The inspiration of today’s article is a wonderful story via Fark about a woman who went to Starbucks and, after finding a statement about God on her coffee cup, decided to boycott Starbucks.

Now, the good news (if you’re a fan of Starbucks) is that they’re getting some free publicity about this. Better yet, I’m willing to wager that the number of affluent atheists in blue states that would support Starbucks for posting something like that on a coffee cup is far greater than the number of affluent Christian red staters that would be genuinely offended by such a quote and boycott Starbucks. Put another way, the kind of people that would boycott Starbucks over something like this are probably not people that would shop there anyways. Even so, this issue brings up a fascinating point:

Free speech isn’t free… at least not the way a lot of people think it is.

Many people confuse “free speech” to mean that it’s free as in beer, meaning that it’s free to take or give out without any negative consequences. Unfortunately, speech isn’t free in the way. Instead, anyone is free to say whatever they want, and people are free to listen to it however they want - the freedom is that the government will not dictate how the speaking or listening will go down. However, people are still allowed (I’d almost argue “required”) to form an opinion about what they hear as well as what they speak and react accordingly. This brings me to why commercialism and free speech don’t mix - to get maximum profits, you have to avoid pissing off your customers. Since anything that can be said can be construed by someone negatively, you want to say as little as possible, and if you say something, you want it to be fairly general and fuzzy. Consequently, companies like Starbucks are towing a very fine line - they’re trying to appeal to a certain demographic at the expense of a demographic that they figure isn’t as large, as affluent, or at least as likely to buy coffee from Starbucks. Do that too many times and you’ll find yourself without a demographic to sell to.

Coincidentally, politics works with the same dynamic - you want to cozy up to a specific demographic (the one you’re hoping will vote for you), frequently at the expense of an opposing demographic. Hopefully, the demographic you chose is more numerous or at least more motivated to vote than the demographic you’re angering by your mere existence. Some people are more successful than others.