David McElroy

Stockbroker Martin Kessman might be 64 years old, but he’s behaving more like a 6-year-old recently. The 290-pounder in Nanuet, N.Y., is suing the White Castle hamburger chain because he can’t get his fat body into the booths built for people considerably smaller. He claims the chain is violating his rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act. I’m not kidding.

As you can see in the photo, our rotund hamburger fiend is able to get into the booth, but he claims it’s not comfortable enough. I’d suggest he be arrested and carted off, but stupidity still isn’t against the law.

It’s easy to make fun of this idiot — and I take great pleasure in doing so — but the bigger issue isn’t one moron suing a restaurant. No, the bigger issue is that we’ve become a society of people who believe we’re entitled to get our way — even when we’ve created the problem we’re whining about.

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In South Pasadena, Calif., a traffic light went out at a major intersection Thursday morning. Traffic was backed up more than a mile and getting through the intersection took more than half an hour — until a private citizen stepped up to direct traffic.

Alan Ehrlich put on a bright orange shirt and grabbed a couple of orange safety flags and started directing traffic. He had the traffic unsnarled and moving within about 10 minutes. Then police showed up.

They weren’t there to take over directing traffic, because the police chief says this particular traffic light isn’t a priority. They also weren’t there to thank Ehrlich for helping fix the problem. No, they were there to issue him a ticket for interfering. The police chief told an LA television station that it’s safer to allow traffic to back up than to allow someone to direct traffic.

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When I was growing up, I was a very patriotic little kid. I had a U.S. flag hanging in my room and I read U.S. history and surrounded myself with information about why the United States was great. I was the poster child for the patriotic little kid that many people want their own kids to be.

At this point in my life, I’m disturbed by what I grew up learning and with what I became. It leaves me wondering how we can teach children to be mindful of their communities and appreciative for where they were born, but without turning them into the mindless acolytes of state religion that results from patriotism in most cases.

For many people, patriotism has become nothing more than worship of the government that rules the land they were born in. It’s a kind of statist religion that demands slavish devotion to a government whether it’s right or wrong. I certainly don’t want to teach the future children I hope to have to hate the land in which they were born, but I don’t want them blindly obeying a government, either. How can we strike a balance?

I have three ideas that I think might create better outcomes. See if you think these would help strike a middle ground.

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