Heck, Must Everything Be Made Political?

(In the event you couldn't figure it out,) I enjoy politics as much as the next guy. Still, politics isn't the end all, be all of human existence. Not everything needs to be made into a political jujitsu match! There are plenty of stores I frequent, even knowing that they give lots of money to Democrats; I only boycott when the stores trumpet that knowledge (e.g. Ben and Jerry's) in an attempt to appeal to a certain demographic, or otherwise display an extreme bias or aversion to my beliefs (MSNBC).

So I just roll my eyes when I see stories like this one, which make me wonder about some people's sanity:

As chocolatiers plan for one of their biggest sales weeks of the year, human rights activists are stepping up efforts to make consumers think twice before purchasing the traditional box of chocolates for their sweethearts for Valentine's Day on Monday.

One online campaign is aimed at raising awareness of the cocoa trade in Ivory Coast, which is helping to prop up the pariah regime of incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo, while another focuses on ending the alleged use of child labor by growers in West Africa, which produces about two-thirds of the world's cocoa...

Activist group Green America is urging consumers to send a "valentine" to U.S.-based Hershey, or e-mails directly to its executives, urging the use of cocoa that has "been certified to be free from the worst forms of abusive child labor."

Some leftie will try to score a cheap point by accusing me of supporting abusive child labor. My response to that would be a labored breath and a sarcastic, "Yes, that must be it."

In the case above we have a single group that is trying to take advantage of a "holiday" in order to spread its political message. Do we really want to expand that type of behavior as much as we could? Think about it.