Romnipotent said:
Inform him that until he forks over cash for locally forged minis and painting goods that it's whats needed. Before he sits down, double check where his seat is made. Before he uses a pencil or pen, check where that too was made. Then tell him the true meaning of slave, and endentured and underpayed labour; discuss its differences. If I refused to play because a product assisting in gaming was made in china I could never game...
Thank you for saying it so I didn't have to.
Now, I appreciate having some principles about where you get your goods, and being aware of where things come from, but with where so many of our goods are imported from, and their local labor conditinos, if you refused to use anything made by any questionable labor, you'd have a hard time buying just about any routine consumer goods. I can understand buying American-made when possible, shopping at local stores and eating at local resturants instead of big chains (I do that whenever possible), and writing Congress and newspapers to raise concern and awareness for working conditions in countries we trade with, but refusing to play in an RPG because the minis used were made in China is foolish (especially if you check the labels on the clothes he's wearing, books, random household goods and so on he may have). Heck, I even refused to go see "War of the Worlds" because Tom Cruise was in it and I didn't want one penny of my money going to support Scientology (since he probably had a profit-sharing deal with the movie, and doubtless a share of his money would go to them), but not using minis already bought and paid for won't change a single cent on anybody's balance sheet.
It's sort of like the time when I was a kid and I had a distant cousin visit. She was an author for a greeting card company, who insulted and verbally assaulted me for our family having a live Christmas tree instead of an artificial tree. Someone who worked as a writer for a
greeting card company is verbally lashing out at a 11 year old kid because their family is using an actual tree for Christmas instead of an artificial one. Fumbling for an answer to this ambush (at an otherwise happy Christmas), I said they were already cut down and not buying them wouldn't re-plant them. She said it is every consumers duty to reduce demand for tree products. Ever since then, I've never bought a single greeting card from her company
