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Respecting the Right of People to Do Things You Disagree with Is What Liberty Is All About

September 11, 2015 by V the K

Office Depot has refused to print a flyer critical of Planned Parenthood. (It’s Daily Caller link, so it’s like putting your screen in front of firehose of ads.)

Maria Goldstein, 42, of Illinois asked Office Depot on Aug. 20 to print 500 anti-Planned Parenthood fliers, but the employee refused. The flier had facts about Planned Parenthood from the organization’s annual report as well as a prayer calling for the “conversion” and “enlightenment” of those who support the organization.

“When I tell people they’re shocked because this is America,” Goldstein told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Office Depot is trying to silence my freedom of speech and my freedom of religion.”

I thoroughly disagree with Home Depot’s decision to do this.

However, as Office Depot a private business, I believe they are completely within their rights to refuse to do so. Just as a Christian bakery should have the right to refuse to bake a cake for a gay wedding. No one should have to forfeit their Constitutional Rights in order to open a business. (If you work for the Government like Kim Davis, however, that’s a different set of circumstances.)

Office Depot isn’t harming anyone by refusing to print this. Staples is a thing that exists. There are other private print shops who would be happy for the business.

And no one ever died because someone else wouldn’t bake them a wedding cake.

If you truly believe in liberty, you have to accept that sometimes people are going to make choices you disagree with. And unless their choices physically or economically harm someone else, they should be left alone to make them.

The alternative is tyranny.

Filed Under: Liberty

Comments

  1. alanstorm says

    September 11, 2015 at 8:32 am - September 11, 2015

    You might want to edit your references to “Home Depot” – most people don’t go there for office supplies.

  2. Professor Hale says

    September 11, 2015 at 8:33 am - September 11, 2015

    you keep saying home depot, but it is office depot.

  3. V the K says

    September 11, 2015 at 8:48 am - September 11, 2015

    Thanks for the correction. I am in the middle of selling a house, and Home Depot has been at the center of my existence for the last month. Hence the slip up.

  4. rusty says

    September 11, 2015 at 8:49 am - September 11, 2015

    Office Depot did not immediately respond to NBC Chicago’s request for comment but a spokeswoman for the company told the Chicago Tribune the company policy prohibits “the copying of any type of material that advocates any form of racial or religious discrimination or the persecution of certain groups of people.”
    Karen Denning told the Tribune Goldstein was told she could use a self-serve copy machine but Goldstein said that would have been an inconvenience.

  5. The_Livewire says

    September 11, 2015 at 9:07 am - September 11, 2015

    Only in Rusty’s world is “The flier had facts about Planned Parenthood from the organization’s annual report as well as a prayer calling for the “conversion” and “enlightenment” of those who support the organization.” the persecution of certain groups of people.

  6. James says

    September 11, 2015 at 10:31 am - September 11, 2015

    The next gay couple who makes a hissy fit about a wedding cake should have a cake or a pie in the face.

  7. Heliotrope says

    September 11, 2015 at 11:25 am - September 11, 2015

    via Cut’n’Paste Rusty:

    the company policy prohibits “the copying of any type of material that advocates any form of racial or religious discrimination the company policy prohibits “the copying of any type of material that advocates any form of racial or religious discrimination or the persecution of certain groups of people.”

    So, Office Depot will not print Planned Parenthood literature either since killing the fetus in the womb falls under the persecution of certain groups of people” rule. Or, maybe killing a developing person is does not fall within the “persecution” category.

    Anyway, our Office Depot went toes up, so I will have to seek out a place to be turned away. It will be like driving from Ohio to Kentucky to find a clerk who won’t issue a marriage license. Being a victim can be such a bother.

  8. RSG says

    September 11, 2015 at 12:39 pm - September 11, 2015

    The next gay couple who makes a hissy fit about a wedding cake should have a cake or a pie in the face.

    Comment by James — September 11, 2015 @ 10:31 am – September 11, 2015

    Hopefully it will be a cream pie, with plenty of glitter on top.

  9. CthulhuDreaming says

    September 11, 2015 at 12:52 pm - September 11, 2015

    Yes, give them arts and craft herpes…yeeeeeeees.

  10. KCRob says

    September 11, 2015 at 6:08 pm - September 11, 2015

    I’m with VtK here but the victim cards has been played so successfully by womym, leftist-gays, atheists, Muslims, people of color, and a cast of millions, why shouldn’t anti-abortion advocates get in on the game?

  11. Just Me says

    September 11, 2015 at 8:21 pm - September 11, 2015

    Anyone think this would fly if he flier were all about gay marriage and the company refused or told the gay person to use the self service copier? Didn’t think so.

    I agree with V the K in the I would like to see private businesses given more leeway in what they choose to do or not do in their/with their business.

  12. Ted B. (Charging Rhino) says

    September 12, 2015 at 9:20 am - September 12, 2015

    What amazes me is that Office Depot would permit such a potentially-litigious decision be arbitrarily-made by a minimally-paid and nominally-trained* employee. (plausible deniability if sued?) Basically they are leaving do-I-print-or-do-I-not to the luck of the draw depending on which bored part-time community college kid you get at the service counter…

    What’s next? Refusing service at the fast-food burger-joint drive-thru window to a uniformed police officer, then publicly-terminating the employee a’midst profuse apologies after they got caught? Oh right, that’s already happened…

    * – I have yet to find any coherent pattern to Staples’ Copy-Center copyright policy. I’ve even had them occasionally refuse to copy public documents that are in the Public Domain claiming they’re copyright-protected. Other times it’s “no problem”. And I don’t think they give them any real guidance on “fair use” in the first-place.

  13. Craig Smith says

    September 12, 2015 at 10:39 am - September 12, 2015

    So, take the flier over to FedEx Office, and copy it yourself on their color copiers. Nobody will stop you, since you never let go of the original.

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