Why Do Liberals Hate Wal Mart?

[red states rule]

Yeah, I know. I told you. It's more personal than anything else.

But they really do suck. How does someone in a wheel chair get around in a Wal*Mart? There's so much crap everywhere. Just walking through a Wal*Mart is a major fucking ordeal.

And you can't see anything. The ceilings are low, there's merchandise stacked to the nines. And it's dirty. The store in Warwick was brand new, and it looked dirty the day it opened. There's too much crap. Next time you go into a Wal*Mart look at the floors.

You ever tried to buy shoes at Wal*Mart? They have the worst fucking shoe department I've ever seen.

And the check out counters. Is it at all possible to move any slower than a Wal*Mart check out line? I don't think so.

Wal*Mart sells crap. The fact that people are willing to buy it because it's cheap crap, doesn't speak well for the people who shop there.

My Wal Mart is great. I buy everything at Wal Mart.
Food, clothes, shoes, cleaning supplies, cat food, my eye glasses. and the prices are low - the selection is huge
I am sorry your personal feelings have consumed your common sense. Wal Mart is a fine company and does alot for the national economy.
From their employees, their suppliers, and suppliers employees. Wal Mart has been a blessing for them and America

 

[liberalogic]

The answer to the original question goes beyond economics and to generalizations. Many of us liberals in the North make the following connection:

WalMart is associated with your typical gun-loving, pick-up truck (with the "WOW" sticker on the back), narrow-minded, slow-witted redneck. We don't want to buy from the same store as them.

That's not my personal opinion, but it's shared by many liberals in the tri-state area. It stems from our preconceived generalization of the South. We think of them as stupid, unenlightened, bible-loving freaks who should've seceded when they had the chance.

Personally, I don't think that the south is stupid at all. I think there are very good people down there. But at the same time, I don't intend to cross the mason-dixon line.

 

[Annie]

The answer to the original question goes beyond economics and to generalizations. Many of us liberals in the North make the following connection:

WalMart is associated with your typical gun-loving, pick-up truck (with the "WOW" sticker on the back), narrow-minded, slow-witted redneck. We don't want to buy from the same store as them.

That's not my personal opinion, but it's shared by many liberals in the tri-state area. It stems from our preconceived generalization of the South. We think of them as stupid, unenlightened, bible-loving freaks who should've seceded when they had the chance.

Personally, I don't think that the south is stupid at all. I think there are very good people down there. But at the same time, I don't intend to cross the mason-dixon line.

If you think this post makes sense, will you explain why?

 

[liberalogic]

If you think this post makes sense, will you explain why?

It makes perfect sense. That is the stereotype that many liberals in the northeast have. They associate WalMart with the south and, therefore, deem it to be beneath them.

 

[Annie]

It makes perfect sense. That is the stereotype that many liberals in the northeast have. They associate WalMart with the south and, therefore, deem it to be beneath them.

I was referring to the other clause, the 'I'm not going south of Mason-Dixon line', why? After what your previous clause was?

 

[liberalogic]

I was referring to the other clause, the 'I'm not going south of Mason-Dixon line', why? After what your previous clause was?

While I don't share the same conviction and hatred for the south as many other liberals, I simply don't feel as though I'd fit in. I've heard that it's very slow-paced and that everyone says "hello" to one another even when they are strangers. I'm the complete opposite of that. And not to mention, I did see the political map from the last election-- they're all red states and I don't want to be a part of that.

I know it's a generalization, but it's somehwere I have no desire to go. That doesn't make them bad people; we just don't share the same values.

 

[red states rule]

It makes perfect sense. That is the stereotype that many liberals in the northeast have. They associate WalMart with the south and, therefore, deem it to be beneath them.

This is the typical way libs see people who disagree with them - they are stupid and beneath them

Is this the Howie Dean McGovern 50 state stratagy?

 

[nt250]

I've heard that it's very slow-paced and that everyone says "hello" to one another even when they are strangers.

The greeters. Yikes! Everytime I'd go in the new Wal*Mart in Warwick I would have this flashback to the scene in the movie Airplane! where Robert Stack punches out the people in the airport.

I have since moved to Massachusetts and the Wal*Mart near me now does not have greeters. I don't know if they stopped having greeters everywhere, or if they finally wised up in the North and decided to get rid of them because we rude Northerners found them so annoying.

 

[KarlMarx]

The answer to the original question goes beyond economics and to generalizations. Many of us liberals in the North make the following connection:

WalMart is associated with your typical gun-loving, pick-up truck (with the "WOW" sticker on the back), narrow-minded, slow-witted redneck. We don't want to buy from the same store as them.

