Wal-Mart, Christmas Toys and Topless Bars

[TalkingDog]

There was a story in the local paper today about the local Housing Authority and their refusal of some Xmas gifts from a local topless bar for the low-income kids.

The utter hypocracy of it all was giving me ulcers, so I sat down and wrote a letter to the editor of our local paper.

To the Editor:

Regarding the Statesville Housing Authority’s refusal of Teaser’s Christmas gifts, I am reminded of the Biblical paraphrase: Take the two by four out of your own eye, before complaining about the speck of sawdust in your neighbors.

I think the problem can be summarized in one simple phrase: The love of short-term gain while ignoring long-term negative consequences.

I don’t agree with Mr. Bustle’s profession, nor of the women who choose to work for him. I believe each of them wants the short-term gain of the generous amounts of money afforded this line of work, while failing to recognize the long-term negative consequences for women in general. In the Teaser’s worldview, women become a disposable commodity. Something to be traded in for a less shopworn model after a few thousand miles. But there is no reason to believe that gifts from the Teaser’s women will taint the hearts of truly needy and deserving children.

Those who condemn the morality of Bustle and Teasers while refusing to accept their tainted money and goods, should first look to their own behaviors and habits.

Step back and take a broader view of the morality versus money issue. How many people in Iredell County shop at Wal-Mart? How many will buy their children Christmas gifts from Wal-Mart? The same Wal-Mart that destroys small, local businesses, and has helped to ruin the textile economy in North Carolina by buying a large percentage of their textile goods from China. The same Wal-Mart that supports the Chinese government’s policies of forced abortion and slave labor by trading with them to the tune of billions of dollars a year.

Folks shopping at Wal-Mart want the short-term gain of saving a few dimes on towels or a toy while ignoring the long-term negative consequences of their actions. By shopping at Wal-Mart they create a faltering local economy, putting people out of work and creating needy families. All the while tacitly supporting slave labor and forced abortion with their buying choices.

Looking at it that way, are Mr. Bustle and the Teaser’s women really so bad? They aren’t pillaging the local economy. They aren’t forcing little children to work long hours in unsafe factories for pennies a week. They aren’t forcing women who want to have more than one child to have abortions against their will. But every person who continues to shop at Wal-Mart is funding these very atrocities with every dollar they spend.

The Housing Authority wants the short-term gain of public moral correctness at the long-term cost of necessary toys and goods being withheld from clients and their needy children.

People seem to be very selective about their morality. As long as being upright doesn’t cost them anything or inconvenience them, they are all for it. I say, put your money where your morals are. If you don’t want a Teaser’s, support local businesses that offer a living wage and insurance to their employees, so these women can feed their families and take them to the doctor without having to work 3 part-time jobs at 80 hours a week.

Sincerely
XX

[The Straight Story]

1. A good letter, which I follow by a question

Would you accept gifts from the KKK for kids in your area if you were head of the NAACP?

[McKenzie]

3. not analagous really

the KKK are a white supremacist organisation and their history is riddled with violence. Do the topless women threaten human rights? Do they set fiery crosses in front gardens?

Not an apt analogy because it does not compare like with like.

[The Straight Story]

5. Frame of reference

Some may feel topless dancers are an explotation of women, and that using things gained by them is similar.

I guess the question is - at what point does one not accept the gifts of others on principles (especially when those gifts go to a sub group and not the group dispersing them)?

[TalkingDog]

6. Flawed analogy

The women didn't have kids, abuse them, then abandon them to the Housing Authority ...that would be somewhat analogous to your example.

In fact, some of these women work at Teaser's and rent from the Housing Authority precisely because of places like Wal-Mart.

The Housing Authority accepted the gifts last year until a publicity photo showed the Teaser's women and a Sherriff's Deputy delivering the toys. The Moral Brigade came out with a huff and the gifts were sent back.

I'm just trying to point out the moral relativism in regards to what they publically accept and what they do in their private lives (i.e. shop at Wal-Mart)

[noamnety]

2. excellent letter

I'm especially liking the indirect dig at hyprocritical pro-lifers, willing to support the practice so long as they profit (short term) from it.

[UL_Approved]

4. How about the fact that...

...the businesses driven out of that area are the CAUSE for many of those young women working at the strip joint? Nobody wants to bring that one up...

[impeachthescoundrel]

7. I live in the city in question

And they care as much about women's rights as **** cares about the right to vote

[TalkingDog]

8. Hello neighbor

Did you see the Steve Johnson story in the Iredell Neighbors?

ARRRGGGHHHH!

[impeachthescoundrel]

9. No I did not

I do not read that paper unless there is something that interests me, which isn't very often. By the way, before the election, did you read the letters to the editor from James Calabrese? A man after my own heart.

[TalkingDog]

10. We only take Sunday papers locally

Otherwise we get the W-S journal.

I'll keep an eye out for him in the future though.

[impeachthescoundrel]

11. Forgive my ignorance

But all we get is the Sunday paper as well. Is that where I find Iredell Neighbors? Is the story just going to piss me off further?