Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It’s simple and unpretentious — a good meal and time spent with loved ones, remembering to count our blessings.
This Thanksgiving, however, has spurred a social media maelstrom over stores opening for business on what George Washington declared in 1789 to be “a DAY OF PUBLIC THANKSGIVING and PRAYER.”
Stores have been open on Thanksgiving for years, of course, without any tear in the space-time continuum, but they’re opening even earlier this year.
Much of the “controversy” is being ginned up by professional Walmart haters, who incessantly complain that the world’s largest private employer pays wages and provides benefits so low that … well, arguably only these same complainers offer workers less.
A post at the Daily Kos argues that, “workers shouldn’t have to rely on having an especially good boss to get to spend Thanksgiving with their families.”
Matt Walsh writes on his blog that “a holiday created by our ancestors as an occasion to give thanks for what they had, now morphs into a frenzied consumerist ritual where we descend upon shopping malls to accumulate more things we don’t need.”
New York Post columnist Nicole Gelinas sounds alarm bells that workers required to make time-and-a-half or double-time for clocking in today are being “cut off from fully celebrating America’s all-race, all-religion family holiday.”
But she adds, “It’s shoppers, not the government, who should force stores to close.”
She’s right there. Everyone has a right to boycott stores for opening on Thanksgiving. But the government should butt out entirely.
Still, since this day is all about giving thanks, wouldn’t having a job be something for which to be thankful? In fact, someone needing extra money to fund their family’s needs might even see working today as an opportunity.
It is possible to give thanks on a day other than Thanksgiving. Some might say that every day in America provides an occasion for offering thanks.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
4 replies on “Give Thanks for First-World Problems”
I know many people who frequently work on Thanksgiving Day but don’t feel cut off from the holiday. Those people are doctors, nurses, orderlies, ward clerks, EMTs, ambulance drivers, policemen, firemen, snow plow drivers, and many others. They work on holidays providing benefits to others. What better way to give thanks than to help others.
Thanks for quoting Henry Hazlitt, whose wonderfully-readable little book, “Economics in One Lesson,” is the best text on economics that I’ve ever seen. It should be “required” reading for anybody who wishes to influence political-economic policy or who wishes to hold political office.
Thank you, Paul, for pointing out the obvious which so many people miss. One has the opportunity to be thankful, express their thankfulness and rejoice in the blessings we share in America 364 other days each year. Not to diminish the importance of the Thanksgiving holiday. But for those who really must brave the throng for all the sales on that day, I hope they have expressed their thanks for that savings and blessed the people who, voluntarily or otherwise, put in the working ours to make those sales possible.
[…] Today’s moral scolds and Mrs. Grundys aren’t old-fashioned, they say, or conservative, they say. They call themselves liberals or progressives and they think they know what’s best for you, your family, and the nation. This weekend’s Townhall column expands on Thursday’s Common Sense. […]