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To protect the youth, hide news, not bodies
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 27, 2001 Let's get some things straight. I believe that Bill Clinton didn't have sex with Marc Rich in the Oval Office. I understand the concept that the only punishment worse than making a crook pay for a pardon is forcing the fixer to give the money back to the crook, who therefore gets it for free. And there is no doubt in my mind that the only thing less likely to happen than the feds nailing Slick Willy Inc. for turning the halls of justice into the set of Let's Make A Deal is Pasco County coming up with an ordinance that will keep people from getting naked and drunk in the same place at the same time. And, finally, I think it is high time to institute news censorship in the United States before any more of the truth of how things are run leaks out and corrupts young minds. I have spent the better part of a 34-year career believing in our system of laws and justice and, while realizing and pointing out what used to be its occasional inequities as unavoidable potholes on the road of freedom, defending it. But I no longer believe our young people and children should be exposed to news about a system of justice that lets big drug dealers go free if they know and buy the right people while kids rot in Texas (and other) jails for having a joint in their pocket. Big bucks for big breaks, also known as a reasonble doubt for a reasonable price, was hardly an invention of either Bill Clinton or O.J. Simpson. Among Richard Nixon's first inquiries about what to do about Watergate was how much it would cost to buy the silence of the burglars, and among his first statements was to the effect that a million bucks could be come up with easily. And Tricky Dick would have bought his brand of pseudo-justice successfully too, if he had just been smart enough to turn off the taping system. So, let's not throw any partisan bricks now that it appears that everyone but Socks the cat was involved in the Clintons' not-so-silent pardons auction. And, when our politicians aren't busy stealing or selling out to those who do, there's nothing like a little good, healthy lying (no new taxes, open gay military service or big fat tax cut, pick your own personal polygraph-popping prevarication) to keep anyone from coming even remotely close to having any faith at all in their system of government. And Pasco County, as I promised you a month ago, has stepped in it again on its sexually oriented business ordinance. County commissioners wanted to ensure that people could still go naked at the nudist resorts, which are among the county's fastest-growing industries, so they miswrote their ordinance in a manner that now makes it more practical for clubs where dancers wear some clothes to go completely nude. By the time they get through tinkering with it, the law will require dancers, pipe fitters and plumbers to go to work naked and cops will be writing us tickets for not showing enough cleavage above our auto seat belts. It is now obvious that the function of government is to pardon major crimes when the perpetrators have been convicted, and to brazenly exaggerate the nature of evidence collected in prosecuting people like the Aisenbergs, who may not be able to afford pardons later on. Government should build low-income housing as far as possible away from everyone everywhere, make sure everyone prays the same way to the same God and spend as much money as possible on private economic development efforts whose main function is to talk politicians out of collecting impact fees for new businesses with major impact on infrastructure. Government should do all it can to punish people who water lawns, while selling as many building permits as possible to make sure there are more lawns to water, and it should make sure that at least 10 percent of all roadways in any county look like war zones for as much of the year as possible. My advice folks: Send your kids hurriedly to the nearest topless bar. But for God's sake keep them away from C-SPAN and County Commission meetings.
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