Coitus On Sale! 20% OFF

It’s beginning to seem like I timed my FBI porn blog pretty well. Just the next day the Oregon Supreme Court hands down its ruling on the live sex shows issue. I had been planning to hold off on it but when O’Reilly devoted a whole show to it yesterday, I knew I had to jump in. I liked that O’Reilly seemed upset with the ruling, but did have in Judge Napolitano, his sometimes stand in, who agreed with the ruling. Napolitano did make one major error however. His position was that you could not outright ban this sort of thing, but that zoning as to place and access at the local level could restrict it. With regard to Oregon, this is not true, local zoning of this sort of thing is not permitted as I understand it and a ballot measure to allow such restrictions was recently defeated.

Here’s the part of this entire thing that cranks me: the inability of those who dislike such things to pin down a reason for disallowing them. I think there is a little bit of a misunderstanding; you can’t ban a business because you find it annoying. There are plenty of businesses that I find far more annoying than sex clubs. I would hate to have a muffler shop open next-door, too noisy. A tattoo parlor would be bad, it would probably lower my property value every bit as much as a strip club. How about a retirement community? I sure wouldn’t like that. With its ugly track housing with no hope of the owners doing improvements, depressed property values are assured.

What about some other arguments? Moral decay? Hard to take this one seriously when every kid seems to be playing video games featuring mass murder and torture. It encourages lack of respect for women? Seems good on its face but isn’t it disrespectful to say that women are too stupid to make there own decisions about being strippers? Are we going to start banning clothing as well? I’ve seen plenty of it ( t shirts that say “daddy’s girl” clearly intended for the 13 and 14 year old set) doesn’t that encourage disrespect for women? Do these clubs create a dangerous and crime ridden environment around them? Actually the local newspapers around here did check on that and found that it was quite the contrary, regular bars had far greater instances of police calls than strip clubs. “Well I just don’t want my kids seeing that”. Good, throw a blindfold on them. Take a detour. What the hell is there to see anyway? Usually these clubs have featureless fronts with a line drawing sign that’s pretty much the same as the chrome nude women on trucker mud flaps. Besides, I don’t want my kids seeing a slaughterhouse, drunks emerging from a bar, or poor people lined up at the plasma clinic because donating blood is how they make money for drugs. That doesn’t mean I get to ban slaughterhouses, bars, or blood clinics. It might mean I can zone them in a reasonable manner, but that’s all. The problem is that zoning laws have been abused so much in the past with respect to adult businesses. Reasonable adult business zoning, to me, sounds about as sure a promise as “reasonable” gun laws. Sorry if I don’t trust you.

When I was a kid I lived in Manhattan. Working class Italians and artists populated Greenwich Village at that time. I lived in a brownstone that opened onto a common courtyard where I would run around and play with the other kids. Mostly I would spend time thinking about Donna Spadanicci because she went to Catholic school, had that hot uniform and was a few years older than me. Eventually the owner sold the courtyard and an Armenian restaurant opened. Lust for Donna and childhood frolicking was rapidly replaced by odd kitchen smells and the occasional rat infestation. It totally depressed me but in the end that’s life. You have to put up with other people, even if they are doing something obnoxious but legal. If you don’t like it, the first move should not be to make it illegal. You might find very quickly that things you like are obnoxious and quickly ruled illegal as well.

Braveheart Again?

Remember the movie Braveheart? Although historical, it really is a conservative parable for our times. I think conservatives often see themselves as fighting for a righteous cause, against huge odds, getting so close and then having victory snatched away at the last moment by deceit, treachery or just plane bad judgment.

Ive finally realized that’s how I feel about the Miers pick. It is the Braveheart scenario, and we have been down this road before. Conservatives will never forgive Bush 1 for the Souter nomination. A chance to gain a majority was totally squandered because the president frankly didn’t give a damn. Now, 15 years later, conservative s are worried that we are in a replay of that moment. Victory lost through folly in a moment when the left would have surely charged forward.

Is that sense of betrayal by Bush 1, and the sensitivity to the Braveheart syndrome over blown? I don’t think so. Conservatives feel that they must constantly fight for their beliefs in a way I don’t think even they, or certainly liberals really appreciate. There is not a single situation, political discussion, current event or issue where the default conservative position is not one of badness, with the liberal default being one of goodness. On race, the environment, the economy, the conservative is used to having to first establish his bona fides, that he really doesn’t have nefarious ends, that yes, he cares about black people or whatever. It is almost pro forma that the conservative must first establish reasonableness and logic before others will listen. Liberals don’t have this burden. On any issue it is to be presumed that they are good hearted, that of course they care about the environment more, of course they care about black people, don’t be silly. They are not in the same kind of constant battle. That’s why I think what we are feeling now is unique to the right. We have fought, victory is close and now…. What?

This is why I find myself so frustrated with Bushs pick. Why am I in this battle? Why do I try and fight for my issues? Why go through the battle of establishing the logic of my position, try an advance my cause in whatever small way I can? Why do this when I have a day job and the man who has this as his profession cannot nominate from a position of strength?

Clearly I hope that Miers turns out to be a good pick. One difference between her and Souter is that she is known personally to Bush where as Souter was not. Regardless, even if she is a good pick and will advance the cause of freedom, I don’t think it does anything but embolden the enemy. When Clinton nominated Ruth Ginsburg, an ACLU lawyer, the republicans rolled over and didn’t challenge her nomination. The president should get his pick provided she is qualified, they said, and they were right. It gained the republicans nothing, no credibility for being fair, no treatment in return from the left. It was weakness and they only attacked more. That was then, this is now. Things are different. The New York Times has a credibility rating close to that of The National Enquirer. The press has nowhere near the power to throw chaff for the left that it once did. It would be nice if the man on deck could see what is apparent to those of us looking out our oar holes.