Wrong is wrong
Dear Readers,
Freedom to say what you want, smoke where you want and carry a gun in your jacket pocket are all under loud discussion at the moment. The question of how much restraint is appropriate in our local schools should also be near the top of the list, though public outcry on this matter is grossly under-reported for reasons that should be obvious to all but the most insulated or ignorant of us. Also not in the headlines is proposed state legislation that would prohibit municipalities from requiring revenue-sharing with cable companies to fund public access television programming. Passage of the bill, co-proposed by our own Jeff Plale, a Progressive in name only, would radically reduce public access programming, the last bastion of equal time broadcasting.
With so many axes to grind and fortuitous access to the the Fourth Estate, I’m weighing in this month on several issues in list form. I apologize in advance for the inelegance of the format, but I am limited in word count exactly as anyone else who writes for VITAL.
1. The statewide smoking ban. Guess what? It’s happening. It’s time to stop whining and meet up with modern thinking. To say that a person has the right to fill another person’s space with life-threatening toxins is like saying, to paraphrase smoker Angie Miller, quoted in Ted Bobrow’s cover story this month, that because you choose to hit yourself in the head with a hammer, you should be allowed to hit other people in the head with a hammer. Wrong is wrong. Smoke outside.
3. The right to bear arms. At the time of the framing of the Constitution, the right to bear arms was tantamount to the right to survive. With no organized police force and high consumption of wild game as a food source, a gun in every home was necessary. And I bet they were rarely concealed. But in the wake of the Virginia Tech shooting tragedy, some pundits have suggested that if concealed weapons had been allowed on campus, Cho Seung-Hui might have been stopped. In point of fact, Cho, whose family claims was autistic and who had a history of mental problems, purchased one of his guns from a Green Bay online dealer and some of his ammo on eBay. He filled out the ATF forms, which checks only for criminal history, prior to taking possession of his arsenal. The transaction was legal, though inarguably Cho is a prime example of someone who shouldn’t have been allowed to own a handgun. The dead Virginia Tech students and their families are victims of the NRA’s success. Wrong is wrong. A credit card and no prior criminal history are not acceptable criteria for obtaining weapons of murder. Guns need to be harder to get.
4. Cutting off funding for public access television. Capitalism inherently contains an element of free-market noblesse oblige. If business interests control the airwaves, the only way the people CAN have access is if it’s provided to them by the owners. Wrong is wrong. Telcoms thrive under the current system. They can provide alms; it’s a time-honored tradition.
5. The right to call someone a nappy-headed ho. The fact that rappers do it, much to the detriment of their own culture, excuses nothing. But it is an inherent right. Another right is to furnish your house to your own taste. Wrong is wrong. In another example of free-market economics in action, if you’re patently offensive to your employers and the advertisers who support you, don’t be surprised if you lose your executive parking space.
Peace
