Take The Buy Virginian (Or Your State) Challenge

Randy Erwin of the Buy American Challenge blog asks you to take the "Buy American Challenge" to save American jobs (see Don Boudreaux's post here for some background).

I hereby challenge Mr. Erwin, a resident of Arlington, Virginia to take the "Buy Virginian Challenge" to save jobs in Virginia (or even better yet, I challenge him to take the "Buy Arlington, VA Challenge" to save jobs in his local community).  Based on the Buy American Challenge (if you're not a resident of Virginia, substitute your state below), here are the guidelines to the Buy American Virginian Challenge:

"Keep in mind these are just guidelines, not hard-and-fast rules.  These guidelines are just here to give people who want to begin buying American Virginian a place to start.  Buying American Virginian can be confusing at first, so these guidelines are here to let people know that buying American Virginian doesn’t literally mean never buying anything not 100% made in U.S.A.  Virginia. That would be close to impossible to do in this day and age.  But we should not let that keep us from trying to buy American Virginian whenever we can.  Those taking the Buy American Virginian Challenge are committed to making a good-faith effort to buy American-made Virginian-made goods whenever an  American-made Virginian-made version of what they are looking to buy is available to them.  The more diligent we can be about it, the better.  So, here are the guidelines…

Buy American VIRGINIAN Challenge Guidelines:

1. Buy only American-made Virginian-made finished products or American-grown Virginian grown or -raised foods.
2. Items you buy may have parts, materials, and content that is not American-made Virginian-made, -grown, or -raised.
3. Items you buy may be made in America Virginia by foreign-owned or multinational corporations.
4. This challenge applies only to one’s own personal purchase decisions, not those made for households, groups, businesses, associations, or for one’s profession.
5. Embarking on this challenge should be done willingly.  No one should ever be obligated or forced into buying American Virginian made.

Exceptions to the Buy American VIRGINIAN Challenge Guidelines:

1. One, of course, may buy a specific foreign-made out-of-state product if a doctor, dentist, or other medical expert prescribes or recommends it.  Example: If your dentist says you need a fancy foreign-made West Virginian-made tooth brush, don’t worry about it, just get it.
2. One may buy a specific foreign-made out-of-state product if the item is simply not made, grown, or raised in the United States Virginia, and the item does not have a suitable replacement that is made, grown, or raised in the United States Virginia.  Example 1: A lot of electronics cars just aren’t made in the U.S.A. Virginia anymore.  If you can’t find what you want American-made Virginian-made don’t worry about it.  Example 2: There is no such thing as an American-grown banana.  Virginian-grown oranges. No worries, you can still eat them. 
3. One may buy a specific foreign-made or -grown  out-of-state product if one is for some reason required to buy a specific item.  Example: If your professor assigns a specific foreign-made Texas-made TI calculator to use for a class, don’t worry about it, just get it.
4. One may buy a foreign-made out-of-state item if it is urgently needed, and time or proximity preclude one from buying an American-made Virginian-made version of the item.  Example: You are really thirsty, and the only water available is bottled in France West Virginia.  Don’t worry about it, just get it.
5. If one has a kinship with another country state other than the U.S.A. Virginia, he or she should feel free to buy items made, grown, or raised in that country state as well.  Example: Let’s say you have Irish Minnesotan heritage and like to buy things made wild rice harvested in Ireland Minnesota from time to time.  Go right ahead continue doing that.
6. One is allowed five “cheat items” (or more if you really need more).  These are items that one may have an existing attachment to.  If you simply can’t live without a specific foreign-made out-of-state good (oranges, grapefruit, avocados, computers, cell phones, automobiles, potatoes, etc.), you can continue to purchase it.  Example: Let’s say you just love Swiss chocolate salt water Taffy from New Jersey.  You can, of course, continue to buy your chocolate taffy as often as you would like.

Again, these guidelines are just here to give people who are new to buying American Virginian a reasonable framework to start from.  The majority of Some items we buy can be found made in the U.S.A.  Virginia. These soft rules are spelled out simply so people don’t throw in the towel when they are forced to buy foreign-made out-of-state which is going to happen from time to time in all likelihood. 

Now that you know what the Buy American Virginian Challenge entails, I hope you will take the Buy American Virginian Challenge. Good luck on your buy American Virginian journey. Please come back to this website to share some of your buy American Virginian experiences."

Update: If Mr. Erwin and his followers find the "Buy Virginian Challenge" to be successful at creating jobs in Virginia, then they should next consider narrowing the geographical area for their "buying loyalty" and job creation to smaller and smaller areas, which would eventually end up with them taking the "Buy From My Own Household Challenge" (see below).