post by Tom Cannon. (The Washington Post website no longer has the piece online, but it's presumably quoted verbatim here.) In that op-ed, Cannon wrote:
Among other things, this agreement is a legally binding contract not just between Smith & Wesson and the government but also between the manufacturer and every wholesaler, retailer and private customer of Smith & Wesson products--even though these parties were not consulted, advised or asked for their consent. Any wholesaler or retailer who wishes to continue carrying Smith & Wesson products will be required to agree to the terms of this contract, and force its customers to do likewise. My primary objection is that the last time I checked, I had not granted Smith & Wesson power of attorney.
This alone would be the basis for a legitimate boycott by gun wholesalers, retailers, and customers against S&W. As far as I can tell, the agreement between Amazon and the government was not binding on third parties. So that would seem to be a rather major difference.
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Where is Lieberman's threat? I've not seen it.
Is that an argument from ignorance I see?
Thank you Autokylos. However, it would have been good if Rockwell had included that important piece of information in his article. Having not known the circumstances of the situation, I would have thought that Rockwell was taking the same position then that he criticizes now.
I made a compromise. I bought the wonderful Amazon Kindle 3 (which was inexpensive). But I never buy any ebooks for it from them.
Charlie Prime: Where is Lieberman's threat? I've not seen it. He was definetely involved: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/12/how_lieberman_got_amazon_to_drop_wikileaks.php As I said we don't know what they were threatening Amazon with, but we can only imagine. Together we go unsung... together we go down with our people | Post Points: 5