On right-to-act and promoting good

I've run into a very interesting phenomena recently where a mean or backwards or bigoted action happens, observers comment on how that is a bad action, and then it's defended with the plea "but they have a right to do that". This magical invocation of rights is both baffling and frustrating, to say the least. It seems to be playing into the bad behavior by shielding it with a non sequitur of "rights". This defense seems to say that as long as an action is legal, it's immune from criticism. The "rights" argument is such a non-defense, that it's almost as bad as when theists appeal to faith: they're both admitting that the argument is lost. But let's give this some more concrete examples, hmm?

Let's say a major pharmacy labels and sells its own homeopathic water. Now sure, homeopathic remedies are legal as long as they don't make any claims, but is it still ethical or wise or good or moral to do so? No. It's not a good thing for a pharmacy to be selling this crap, and making money from doing it is no excuse. Any good-minded citizen would have a problem with their pharmacy selling and endorsing junk, so they call out the pharmacy doing so. They protest, petition and campaign for a positive change: the removal of homeopathic water from the shelves. This is a good step forward for all parties involved (except the scam artists).

It's at this step that I've noticed that for some unfathomable reason, a slew of people will band together defending the pharmacy for exercising its rights to carry junk. As if that means that asking and pressuring them to stop carrying that junk is somehow violating their rights. As if speaking out about something sketchy is more heinous than the sketchy act itself. In this appeal to "rights", the focus is shifted away from what we should want, should encourage and should aspire towards, and moves just towards accepting what is. It also says that the rights of the wrongdoer to do wrong trump the rights of the people to protest. This is ridiculous.

Very frequently businesses do incredibly shady and immoral things that happen to be okay with the law. That doesn't mean we should just roll over and accept them. We have an equal right (and superior ethical standing) to push for a better change, whether that's by lobby the company or lobbying for a change in the law, and by working together positive changes can and will occur. But that collective power to push for a better change should never be dismissed by defending a bad decision.

I've seen this happen on small scale as well. Perhaps one person makes a bigoted slur, others point out how wrong this is, and still others pile in defending the slur by invoking "free speech". Free speech has nothing to do with encouraging others not to be an asshole. If the only way you can defend something you've said is not with the befit that it has but by simply saying that you're allowed to, then you're just being a scumbag, and we have the ability to call that kind of statement out as scummy. Not only that, but recognizing and belittling and making socially unacceptable bigoted comments is a positive thing. Shaming bigoted comments is a positive way to move forward our society. Sure they have a right to be bigoted, but unless there is some sort of government censorship law going on, defending it just makes no sense.

There is a reason that "lawful vs chaotic" and "good vs evil" are on separate planes when it comes to alignment. An action can be lawful and yet still evil, and that is what these kind of things - selling quackery, slurring minorities, and donating to bigots - are: they are lawful evil. Should lawful evil be socially defended or excused? No! Evil actions should always be shamed and shunned, and depending on their legality they should maybe be prosecuted. But defending them is just counter-productive to bettering society.

(**Now, a slight caveat. Sometimes people instead decide to shame good or neutral actions, for example a man wearing a skirt and heels out in public. This isn't an evil action, it's not harming anyone or being cruel or insulting to anyone. Public shaming of that sort isn't designed to add more good to the world, but to force people into specific kinds of social boxes. The aim of social pressure should be for bettering mankind, not promoting some kind of arbitrary social norm.**)