Read all about it here.
The US retail chain of Target made a donation to a business friendly group that endorses Tom Emmer, the Republican candidate for Governor of Minnesota. This has gotten Liberal groups in a tizzy, particularly groups that supposedly support equal rights for people who lead alternative lifestyles.
Why would LGBT advocates get upset about this? Mainly because they claim that Mr. Emmer has made some disparaging remarks about gays in the past. (Since I have not heard of Mr. Emmer before today, I cannot say if their claims are accurate or not.)
So a group which supports pro-business candidates receives a donation from Target, and then Target is pilloried by the Left because one of the people endorsed by that group doesn’t support their agenda?
The group receiving the cash is only interested in a narrow field of topics, and gay rights isn’t one of them. Target only wanted to support those candidates which support commerce, and did not request that their cash be dispersed to specific people. Yet the original purpose of the donation is ignored in favor of some sort of organized campaign to punish a company which only wants to see their tax burden reduced?
How far removed from the source does someone have to be before they are not held responsible for the remarks of third parties, anyway? If Liberals think they can shame someone into supporting their own narrow agenda, then they are always responsible!
I find this whole thing to be ironic, considering that this list of the largest contributors to Obama’s campaign is infested with corporations. But the Left always has a very specific myopia when it comes to matters if this sort. As long as business opens their coffers to candidates that are openly hostile to their existence, then they are on the side of the angels. But just as soon as they look to find relief from the death-by-a-thousand-cuts that the Liberals force on them, they are evil incarnate!
Ace has long maintained that the Left is intellectually bankrupt. The facts support a Right-leaning outlook on practically every issue, yet Liberals will viciously attack anyone who points out that some of their most dearly held shibboleths have been massive failures. Not only that, but the pet solutions that Liberals advocate almost always turn out to inflate the very problems those solutions were supposed to address.
And yet, there are still Liberals wandering about. Ace states that this is because they think they are in a morally superior position just because they support Leftist causes. This would certainly explain why the spokespeople quoted in the article keep saying that Target did harm, and that they need to make things right again.
It looks to me that this is nothing more than an attempt by some groups to extort money from a business they see as having deep pockets. And those groups are really only interested in massive social engineering goals that are of little interest to the general public. Yet I don’t think this move on their part will hurt them in any way.
Why is that? It certainly would hurt a Conservative group if they tried something similar!
Thanks for the link, Gentlemen.
I shall so have to go over to the local Target Superstore and spend some money there… just on general principles.
I’m with Sgt Mom. I didn’t especially like it that Target quit letting Salvation Army solicit at Christmastime, but then again, perhaps in the privacy of the executive suites or their homes, they made up for it, and I know who and where the Salvation Army is if I feel strong enough.
The idea of corporate social responsibility outside that of making profits, providing jobs and increasing living standards of the community is turning me right off. I, for one am tired of being approached to do business with a company because they tell me how much they care about some current popular cause.
Whatever happened to live and let live, even for business? I find the promoted social causes of most companies as either opportunistic or fake anyway.