That's not my personal opinion, but it's shared by many liberals in the tri-state area. It stems from our preconceived generalization of the South. We think of them as stupid, unenlightened, bible-loving freaks who should've seceded when they had the chance.

Personally, I don't think that the south is stupid at all. I think there are very good people down there. But at the same time, I don't intend to cross the mason-dixon line.

WOW!!!!!!!!! (as in the exclamation)

you just admitted that many of your fellow liberals are nothing but a bunch of bigoted and elitist bastards!!!!!

thanks!!!! I'm glad see a liberal finally admit it!

P.S. And notice, everybody, that the attitude liberals have towards red necks is the same attitude that some whites had towards blacks, i.e., they were slow witted, simple, should have gone back to Africa when they had the chance, don't want to lower themselves to be seen associating with such people, and definitely wouldn't want your daughter marrying one!!!!!!

P.P.S... I can see it now... somewhere in the Northeast, two liberal women are socializing.... Ms. Pro Choice is whispering in shocked tones to Ms. Hillary Supporter on their way to the Save the Gay Whales from Wal-Mart rally in an SUV while drinking latte cappucinos and wearing their Birkenstocks ... "Did you hear the latest?!?!?!? Muffie Democrat's daughter is dating that Bill Buckley boy from that family of .... pro-life conservatives!!!!! Why! I hear that his mother is a stay at home mom! And the father actually listens to Rush Limbaugh! And to make matters worse, they're a traditional family who are still married to one another!!!!! Horrors!!!!! What has the world come to?!?!?!?!?"

"Well!!!!!" Ms. Hillary Supporter sniffs in an indignant tone, "you'd never catch MY daughter doing that! She's a committed lesbian!"

 

[KarlMarx]

...I've heard that it's very slow-paced and that everyone says "hello" to one another even when they are strangers. ....

A quality that we once called "loving thy neighbor" and "being neighborly"....

I've noticed over the years that many people have a problem with that type of attitude.

I grew up in a neighborhood where you knew everyone in the neighborhood and they knew you. When someone came to the door, you'd have them come in and offer them a cup of coffee or something to eat.

Where you'd drop everything you were doing to help a friend or neighbor in need. When someone was sick in the hospital, or at home for an extended time, you'd visit them.

Now, I don't even know most of my neighbors. And if I wave to them, half of the time, they don't return the courtesy.

This is also true in the work place, many people only seem to want to know you if you have something to offer them, otherwise, they don't want to be seen talking to you.

It's no secret that people are not as friendly as they once were.

Then people wonder why some of us spend so much time on message boards!!! It's probably one of the few places where you get to socialize with people and get treated half way decently (at least you get "repped" or a smiley face on occasion!)....

 

[1549]

Getting back to the original argument...Believe it or not, Wal Mart is impacting more than just mom and pop stores. Name a retail chain in the United States, and it is threatened by Wal Mart.

P.P.S... I can see it now... somewhere in the Northeast, two liberal women are socializing.... Ms. Pro Choice is whispering in shocked tones to Ms. Hillary Supporter on their way to the Save the Gay Whales from Wal-Mart rally in an SUV while drinking latte cappucinos and wearing their Birkenstocks ... "Did you hear the latest?!?!?!? Muffie Democrat's daughter is dating that Bill Buckley boy from that family of .... pro-life conservatives!!!!! Why! I hear that his mother is a stay at home mom! And the father actually listens to Rush Limbaugh! And to make matters worse, they're a traditional family who are still married to one another!!!!! Horrors!!!!! What has the world come to?!?!?!?!?"

I come from a conservative family (they don't know how I turned out to be such a liberal). But, what the hell is a "traditional family"? I hate the conservative sayings "traditional family" and "family values". My mom worked as an executive for a major corporation from 7 AM to 7 PM every night. My dad was a stay at home dad starting when I was 11. Am I supposed to be ashamed that I did not come from a "traditional family"?

Many of my friends grew up in single parent households...is this a horrible atrocity? None of them do drugs and all of them are in college.

My whole family used to sit around when I was a young kid and watch rated-R movies. Where are the family values? I bought Dr. Dre's album 'Chronic' when it came out...I was 6. It really had no negative impact on me. I listened to that album (and Pearl Jam's "Ten") until my ears fell off.

"Traditional Familes" and "Family Values" are bullshit forms of nostalgia. There were fucked up people in the thirties, forties, and fifties...just as there are fucked up people today. Want to get real traditional? Victorian times. How can you get more traditional than that? Back then it was unspoken code that men would visit prostitutes in order to act out sexual desires that were inappropriate for the bedroom.

