Gee, I’ve always wanted to put those three together.
Seriously. Today I was reading the paper, and two headlines screamed out at me for a news chum on “unclear on the concept”. I was trying to find a third one, when three distinct stories coalesced into a single point. To let’s jump into it:
- NRA. The headline screams “NRA calls for armed guards in every school“. Of course, this is a singularly bad idea, because armed guards will not solve the problem. Truthfully, nothing will. People who want schools to be 100% safe are living in a fantasy world. They don’t understand the notion of risk avoidance vs. risk acceptance. Right now, school shootings are very infrequent, and there are fewer people killed in school shootings than in airplane crashes… and airplane crashes are far less common than auto accidents. We let our kids ride in cars, don’t we? Yes, we should take reasonable measures — such as banning assault rifles, increasing mental health programs, and reducing our culture of violence — but we should also recognize that we can’t have perfectly safe schools (and armed guards don’t make them safer).
- John Boehner. Another headline screams: Boehner tries to shift ‘fiscal cliff’ responsibility: “We only run the House. The Democrats continue to run Washington,” the GOP House Speaker says. Of course, this is wrong. The Democratic Senate has passed a bill on the fiscal cliff, which the house has rejected. The President can’t initiate legislation. It is up to the House to come up with a proposal that will pass muster with the Senate and be signed by the President. They need to find a middle ground they can get through, and it is Boehner’s job, as speaker, to bring his membership in line on a compromise position that works for the Nation, not just their party.
- Prostitutes. Three articles of interest here. First is an article from the Las Vegas Sun on the fellow who is the lobbyist for the legal brothel industry: he’s working, as his last “success”, to get prostitution made legal in Clark County (Las Vegas). Then there is an article in the OC Register about Disney cancelling a speech by an athelete who turned to escort services. Last is an article from the AP (SacBee) on a woman who joined her husband on the list of clients of a Zumba instructor who was running a secret prostitution service. I’m beginning to think the lobbyist has it right: make it legal, and regulate it to (a) make sure the service providers (men or women) are safe, healthy, of age, and are not exploited (and taxed, as appropriate) and (b) make sure the customers are protected. This eliminates exploitation (making it the service provider’s informed choice), and might eliminate the stigma that is a relic from our Puritan history.
Music: Stunt (Barenaked Ladies): “In The Car”
I’m always amazed that the people who wage relentless campaigns against websites such as Craigslist and Backpage don’t seem to understand that the single greatest thing we can do to help human trafficking victims is making prostitution legal, regulated, and above-board. Nor do they seem to understand that prostitution and forced trafficking are not the same thing. Nor do they seem to grasp that a huge number of sex workers are 1) of legal age and 2) in the business by choice.
We do the same thing with drugs and I fear we’re going to start doing the same with guns: feel good solutions that give everyone a reason to give themselves a pat on the back but that do little if anything to actually solve the problem.