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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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Movie popcorn overpriced? Sue ’em; spoiled children want their way

By David McElroy · March 6, 2012

I hate paying the high prices that movie theatres charge for snacks and drinks, but it never crossed my mind to sue anyone about it. One spoiled brat in Michigan is so upset about being deprived of his right to inexpensive popcorn and Coke, though, that he’s filed a class action lawsuit demanding lower prices.

I would simply laugh at his idiocy and childishness, but we live in a culture that caters to these sorts of irrational whims. This lawsuit will probably be dismissed, but I can see the idea behind it succeeding in the future. How long will it be before some congressman introduces legislation to create the National Theatre Snack Food Board, with the power to regulate prices?

If you think that sounds absurd, you’re right. But remember that we live in a country where Congress has passed laws regulating the acceptable volume level of television commercials. Seriously. There’s a law about it. I’m not making this up.

Many people have come to believe that life should be set up to please them. They believe that other people have a responsibilitiy to cater to them. And when reality doesn’t deliver what they want, they expect governments to give it to them.

If gasoline prices are higher than they want to pay, they rail against the evil oil companies (and commodities speculators, if they’re sophisticated enough to have even heard of them). They don’t understand the law of supply and demand — and they don’t really care about reality when they insist on plenty of what they want and prices in line with what they want to pay.

Fortunately, even politicians mostly understand that price controls don’t work, so they’re hesitant to impose them, even though they’ll join in the populist fist-shaking to appease the angry masses. After the experiments of the ’70s wage-and-price controls, some of them realize that if you artificially keep a price down, you’re going to have shortages and lines at gas stations with people angry that there’s no supply.

The guy in Michigan who’s suing for his apparent right to inexpensive popcorn doesn’t understand all of this. He and many of his fellow moviegoers don’t understand economics. They don’t understand the free market. And they don’t understand choices.

If you don’t want to buy expensive popcorn and soft drinks, then don’t buy them. There’s not a “cover charge” at the door demanding that you buy. You can either accept the total price you pay as the cost of attending a movie or you can simply not buy snacks. Of course, you also have the “nuclear option.” Just opt out of going to the theatre. Save your money. If enough others do the same, it might force a change in the economics of running theatres. Maybe.

Either way, it’s your choice. Nobody’s making you go to the theatre and nobody’s forcing you to buy the snacks. You don’t have a constitutional right to reasonably priced Junior Mints. Get over yourself.

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I haven’t posted anything new in my YouTube series about narcissism in the last couple of weeks, so some people have been asking about it. There’s nothing wrong and I’ll be back soon. The issue is simply a technical problem because of a piece of equipment that died. Here’s a brief video I posted on YouTube to explain.

On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

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