Boycott French Fries!

Discuss this on our boards!

Boycott French Fries!
by James Hall, Senior Associate Editor

February 25, 2003

"Leaning Left"

James Hall Those ungrateful French! How dare they show reluctance to go to war, just because they've had a few bad experiences with it? Well, it's time to boycott french fries. Leave the mayonnaise on the store shelves and pick up the Miracle Whip, instead. Ditto for wine and cheese. We must punish any nation who would take issue with our imperial decisions, mustn't we?

That's the problem with this idea of sovereignty. You let other nations think they can make their own decisions and they're likely to make the wrong ones, the inconvenient ones. The ones we don't like. And those pesky French have always shown an independent streak, refusing to be one of our boys.

Sure, they've always been big on freedom and liberty. They taught us how to effectively fight the British in the French and Indian War and they helped us defeat them in the Revolutionary War. Okay, they did send us the Statue of Liberty to celebrate our Centennial. But aren't they carrying this freedom thing too far, actually wanting to make their own decision about this Iraq war?

Sovereignty and independence are good things--when they're in our hands, of course. We had no trouble disagreeing with the rest of the world over global warming, missile defense or a nuclear test ban when it served our national interests. But we can't allow the Europeans or the UN to start thinking that they can make their own decisions on something that commits them to war.

Why, they might start thinking they're independent or something. Maybe we ought to send the Statue of Liberty back to the French and tell them we no longer cotton to their strange ideas. We've got an empire to run. ***

James Hall
Orlando, FL USA

Photo of the author courtesy of staff files