This is why I don’t get along with liberals, even though I am one. (And far more liberal than anyone on that site, too.)
There’s a reason that liberals have the reputation of being shrinking, cowering and effete: it’s because for the most part, they are.
The post I linked to illustrates that dynamic perfectly, as well as the fact that even progressives have been convinced that worship of the free market is one’s primary duty, so that boycotts are right out.
What people miss about boycotts is that even though they are often – almost always, actually – ineffective economically, their main purpose is to get people to shut the fuck up.
Did everyone in the South suddenly believe in 1965 that calling black people “nigger” to their faces was wrong? Of fucking course not. But boycotts and other successful actions made them shut the fuck up.
You can’t always change beliefs. Most of the time you won’t. But you can make people shut the fuck up. And sometimes that is good enough.
Just think if we could make the street harassers clam up?
Etc.
I call myself a “militant liberal” from time to time, but that moniker doesn’t really fit. Maybe I’ll think of a better one sometime.