Welcome to the 23rd installment of The Wal-Mart Weekly, a column dedicated to bringing you insight, wit, facts, results, opinions and just a bit of everything else when it comes down to a very hot topic these days: Wal-Mart.

A little over a week ago, I discussed how Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) has such a tight supplier relationship with China that it is exposing itself to possible consumer backlash in the wake of growing concern over the quality of Chinese goods from just about every conceivable angle. From tainted dog food to industrial chemical-infected toothpaste, China's imports, and indeed the entire country, is under the quality microscope as never before.

So this week, we'll return to a familiar theme when it comes to the world's largest retailer: the paying of wages and the hiring of young employees against not only labor laws, but against the backdrop of being a good and decent global employer. Wal-Mart's employment practices have been under fire in the U.S., and now Mexico may be joining that club. Read on.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) witnessed protests at several of its stores recently as protesters supporting defeated Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador blocked cash registers and tossed around merchandise inside several Wal-Mart stores. It always makes me smile to see anyone decry Wal-Mart for paying "bad wages" and so forth -- at least in this country. Apparently the notion of freedom of choice and capitalism that makes the U.S. the richest and most plentiful country on the planet goes out the window when Wal-Mart apparently "forces" workers to work there and for "bad wages." Give me a break.

Said a protester in Mexico City -- "The pacifist civil resistance movement comes today to denounce this transnational that pays badly and doesn't respect human rights." While Wal-Mart did in fact support a more right-wing candidate for Mexican president (its choice, again), here we are seeing even more socialistic-minded citizens saying that Wal-Mart is somehow a dethroner of human rights. While many of us may not agree with Wal-Mart's stances on pay scales, benefits and the treatment of workers, it all comes down to freedom.

Freedom for each and every worker to choose not to work there or to choose to work there. To those that respond with "many people don't have a choice", that is hogwash in America at least. The freedom to escape a life of servitude and make something of yourself is the hallmark of this country and it's why we are who we are. The individual choices and responsibility of each citizen determines courses in life, not Wal-Mart.