Jim Whitt, Contributing Editor

Choice & Responsibility

This just in … France is at war! But you’ll never guess who they are fighting. Themselves! Over half a million people in 160 French cities recently participated in protests, some of which turned violent. They were protesting a proposed law that would allow businesses to fire young workers in the first two years on a job without giving a reason, removing them from protections that restrict layoffs of regular employees. It seems that companies are reluctant to hire people. Why? Because when faced with an economic downturn, the current law makes it illegal to lay people off. So, the result is static high unemployment.

In what might be an indicator of who will win the war, the French flag was lowered in Marseille and replaced with an “Anticapitalism” banner by a group of youths. Apparently some see the new law as a ruse to enable France to be more competitive in the world marketplace. It seems to me that French companies have a real problem. They have to guarantee everyone a job even if it means a company goes broke because they can’t compete. So, where will the money come from to pay for the guaranteed job?

I think this situation in France points to a bigger problem in the world today. We want to have our cake and eat it too. Which leads me to another bit of news I read under the headline, “Supersized Americans Look to Assign Blame.” In this article, J.M Hirsch quotes Yale University’s Dr. David Katz, an obesity expert, who says the problem of obesity can be blamed on companies who “aggressively peddle food to people who don’t need it.” Maybe it’s time to raise the “Anticapitalism” banner over Yale. Dr. Katz needs a lesson in free enterprise (I wonder if Yale has an economics expert?). Food companies do not force-feed consumers. Food companies produce food. To sell their food they must let people know what they have to sell. This is called marketing. People see their ads and may or may not choose to purchase their products. They may or may not need it. If they choose to eat these products in excess they might experience a corresponding weight gain.

Has the world become so crazy that we actually will buy the idea that obesity is the fault of the producer rather than the consumer? I’m afraid so. Based on the success of extracting money from tobacco companies, lawsuits have been filed against food companies because they are allegedly making people fat. How long will it be before we turn on the TV and see anti-obesity activists staging protests denouncing food and demanding legislation requiring food companies to cough up a certain percentage of their profits to pay for obesity rehab?

It was Pogo of comic strip fame who once described the greatest battle in the history of mankind, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” We, like the French, are at war with ourselves. France gave the United States the Statue of Liberty. It was no gift — liberty has a price tag called responsibility. Liberty gives us the power to choose. Responsibility requires that we live with the consequences of our choices. The battle line is drawn in our minds with liberty on the one side and responsibility on the other. It is the never-ending war of wanting to have our cake and eat it, too. As the French aristocracy once famously proclaimed to the masses, I say, “Let them eat cake.” But if we gain a few pounds as a result, we shouldn’t blame the company that made it. After all, it was our choice.

Speaking of protests, nobody does it better than the USA. Where else would immigrants stage protests demanding rights in the country they are illegally occupying? Before I continue, let me make it clear that I am not anti-immigration. As a youngster I was fascinated to learn that my grandmother came to this country at the age of thirteen, unable to speak English and possessing nothing more than whatever was required to meet the immigration requirements when she passed through Ellis Island. What hasn’t changed since then is that people from around the world still want to come to this country. Now, stop and think about that for a minute. Even though we are barraged with news on a daily basis about how bad things are in this country (we’re killing people with food!), people risk everything to get here — legally or illegally.

What’s sad is that the problem has been ignored for so long that it has reached a boiling point. And that’s why we are seeing people from south of the border protesting north of the border. The ultimate oxymoron is to see some of these protesters hoist the Mexican flag on our soil while demanding they be granted the rights they will find only under the banner that carries Stars and Stripes (the pro-capitalism banner). Talk about wanting to have their cake and eat it, too! These people have got it bassackwards — they should be staging protests in Mexico, demanding that their government give them the same rights we enjoy in the United States. So why don’t they? Because they know it wouldn’t do any good! They have no hope that their country will ever offer them the opportunities and rights they have here. “We have no choice,” one protestor offered when asked why she came to the U.S. from Mexico to escape poverty. But that’s precisely the point. She did have a choice and she chose to come here. And I would, too, if I was in her shoes. But what about the responsibility that goes with that choice? If you choose to come to this country and enjoy the benefits of citizenship, you should bear the responsibility of citizenship.

There is talk about building a wall on our southern border to keep illegal immigrants out. The former Soviet Union had to build a wall to keep its citizens in. Immigrants are not building boats to go to Cuba or any of those South American countries where Fidel Castro wannabees constantly denounce the evils of capitalism. But nowhere along their shores will you find a statue inscribed with these words, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

The immigration problem will only be solved permanently when the rest of the world’s economies are as free and vibrant (dare I say capitalistic?) as ours. Then Mexico will have enough jobs to keep their citizens at home and France won’t have to guarantee its citizens jobs even when they don’t have them. But until then people will still beat a path to the golden door, drawn like moths to the warmth of Lady Liberty’s lamp. We need to keep that in mind anytime anyone is protesting anything in our country. After all, life is so good here that our biggest problem is we’re getting too fat.

Please e-mail comments to Jim Whitt at jim@whittenterprises.com.

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