Rebuttal to Mallard Fillmore comic strip

Happy New Years. This was in January 6th, 2014 issue of the San Jose Mercury News.

This comic message is somewhat true. Progressives will continue to buy products made in China and from other totalitarian nations. But, then so will moderates, Republicans and Tea Party people. For most people, they don’t even have a choice of not buying from China when selecting products in a store.

I guess the point that Bruce Tinsley, author of Mallard Fillmore, was trying to make is that progressives are more apt to take ethical responsibility and ethical buying seriously, and that by buying from China somehow makes them hypocrites. But, then maybe, Mr. Tinsley is saying that conservatives really don’t ever buy ethically, and therefore, their buying products from totalitarian nations is totally acceptable and not at all hypocritical.

However, Progressives, Moderates and Conservatives, all want more jobs for Americans and are against outsourcing jobs to these  totalitarian nations. And buying products from China continues to exacerbate the problem of the outsourcing of American jobs to China.  Therefore, maybe everybody is being hypocritical. This could be Mr. Tinsley’s real point: “Don’t buy from China!” That would be great. That would go against all the Top 1%, trickle-down economic theory (that has caused the greatest economic inequality since the 1920s) that he endorses.

As far as the Cracker Barrel reference, I had to look that one up. I guess I don’t watch enough E! channel. Anyway, Cracker Barrel, like A&E, boycotted Duck Dynasty (for Phil Robertson’s racist and homophobic comments), and then flip-flopped. And I suppose Mr. Tinsley thinks that progressives should boycott Cracker Barrel for flip-flopping. Maybe, if Mr. Tinsley’s point was that Cracker Barrel was totalitarian, his hypocritical argument would have been more sound.