Speaking of Jerry Brown...
My favorite memory of Jerry Brown will always be his 1992 appearance on The Donahue Show, where he extolled the virtues of the flat tax -- and a 13% one at that! -- using a chalkboard and a candy bar. Few politicians today would have the intestinal fortitude to actually demonstrate a detailed working knowledge of such a complex issue. Instead, the current poltical fashion is the use of easels with ultra-large charts and quotes -- essentially a low-tech PowerPoint presentation.
My second favorite memory of Jerry Brown was reading this animated verbal polemic of his last year, lambasting the first Supreme Court decision allowing schools to drug test their students.
Another leading candidate for statewide office is state Senator Jackie Speier, who carried a bill last legislative session that would have authorized the random testing of student athletes for steriods and other "performance enhancing dietary supplements." She is running for Lieutenant Governor. The big question will be whether either of them will take a pro-liberty position on the issue of student drug testing. The safe route is to cop out like Governor Schwarzenegger did on SB 1386 last year and hide behind "local control." California's current AG, Bill Lockyer, deserves a great deal of credit for his vocal advocacy on behalf of students against institutionalized bureaucratic humiliation -- as do those GOP legislators who stood for an eminently reasonable limit on the ability of government to force a child to perform an excretory function without any parental input.
Money quote from Brown's radio program done for We the People, and entirely spot on:
This is an effort to insinuate a fascist idea in the vulnerable, impressionable minds of young children who have to give up a precious right, even before they're aware they have it, in order to play sports. When are people more vulnerable than standing naked in the bathroom, providing a urine sample? Once you do that, it's embedded in your mind: You, as a person, have no dignity. What do they do when they torture people, when they interrogate people? They take their clothes off! That's what they're doing here. When Big Brother says, "Take down your pants and urinate in this little bottle, so we can take it to a laboratory and then tell you whether you're good or bad"-that's a very insidious, destructive lesson. That's not going to teach someone to be independent, to be a critical thinker, to have that spirit of rebellion that built this country. That's another step forward in creating a nation of sheep in a totalitarian state, saying, "Yes sir, yes sir! Is that what you want? Do it to me again!" By the time they graduate, kids won't even know they have rights. They'll be little stooges for a fascist state.
My second favorite memory of Jerry Brown was reading this animated verbal polemic of his last year, lambasting the first Supreme Court decision allowing schools to drug test their students.
Another leading candidate for statewide office is state Senator Jackie Speier, who carried a bill last legislative session that would have authorized the random testing of student athletes for steriods and other "performance enhancing dietary supplements." She is running for Lieutenant Governor. The big question will be whether either of them will take a pro-liberty position on the issue of student drug testing. The safe route is to cop out like Governor Schwarzenegger did on SB 1386 last year and hide behind "local control." California's current AG, Bill Lockyer, deserves a great deal of credit for his vocal advocacy on behalf of students against institutionalized bureaucratic humiliation -- as do those GOP legislators who stood for an eminently reasonable limit on the ability of government to force a child to perform an excretory function without any parental input.
Money quote from Brown's radio program done for We the People, and entirely spot on:
This is an effort to insinuate a fascist idea in the vulnerable, impressionable minds of young children who have to give up a precious right, even before they're aware they have it, in order to play sports. When are people more vulnerable than standing naked in the bathroom, providing a urine sample? Once you do that, it's embedded in your mind: You, as a person, have no dignity. What do they do when they torture people, when they interrogate people? They take their clothes off! That's what they're doing here. When Big Brother says, "Take down your pants and urinate in this little bottle, so we can take it to a laboratory and then tell you whether you're good or bad"-that's a very insidious, destructive lesson. That's not going to teach someone to be independent, to be a critical thinker, to have that spirit of rebellion that built this country. That's another step forward in creating a nation of sheep in a totalitarian state, saying, "Yes sir, yes sir! Is that what you want? Do it to me again!" By the time they graduate, kids won't even know they have rights. They'll be little stooges for a fascist state.
posted by Nikos A. Leverenz @ 4:59 PM
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