David McElroy

A speeding ticket isn’t normally that big a deal for a politician, but a traffic stop turned into a publicity nightmare for New York state legislator Steve Katz last Thursday.

When a state trooper pulled Katz over for going 80 mph in a 65-mph zone, he noticed the smell of marijuana coming from inside the car. When questioned, Katz turned over a small bag of what appeared to be weed. He was charged with possession of marijuana and released, because the trooper didn’t think Katz was impaired.

The bigger issue — and the one that’s made it a national story — is that Katz is a Republican state assemblyman who’s “railed against illegal drugs,” according to the local newspaper in the area. In addition, he voted last year against legalizing medical marijuana.

In other words, he’s the typical politician who’s telling a mainstream audience what it wants to hear and voting the way his voters want him to vote.

Predictably, this has turned into a story just about his obvious hypocrisy. While that’s certainly the case, the real story is that voters don’t know their legislators — because those legislators tell voters whatever they want to hear in order to get elected and stay in office.

I’ve mentioned before that when I worked in politics, I didn’t ask each client which issues he wanted included in the campaign material I produced for him. Although the client certainly reviewed material before it was printed, the issues were almost always the ones that I selected — and I wrote exactly what voters wanted to hear. That’s just the way politics works.

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Of the politicians currently in Congress, Rand Paul is probably the one whose views would be least damaging to the country if he were made president. In other words, I consider him the “least bad” of the bunch.

Despite that — and despite the fact that I liked his political theater last week — I won’t support him for president. It’s for the same reason I didn’t support his father for president. I don’t want anybody to be president.

I’m opposed to the entire current system. I don’t support any system that says it has the power to tell others what to do and says it has the power to steal their money. The idea at the core of our system as it’s constituted — that the majority have the right to make up rules that everyone else has to obey — is immoral and evil. Anybody who takes the reins of power in that system is giving legitimacy to that idea.

Some people who see themselves as pragmatists believe they should be a part of the system, saying that it’s the only way to influence the system and that since the system is going to exist, we might as well accept it and get seats at the table when the power is divvied up. I understand that position, because I tried to live that way for awhile. Eventually, though, I had to give it up as morally bankrupt.

Even if you’re a libertarian — of the minarchist type — and believe it’s OK to establish a central governing authority over what we call the United States, Rand Paul isn’t much of a libertarian. He’s an odd mixture of libertarian and pragmatist conservative. That might actually sell well in a future Republican primary, but it shouldn’t carry much weight with libertarians.

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If cupcakes are topped with little green WW II soldiers, they somehow become dangerous or threatening if they’re brought into a school. Whatever the case, it was enough to get a Michigan 9-year-old and his parents into trouble with his school. It seems like another case of insane “safety” overreach by out-of-touch school administrators.

Casey Fountain’s third grade son brought cupcakes to school last week to share with his classmates in celebration of his ninth birthday. The boy’s mother made the cupcakes and decorated them with small green soldiers that the boy likes — very much like the G.I. Joe figures that every generation of kids has been playing with for decades.

But when the boy got to school with the “insensitive” cupcakes, they were confiscated because of the figures. The principal called the boy’s father and told him that it was insensitive because of the shootings in Connecticut last year. (Did army infantry invade the school? I must have missed that.)

The boy’s father called the media to complain, but the school refused to go on camera to talk about the case, issuing a strange statement instead. Here was the strangest part of the statement:

“On the other hand, there are those who feel that guns create fear in schools and we need to put solid security measures in place  plus practice routines to be prepared in case an emergency should ever occur,” the statement said. “Living in a democratic society entails respect for opposing opinions.” [Emphasis mine.]

So this is the school’s way of showing “respect for opposing opinions”?

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