Thursday, May 07, 2009

Civil Disobedience According to a Fool

Writing for the Christian Science Monitor, Jim Sollisch, a creative director for the advertising firm Marcus Thomas Advertising, foolishly displays his utter lack of understanding civil disobedience.

Sollisch, whose piece is titled Stop feeding the loan sharks, appears to have a bone to pick with credit card companies, and is advocating non-payment of legally obligated debts incurred by individuals who utilize credit cards.

...Let’s stop paying our bills. Millions of us all at once can tell our unscrupulous credit-card lenders that we won’t pay them another cent until they make the terms more reasonable. There’s no regulation that says they have to wait until the law passes .

They’ve been raising our rates arbitrarily for years; I assume they can lower them, too. The impact of our civil disobedience will be immediate. And best of all, this action won’t add to the federal deficit. All we have to do is say, “Enough.” The short-term effect will be an additional stimulus for the economy as millions of ordinary Americans suddenly have more disposable income to spend on real goods and services rather than on usurious interest payments.

Sollisch then follows the above statements with an alleged “fairness” clause.

To be fair about this, we should set up some parameters. Let’s continue to make payments on cards with interest rates at or below 10 percent (which is still exorbitant, considering the Fed has brought short-term interest rates close to 0 percent). And let’s reward lenders who don’t charge gargantuan late fees (a recent Pew Charitable Trust survey found that 87 percent of cards allowed automatic late penalty increases with a median rate of 27.99 percent).

Knock, knock, knock, foolish Jim.  Civil disobedience is NOT reneging on your legally incurred debt obligations because you’re unhappy paying late fees, or higher interest rates when you DON’T make your payments on time, as required and spelled out in the government mandated disclosures you receive from credit card companies when you apply to them for credit.  And your stated little “fairness” clause is nothing other than an acknowledgement that credit card debts incurred, regardless of interest rate and late fees assessed when you pay late, are legal debt obligations which you agreed to when you needed credit.

Civil disobedience, in a nutshell Jim, is as follows.

Civil disobedience is the active refusal to obey certain laws, demands and commands of a government, or of an occupying power, without resorting to physical violence. (bold by ed.)

Advocating individuals to not pay their legally incurred credit card debts, Jim, is nothing other than advocating being a deadbeat, a credit risk, and a fool.  I recommend you re-read Thoreau’s essay Civil Disobedience and then apply Thoreau’s recommendations regarding civil disobedience where they should be applied, against the government, not private companies which deemed you a creditworthy risk when you needed some extra cash.

Posted by John Venlet on 05/07 at 10:55 AM
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