Senator Blumenthal’s Powdered Junkie, by Mike Gold – Brainiac On Banjo #375 | @MDWorld
August 25, 2014 Mike Gold 9 Comments
When I talk about social Darwinism, some people think I’m kidding.
I’m not talking about the holy rolling flatearthers. They lose it on the ape thing. Yeah, there’s some stuff in their bible that says evolution is a bunch of hooey, but as we all know that very same bible has a lot of crap even the flatearthers (except Mel Gibson) don’t buy: the Sun does not revolve around the Earth, the Earth is not flat (it’s not quite round either, but why start a fight?), shellfish isn’t bad for most of us, you really shouldn’t be killed for wearing wool and linen mixed together, and, oh yeah, slavery sucks under any circumstance, including those endorsed by the flatearthers’ invisible friend.
Okay. Now that I’ve chased those people away…
Last week, one of my senators, Richard Blumenthal, asked the government to ban powdered caffeine. He offers two reasons. First, one teaspoon of this shit contains more caffeine than 25 cups of coffee. That’s over 2,375 mg, for those who are too hyper to work a keypad. Second, the kids can buy it.
Ding ding ding ding! My Spidey-Sense goes into overdrive any time anybody says “we’re doing it for the children.” I swear to Umaboonga The Ape God that the next time some dickhead mumbles that self-serving dodge and follows it with “and children are our future,” I’m going to force-feed them 25 gallons of Coca-Cola syrup.
Besides, children are not our future. Children are their future. If we really cared about our children, we’d prioritize dealing with climate change, overpopulation, crippling air pollution, and developing viable alternate energy sources. But I digress.
If a kid wants to ingest 2,375 mg of caffeine, he/she/it will simply down one dozen hits of No-Doze. Or the kid could save a few bucks and buy the generic equivalent. I recommend Walgreen’s, because I don’t like the taste of coffee and, besides, Starbucks is a rip and their music sucks.
Or the kid could go for more powerful stimulants such as methamphetamine or that time-honored favorite of collegiate test crammers, cocaine.
What, you say? That stuff is illegal? Okay, fine. And if you illegalize large doses of caffeine, then that will be illegal as well.
Are there kids stupid enough to do this shit? Well, let me respond to my question with another question: are there adults stupid enough to text while driving?
The government cannot protect cretins from themselves, nor should it. They most certainly can advise. Absolutely… as long as they’re telling the complete truth. This begs the question of whether a politician knows how to tell the complete truth, but that’s another digression.
Or, to put it another way: having a baby requires a lot more than simply finding an erect penis and a woman who can spread her legs twice. You have to commit yourself to raising that child. But every generation since and including my own – us rapidly aging baby boomers – has been palming off more and more of those responsibilities to the government… and then bitching about how the government is doing a lousy job!
That’s what the Tribe calls chutzpah. Raise your own damn children, and take responsibility for how they turn out.
And if you utter the phrase “if we save only one life…” I am going to pour hot coffee on your lap.
25 cups of it.
Mike Gold performs the weekly two-hour Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind ass-kicking rock, blues and blather radio show on The Point, www.getthepointradio.com and on iNetRadio, www.iNetRadio.com as part of “Hit Oldies” every Sunday at 7:00 PM Eastern, rebroadcast three times during the week – check www.getthepointradio.com above for times and on-demand streaming information. Gold also joins MDW’s Marc Alan Fishman and Martha Thomases as a weekly columnist at www.comicmix.com where he pontificates on matters of four-color.
Rick Oliver
August 25, 2014 - 10:07 am
We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one. Parents cannot monitor their children 24-7. I am glad there are laws that reduced the odds of my kids doing certain really stupid things that could have killed them or someone else. The fact that people disobey speed limits is not a valid argument for eliminating speed limits. The fact that some kids will find a way to obtain alcohol, tobacco, or caffeine products is not a valid argument for eliminating age restrictions on those products. Speaking from personal experience, it was also much easier to enforce certain restrictions when I could point to the legal ramifications if my kids chose to violate those restrictions.
Mike Gold
August 25, 2014 - 10:28 am
We don’t need more needless unenforceable laws, particularly when we’ve already got needless unenforceable laws that cover the matter in hand. If your kid is going to make the decision to do 2,375+ mg of caffeine, you screwed up as a parent.
