I read your note about dancing in London pubs being subject to heavy fines with a bit of amusement. These things happen in New York City too. A few years ago, in 1997 if my memory serves me correctly, a bunch of friends (now scattered across the globe) assembled for our annual Thanksgiving weekend gathering. It’s usually a long night that ends up a bit bleary eyed at P. J. Clarke’s on Third Avenue (they are open to 4 AM and serve a good hamburger.) This particular evening was no exception and a group of about seven or eight of us stumbled in at around 3 AM or so to wind down the evening. We were in "high spirits" but still well enough behaved. Someone put some Patsy Cline on the jukebox and I asked one of the girls with us to dance. Seconds into our turn on the barroom floor one of the ancient bartenders yelled at us to stop dancing. We looked at him and laughed thinking he was only kidding. How wrong we were! He then proceeded to scream that we "Either stop dancing or get the Hell out!" Faced with the choice of either denying ourselves one last beer and a hamburger or compromising our artistic integrity we chose the latter. We sat in stony silence eating and drinking, not wanting to further anger the Saloon gods. The stern bartender sensing that we were a bit taken aback came over and told us that they didn't have a cabaret license and that they could be fined if a cop walked in and saw any dancing. That a license was needed in order to dance was even more unsettling than the yelling but an important lesson was learned. If you want to dance in a NYC bar make sure they have a cabaret license.

I know said I'd stop posting Canada email. But this one just came in. I love it:

Dear Mr. Goldberg,

While I consider your article (Nov 15, 2002) to be typical of American propiganda and distortion of fact, I do cherish your right to express yourself. I for one voted for PM Chrteien because he is anti-American and for no other reason. As you probably know, we have an extremist hate group/fascist political party here called the Canadian Alliance. They are actually the official opposition and garnered something like 17% of the vote in the last fderal election (though completely concentrated in the racist and intolerant West)... (See attached Word document of hate quotes by the party MP's and leaders) The Alliiance projects many American style policies. I feel that our rejection of their ideology is more a rejection of their racism, sexism, homophobia, war on the poor, and desire to make Canada a christian autocracy. Please remember that when we claim to be anti-american, most of that sentiment lies in the fact that we are anti Canadian Alliance; this political party has forged a synergy between being a radical nazi hate group and pro-American policies.
I feel that most Canadians don't exactly recognize this. I do Mr. Goldberg mourn for your lost freedoms as an American under the Bush fascist regime. I do recognize that with the USA PATRIOT act, you could be charged as a "terrorist" for correctly critiquing the policies of the murderous monster, Bush the butcher. I wish your country wisdom in the next election, as well as the luck that Ms. Clinton will run and be eleted president. I believe she would continue the work of the epic leader Bill Clinton, who without a doubt was the best president America ever had.
I will add that as much as I may disagre with some of the views you express in your columns, I read you anyways. I think you are a good writer and I often use your articles as a point of reference to people who I convince of my political views here in the Great Socialist North. Keep up the good work and making my job easier.

Should be up in a minute. The fault is all my own. When I finished writing around 2:00 PM, I discovered it was over 4,000 words. Even for an especially long and good G-File, this would be unforgiveable (And I am not so sure this one is any good). So I had to cut it down, and I kind of got lost. So, if you're waiting for Shecky Goldberg stuff, go home. The only Simpson's reference is in the on-deck notice on the homepage.

In a generally thoughtful and constructive essay on NRO today, Randy Barnett offers some advice to conservatives on how to keep libertarians inside the Republican tent. I agree with many of his prescriptions (particularly on federalism), but I couldn’t help but notice the second to last item on his 7 point plan. He writes that conservatives should:

Stop making snide gratuitous remarks about libertarians. Nothing turns off libertarians more than the sort of wholly gratuitous snide remarks about libertarians in conservative publications. By gratuitous I mean they show up even in articles about policies with which libertarians and conservatives agree. The more libertarians feel unwelcome in the coalition that is the Republican party, the more they will vote Libertarian.

is definitely not a fan of the Jehova's Witnesses considering his reaction to their visit a few minutes ago. He's still barking and they're half-way up the block already.

Now everyone's getting in on the anti-Canadian bandwagon. Just remember where you heard all of this first.

WIFE: [sarcastically] I'm just so proud.
ME: What?
WIFE: Have you seen Andrew Sullivan?
ME: Not yet. What?
WIFE: [Laughing] Go check out his site.

Item on site:

HAIRIER THAN THOU: When I first saw the headline, I feared Jonah Goldberg had been at the Jagermeister again. Mercifully, he's innocent. But this story. about a duel over hairy bottoms strikes me as a new low in Maxim culture. Or maybe it's just the beginning of a new reality television show.

ME: Oh. Are you sorry you married me? Hello? Hello...? Honey...?
WIFE: No. [Sigh]

People keep emailing me to ask sarcastically, Potato chips (or some other snacks) are addictive so why not outlaw them too? This is a response I get from college kids all the time and, frankly, I find it absurd and a little offensive. If you knew drug addicts, as I have, who stole from friends and family and ruined their lives and -- in one case died in jail -- all out of a desire for one more fix, you wouldn't make the comparison. Heroin makes you irrational in a way that potato chips simply do not. And to say there isn't a difference between UTZ pretzels and smack is to trivialize a lot fo tragedy for a cute debating point. I've never seen anybody steal their mother's jewelry or become prostitutes for some Pringles.

Jonathan - I'm not so sure I buy that. You're talking about "mean concentrations" and "shares" of the market, which might be a bit misleading because the market grew when prohibition was repealed. In a growing market a greater share of consumers might drink milder drinks while at the same time the total number of hard drinkers increases. Even alcoholics drink beer and wine in social settings if beer and wine is more socially acceptable. And, the repeal of prohibition widened the market to people who didn't miss their occassional beer or glass of wine when they were outlawed but were willing to indulge a little when it became legal. So of course they won't be buying rot gut just because it's legal. The question I have is, Did the number of hard liquor drinkers go up in absolute terms? And I would guess yes.

