Are we the "party of Drugs and Prostitution?"
August 16, 2008
A funny thing happened to me on the way back from the Forum. In fact it happened two months after the fact.
Apparently someone affiliated with the company I represent in my primary business read an article in a major media outlet that described the party in terms of some of the vendors, exhibitors, and sponsors at the Convention. The author of the article enjoyed the opportunity to engage in yellow journalism by spending a disproportionate amount of time describing a particular sponsor who happened to be a business engaged in the promotion of the art of seductive dance. After describing that booth, there was a more cursory summary of the Marijuana Policy Project, etc. and then a reference to my own booth. I was accurately but derisively quoted as promoting the ultimate Libertarian asset as a shelter where the "government can't take your money." (Which is absolutely true.)
If I had any doubts about the compliance department at the company I represent being able to conduct a first class intelligence operation, they have been completely put to rest. It took them a couple of months but eventually the attorneys at the home office were able to indentify me as the person who had a company booth at the convention. Humoursly they had not been able to find the article that originally whistled me, although I was later able to find it in three seconds by Goggling a combination of four key words. But I digress.
I received a call from a very distraught compliance officer who was almost beyond words with umbrage that I had represented the company "at such an event for such an organization that advocates legalizing marijuana and prostitution and has strip joints among its exhibitors." He made it very clear that such exposure was not good for the company or anyone affiliated with the company.
We'll set aside the issue of any particular company's concerns about its public image relataive to the company its representataives keep for a moment, and focus on the party's public image. Are we the party of pushers and prostitutes? Regardless of the answer, should we care?
My answer is that we are the party that dares to champion liberty for all period, whether the exercise of that liberty means a better business climate for printers, preachers, or prostitutes, whether it makes prescription drugs more affordable or street drugs more accessible.
Why is it that by defending the Constitutional rights of all Americans to be left alone to make their own decisions, mistakes, and lifestyle choices we are suddenly the party of deviance and depravity?" Freedom is freedom. Choice is choice. Attempts to limit freedom and control choice is despotism. It is un-American. Yet our representatives at the county fair are taunted with the usual love it or leave it mantra as if we didn't love it, and as if one of the key points about being American is that even those who hate it, have a right to hate it without having to leave it and the truest American value, virtue, principle, is the one that is willing to lay down one's life to protect the rights of those who hate our country to shout their hate from the rooftops without interference, persecution, or prosecution.
In that sense, one should hope that every political party in the United States would be party of strippers and prostitutes and preachers and everything and everybody else whether we agree or disagree, and even when we are morally or philosophically appalled by the choices and expressions of certain people. What makes us unique as Americans is our absolute commitment to liberty and justice for all, regardless of race, religion, creed, lifestyle, or opinion. What other country would enshrine a quote such as "I may not agree with what you do but I will defend to the death your right to do it." into its national lexicon. What other political party on the current political landscape in the United States would continue to be informed and defined by that quote and ready to repeat it lest our nation forget why we are here.
"Howoooo!"
John Howell-at-the-Moon