Samizdata has seen a debate of recent on the procurement of a harlot for a dying underage boy. This has been a great source of consternation for those who call themselves Conservatives and/or Christian. There have been hysterical letters to the Telegraph pondering the fate of the boy’s soul. In my not so humble opinion I think it was a stellar idea to give the kid his dying wish. Surely getting laid is a hell of a lot more healthy than be taken to a park owned by the arch-evil, Disney or meeting some knuckle-dragging sports hero barely capable of joined up words? At least one is natural.
The debate over the fate of this poor boy does ape the debate over cannabis, both medical and otherwise. For some, mostly the same people listed above, the fact that cannabis has a medicinal effect for me and many others is irrelevant. It is an “evil” drug that leads to other evils, full stop.
I digress, this row has reminded me of a stink that has raised the hackles of many in the US, and more specifically Maine. A Republican Representative in the Maine State Legislature proposed a law to make adultery a crime. She proposed jailing adulterers as if they were murderers, fraud-sters or child molesters. The Representative wished to enshrine her religious beliefs in law and then use it to pummel “fornicators.” Above I have listed the discussions surrounding the bill and its merits. It should be noted that neither she nor her supporters had done much contemplation about how the bill was to be enforced.
This is yet another case of the Conservative right in both the US and the UK being as statist as their socialist opponents. Both sides wish to use the state to enforce their particular form of morality.
What bothers me more is that this Representative is making a complete arse out of her party and those of us on the right. (In Maine right of centre whether it be libertarian or authoritarian, are tarred with the same brush). Worse yet, this idiot is providing a staging area for every religious loon going to come out of the wood-work they were confined to in order that Bush might get elected. They seem to be keen to tear up the uneasy truce that saw those of us of my ilk siding with those of an authoritarian nature to rid the US of the vile Clinton/Gore axis. Many of these types are rather perturbed that Mr Bush is not as hard-right as he was portrayed by the left-wing media.
I would like to point out to some of you on this list that a few years ago this hysterical happy-clappy element in Maine “outed” me as a Satanist and follower of “dark path” as a result of a satirical site (about me) which I linked to for a laugh. Puritanism is alive and well in the New England and the South of the US even in the 21st century.
It does pain me to see this sort of hysterical superstitious idiocy still existing in a so-called civilised country in the beginning of the 21st century. Do anyone believe that the US will ever outgrow this lunacy or is it a permanent feature of the country ready to rear itself given the slightest opportunity to do so?
Can US libertarians take the right-of-centre ground away from these people? WIll the actual founding beliefs of the country ever actually have a chance to take hold or will the US continue to piss away it’s founding beliefs and freedom? At the rate its going I doubt the US will make its next b-day and it certainly won’t make 400 years old. I should not be too shocked, after all the US has an Attorney General who thinks dancing is a mortal sin.
Andrew Ian Dodge
[Editor’s note: Andrew is the author is the excellent book Statism Sucks!, which is about, well, take a wild guess]