But your kids did not do 2,375+ mg of caffeine.
Now, about cocaine…
Rick Oliver
August 25, 2014 - 1:20 pm
The fact that some people choose to break laws does make them “unenforceable”. Furthermore, you make an unfounded and unrealistic assumption regarding the extent of parental influence on the behavior of their children. My kids turned out okay, but I’d have to have a massive and delusional ego to take all the credit for that myself.
Mike Gold
August 25, 2014 - 1:50 pm
And, besides, you just think your kids turned out okay. Most of us do.
There are laws that are unenforceable. That’s not an absolute — nothing in law enforcement is — but, clearly, prohibition laws have been unenforceable. Alcohol and, later, all the other sanctioned stuff. They continued to serve cocaine wine at the Supreme Court, even after it was illegalized. Traffic laws, to be sure. Police can only pluck off a small, small fraction of the miscreants. Tax laws, but that’s a high-risk venture. I know one millionaire who brags about never paying taxes (I successfully sued him, but that was over something else). You have a former roommate who never paid taxes (on his own; his ex-wives might have from time to time) and when the IRS came by to look things over, they got confused and left. Should we get rid of the IRS because they’re not absolutes? Hmmm… ask the Tea Partiers.
Too many parents use your argument as an excuse for lousy parenting. “Why do they always blame the parents?” To quote either St. Ignatius of Loyola, or St. Francis Xavier — there’s some historical confusion on who said it and who was quoting it: “Give me the child for seven years, and I will give you the man” and “Give me the child until he is seven and I care not who has him thereafter.”
Clearly, the speaker was referring to boys and you’ve got girls, but if you’ve got a problem with the quote, take it up with the Jesuits. To my experience, they appreciate the attention.
R. Maheras
August 26, 2014 - 8:21 am
One of the reasons I hate the “let’s pass another law” mentality is because IT RARELY ADDRESSES THE REAL SOLUTIONS TO AN EXISTING PROBLEM.
Let’s take Chicago, for example. As I’ve bleated about many, many times here, for decades my home town has been the murder capital of the United States, or a close runner-up. Ditto for my old neighborhoods of Austin and Humboldt Park — making my old neighborhoods the murder capitals of the United States. When confronted with this sad fact, the Democrats who’ve been running Chicago since before Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president (the first time) have one universal response: Pass a new law — preferably one that restricts gun ownership.
But here’s their dirty little secret: When it comes to arresting alleged murderers, Chicago’s “clearance rate” is a pathetic 37 percent. Compare that with other places around the United States, and you’ll be hard-pressed to even come close. So tell me what bad guy is going to be deterred from murder when he/she has a 4 in 10 chance of not even being arrested — let alone convicted? Judging by the body count in my old stomping grounds, hardly any. More laws won’t change a damn thing. All it does is give politicians ammunition to say, “Look! I’m really trying to fix the problem here by passing laws! What more can I do?”
Rene
August 26, 2014 - 9:23 am
Mike –
I agree with some of this stuff. Yes, parents are always trying to dodge their responsibilities and they are encouraged to do it too, by every politician or militant or crackpot that blames everything – TV, videogames, rock music, food, Satan – except the people most responsible for shaping the developing character of a future adult: the parents.
You can bash Freud all day long (and I love to bash Freud), but that doesn’t change the fact that kids are hugely influenced by their parents. Yep, it’s a scary thing that many grown-ups don’t want to face, but YOU are the greatest influence in your kid’s life, even if you are an absent parent that never met your kid, THAT is hugely influencing too.
So, if you’re thinking about bringing a kid to this world, ponder this huge responsibility for a second, at least.
However, I disagree about the government being unable to protect fools from themselves. Yep, I used to be idealistic about personal responsibility and personal freedom too, but the world is too complicated for idealism.
A Brazilian politician I otherwise hate saved a lot of lives here when he made using a safety belt mandatory while driving. And he didn’t only pass the law, he also made sure that people got big fines if they drove around without safety belts.
Libertarians may scream all they like about their God-given right to risk their own lives, but after a few decades of decreased deaths in traffic, it becomes harder to find people who want to strike the law from the books.
