Sometimes that means giving Wal-Mart the big finger. Other times it may mean taking millions of tax dollars and sinking them into a new privately-owned stadium. The point is, our electees do this stuff, and if we don't like it we can vote them out.

And yeah, it's a system that tends to favor the majority and can often screw the minority. But what's the alternative?

Nobody's arbitrarily blocking Wal-Mart -- the idea of having one move into town is bound to get most local officials salivating. There's a growing movement that says "we'd rather keep our small corner stores than have Wal-Mart come in and run everybody else out."

You're absolutely right that anti-Wal-Mart activists are depriving their neighbors of the choice to go buy cheap Chinese imports. And yeah, it seems sort of unfair. But that's the nature of the beast. When Wal-Mart or some other megacorp wants to get its way, its people can go grease a few officials and get what it wants without hardly anybody ever hearing about it.

A grassroots effort to keep a company out of a community is, at the very least, more democratic and fair than some backroom deal that hurts the taxpayer and benefits a company. At least the other side is given a chance to make their case.

When it comes right down to it, our government is set up primarily to protect property rights. Property rights are typically only restricted when there's a pressing public demand for it.

The government started regulating business practices in the first place because the alternative was torches and pitchforks. It used to be that the national guard would have to be called out to defend companies against their own employees, even shooting striking workers.

Over time we developed a system designed to protect people against the worst excesses of capitalism and keep the people from rioting in the streets or burning down the factory. And despite all the agitating by the Ownership Society, that system is what created our once-vibrant middle class. Total deregulation produces Third World conditions, where the very rich live in fortresses and the very poor starve outside the walls.

Wal-Mart is free to find some other country to do business in if they don't like it here. Some wealthy, democratic, glorious bastion of unfettered property rights like . . . uh . . .

Hmm . . .

Lessee . . .