Politics from the Palouse to Puget Sound

Monday, February 27, 2006

Uncle Buck Makes the Big Time

The story of James Krueger and Bambi's Quest for Viagra was recently featured on the blog at LewRockwell.com. LewRockwell.com is one of the better known national Libertarian/Conservative web sites.

The following was posted by Thomas DiLorenzo on January 25, 2006:
Will Wal-Mart Give Away Free Birth Control?

John T. from Pullman, Washington sent me an article from the Jan. 21 Pullman Daily News about all the political hoops Wal-Mart has to jump through to build a store on its own private property there. It cited some of the usual left-wing nuts in opposition, including one Professor James Kreuger of Washington State University who argued at the hearing that "light pollution could cause Pullman men to become impotent. He based his claim on research involving deer."

Well, strike up another benefit to having Wal-Mart in your town: free birth control.
To which William T.Anderson replied:
Wal-Mart Hysteria: The Madness Continues (and Continues....)

Tom's entry about Wal-Mart and Pullman, Washington, reminds me of what happened at a recent faculty computer training course I took here at Frostburg State. Some liberal arts faculty were there, and whenever we had discussion board exercises or anything like that, someone would bring up Wal-Mart, and then the jihad would continue. It is hard to comprehend the obsession that the "social justice" elites, plus all of their allies in the clergy, media, and universities have with Wal-Mart.

Of course, all of them are supportive of the recent anti-Wal-Mart bill that the Maryland legislature passed, and I suspect that they want nothing less than for the store to be destroyed and the company go out of business. Furthermore, this obsession is not limited to leftists; the Chronicles crowd of "social conservatives" is just as nutty on this subject as my leftist colleagues at FSU.

This madness is only going to get worse over the next few years, as more and more politicians are going to base their campaigns on anti-Wal-Mart themes. Two years ago, Theresa Heinz Kerry -- who shops at places where people need references just to walk in the door -- declared that "Wal-Mart destroys communities." This year, expect even more of the same.

Nor will it let up during the upcoming presidential campaign. When Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas, Hillary Clinton served on the Wal-Mart board of directors. I can guarantee you that her service for Wal-Mart (one of the few positive things she has done in her career) will be a central campaign issue during the Democratic Primary, and it will be interesting to see how she turns that into an attack on the company.

All of this is evil, and it is madness. It also is another example of how all these people who claim to love the "little guy" actually are contemptuous of such folk.
Dr. Anderson is an assistant professor of Economics at Frostburg State University and an adjunct scholar with the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He was featured in Ron Galloway's film Why Wal-Mart Works and Why That Drives Some People C-R-A-Z-Y.

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1 comment:

April E. Coggins said...

The current attacks on Wal-Mart and the attacks on the American Ideal and our way of life are not coincidental. The same people who hold contempt for free enterprise, building new homes and even free speech also hold contempt for the American military. These people have very busy schedules, considering all the protests they must attend.