You may think the world is going to hell because your neighbor does his wife in the ass every night...but just remember that 100 years ago your neighbor would be sodomizing a hooker. You choose which is worse.

All in all, there is no such thing as a traditional family or family values. No matter what you do, families are always evolving and no family ever quite meets the ideals of a "traditional family". As for family values, no matter what you do, your child (if it is a boy) will most likely: 1) take up cursing in middle school or earlier 2) look at porn 3) have sex before marriage

Many serial killers grew up in normal run-of-the-mill homes. The fact is that kids will always be corrupted at some point. I feel if you introduce them to some things in a natural way (like not completely sheltering them from bad language and violence), it will lessen the shock factor when they become adolescents.

 

[Mariner]

Why do people shop at Walmart? Because it's cheap.

Does some conservative here want to answer why all of us should be paying the health care for tens of thousands of Walmart employees?

Walmart's bid to sell cheap gas inadvertently underlines its dependence on the government and taxpayer built highway sytem. I wish that zoning laws required public transportation, bicycle, and foot traffic access to every suburb and mall. We'd cut our oil use dramatically if they did.

Mariner.

P.S. What is the world coming to? Well, who supports family values more? A gay couple who gets married and stays together for life in Massachusetts, or Rush Limbaugh, who fulminates about how drug users belong in jail, then plea bargains his way out of jail for drug use--and who has been married and divorced 3 times. The man's lost any credibility to spout about "family values."

 

[red states rule]

Why do people shop at Walmart? Because it's cheap.

Does some conservative here want to answer why all of us should be paying the health care for tens of thousands of Walmart employees?

Walmart's bid to sell cheap gas inadvertently underlines its dependence on the government and taxpayer built highway sytem. I wish that zoning laws required public transportation, bicycle, and foot traffic access to every suburb and mall. We'd cut our oil use dramatically if they did.

Mariner.

P.S. What is the world coming to? Well, who supports family values more? A gay couple who gets married and stays together for life in Massachusetts, or Rush Limbaugh, who fulminates about how drug users belong in jail, then plea bargains his way out of jail for drug use--and who has been married and divorced 3 times. The man's lost any credibility to spout about "family values."

Yes, you wish to impose your kook liberalism on folks because you are so much smarter then the rest of us. Wal Mart is a blessing for tens of millions of working people, yet libs want Wal Mart destroyed because the employess are noot union workers.

Libs love the unions - mostly for the money they get. Of course it does not matter how many Republican union workers who oppose their money going to Dem candidates. Libs tell them to shut up and fork over the money.

When libs here the word "values" they think of Wal Mart - and labor oppression

 

[5stringJeff]

That's exactly the issue, RSR. In a free market system with no controls, there would be no fish in any stream in America (all would be polluted by PCBs, mine tailings, and simple dumping of pollution). There would be no occupational health and safety rules. Employers could hire whomever they wanted, regardless of sex, age, race, etc. There would be no weekend. All these things are created by liberal concern for balancing the engine of capitalism with concern for its side effects.

1. Your remark about fish being killed off by pollutants is ludicrous.
2. Ditto with no OSHA rules. If someone didn't think their workplace was sufficiently safe, they coule leave and find another job. Alternately (not that I would want this to happen), if someone died at the workplace due to unsafe conditions, people would be less likely to want to work at that place, so the company would lose out on newer employees, have to pay higher wages, etc.
3. I honestly can't believe you disagree with this. Employers should be able to hire whomever they want, regardless of sex, age, race, etc.!
4. The weekend thing is ludicrous as well. Don't want to work weekends? Don't get a job from someone who makes you work weekends. Simple.

Think about it--in the old days, the largest employers (such as GM), protected by tariffs and stronger redistributive taxation, were able to provide true "head of household" wages and benefits. Walmart, the new largest employer, pays far less, and with almost no benefits.

GM and Ford are about to drown themselves in pension payments. It's an untenable position that worked well for a generation, but is now proving to be unsustainable (like Social Security, but that's a different thread).

To some extent, these changes are the result of globalization--cheap labor available around the world reduces workers' pay. But another big chunk of it comes from Republican/conservative unwillingness to recognize the downsides of unfettered capitalism.

There are very few downsides to unfettered capitalism. In fact, with the exception of national defense, I can't think of any industry that the free market can't efficiently do on its own - producing the greatest numberf of goods to the greatest amount of people while providing the greatest number of jobs.

Here's another issue with Walmart--in a dozen or so states, their workers are the single largest group of users of Medicaid services. In other words, all of us are subsidizing the company by paying its employees' health care costs--while competitors that actually try to provide health insurance to their employees, are outcompeted on price.

