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I sent this letter today to USA Today:
Even
more predictable than the post-Thanksgiving appearance of shopping-mall
Santas is the inability of pundits at this time of year to say or to
write "commercialism" without prefixing to it the word "crass" – as we
encounter in your pages today in Tom Krattenmaker’s "The real meaning
of Christmas."
I challenge this notion. Commerce is peaceful.
It involves sellers working hard and taking risks to bring to market
goods and services that consumers want to buy. No one forces anyone to
do anything; all is voluntary.
What truly is crass is politics –
that sorry spectacle of power-seeking ego-maniacs who, when not
pronouncing platitudes, are promising to help group A by picking the
pockets of group B. While commerce is honest, politics is
duplicitous. While commerce is peaceful, politics inevitably pits
citizen against citizen. Far more enlightened and ethical behavior
is on display during any one day in a shopping mall than the most
intrepid observer will find in a century on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux