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.
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