There was an old woman who swallowed a fly. She really should have stopped there.

Drug Tests and government checks


New freedoms often come with new responsibilities. In the case of my children, they get some sort of car, but they also have to cover their car insurance, which means going to work. The pairing of liberty and liability seems entirely natural, and derives from the idea that I, as a parent, have enormous discretion in such matters as granting liberties, enabling privileges, and redressing wrongs.

So the model for coupling a privilege, like recieving welfare or unemployment insurance, with a responsibility to remain drug-free (and, periodically, to prove it) is well established and gets a lot of heads nodding. After all, the cost is born by the recipient and it keeps the riffraff out of the system. My problem is not that it's likely to be found unconstitutional; I think any number of things are that are in common practice in government, and I think any number of other things ought to be. No, my problem is the same old problem--that it grants government a power it should not posses as compensation for a privlege it should not have granted in the first place.

Let's see, so many places to go...I think I'll set aside the failed drug policy in this country, the ridiculous prohibition that has cost so many billions and so many lives. I'll also ignore the self-fulfilling and demand-generating culture of addiction and poverty, driven by a huge swath of well meaning folks who believe they can take better care of the allegedly disenfranchised than those poor happless folks can manage themselves.

The wave of what I will call UFC("Urine for Checks") legislation being discussed seems to appeal to a lot of people who would say their concern is making sure their tax dollars are well spent, or even making sure the least possible amount is spent. I phrase it that way because what they say isn't well represented by their apparent legislative preferences. The way to save money is to end programs, not to begin new ones. Given the obvious challenges in administering and litigating such a huge drug testing program, it is unfathomable to me that this would save anyone any money. So, if such programs are passed, and if they can't reasonably be said to save any money, why do they pass? That's actually easy: moral indignation.

I guess I should make clear at this point that I understand the motive and feel a bit of the old M.I. myself. I don't like the idea of my tax money going to drug users. But I really wonder if the folks who support these bills are really taking all of its ideas to their ultimate conclusions, or rather, tracing them backwards to their  premises. Because I don't believe most people would agree with them. I'll list a few here.

1) Government is your daddy. How do you think of government, at its best that is? I think of it as a  clerk or administrative assistant, carrying out things society has told it to complete, with no real will of its own. The UFC debate plants governement firmly in the role of parent, doling out privileges and responsibilities, deciding what's best for all of us.

2) Welfare is an undisputed responsibility of government. Just being clear here; the argument is all about whether you must pee for payment; but the checks will be written no matter how we vote on this legislation. I object to welfare as I object to the taxation which funds it. Go back one more level and the ridiculous assumptions are many fold: that the government is better at planning for trouble (poverty, unemployment) than we are as individuals; that deficit spending makes sense in bad times; that tax collection is somehow superior to private savings or investment.

3) The government can administer drug tests accurately and fairly. Sure, why not. Government is always so efficient, especially when attached to huge entitlement programs.

4) Lots of welfare or unemployment recipients are on drugs. Yeah, that's not actually true. UFC solves a problem that isn't much of a problem, on top of everything else. Note: A recent headline noted that the Social Security Administration wrongfully declares dead 14000 people a year.

5) No one has a right to take drugs. This won't won't be as obviously false to the reader, but I believe it is. Put simply, I believe everyone has a right to do anything that doesn't violate the rights of others--children in their care, or cars in the opposite lane for instance. Insert ususal schtick about alcohol prohibition here. But more importantly, our attempts to legislate new behavior around drugs simply have not worked. We ought to be past ruminating on what government SHOULD do and well on to concentrating on what government is actually capable of.

In conclusion, two wrongs don't make a right. (Yes, I thought of that myself just now.)If we are incensed at government abusing its authority to make us pay for the welfare of others, giving it more authority, this time to examine our various bodily fluids and keep records, is ill advised at best and crazy at worst. We as a nation, having swallowed the fly, will not be thought wiser for downing a spider. Sure, we've got strong stomachs, but there is a horse in that list a ways down, and I for one am not that hungry.

I don't like them either, but they're my ride.

So we were sitting around last week, the three of us--me, Chicken Little, and The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Chicken was nervous, like he usually is. Kept checking his pocket for his ID in case he got carded. It's a little sad; the guy's like 57. His carding days are long behind him. But he's all about careful. I can get him to drink one Gin Ricky. That's the extent of his loosening up over the years. But its a joy to watch him drink it--to see him unbend for just a moment and take his eyes off the ceiling. It's like watching Atlas shrug.

Wolf Boy has no such trouble. He starts in, with the whole "you got something on your cheek, nope still there" thing, and in spite of myself, I'm trying to see myself in the window until he cracks a smile. Then five minutes later he'll start in again. It's all about the running gag with him, about having a good time. But, just when I'm determined to ignore him, I scrape a cheek and come back with a fleck of the nachos we've been chowing down.

Like it always seems to, the conversation turns to the economy. CL has been saying things are bad for a long time now. He even has something of a following. They spend the weekends checking inventory in their bunkers and cleaning weapons. Wolfie, on the other hand, has his own radio talk show. He loves Chicken Little, even as he continues to toy wth him. And why not? He's making a fortune. And the wolf rears his head just often enough to keep everyone from dismissing him as a crank. Lately, he too has been talking about how bad things are, how the national debt is crushing us. He swears this time he really means it, and that, if we don't wake up, the Chicken Littles of this world will be all that's left to inherit the Earth. He's been talking about an America in decline.

So why do I care? Chicken Little is a crackpot, always has been. He's spent so much time burrowing underground, that he's made almost no effort to prop the sky up. His world view is not simply about his fear that the sky is falling, it requires the sky to fall. Nothing he does makes any sense until that actually happens. And the Boy Who Cried Wolf is even worse--a vulture who gets a special thrill out of pronouncing the worst, just to watch them come running. And when it really does strike, he can take credit for prophecy.

Here's my problem: I agree with them. I have my own reasons. Frankly, I just call them like I see them. But it's frustrating when you don't much care for the company you keep. Chicken's ok. Too nervous, but mostly well intentioned. I can't say that for everyone in his bunker though. A few of them aren't just readying a defense; they're choosing targets...just in case. Wolf Boy is just detestable, though I wish I had a little of his charisma.

The problem is, I blend right in with this crowd, and can be dismissed just as easily. I had a moment once, but that was a long long time ago. Then, as now, I called it like I saw it. Once the pandemonium started, people were too busy going crazy to pay any attention to me. They were running in every direction, afraid that the lie they had allowed themselves to believe for so long would visit them again in the form of the Emperor's judgement. But they had little to fear from him; As they scattered, he stood there for a moment, embarassed and afraid--of me--the little boy who told the world he was naked. Then he marched on. Like nothing was happening.

<sigh> So what could I do? I bought another round. And hoped, (though I didn't believe it) that we were all wrong, for a little while longer.