Hot Flash! Is Ebay a Red State?

If you consider yourself even remotely taken by capitalism, you've got to love online auction house eBay.

It's a free market proponent's dream, placing every possible sort of item, from the ridiculous (like a vintage 1996 McDonald's Happy Meal Rapunzel Barbie) to the sublime (Waterford crystal toasting flutes), in the hands of the person (or should I say bidder) who values it most.

I've always thought the Left must dislike eBay because it collapses so many of their myths.

For example, the Left's (and particularly the Ralph Nader Left's) favorite chorus is that we need more laws to protect consumers from their own choices otherwise they'll get ripped off by unscrupulous merchants.

Yet eBay has established a user-friendly interface that not only connects buyers with the goods they want, but allows them to keep track of other buyers and sellers' reputations.

If they do get ripped off, they can make this fact known to the rest of the eBay public in a matter of moments by giving the offending seller a lousy rating. The same thing goes for a seller who gets stiffed by a buyer who bid on his goods. This encourages people on both ends of an auction transaction to be on their best behavior because bad ratings mean fewer sales in the future, while good ones are good for business.

It's essentially quality control imposed the old fashioned way, through community word of mouth rather than a government fraud squad. And it's remarkably effective.

But if the miracle of self-policing capitalism wasn't enough to turn leftist statists off eBay, the latest big-news eBay auction item--a ten-year-old grilled cheese sandwich that seems to bear an image of the Virgin Mary--probably was. After all, the miracle item is a left-leaning secular rationalist's worst nightmare.

Its significance is rooted in religious faith. The logical explanations for its form are being rejected in favor of less likely scenarios that cannot be proven. People are embracing it as a symbol of affirmation of Christianity. Last time I checked, the grilled confection was fetching upwards of $16,000. And it's probably not even organic.

But the beauty of eBay is that the Virgin Mary sandwich doesn't have to be an item popular with trendy marketers to make an impact. All it takes is a listing and a bit of publicity, and before you know it, the kinds of people who value edible miracles are lining up their cash. Think about it for a moment--$16,000 for a decade-old grilled cheese sandwich. Even accounting for the inevitable hoax bids the figure must include, it shows a considerable number of people who take their religion seriously.

This is not to say that eBay is some sort of Christian hotbed. If it were, then how would one explain the curious Menorah rhinestone broaches or Jewish name books for sale on the site? And how could one square a Christian bent with the "elegant new" hijabs or the Koran talking CD ROM that are currently up for eBay auction?

No eBay is, like any true free market, an equal opportunity employer. If you have something legal to buy or sell, eBay will welcome you (and take its fair share of your sale), whether you are politically correct or outrageous, religious or atheist, voted for Bush or Kerry, are tolerant or discriminatory, war-monger or pacifist, red stater or blue.

This is why I can't imagine that leftists find eBay very comforting. As a portal for bargaining, it allows values (both monetary and moral) to emerge chaotically and independently, even when they are out of synch with what is supposed to be (in the elite's mind, at least) enlightened and acceptable.

EBay is not a site that is going to impose either gay marriage or Christian fundamentalism on anybody. But it will happily facilitate the sale of just about any item having to do with either one. (I haven't tried searching for it, but if there exists a guide to gay marriage for fundamentalist Christians who wish to serve Virgin Mary grilled cheese sandwiches at the wedding reception, you're bound to find it on eBay.)

This is the site's simple genius: providing willing buyers and sellers with the structure they need to make voluntary exchanges of things that are meaningful to them, no matter how bizarre or silly or worthless or taboo the things may seem to others. If only members of the interventionist Left would take note. They could learn a lot from an old grilled cheese sandwich.

Mary, Mother of Gouda, have you guys seen this? Is this not hysterical? Holy Cheesus, this sandwich went for $28,000 on Ebay! Wonder if it's made with Miracle Whip??^^

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=19270&item=5535890757&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

Personally, I don't care for eBay. I patronized a seller who did fine most of the time, but who refused to correct the error she made on my order, and out-and-out lied to me when I called her on it. My only recourse (apart from legal action, which wasn't worth it, given the amount of money involved) was to leave negative feedback which most people would never see.

So I closed my eBay account.

It never occurred to me to try to get the gummint to close eBay down. I guess that's why I vote Republican.

I have been buying and selling on eBay for 5 years. I have found that you never know what people will bid on. Half a cheese sandwich that looks like Mary Magdalene that gets $28,000 top bid is another example.

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