Daze of Whine And Poses

Jeff Goldstein quotes a wide swatch of David Harsanyi’s great article in the Denver Post on MADD and adds:

After the Orioles won the World Series in 1983, Storm Davis, a then-20-year-old starting pitcher for the Birds, who played an integral role in Baltimore’s success, could not partake in the post series champagne and beer celebration.

Mother Against Drunk Driving would likely counter such a seemingly arbitrary and incongruous segregation among teammates by noting that the ritual of celebrating with alcohol “glorifies” drinking, and so should itself be eliminated.

– And at that point, it should become clear that MADD is no longer worried about drunk driving per se, but is rather become a neoprohibitionist organization trafficking in emotional arguments to convince cowardly politicians to force change upon the culture — “change” that has the effect of taking away individual freedom and responsibility, along with the role of parents in teaching young adults how to handle certain freedoms, in exchange for a government run mandate, complete with police powers of the state or municipality, that presumes to usurp those responsibilities by a kind of 3/5 rule on adulthood.

Exchanging white hoods for big buttons and a lot of emotional appeals merely suggests a change in rhetorical strategy from those who seek to build society to match their own personal hobby horses.

Nothing classically liberal about that — not to mention that turning water into wine these days would likely result in 100 hours of forced community service work, an orange vest covering your flowing frock, your staff replaced by one of those pointy sticks used to pick up coffee cups and Almond Joy wrappers…

Or as James Lileks described the rapidly growing neo-puritanism yesterday, “Smoking, drinking, bacon and sex: I remember when only one of those was a sin.”