The Great Ballast Point boycott hashtagged this month in yet another bright example of why one should not immediately react and instead investigate, at least a little.
The gist being that the new owners, Constellation Brands, donated money politically. Which is legal (at least for the foreseeable future) and well within their rights to do. What raised the ire was who got the money. Well, some of their money, to be more precise.
Setting aside the notion that business ventures tend to donate to those in power for rules that would help them and them alone, it seems that certain people on both sides of the aisle will call foul anytime their “team” loses out.
If Constellation had donated 100% to Democratic party members, there would be no fuss from these people. The boycotters would probably not even look at the voting records of the money getters to see if they hewed to the Democratic party line.
I have not delved into the numbers to give you a Democrat/Republican percentage breakdown. I would rather read about hops or watch Iron Fist then depress myself with political reality.
What I can say is that no one should spread unsubstantiated facts or partial facts or “alternative” facts. You can say that Constellation donated to Paul Ryan’s campaign amongst other PAC spending and that, by your morality, you will no longer buy Ballast Point beer.
You cannot leave out the words from “Amongst” through “morality” from your phrasing and you also have to dig through what else Constellation owns and not buy those products either.
If you meet those conditions, then by all means, boycott away. But if a random dude/dudette on Facebook can call you out, then you haven’t done your homework. And no matter how un-fun homework is, it always has to be done.