I don't want a 203,000-square-foot, big-box Wal-Mart sprawling over 30 acres in Fort Mill Township.

Actually, I don't want any Wal-Mart here, regardless of size.

I don't want my hometown to succumb, as thousands of other communities have across the nation, to the company's enticing slogan of "always low prices." Price competition is vital - but it's not everything.

I hope the Tega Cay Planning Commission denies Wal-Mart's application.

Sure, there are probably legitimate concerns about traffic and sprawl. But the real reason to deny the company the opportunity to introduce a "supercenter" depends on whether we can live with Wal-Mart's aggressive grab-the-customer-at-all-costs-and-to hell-with-everyone-else philosophy.

Therein lies the rub.

If Wal-Mart succeeds in building its colossal store, people will flock to it because the prices will be good and people are looking for bargains.

Who can blame them? Families who are struggling to make ends meet will search for the lowest prices. But ultimately, regardless of financial condition, it all comes down to a question of conscience.

We need to look at this very carefully. What price savings? Analysts say Wal-Mart saved U.S. consumers $20 billion last year in its stores alone, and another $100 billion by forcing other retailers to slash prices to compete, says the Christian Science Monitor.

But labor unions claim Wal-Mart's cheap prices come at the expense of decent wages and benefits for workers. Much of its expansion has been in southern states that tend to be nonunion.

The company apparently has a far-less-than-stellar record in providing equal opportunities and wages; a class-action lawsuit with up to 1.6 million plaintiffs has been filed on behalf of all Wal-Mart's current and former female employees. It alleges that women make less money and don't get as many promotions as men.

There's more: In February this year, a federal jury in Portland, Ore., became the first in the nation to rule that Wal-Mart made employees at 18 Oregon stores work unpaid overtime - "off the clock" - from 1994 to 1999. Similar suits against the retailer are pending nationwide, says the Associated Press.

In some stores illegal immigrants have been used as workers, hired through Wal-Mart's contractors, according to a federal investigation.

Wal-Mart's supporters say that although many workers make less money than they would at other places, to the extent that millions of consumers pay less, they free up money into the marketplace to the general benefit of society as a whole.

That's the sort of convoluted thinking that makes me really mad.

Think about it: Wal-Mart pays below-average wages and benefits to many employees so it can keep prices at rock bottom. Thus, it continually squeezes other companies to match its prices - but Wal-Mart usually wins because it uses its size and buying power to negotiate ever more favorable terms...so it can maintain ever-greater pressure on its competitors and their employees.

Obviously consumers are the winners, at least in the short term. But sooner or later, something has to give.

Wal-Mart is the world's largest company, with sales last year of $244.5 billion, operating more than 2,900 stores and 91 distribution centers.

In Spruce Pine, N.C., down the road from where we have a mountain cabin, the local Food Lion closed after Wal-Mart opened a big-box "supercenter," combining general retail merchandise and a huge supermarket under one roof.

A small but very significant backlash against Wal-Mart's relentless drive for a lion-sized share of the consumer market is starting to show up around the country. Several communities have banned retail stores over a certain size.

"Wal-Mart has a track record of decimating locally owned small business," claims Lizette Hernandez, an activist in Inglewood, Calif., where voters in April denied Wal-Mart permission to build a new huge superstore by a 2-to-1 margin. The company had fought hard for a referendum in the Inglewood community - "letting the people decide" - rather than a zoning-board decision, according to the Monitor.

In another hopeful sign, The National Trust for Historic Preservation has placed the state of Vermont on a list of "most endangered historic places," because the planned opening of Wal-Mart stores there in the next few years threatens the state's small-town quaintness.

Richard Moe, president of the nonprofit trust, says the "unique small-town character of the state and the fragile countryside will be overwhelmed" by the size of new Wal-Marts and other behemoth stores. He was quoted in the New York Times.

Moe thinks if communities want a Wal-Mart, they should do it with eyes wide open. "Think about the job losses downtown, about the destruction of the community character, about the cost to subsidize these stores."

That could apply to Tega Cay, or anywhere else in this area.

Vote NO on the petition that is being circulated!

John Mantle is a novelist and former international journalist who lives in Fort Mill Township. He can be reached by e-mail at mantle@fmtc.net.