This reminds me of an epic argument that I had with someone here (I thought it was IndiReloaded, but I might be wrong). Anyway the person was mentioning that if their child disobeys them that they tickle him. I said "um, yeah, so you reward him for his disobedience by tickling him?". Whomever it was never got that their parenting method was a fail. I think that many parents are simply too weak to stand up to their kids, but are hyper defensive when someone points out that their kids need to be put in line.
Again all of this points to the fact that Americans look at freedom as the ability to do whatever feels right and to have everything, even if it means being a lazy/weak parent, or means being EXTREMELY wasteful and so on. I have other family who waste everything from food to electricity, to water. When I tactfully point out that they could save money by not throwing so much away (I can't say being wasteful because it would probably cause hurt feelings) they simply say "meh, its alright, I can afford it". Its not my house, so I don't say anything further.
Speaking of stupid, wasteful people Bo, how many times do you go to clean up a table and the people left a bunch of uneaten food there? People (excuse me... Americans) fail to realize that people in other parts of the world would literally KILL for the food that they so wastefully throw away.