Russ –
You lucky guy. 37% sounds utopian to a guy that comes from a country where the rate must be closer to 5%.
Both major parties in Brazil would be classified as Liberal in the USA, I guess. And while I think they’ve done a good job in the last decade fighting poverty, their take on law enforcement is apalling.
I believe in a crazy notion that, instead of voting for president, governor, mayor, etc. and have that person running everything, we should divide ruling by topics. I’d give the job of running the economy to liberals, and I’d give the job of running law enforcement to conservatives.
R. Maheras
August 26, 2014 - 9:28 am
My wording above was a little sloppy regarding clearance rates. According to a study by the Chicago Sun-Times, the bad guys in Chicago currently have only a 37 percent chance of being arrested for murder. The conviction rate, of course, is even less.
R. Maheras
August 26, 2014 - 9:33 am
Rene — Do you know what rate of solved murders is in Japan? 96-99 percent (depending on your source, and the year)!
Unbelievable.
R. Maheras
August 26, 2014 - 9:45 am
Unsolved murder rates in the US average 35 percent or so. The two worst offenders? DC at about 56 percent unsolved and Illinois at 55 percent. The rest of Illinois, of course, is being dragged down by Chicago’s anemic 63 percent unsolved murder rate.
Oh, yeah. the top 10 states/districts when it comes to unsolved murders are: DC, Illinois, Maryland, New York, California, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Michigan and Connecticut.
And yes, all 10 are blue states.
Reg
August 26, 2014 - 6:54 pm
“Okay. Now that I’ve chased those people away”
Err, Dr. Gold…not that I’m a flatearther,but I’m not chased away by the references you cited. Indeed I have cogent, logically framed and spiritually insightful responses for each and look forward to that day when enjoying various libations I can smite thee…ahem…gently converse and discuss them with you.
You said…”If we really cared about our children, we’d prioritize dealing with climate change, overpopulation, crippling air pollution, and developing viable alternate energy sources.” I would add…education.
You also said…”Raise your own damn children, and take responsibility for how they turn out.”
See the things that we agree about? Just IMAGINE what might come forth from that day of imbibing. 😛
Mike Gold
August 26, 2014 - 7:06 pm
Rene, I also enjoy Freud-bashing as well. Anybody who’s read his astonishingly overwritten works (not so astonishing when you consider he was mainlining cocaine) enjoys a bit of Freud-bashing. I’ll admit I’m more of a Jungian, up to all that racist bullshit, but when edited, Freud had a lot of good shit to say. His views regarding parenting and its impact would pretty much be at the top of this list.
Mike Gold
August 26, 2014 - 7:10 pm
Russ, everybody quotes Japan’s track record, and as you point out, with good reason. But there’s another bit that often is left out: virtually all types of private ownership of guns is forbidden in Japan. In 2011, they had exactly two murders by gun.
Of course, this means your less impulsive killer had to resort to well-considered other means, but nonetheless their crime rate is a fraction of ours.
And weed is still illegal there, I believe.
Mike Gold
August 26, 2014 - 7:16 pm
Reg — I look forward to that conversation. Very much, in fact. But I don’t drink alcohol, so it’s possible I might have sobriety as an advantage. More likely not; my sober is a lot like other people’s really-fucked-up.
I would add education as well, but… sorry to resort to a cliché, but “don’t get me started on education.” I’ve got a complicated but not expensive in the long run solution to the whole thing, but it will really piss off both the teachers’ unions and the Libertarians and Rand-ies.
Oh yeah. I’m not a doctor. I’m a civilian. Free to be me. Not that that’s necessarily a good idea…
Reg
August 26, 2014 - 8:24 pm
Mike..in truth I thought I was going to have the advantage because I don’t drink alcohol either and had imagined that I was strategically sipping my Earl Grey while I overloaded your shot glass.
The education system is so screwed up and so fraught with mismanagement and fundamentally misplaced priorities I am truly fearful for our near future if new solutions aren’t brought forth and implemented.
Drop the hammer, man!
Mike Gold
August 26, 2014 - 8:38 pm
Yeah, well… if I had a hammer…