I don’t see how you can repeal basic economic principles. If I earn my living running a hamburger stand and you open another one in competition or perhaps get a McDonald franchise, I may suddenly become poorer. Or maybe my hamburgers are so good that you will become poor trying to compete against me. The societal benefit of this interchange is that the public will get the best hamburger at the cheapest price. In other words competition when looked at globally is better than altruism. Beware of proposals that publicly promote the protection for some while tacitly promoting narrow interests. Not to be too cynical, but many of these proponents or their cronies would benefit personally if their recommendations were ratified.

Hardly anyone promotes a direct socialistic takeover today but if the latest trends persist neither of us will be able to sell hamburgers at reasonable cost. This is because of the indirect manner of attack used by today’s leftist pressure groups. For example: 1.) Cows produce methane which contributes to global warming. 2.) Cows have feelings and should not be slaughtered. 3.) The French fries that come with the hamburgers have trans- fatty acids. 4.) The wrappers on the hamburgers contribute to road side litter and solid waste, contain traces of dioxins and PCBs and the meat contains estrogens and antibiotics. These are causing cancer, premature menarche, congenital malformations, autism, etc. This is all due to inadequate government control of hamburger makers. 5.) The employees don’t get minimum wages and proper health insurance because of lack of national health care and unfair restrictions on unions. 6.) The meat is contaminated with bacteria due to inadequate government inspection. 7.) The manager is a white male and the employees are predominantly minority and female and are non-union due to inadequate affirmative action programs and patriarchal control of society. 8.) The product is contributing to the national obesity problem but the obese are unfairly discriminated against. 9.) There are too many hamburger stands, a fact that is contributing to urban sprawl. Proper social /governmental control of this is being prevented by real-estate developers. 10.) Oh, now something new. Entrepreneurs are making too much money relative to the poor. This is unfair because it is making them sick. You need to give them more of your profits which may heal them by reducing your affluence.

A surprising thread running through many of these pleas is the appeal to health. Why? Are supporters of these causes hypochondriacs? Since the economy and life span are at an all time high, do they have no other things of which to complain? Are health complaints the most effective type? Note the trajectory of litigation and legislation from obvious to less obvious injury, from mine safety, to asbestosis, to tobacco use, to sexual harassment such as putting pinup girls on office calendars, etc. Likewise, since there is now a near absence of gross environmental pollution, lack of polio and TB epidemics and now the availability of effective treatments for AIDS, wars where two or three soldiers die daily instead of 12 thousand storming one beach and relief from the fear of a nuclear holocaust, the senses must be progressively sharpened to feel progressively less realistic fear and more subtle injury..

The last I heard, banks were being sued because terrorists were bank depositors and bought their airline tickets with funds from a bank. Will you soon see the rich being sued for damages because they bought a mink coat for their wife and drive a Lexus instead of a Chevy?