Puritanism - still alive and well in Massachusetts

I was reading an article this morning in the Boston Globe magazine from Tom Keane regarding Massachusetts' efforts to control alcohol.  Among the interesting snippets:

Alcoholic beverages sold for off-premise consumption can only be sold in licensed package stores. No one is allowed to own more than three stores that sell alcohol. State law puts sharp quotas on the number of liquor stores, bars, and restaurants permitted in every town, a formula carefully based on population. Holiday and Sunday sales are limited. In fact, we’re not even permitted to have happy hours. Free drinks and discounted prices are flatly illegal.

This is because of the former Blue Laws that the Puritans put down in the 1620's because most of the Puritans were supposed to have their eyes and ears with God at all times, and not engage in frivolity such as liquor consumption.  Many of the Blue Laws have been struck down, but only since the mid 1980s.  Liquor stores have only been allowed to open on Sundays since 2005 or so.

This brings me to the debate of the soon-to-be-dead gambling bill.  I've been wavering between being for it and being against it, but now I'm solidly against it.  Governor Deval Patrick should not only veto the bill, he should be commended for it at the risk of losing his support from unions and others.

This is because Puritanism is still alive and well in Massachusetts.

We have way too many finger waggers, nags, wrist wringers and such who feel that any kind of fun should be eliminated or strictly controlled in the wake of some kind of fake moral enlightenment.  Liquor and alcohol is a great example: keeping such a "vice" away through high price and scarcity makes the ones who are disturbed by its effects (even when people drink responsibly) soothes whatever guilt and bias they might have towards this vice.  The same is true with cigarettes, food, and gasoline - self-styled moralists figure that the unwashed masses are not "enlightened" enough and must have these items made difficult to procure for "the greater good."

(In my honest opinion, the greater good would love to give these self-styled moralists a nice hard slap in the face, followed by a nice hard boot to where God split ya.)

If the Legislature were a more honest, less self-interested group, they would have expanded the bill to include as many resort casinos and slot parlors as they would allow without the worry of some group screaming that Massachusetts' moral fiber would decay at a ridiculous rate.  There would be no scare tactics of prostitution or people wasting their entire paychecks on slots or children being abandoned in their cars.  The Legislators would have no problem with the money coming in and distribute it evenly, rather than try to corner the money for their own town, city or ward.

Even if the casino bill passed, I can imagine the kind of "gambling" we'd get if it went through - it would be regulated just as tightly and stiffly as alcohol is today, along with a mix of gimmicks such as environmental standards, limits on play, money and alcohol consumption, no ATM machines or ATM machines with very high access fees, and bans on any kind of comps, credit and the like.

When Puritanism dances with Curley-style parochialism, what you get are political hacks, self-styled moral activists, and others killing something that may or may not have had promise, but no one dared to try because they were afraid they'd offend the wrong people.   The writer of the article sums everything up nicely, and you can easily substitute "gambling" for "alcohol":

What we really need is a culture that celebrates the wise use of alcohol rather than a body of laws whose aim is to make us feel guilty.

It would certainly prove that we cut all the laws of Puritanism but six, who were forced into service as pallbearers.

Putting people first

Another thought on Earth Day, from the Great White North.

Summary: when teachers scream at full-throat that learning multiplication tables is "dull, rote learning," then what the hell is screaming slogans about "saving the planet" and "reducing your carbon footprint?"

And I wonder why these same kids, when they reach college, are so underprepared that half of their freshman year is spent in remedial learning - you know, the lessons the idiot teacher should have prepared but was too busy watching An Inconvenient Truth for the eighteenth time.

And kudos to the first smart high school kid who says, "I think your statistics are hogwash, and you don't deserve the union-mandated salary to teach this environmental Inquisition. I'd like to learn the law of Cosines and Shakespeare, not the Gospel According to Al Gore and his Marxist buddies."

Speaking (Real) Truth to (Corrupt) Power

Jon Keller is on a roll: he points out to the right-hand side of the aisle that Lee Bollinger's smackdown of Ahmadinejad was not only wholly appropriate, but also about time someone put the phrase "speak truth to power" into more accurate use. (Two "finger quotes" up, Jon.)

