REP. Lois Capps, Democrat of California, deserves some praise, however qualified: Her securing of money for the Liberty Tattoo Removal Program of San Luis Obispo County was, at least in theory, a good deed. It meant that she has a genuinely sympathetic appreciation of the plight of some of her poorer constituents.
Contrary to what her detractors and dyed-in-the-wool skeptics say, the social consequences of being tattooed, and therefore of tattoo removal, are by no means trivial or merely aesthetic. One might with justice adapt the old proverb about marriage to the adorning of the skin in this savage fashion: Tattoo in haste, repent at leisure.
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