Thread by @Doc_0

Since boycotts and social media pressure are all the rage with young people these days, let me ask them a question: Why should you be eager to transfer wealth and power from private companies that respond to boycotts to a gigantic centralized government that does not?

The core concept of modern political activism is using concentrated economic and social pressure to create a megaphone that amplifies the voices of small but determined groups. Let me assure you that Big Government is not susceptible to such tactics. At all.

Want an example? Look at health insurance. Obamacare was imposed via concentrated carping and whining about the allegedly terrible state of private-sector insurance. Individual hardships were aggregated and magnified. The majority who liked their plans were drowned out.

Of course, the majority who liked their plans were also tricked into thinking they could keep them. The program was sold as an intelligent, carefully-designed, and essentially OPTIONAL replacement for the old insurance system. Obama boasted people would rush to sign up!

The big push was phrased as, "How could anyone be selfish enough to ignore the cries of those who were not well-served by the old system, especially when we're not asking the satisfied to sacrifice so much?"

But look at what happened afterward: as soon as Big Government was in control, complaints were no longer ALLOWED. The media didn't give a damn about your sob story if you got screwed by Obamacare. The Dems told you to get bent. Repubs wouldn't risk political capital to help you.

You can't boycott Big Government. You cannot refuse to do business with it. You can't rally around a competitor who agrees with your ideals. If you try to pressure Big Gov on social media, you'll either be ignored or silenced - and yes, kids, they WILL silence YOU.

Big Government is a formidable foe on its own, but it ALWAYS has allies. It can produce demonstrators and online trolls to overwhelm any popular push against it. You will find it responds FAR more aggressively than private corporations nervous about alienating customers.

You can try to intimidate politicians at the ballot box, but that is a far more difficult and time-consuming process than the kind of activism employed against corporations, and you only get a chance to try it once every two, four, or six years.

The focused determination on specific issues that can rattle corporate boardrooms is very difficult to sustain for years against Big Gov. A thousand issues will be on the ballot, giving people a thousand reasons to vote for the candidate you're trying to intimidate.

Boycotts and social media pressure campaigns work because they're based on a power you have over private industry, but not over government: the power to say "no."

NOTHING is a substitute for that power - no promise, no regulation, no election. /end