Dec 07 2007

Don’t Buy Their BS, and Don’t Buy Their Stuff

Tag: atheism, logic, morality, religion — Procrustes @ 8:45 pm

My soon to be new RC heli! Yay.It’s that season again where we indulge. And indulge. And indulge. And blame it on Jesus being born. Hey, probably not an entirely bad way to spend a cold, wet winter. I was recently endowed with a wonderful monetary gift from my mother-in-law, and tasked to go find myself something, as it’s the gift-receiving season. After days of morbid searching on various websites for common gift ideas, finding absolutely nothing that interested me except for possibly a chin-up bar (and how fun that sounds, eh?), I finally somehow recalled that as a teenager, I had always desired a radio controlled helicopter, but could never afford one. Thus, I started my search. Sifting through dozens of confusing sites dedicated to RC airplanes, helicopters, boats, cars, and the like, I found some helpful forum posts that guided me to a good beginner to intermediate RC helicopter that didn’t cost a fortune. Then, trying to be responsible with my expenditures, I began tapping retail websites in order to find the best price.

The price for this helicopter varied among sites significantly, and I quickly discovered that many retailers were located in China, which, with shipping, added quite a sum that would be comparable to U.S. retailers. Regardless of the small savings I might have with those retailers, I preferred a U.S. retailer because I might need to send something back for warranty or repair, and I might want to order parts later, and would rather stick with the same retailer if the prices were overall reasonable. So, I narrowed my scope to about three or four U.S. retailers, all with similar costs. One, though, was my pick from the very beginning (We’ll call it Site-X). It has a nicely designed website with very informative descriptions, ease of use, and good prices. I was about to click the magic “order” button, but I wanted to add some training landing gear (because I’m new at this), and I didn’t see it on Site-X. At the same time, I decided to do some minimal research on Site-X just to make sure that it didn’t have a bad reputation among the RC people. I plugged “Site-X” into Google, and I was somewhat surprised to see a Wikipedia page on the main company behind SiteX.

The description of SiteX started off positively, reassuring me that the company was, in fact, a U.S.-based company, and that the owner was its founder and was doing well as a business. Then something odd caught my attention. The Wikipedia article stated that SiteX created store continuity for its physical locations by playing satellite music, chosen specifically by the owner to be mostly continually looping instrumental adaptations of traditional Christian hymns. At first, I thought, “That’s not so bad. The owner is just trying to appeal to the widest audience.” Then, I kept reading.

Among the shocking details was that SiteX is connected to several Assemblies of God1 and Dominionist2 Christian groups, and to Bill Gothard3(a conservative Christian teacher who has held, among many other controversial beliefs, that “A couple who is contemplating a VBAC Vaginal Birth After Cesarean should ask the Lord to give them a specific portion of Scripture that they can claim for the birth. Both the father and the mother should memorize and meditate on this passage and use it to conquer any fear that may come during the pregnancy or delivery.” He also famously protested against Cabbage Patch Kids4 because, he claimed, they could lead to difficulties in conceiving or giving birth to a child.)5 SiteX also closes its doors on Sundays, out of respect to the founder’s Christian beliefs.

In 2007, the founder donated $70 million to Oral Roberts University6 after it was made known that Richard Roberts7(Oral’s8 son, and the current president of ORU) had misappropriated a tremendous amount of university funds over the course of years.

I thought to myself, what kind of hypocrite would I be if I purchased a product from this company? Aren’t I supposed to be actively protesting against companies like that, people like that? So, I found a reliable alternative company and paid a few more dollars, and avoided a conflict of interest. And I felt good about it. Smug, perhaps. Enough so that I started this article to show that rational activism can work on all scales. It doesn’t have to be about tearing down every church with force and vigor. It can be about making informed choices as to where you shop, where you vacation, to whom you give your money. Who knows where it’s really going if you don’t look?

Then, while researching SiteX for this article, I noticed something I hadn’t noticed earlier. On the Wikipedia site, it plainly states (at the very bottom) “”SiteX” is not related to “Site-X,” a chain of smaller stores specializing in radio controlled model aircraft.” Oops. Well, now it made much more sense. However, I learned something, and I was invigorated by seeing a new and effective way to respond to people who tell me, “Okay, I want to be a rational activist. What do I do?” I can say, “Research, and don’t buy from people who send their money as donations or payments to religious-affiliated organizations.” That’s a start, at least. Now I want to start making a comprehensive list, a web, to show relationships to religious organizations, and retailers to avoid.

The morals of this story:

1. Wikipedia needs to put that disclaimer on the top of the SiteX9 web page — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobby_Lobby — since, no doubt, I’m not the only person to have misread.
2. Sorry, Site-X,10 I think you’re being abused without your knowledge.
3. If you want an RC item, buy from Site-X (I haven’t found anything bad about them).
4. I need to pay better attention, but perhaps this was fate, eh?
5. Don’t buy anything from SiteX11(the company the article spoke of).
6. Don’t buy anything (if you can help it) from religious organizations or organizations that donate or otherwise fund religious organizations or any organization you believe impedes rational thought and progression.

Buy From:
“Site-X” — Hobby-Lobby International, Inc., www.hobby-lobby.com, in Tennessee, which sells a bunch of cool RC stuff, and is not affiliated with the other similarly-named store.

Don’t Buy From:
“SiteX” — Hobby Lobby, www.hobbylobby.com, an arts & crafts (of sorts) store in Oklahoma, owned and founded by David Green,12 who was listed as #133 on Forbes’ List of the 400 Richest Americans, and who also “lives to spread the Word of God.”13

-Procrustes14

  1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assemblies_of_god [↩]
  2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominionist [↩]
  3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gothard [↩]
  4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabbage_Patch_Kids [↩]
  5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gothard [↩]
  6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_Roberts_University [↩]
  7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Roberts_%28evangelist%29 [↩]
  8. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_Roberts [↩]
  9. http://www.hobbylobby.com/ [↩]
  10. http://www.hobby-lobby.com/ [↩]
  11. http://www.hobbylobby.com/ [↩]
  12. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Green_%28entrepreneur%29 [↩]
  13. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Green_%28entrepreneur%29 [↩]
  14. Look at those footnotes, and then tell me I shouldn’t have been confused! [↩]