Response to Border's CEO's statement

To Bloggers from Borders @ AMERICAN DIGEST

An open response to Gregory Josefowicz:

I understand what you're saying..you have a responsibility and it's not practical.

It's not practical for a bookstore to uphold freedom of speech because of civil intimidation

It's not practical for a business with employees to resist civil blackmail

It's not practical in an open society for a business to make a principled stand on the founding values of that society in case there might be REAL risks

It's not practical.

In our free society our freedoms are impractical.

Is that what I heard?

Update 1 - the original letter I responded to was a satire ...
Update 2 - here is the real letter, published later that day, and the criticsm is identical, which makes th satire even BETTER
Thank you for your expression of concern about our decision not to carry the issue of Free Inquiry magazine featuring cartoons depicting Muhammad.

Borders is committed to our customers' right to choose what to read and what to buy and to the First Amendment right of Free Inquiry to publish the cartoons. In this particular case, we decided not to stock this issue in our stores because we place a priority on the safety and security of our customers and our employees. We believe that carrying this issue presented a challenge to that priority.

We value your thoughts and sincerely appreciate that you invested your time to tell us how you feel about the issue. I can assure you that our management team gave careful deliberation to this decision and considered all sides of the issue before reaching this conclusion. As always, we are interested in customer feedback about our choices and while we know you do not agree with our position, we hope you can understand the challenge of balancing the needs of our customers, employees and our communities.

We appreciate the time you have taken to bring your concerns to our attention. If you should have any other questions or comments, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Best,

Dan
Customer Resolution Specialist

Cross posted at Villagers with Torches