Following the Larry Craig arrest for lurid conduct in a public restroom, I had posted a sympathetic letter, expressing pity for someone so tortured, self deluded, and sensually deprived.  I contended that this uncover operation executed by a police officer reflected more poorly upon those who conceive and implement such a law enforcement plan than those who fall victim to its ensnarement.

Certainly, the authoritarian mentality responsible for these contraventions into such consensual activities is more alarming – due to its reflection of authoritarian tendencies by those who wield power – than the prospect of people having sex in a restroom. Disregard for civil liberties can be a slippery slope.

The more commonplace these authoritarian incursions into our private affairs become, the more precedents are established for these government-sponsored regulatory interdictions.  The accumulation of previous instances will inevitably change the backdrop against which we interpret the boundaries between government and the private conduct of citizens.  Future affronts to our liberties will appear passé and a matter of course.  Consequently, they will fail to register in our civil libertarian sensibilities; therefore, the governmental intrusions will not incite our condemnation, and we will neglect to call for their repeal.

Additionally, on a more practical level, sting operations in which undercover officers are stationed in bathroom stalls, posing as willing bath house participants, seems excessive for even the pettiest of people to insist upon, and such expenditures of resources can certainly be better directed in support of law enforcement designed to curtail crimes that are perpetrated against victims, who are injured in the process.To allocate resources, while we are supposedly conducting a ‘war on terror,’ toward the enforcement of these ridiculous crimes against morality is a disciplinarian excess that we simply cannot afford.

From the summation above, I hope it is fairly evident that I made a point not to direct criticism or judgment upon Larry Craig.  I sought to demonstrate that the pressing concerns related to this matter centered around the disciplinarian mentalities possessed by those who feel justified in legislating both morality and aesthetics.

However – and tragically – the Senator failed to learn from his experiences as the victim of authoritarian pettiness. I am not referring to any lesson to be learned regarding the precariousness of having sex in public restrooms.  Rather, I am referencing the need for social tolerance and understanding, which one would have hoped Larry Craig to have realized through his embarrassing experiences.  Nonetheless, Craig has decided to sponsor the latest ‘defense of marriage,’ bill that has been presented by the demagogic Religious Right panderers in the Senate. It appears that Craig continues to delude himself into believing that he is ‘heterosexual,’ and that other people are even willing to entertain the prospect that he has not engaged in ‘extra-heterosexual,’ relationships with anonymous partners.

For my part, I have realized that hypocrites of the most profound order probably do not  deserve sympathy and tolerance.

Russell Cole

Tags: liberty, Russell Coles Blog, self governance, Social Change, social policies, social responsibility
Categories: Commentary, liberty, Russell Cole's Blog, self-governance, Social Change, social responsibility
No Comments »

They are simply exacerbating the Problem

NORML - the advocacy group for the legalization of marijuana - has just released figures that appear to be derived from a credible source, which demonstrate that minors who are exposed to the most contents stemming from the government sponsored ad campaigns that are targeted toward children - developed and deployed as a mechanism intended to decrease the use of marijuana among adolescents - actually has the polar opposite impact: Apparently, the more children are exposed to the adds; the more likely the child is to use marijuana.

Now, of course, there are multiple explanations for this, such as the adds are reaching the targeted audience - children more likely to use marijuana, with which to begin. Consequently, we should not be too quick to conclude that the adds themselves are causing the elevated rates of marijuana usage. So this is not definitive evidence that the marketing campaign is the antecedent to the elevated rates of marijuana use among its audience; however, this is an indication of how poorly our money is being spent by these government agencies who take it upon themselves - impervious to direct democratic processes - to use money allocated to it by Congress for these insanely stupid projects - i.e., curtailing marijuana use - without any sufficient foresight into whether their programs have any chance for success.

First off, I fail to see why money would be spent attempting to curtail marijuana use in the first place. If my kid - not to indicate that I actually have any - was using marijuana and only marijuana, I would be quite pleased. Therefore, why do we not implement a marketing campaign endorsing the use of marijuana as a safe alternative to harder drugs, which from my own painful experiences, I can conclude in hindsight that I would have been much better off deploying such a strategy rather than elevating my narcotic consumption to more potent and more damaging drugs. In fact, I would rather see my hypothetical children using marijuana rather than, even, alcohol. For those of us familiar with driven while smoking pot, we already know that the only immanent threat from such a combination results from driving too slowly and too cautiously, causing other drivers to take chances when passing us.

The Reason why we would not want to implement my add campaign proposal - iterated above - is because we are not knowledgeable of all of the possible unintended consequences!!!

To use an example, Evangelical who have their teenage daughters take these ridiculous chastity vows are, unwittingly, contributing to increased rates of anal sex engaged in by adolescent girls. In other words, teenage girls who take these vows have, apparently, found a loophole in the contract by circumventing vaginal sex by having anal sex instead. Of course, anal sex is far more dangerous - in respect to the communicable diseases that can be transferred - than vaginal sex, indicating that the chastity vows are placing adolescent girls at a higher risk for acquiring HIV.

This is the problem with these attempts at engineering society: There are always too many contingencies to take into consideration if one is to actually know before hand the consequences of his or her implementation of social policies undertaken for reasons of adjusting the behaviors of others to fit his or her moral sensibilities. As a result, perhaps, a moratorium is in order for all tax payer financed projects - engaged in by officials not directly accountable to tax payers - designed to modify the behaviors of the people, who - ironically - are financing their own engineering.

Russell Cole [send him email]

Tags: government, government waste, marijuana, norml, Russell Coles Blog, social policies, waste
Categories: Commentary, Russell Cole's Blog
No Comments »