If there's one thing even more uniquely American than choking down mouthfuls of turkey no one wants, green bean casserole no one admits to preparing, and pumpkin pie that no one remembers buying on Thanksgiving, it's going shopping all the time. For god's sake, George W. Bush counseled a nation still reeling from the 9/11 attacks that when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. "Take your families and enjoy life the way we want it to be enjoyed," he said. Forget baseball—shopping is the national pastime.
Given that, I'm genuinely amazed at the pushback against plans by Walmart, Target, and other major retailers to open their doors on a day that everyone has off but no one has anything to do. Being disgusted by the willingness of stores to open for business on, what, the 10th or 20th most solemn day of the year isn't just incomprehensible, it's positively anti-American.
As Calvin Coolidge put it famously to a bunch of newspaper editors back in 1925, "The chief business of the American people is business." Just as you can't have Thanksgiving without a meal that fully no one actually enjoys (and a guest list that always seems only slightly less arbitrary, resentful, and ill-mannered than the manimals in The Island of Dr. Moreau), you can't have a functioning free-market economy without massive amounts of shopping. Every day is "Buy Nothing Day" in North Korea and look where that's got them.
Please note that this column in no way is a call for mandatory shopping or opening of stores on this or any other holiday. But it is an argument for unfettering markets even on this hallowed day (wait, is this Gettysburg sesquicentennial?).
