Let's talk about those evil corporations that made people work on Thanksgiving, and why Walmart is a front for devil worship. Okay, I made that up, corporations aren't evil. They're just misunderstood.
Understand, I've been off work since Wednesday. I have been asked to come in sometime this weekend and put an office back together after it gets new carpeting, but that doesn't happen most years, and I'm good with it. Why? Because it's my job. I choose to do this line of work, so when I get asked to work, I do it. I also choose to work this job BECAUSE of time off it affords.
This might be due to the fact that I was Security Police LE in the Air Force, and did private security work for 20 more years after that. I've worked my way to a job that gives me holidays off. But here's how: I worked most holidays for 25 years. Period. End of story. If every single private business was forced to close, it would have been worse and maybe even dangerous. Have you ever had your flashlight die in the middle of a shift only to find out that the spares are dead too? Have you started to eat your lunch and find out the meat on your sandwich is spoiled? People have to eat, and not everyone CAN have the day off. We were always thankful for any store or restaurant that was open. But imagine if everything was closed. No flashlight and a 12 hour shift with no dinner could get someone killed. Also, a baby's fever doesn't go away just because you ran out of Tylenol and the stores are closed. You could take the baby to the hospital, but the staff is probably hungry because they can't get any food, so they might make mistakes.
Now, suddenly, as part of the left's campaign to destroy Walmart, cities and states are banning businesses from being open on Thanksgiving, Some are even banning only the chain stores from opening. That's not about families, that's about destroying capitalism. I spent a larger part of Tuesday afternoon debating with a CONSERVATIVE tweeter who supported this because it's a State's Rights issue. His side of the argument was that the community chose it.
Here's the problem: when a community "chooses" a rule of law, people who aren't affected by the law get a say. That's part of a representative government and I understand that, but it has it's problems. When the city of Lincoln, Nebraska put a smoking ban for restaurants up for vote, by the time it went to voters, it included bars. People who don't even drink got to vote on this, and it passed. The argument was that employees had to be exposed to the smoke, and that made it a public health issue. Most people I knew working in food service or bars did so in order to smoke while working. Those that didn't smoke tended to work at non-smoking restaurants. Then the argument from people who voted for it, when asked why they didn't just go to a non-smoking bar, tended to have the same argument "I'm the only non-smoker in my group and my friends won't go to those bars". Shorter answer: I'm in the minority, but I'm going to force my will on the majority and make them bend to my will.
So, the argument was out there that the community chose the business blue laws, but my side of the debate was that if the community REALLY chose it, the businesses would be closed without a law because the community wouldn't shop there on Thanksgiving or Black Friday and therefore there would be no profit in it. But there is profit in it, so obviously, the community on a whole would actually rather shop. The people who don't shop anyhow voted for this.
Look at it this way. Imagine owning a bar that nets $2000 each night every Friday and Saturday night, and only $2000 a week from the other days combined, but because there are Seventh Day Adventists living in the community (let's say 20%), the city passes a law that says you can't be open on Friday night, and you can't open until 9pm on Saturdays. Would you still believe in doing "what's right for these families"? Even if you lose over $2000 a week off your $6000 a week income (1/3 of your income)? What if a major employer told employees they were cutting their pay from $12 an hour to $8 an hour (1/3 of your income). Do you think the "community" would tolerate that? There would be minimum wage increase laws introduced THE NEXT DAY.
I have seen memes this weekend saying how many people have been killed or injured in "Black Friday" related incidents. Nothing else in the meme, but given that it's my friends and family that are super left posting it, it's a good guess where they stand. There's also a meme of a woman with two carts, a flat screen t.v. in each, and the caption says "bought 2 t.v.s, can't pay rent". My wife has never gone shopping on Black Friday. Most people I know don't. Do you know why? Because of those 2 memes. Most people I hang out with have an IQ over 80, and know that it's crazy and sometimes violent, and that you don't buy 2 t.v.s if you have to spend your rent to do it. CHOICE CHOICE CHOICE. Not only making personal choices, but accepting the consequences of those choices. That's true choice. Living with the consequences of those choices. If you can choose to reverse course at the slightest inconvenience, it's not choice, it's failure to have courage in your convictions.
That's what we've come down to. You can't tell me what to do. Oh, crap it went south, why wasn't there a law protecting me from that choice. You can choose to have premarital sex but if you accidentally get pregnant, there are no consequences to that choice because you can terminate the pregnancy on demand. You can choose to get married to someone who is mean, angry, ditzy, a drinker, whatever. But when you decide (3 kids later) that you don't like those qualities anymore, you can get a no-fault divorce. There's no longer a requirement to prove that staying in the marriage is unsafe or that it's irrevocably broken due to infidelity. I made a bad choice, so I have the right to choose to uproot my kid's life just because "I'm not in love anymore". Here's some bad news, whiny boy. You never were. Would you have gotten married that fast if divorce was illegal? Probably not. We make it too easy to flip flop. And then we wonder why we have politicians that do so.
What have we learned? Probably nothing, since I'm not a professional writer, but if you take anything from this post, take this- Capitalism works because of personal choice. If enough people choose to avoid shopping on Black Friday, businesses will stop doing it. So if you really want to make a change, don't force your will, lead by example. Don't camp all night for an Xbox or an Iphone (regardless of the time of year). And more important, don't rail against capitalism in a Starbucks, on Twitter, using said Iphone. It's called hypocrisy, just say NO to it.
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