The Centers for Disease Control have determined, after more than a decade of study, that drunk people have sex. “Alcohol has been linked to risky sexual behavior among youth. It influences a person’s judgment and they are more likely to have sex…,” Harrell Chesson, a health economist with the CDC, told reporters. He did not mention the other shocking studies coming down the pike: “Does Excessive Fluid Consumption Increase Peeing?”; “Is the Pope Catholic? A Survey of the Evidence.” “Dogs Licking Themselves: Nature or Nurture?”; and of course the seminal “What do Bears Do in the Woods? An Epistemological Review of Four States.”
The researchers believe that it is the interest of public health to raise taxes on beer. To reach this conclusion, these scientists connected a series of intellectual dots. Young men and women exist. Young men and women have glands which stand over your shoulder like the little devil behind Pinto in Animal House. These Devil-glands are more persuasive when they’ve been marinated in inexpensive beer. Or, conversely, young men and women tend to listen to said Devil-glands more when they themselves have been marinated. Either way, the next intellectual domino to fall is that young people have more sex when drunk (this explains the tap room off the Oval Office). Not surprisingly, there is less condom use, and therefore more gonorrhea, under these circumstances. According to the CDC, states which raised beer taxes were more likely to see some reduction in gonorrhea-infection rates. Therefore, raising beer taxes will result in fewer burning sensations at the urinal.
Now, the wire story in my Washington Times says that “men seem to be more affected than women by higher beer prices. That may be because men buy more cheap beer, especially at closing time.” It seems to me that this is a bit of leap. Couldn’t it also have to do with the fact that plying women with free beer becomes more expensive? Volume is the key in this department, if I recall correctly, and each additional marginal beer makes a difference. If demand is damped down by higher prices, this could have a profound effect. But the more interesting question is, Doesn’t it take two to tango? I mean, gonorrhea is a social disease, if you get my meaning.
There is, of course, an answer to this: In short, most women aren’t trampy, but most men are dogs.
While I’m probably for decriminalizing marijuana (Report: Cheap Pot Leads to Doritos Shortage, ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ Backorder”), I’m still against the legalization of drugs. Still, the impetus to socially engineer through taxes bugs me. Cigarettes — which are a legal product in the country to the North of Mexico and to the South of Canada – are fast on their way to being a samizdat product. The trial lawyers are already going after fatty foods. Now, beer — sweet, sweet, beer — is under fire. What’s next? Are they gonna take my couch from me?
GAY SCOUTS?
Social engineering plus the sexual urges of men leads inexorably to the topic of the current Boy Scouts case before the Supreme Court. The Boy Scouts want to bar gay scout leaders. This is discrimination.
But, there’s nothing inherently evil, or even wrong, with discrimination. In the private sector we do it all the time. I want to play poker with W, X, and Y, but not Z. In politics it would be ludicrous to force the Rainbow Coalition to admit the Klan into one of their marches or vice versa. I fully expect Louis Farrakhan to stand in the Temple door blocking my white-devil entry and I doubt my rabbi would be too keen on letting Louey in for Friday prayers. The He-Man Woman Hater’s Club (I’m referring to the Lil’ Rascals, not the US Senate) was not inclined to admit Darla, nor should they have been. And no matter what you think of their reasons, it is wrong to force the Boy Scouts to accept openly gay scoutmasters.
Now, I don’t care if you’re as gay as a taffeta chandelier or as straight as Orrin Hatch at Bohemian Grove, the principle stands. For example, there are gay clubs which bar straight men from entering. Apparently, at these clubs you have to sign a card which affirms that you are a gay man. If you are not gay the club informs you that you are invading the privacy of the members. If you do not believe me, you can read about one such club in Arizona. But I warn you, this is not a link you want to go to if you don’t want to read pretty straightforward stuff about some pretty gayforward (and gaybackward, and gaysideways) activities. Okay you were warned, (phoenixnewtimes.com).
Now, while I’m not super-keen on gay sex clubs per se, it seems completely acceptable to me that gays should have the right to have exclusive organizations. Of course, one might argue, reasonably, that gay sex clubs are about having, well, gay sex. Therefore it’s totally reasonable to admit only people interested in that sort of thing. Meanwhile, the Boy Scouts are not really about being heterosexual or sexual at all, so what’s the harm in permitting gay scoutmasters? Well, it’s a good question. But it’s a question the scouts have answered satisfactorily for themselves. We should leave it there.
WEEKEND NOTES:
I have to admit I am extremely distracted today. First of all, AOL ran a link to my Wednesday column about the Gonzalez case being a Solomonic No-Brainer. This funneled hundreds or thousands of relatively new or first-time readers to my column. Sometimes I forget what a self-selected group of people NRO and G-File readers are. These new people were furious with me. They were angry that I quoted the Bible, they were angry that I said mean things about Janet Reno, they were angry that I assumed I have all the answers, they were peeved that I won’t accept Cuba as the great alternative to the United States, they were angry about this, they were angry about that, they were even angry about the other thing. It’s been a real pain reading all of these e-mails, and I’ve sorta given up responding to a bunch of them. I will address all of it in detail in the next corrections column.
But the real reason I’m distracted is that NRO has a Search Engine. The acquisition of this device was not easy. This was mostly due to the fact that I insisted we pretend we were trying to steal a cloaking device from the Romulans (played in this instance by the gang at The Nation — boy, were they confused). But once I was slapped back into reality, it was pretty easy. The guys over at the home office have been having a grand time searching for various food words “pizza,” “muffins,” cheese (as in cheese-eating surrender monkeys) and seeing how many of my columns pop up. Anyway we are extremely excited about it, and I encourage you guys to play with it.
And finally, we are running a survey of NRO readers. This is very important for the suits, not least because it helps them figure out how much money to put into NRO and ultimately my pocket. So, if you’re lucky enough to get the pop-up survey (it’s served randomly off the homepage) please take the time to fill it out. Thanks and have a great weekend.
Oh, one last thing, the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette just bought my syndicated column. What’s keeping your hometown paper? Huh?