An Open Letter to FedEx
(I urge all my readers to contact FedEx and express your concerns as well. Feel free to copy and paste this letter into their contact form, which is at https://www.fedex.com/us/customersupport/email/express_ground.html).
To Whom It May Concern:
As a FedEx customer, I’m writing to express my concern about FedEx’s continuing support of the National Rifle Association (NRA) in the United States.
The NRA has evolved from an organization that originally taught marksmanship in preparation for war into an organization that counters, through political action, against any reasonable attempts to control the proliferation and use of arms in the United States — regardless of the kind of weapon at issue, and regardless of the mental state or capacity of the owner.
In response to tragic and well-publicized shootings in schools, where innocent schoolchildren have been killed and seriously injured, the NRA has interceded in every attempt by our elected representatives to enact controls that might reduce or eliminate these horrible tragedies from occurring in the future.
As recently as this past week, the NRA has gone even further to characterize these attempts not as common sense and consistent with regulations promulgated elsewhere in the world in which FedEx does business — but as threats to freedom, as an invitation for a tyrannical Government takeover of the U.S., and as “liberal socialism.” They seek their political aims through gross characterization, fear, and fictional story-telling of the Constitution, as opposed to through careful factual and comparative analysis and reason.
By continuing to give NRA members significant discounts, FedEx implies that they support the NRA, its members, and its agenda. FedEx’s claim that it “has never set or changed rates for any of our millions of customers around the world in response to their politics, beliefs or positions on issues” is specious at best. On the contrary, the logic is quite clear:
1. FedEx provides rates for NRA members that are lower than for non-NRA members;
2. Therefore, as a non-NRA member, I pay more to ship parcels and documents through FedEx than NRA members do;
3. My lack of membership in the NRA is because I do not conform to their political beliefs;
4. Therefore, these discounts are unavailable to me because I do not conform to certain political beliefs.
I strongly urge FedEx to reconsider their position in this matter. Until they rescind discounts available to NRA members, I will not do future business with FedEx, and I will urge my friends, family, and colleagues also to conduct business through alternative carriers.
Sincerely,
Michael Fischer
