No one seems to be writing opinion pieces quite the way I would, so I decided to do it myself.

The name? Taverns are places where one goes to discuss the interesting events and things in the world, so this is my tavern.

I will offer my views on politics, economics, and whatever else strikes my fancy.
I will occasionally publish the entire article from another journal for purposes of causing discussion.

 

right-wing hypocrisy

This is from Bill Berkowitz .

Years ago, popular televangelist Jimmy Swaggart was brought down when he was found to have been cavorting for years with prostitutes; Jim Bakker served time in the pen, lost his multi-million dollar religious empire, and his wife Tammy Faye, as a result of a series of sex scandals and fraudulent business activities; William Bennett, the self-appointed maven of morality, has thankfully been silenced after it was revealed that he had/has a major gambling problems. We now find that Limbaugh has been hopped up on pills for several years. What's next? There never were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?

A gambling addict decries immorality. Two preachers decry sexual immorality. A drug addict gets on radio and states that drug addicts should be given long prison sentences. This is the right wing, the group who has taken control of the Republican Party, the Congress, and the Presidency.

Then there is the fact that organized gambling brings in crime and does nothing productive for the community, the sale of sex is extremely destructive to the people involved and also increases crime, and sale of 'recreational drugs' have the same set of problems as the sale of sex. The right-wing hypocrites are not wrong that these are symptoms of social problems. They are, however, wrong about the solutions. That is what they, the hypocrities themselves, prove.

The people involved have personal problems that they attempt to solve in ways that become social problems. This is, frankly, the downside of the degree of individual freedom that we attempt to provide to people. If you give parents total freedom to raise their children, some will get it wrong. Then, if you give those children total freedom to act as they wish, many of them will get it socially wrong. Recreational drugs are a reasonable personal solution to problems the individuals cannot handle (as is alcohol) but is a really bad problem tof society. Drug addicts commit what the rest of us consider crimes to suppor their habit.

This cannot be prevented by giving out draconian punishments to those who screw up really badly. Many won't get caught. Even more, like William Bennet, will find that they can continue gambling without damaging other people.

But there are those who try living the socially unacceptable lives and can't handle it. So they go into crime and many get caught. These are the ones the right-wing excoriate, but the right-wingers support the system that put them there. Rush condemns the drug addicts, but objects to providing the recovery and detox programs they need. Instead, he simply wants to throw them into prison and warehouse them. Then he complains about the taxes that pay for the prisons.

Limbaugh, Bennet, and the others show that the simplistic "throw the crooks in jail and forget them" while ignoring detox programs and ways to help people learn to raise children properly is not a winning strategy.
posted by Richard at 1:54 PM