I think MtnBiker's post showed that many Walmart employees drop from Medicaid after getting hired.

 

[5stringJeff]

Does some conservative here want to answer why all of us should be paying the health care for tens of thousands of Walmart employees?

First, MtnBiker already showed how Walmart employees tend to drop off of Medicaid rolls.

But, if you want the free-market answer:
1. Get rid of Medicaid.
2. Get rid of other health-care regualtions, especially those which require insurance companies to provide certain types of coverage. In essence, deregulate the health care industry.
3. Watch all Americans suddenly be able to afford health insurance and health care.

Now, everyone's got access to health care, and you're not paying for it! Problem solved.

 

[jasendorf]

First, MtnBiker already showed how Walmart employees tend to drop off of Medicaid rolls.

But, if you want the free-market answer:
1. Get rid of Medicaid.
2. Get rid of other health-care regualtions, especially those which require insurance companies to provide certain types of coverage. In essence, deregulate the health care industry.
3. Watch all Americans suddenly be able to afford health insurance and health care.

Now, everyone's got access to health care, and you're not paying for it! Problem solved.

I think we've all seen the ***magic-of-deregulation*** before... we like to call it Enron. Now you want to do for the health-care industry what deregulation did for energy? Thanks, but I don't know that I can stand a 200% increase in the cost of an x-ray the same way I can for a gallon of gas.

 

[5stringJeff]

I think we've all seen the ***magic-of-deregulation*** before... we like to call it Enron. Now you want to do for the health-care industry what deregulation did for energy? Thanks, but I don't know that I can stand a 200% increase in the cost of an x-ray the same way I can for a gallon of gas.

Yawn. Enron was energy trading and corrupt business practices, not just market deregulation. (Not to mention, Enron is out of business, so from a capitalist perspective, the free market worked, though the Enron employees got screwed.)

If you wanted to make a really good comparison, you would look at the food market. Food - which is an even more universally needed commodity than health care - is practically unregulated, yet it's so cheap that the nation is getting fatter and fatter all the time. Or, one could look at the airlines, which deregulated about 30 years ago. It's significantly cheaper to fly nowadays than it was.

The point is, deregulation works in the long run to make good more affordable.

 

[jasendorf]

Yawn. Enron was energy trading and corrupt business practices, not just market deregulation. (Not to mention, Enron is out of business, so from a capitalist perspective, the free market worked, though the Enron employees got screwed.)

Can't wait for the commodities brokers to get their hands on heart surgery! Energy trading was a huge part of the deregulation of the energy industry. And, now we're seeing $70-a-barrel oil due to what? The laws of supply and demand? No. An increase in production costs? No. What then? Speculating. Pure, unadulterated, money changing. I say we throw them out of the temple.

If you wanted to make a really good comparison, you would look at the food market. Food - which is an even more universally needed commodity than health care - is practically unregulated, yet it's so cheap that the nation is getting fatter and fatter all the time. Or, one could look at the airlines, which deregulated about 30 years ago. It's significantly cheaper to fly nowadays than it was.

I think you're underestimating the amount of regulation in the food business... but I'll admit they don't check on the illegal immigrants at the slaughterhouses in Nebraska very often.

Oh, and good call on the deregulation of the airlines... those same airlines gave us the security in place on 9/11. We left it up to the airlines because no company would ever allow air travel to be unsafe because it would hurt their image and, in turn, their profits. Worked great! Thank you deregulation!

The point is, deregulation works in the long run to make good more affordable.

Tell that to the TSA.

 

[red states rule]

Can't wait for the commodities brokers to get their hands on heart surgery! Energy trading was a huge part of the deregulation of the energy industry. And, now we're seeing $70-a-barrel oil due to what? The laws of supply and demand? No. An increase in production costs? No. What then? Speculating. Pure, unadulterated, money changing. I say we throw them out of the temple.



I think you're underestimating the amount of regulation in the food business... but I'll admit they don't check on the illegal immigrants at the slaughterhouses in Nebraska very often.

Oh, and good call on the deregulation of the airlines... those same airlines gave us the security in place on 9/11. We left it up to the airlines because no company would ever allow air travel to be unsafe because it would hurt their image and, in turn, their profits. Worked great! Thank you deregulation!




Tell that to the TSA.

If you live for socialism may I suggest go to a place that is big, cold, and alot of people named Ivan live there

 

[MtnBiker]

I think you're underestimating the amount of regulation in the food business... but I'll admit they don't check on the illegal immigrants at the slaughterhouses in Nebraska very often.

Tell us more. What regulations in the food industry are influencing prices?