My take on the whole Dixie Chicks issue, as posted in another debate elsewhere:
Edi wrote:Their opinions on politics have, at least when last I checked, absolutely no impact on the quality of music they produce. If you liked their music and bought it before, and you suddenly stop buying it just because you disagree with their political opinions when the music itself has not changed, then you're basically engaging in blackmail for political purposes and being an asshole. Boycotting them despite liking their music prior to their stating a political opinion doesn't have an ethical leg to stand on when the actual product has not changed. People have a right to do it, but then again, in a free society people have a right to be assholes, and such actions say more about them than about the artists they boycott.
This is not saying that all boycotts are unethical. It's not wrong to boycott the goods and services of a company or organization whose actions cause actual harm to people or are intended to cause actual harm to people or further causes that seek it (e.g. most racist organizations would fall under the latter category), but boycotting someone just for a political opinion that does not fulfill those criteria is being an asshole.
I'm not really very interested in the political opinions of musicians and singers I listen to, and so whether they disagree with me or not has no impact on my decisions to buy their CDs or listen to their music. I might think them idiots (or not, depending how they went about expressing their opinion) but it doesn't affect the quality of the music, really. It'd take something like actively promoting racism or similar stuff to get on my blacklist, but the bands and artists who do that have the racist donkey-rapists as their primary audience anyway because no decent person would have anything to do with them in the first place.
Additionally, the Dixie Chicks haven't made a habit of criticizing Bush (unlike e.g. Michael Moore), their comment was a one time, off the cuff one by all indications, so the level of hatred and moral outrage it was greeted with is way over the top overreaction.
As for the people here who whine like little bitches about the way the DCs apologised, with all due respect, why don't shove that whining up your ass? They said that the way they said that comment was disrespectful, and they apologized for
that. But are you fucking idiots now requiring them to start marching in lockstep with what the pro-war brigade says? They said they do not regret asking question instead of just following blindly,
which is what most people would say of themselves. The double standards shown here on this issue are just fucking disgusting.
In conclusion, as I said before, people have a right to be vindictive assholes if they so choose (I've a big vindictive streak myself that I'll readily admit to, and I can be an asshole too if warranted), but trying to sugarcoat it and make excuses when you're being an asshole over such a ludicrously insignificant thing just makes you look worse when you do choose to be vindictive. But then again, nobody is
required to use their brain either, whether it's the Dixie Chicks in making comments or the people who criticize them for doing it.
Choosing to use that brain might make you look less idiotic, however.
Edi[/quote]
