Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Being an Overly Political Jagweed? There’s an App for That!
Good news! Technology is now making it easier than ever for you to make every moment of your mundane existence a statement about your most deeply-held political beliefs. From the Washington Post:
If you’re a Republican, you might want to think twice before buying Lipton Iced Tea, and forget about Starbucks coffee. If you’re a Democrat, put down that Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, and throw away the cylinder of Quaker Oats in your pantry.
But knowing who to direct my solipsistic preening at is so hard! There has to be a better way!
These are the sorts of conclusions that BuyPartisan — a new smartphone app that The Post’s In the Loop featured last week — encourages you to make. After you scan the bar code on products with a phone camera, BuyPartisan accesses campaign finance data and offers a breakdown of the manufacturer’s political giving — examining contributions from its board of directors, its chief executive, its employees and its associated political action committees. The Quaker Oats Co., for example, scores an overall average of 78.5 percent Republican. Starbucks is 80.75 percent Democratic.
Yes, BuyPartisan — for when you need to be a self-righteous prick … in a hurry.
When I was a speechwriter in the Bush White House, I had a standard practice for superficial social interactions: I lied about what I did for a living — not because I didn’t want to take any of the president’s grief (that was unavoidable), but because I hated the idea of immediately introducing politics into a conversation with a perfect stranger. I’ve never thought it necessary to know how my waiter feels about gay marriage or what my plumber thinks about Iraq (I’m pretty sure he’d keep tactical nukes on the table). Best I can tell, their concern for my ideology only extends to hoping I’m enough of a fiscal conservative that my check clears (suckers). This is how we wed the adjective ‘polite’ to the noun ‘society.’
Here’s the thing: I give people money for goods or services that are worth more to me than the cash. I feel no duty to police what they do with that money thereafter because it’s their money — and because I’m not a psychopath who thinks that one commercial transaction gives me an equity stake in everything the recipient does from there on out. I hope for the same courtesy from anyone who’s paying me (this is my gentle attempt to get Ricochet to lay off of me about the macaw smuggling).
Are there limits to this principle? Sure. If Starbucks decides to open up a chain of boutique abortion clinics where you can get a skim chai latte and pick up the newest Joni Mitchell EP while you wait to snuff out the unborn child inside you, I can probably find another place to get a cup of coffee. But it’d take something on that scale. Short of that, I have neither the time nor inclination to police the supply chain of every transaction I make for sufficient skepticism of the administrative state.
Let’s stop pretending the trend of which BuyPartisan (someone deserves welts for that name) is the pathetic apotheosis is about ‘social consciousness.’ It’s not. It’s about narcissism. It’s about ensuring that even the most pedestrian aspects of daily life are yet another opportunity for you to billboard your manicured sense of morality. It’s about offering you a dozen opportunities a day to deliver sermonettes on whatever issue you became passionate about immediately after you heard it discussed on The View. It’s about giving a patina of respectability to supercilious scolds and buzzkills.
Develop an app that keeps me at arm’s length from those people. Then we can talk.
Published in General
What a great line.
Will it tell us if the CEOs, BoDs, and employees have submitted to ice bucketing? Because that seems to matter now.
My nephew said he’ll be impressed when these sissies take up his boiling bucket of water challenge.
BuyPartisan … is there such a thing as an Orwellian pun?
I’m willing to bet more lefties use this than conservatives, and not just because we’re still using flip phones…
Hey! It was a Lefty who decried the advent of ATMs and the like. The Left are the Luddites, not we on the Right.
This remains my primary objection to Kevin Williams’ The End is Near and it’s Going to be Awesome. He thinks this will make our political divisions less as we will simply go about our lives interacting with whom we choose in blessed free association.
I think it will result in more mobs than ever before.
Right. Totally different kind of psychopath.
I don’t need an app to be a self-righteous prick.
You just broke my snarkmeter. Now I have to go buy the parts at Radio Shack since they don’t stock them at Best Buy anymore. Thanks.
Thanks, Troy…I needed a head-to-toe laugh.
For the love of everything good, do not show this the Baptists. This makes it way too easy to find out what we are supposed to be upset about. I remember when I should stop buying from Disney, McDonalds, and Starbucks (usually because of gay something something). Then a month passes, and we’re all back to going through McD’s AND Starbucks in the morning with the Lion King playing for the kids in the backseat.
Not to say the Left doesn’t get into self-righteous boycottery. I just never had to pretend to take theirs seriously.
Ugh, politics has infected everything.
I’m more worried about the macaw thing. Are you sure it’s just for the money?
This post is amazing.
Radio Shak is run by Commies, don’t buy there!
Yowza!
Great post, just terrific post!
Sorry, but the little kid in me can’t resist this moment!
Prick. Prick. Prick.
Prick. Prick. Prick.
Marching around in my stocking feet saying…
Prick. Prick. Prick.
Yeah, how come the OP doesn’t have a “like” button?
I wonder how many people will be returning Their phones after using this app on it.
How about an app that can locate cheerleader-huntresses?
I share the sentiment. But this is an advantage liberals have over conservatives. Politics is their passion, their center of being. Conservatives more often prefer to forget politics entirely and focus on what’s directly in front of them. Consequently, the Left is always on offense and the Right can’t even be bothered to play the game.
As the saying goes, “You might not believe in the Devil, but he believes in you.” Refuse to participate in market politics if you want. But if liberal consumers don’t have to compete with conservative consumers for influence over corporate activities, then companies will simply ignore conservatives and continue to buckle beneath the Left’s manufactured controversies.
I must admit, I refuse to buy HBO because I don’t want to support Bill Mahrer, or whatever he calls himself, or their other lefty bullcrap. Likewise, I wish I had an alternative to Comcast for an ISP because I hate supporting NBC and wish it would die. Otherwise, I do have some Berkshire Hathaway stock despite being tempted to divest.
I wouldn’t go out of my way to boycott a company that supports the Democrat party but let’s just say that I’d certainly use this as a tiebreaker.
I definitely think lefties will use this more than conservatives. This is exactly the kind of thing they do. Not going to Chick-Fil-A. Unistalling Firefox (until the fire Brendan Eich). Divesting in Israel. I’d divest in the Palestinians except I think all their capital goes to bombs.
And I agree I wish we could like posts.
Will this app tell Us the political leanings of its designers?
Will it expose 2.0 as a Leftist plot? The work of Hydra? Giraffe Bros Code Monkeys, Inc?
I wonder if it takes into account the political/ideological quotient of the products themselves? For instance, is it possible to find a firearm that has the Democratic Party sign of approval? Would the app warn you against buying a certain model of guitar because that’s one that Ted Nugent plays? I’d hate to see the Chevrolet Corvette get a high Democratic rating just because Joe Biden owns one.
I just want to know, does BuyPartisan have data on who did or who did not accept the IceBucketChallenge? (jk)
seriously, did not read the comments before I posted. :)
The big question in my mind is how a jagweed differs from a jackwagon.