Similarly, I have no doubt that if you legalized all drugs the "average drug user" would be an occassional pot smoker not a PCP hound. But the relevant question isn't necessarily what the "mean drug user" looks like but whether the rising tide of drug-use lifts all boats. My main peeve with legalization folks is that they are so often unwilling to admit that repeal of prohibition will mean more, not less, drug use and addiction. I don't think everyone who uses drugs becomes an addict. But an irreducible fraction of human beings do become drug addicts after trying them once or a few times. If you make the products safer, better, cheaper and more available you will increase the size of that irreducible fraction.

Jonathan - An interesting and fair point, and I guess I can concede it in some respects. Certainly, pot (which I think should be legalized or at least de-criminalized) has become more potent due to prohibition. And it's an interesting point about crack. Three factors, however, mitigate your point.

First, many illegal drugs are very impure basically because criminals sell them. Dealers "step" on coke and dilute heroin because they want to make as much money as possible by parting with as little of their commodity as possible, and honesty is not much of a consideration. In a legal market such lying would -- presumably -- be illegal just like any other false advertising or other efforts to mislead consumers. So, the products would be purer, which -- you're right -- doesn't necessarily mean more potent but it doesn't necessarily mean less potent either.

Second, in a market where cocaine or PCP would be sold like cold medicine, competition and niche marketing would encourage some venders to sell "Extra Strength" heroin just as they sell Extra Strength Tylenol today (in fact, try to find regular strength Tylenol at an average store -- it's not so easy). Your points about the post-prohibition alcohol markets notwithstanding, we can still buy grain alcohol, whiskey (including God's elexir, Jamesons) and other very potent spirits. And, I'm told, alcoholics drink these products regularly.

Which brings me to my last point. Sure, in a free and legal market there would be a broader range of lower potency drugs -- call them zinfandel narcotics -- which many of us could enjoy responsibly. But there's something special about drug addicts: they're addicts. And addicts often seek ever-greater highs and ever stronger drugs. Which brings me back to the begining. They are not rational actors.

Unfortunately, I missed Andrew Sullivan's Bradley lecture at my old stomping ground, The American Enterprise Institute (I spent more than five years working in and around AEI and I still revere the place for giving me what will have to pass as my graduate education). I'm still reading his talk, it's basically an Ode to Oakeshott, but it's also really fascinating stuff.

A reader responds:

I tried to take the survey, but was denied (surely for some IT-speak "technical difficulty")! So I add my two cents directly: I for one happen to enjoy the fact that you consistently miss your deadlines. I eagerly await your creative reasons for not making yet another deadline, and ashamedly admit I keep them on file to use when I'm late getting work to my boss. Furthermore, I'm certain the added stress of not knowing when your G-File will arrive is responsible for Kathryn keeping her edge.

Dozens of regular readers of my syndicated column despise, loath, revile, reject etc my latest column -- in which I argue that we are more free than at any time in American history. They are disappointed with me and hope it was an example of failed sarcasm. It wasn’t. We are freer today, on the whole, than pretty much any time in the past. I’m speaking as broadly and as inclusively as possible. That doesn’t mean some freedoms haven’t be tragically curtailed – property rights the most obvious example -- but other freedoms have been expanded, most notably freedom of speech. As someone who doesn't consider the mazimization of freedom for its own sake to be the ultimate aim of politics, I'm willing to say that we're not necessarily better for our greater liberties.

Regardless, I have to assume many Corner readers will also despise the column. If you want to tell me so, fine. But please give me concrete examples of how your grandparents were demonstrably more free. Also, please no long diatribes about positive law versus natural law and all that. On a theoretical level you might have a good case, but on the practical level such arguments constitute an attempt to ignore the real circumstances of peoples’ lives in favor of an abstraction (somewhere some Randian just spat orange soda out his nose).

One of the chief complaints offered in the reader survey was the tardiness of G-Files. In order to make amends I filed the column before noon today. Unfortunately the demands of NR OnPaper may interfere with its timely posting -- but don't blame me. Just so you know, it’s about the "New" Al Gore. Which reminds me, do you think Al starts his days with this?

Molly Ivins calls me "some juvenile jerk" not just a "juvenile jerk." The implication being that she's never heard of me. It's a useful tactic and I've used it before myself. Of course, when I've used it I actually hadn't heard of the person before. My guess is that Ivins has heard of me but believes even mentioning my name is beneath her. That's cool, it's the sort of dishonest pose you'd expect from fossilized, out of touch and self-parodying liberals.

A man arrived at the Pearly Gates with his dog and was told, "You may enter, but dogs are not allowed." The man declined to enter because he couldn't leave his dog behind. He wandered down the road and eventually came to another set of Pearly Gates. The gatekeeper invited him to come in. The man replied that he wouldn't enter without his dog. The gatekeeper told him that his dog was certainly welcome to enter also. The man said, "But the fellow at the other gate up the road said dogs weren't allowed". To which the gatekeeper replied, "Oh, that was actually the gate to hell and you were being screened. Anyone who would leave his dog behind doesn't deserve to enter heaven".

Lots of email from readers about dogs and souls and stuff. Reminds of a joke my mother-in-law told me (as best I can recollect):

A man is chased by a grizzly bear. There’s no way he can get away. He drops to his knees, clasps his hands and prays to God, "Oh Lord, please make this bear a Christian!" The bear suddenly stops and clasps his paws and says, "Thank you oh Lord for this meal I am about to receive…."