I graduated from college many moons ago, but my major was in the "hard" sciences. You could not refute, argue or dissent from anything that read "Proof," "Lemma," "Corrollary" or "Postulate." I think this is still true for the "hard" sciences today, as professors of that stripe are somewhat more apolitical than the liberal arts professors - I can't imagine a physics professor marching around campus with the sign "EMF is not the answer!" or a electrical engineering professor screaming "Stop the Illegal Occupation of the Wheatstone Bridge!"

On the other hand, I don't think my political leanings would endear the liberal arts professors of today, especially the ones who believe in the so-called dogma of "social justice." That's shorthand for "highly educated, elitist, condescending white people so guilty of their good fortunes they fake piety to make themselves feel superior." In fact, I would write in the professor's review, "Looks and acts like Marx - and I'm not talking about Chico, Harpo or Groucho."

The "We Hate Opposing Viewpoints" Doctrine

That's what the Fairness Doctrine really was about: For each point, there was a mandatory counterpoint in the green room, getting prepped by the producer. Then, in 1986, the Fairness Doctrine was scrapped, giving rise to such things as talk radio.

John Gibson: Those who want the Fairness Doctrine back into law will cut off a lot of its own noses to spite faces. Each time Bill Maher comes on, Ann Coulter must follow. For every Dixie Chick, a Tobey Keith, &c, &c. In other words, Hollywood, the movie industry, et. al. must become a defacto Fox News, fair and balanced and cannot rely on the polemic of one to stand while the response of the other is left unheard. (Hannity & Colmes are already a shoo in, no further parts required.)

Jon Keller: You might like all the roses in your garden, and find one rose rotting, but does that mean you put the flame-thrower to the entire rose garden? Jon puts the smackdown on a certain rotanes from Massachusetts whose $1.50 words contain zero nutritional value - sort of like cotton candy without the flavor or the teeth-rotting sugar.

Dennis Miller also gives his two cents: advertisers like the Mr. Roarke approach ("smiles, everybody!") to radio, rather than the Marge Simpson as a blue squirrel against Itchy 'n Scratchy ("don't do that! don't do that!") or the crazy nutball who thinks George Carlin talks about doomsday from the Ms Pac Man game at the bus terminal.

To us, bringing back the Fairness Doctrine represents a temper tantrum by spoiled brats, who desperately want to be heard, but the fed up parents are walking away. It's also about MONEY - those juicy advertising dollars that businesses put out for radio shows that work hard for it, not a bunch of slackers who paste together a whole buncha nothin' (or a whole bunch of horsehockey) and call it a show. The solution? Reminds us of the story of the man who deals with screaming and naughty children, whispers something into their ears, and everything magically stops and they walk away...when the shopkeeper asks how he did it, he said, "I threatened to give them the biggest spanking of their lives."

White guilt and control freaks are "retarded"

"Retarded" is a politically incorrect word - only if you use it incorrectly. If you're growing tomato plants and the growth has slowed down to a yield of maybe one or two green tomatoes, that's the correct use of the word "retarded." If you don't like your teacher, or your friends did something unusual, then you can jokingly use "retarded" among yourselves. (Just don't use it on a talk radio program to refer to one of your rivals or like-minded guests.)

The gray area occurs when someone has Down's syndrome or any other developmental deficiency. The correct way might be to use the syndrome connected to the person. Using PC terms like "differently abled" might elicit eye rolls and even more questions you might feel uncomfortable answering.

The incorrect way to illustrate that "retarded" may not be helpful? Having an arrogant, elitist tone to dictate to others how someone should talk, while attempting to relieve your own guilt (see "The Right Response?")

Having two last names separated by a hyphen and plagiarizing a PBS slogan doesn't help either, and using Paris Hilton as an example is no excuse.

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Each set comes with precisely 100 pieces, all colored gray and all the same size. They are to be distributed ten pieces per person, or else the Secret Police may take you in for "having too many pieces."

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