Re: e$: In Vino Veritas

["Stephen Cobb, CISSP" <stephen@iu.net>]

Robert

Thanks so much for a truly enjoyable and thought-provoking piece of
writing. It gladdens my heart to know that there are still people out there
who know what happened to the Romantics!

But you do have to be careful about typing behavior with age. I live in
Florida and yes, we have a lot of old folks, but a sadly significant number
of the moralists are in their 20s and 30s. 

In Brevard County where I live (and shuttles are launched) they have banned
nude sunbathing, even on Federal property (also thong bikinis and male swim
wear that "permits discernible turgidity" -- by this standard most of the
Olympic finalists in the men's 100 meters would have been breaking the law
if Brevard County had been hosting). 

Much of the ban-the-nudist lobbying was done people well under 40. There
was a great moment at the televised County meeting when a frail old man
made his way to the podium and we all braced for another "skin is sin"
speech. But this is what he said "I'm a nudist and believe me, you have no
idea who else is."

So, it is not age that makes folks stupid. My mother took me on a
ban-the-bomb march when I was 6. I helped disrupt a tour by the all-white
South African rugby team when I was 17. But in the town were I grew up we
had both hippies and Nazi-loving, Paki-bashing skinheads (I use the term
Paki-bashing only because that is what people called it).

We also had Young Conservatives, aging beatniks, and leftists who were so
far left they actually admired Stalin (they were so screwed up that,
despite being atheists, they protested the British government's decision to
deny a priest, jailed for helping the IRA blow up parts of Coventry,
conduct mass in prison).

Me, I'm 45 and hope I will be my own kind of libertarian until I die. My
mother is in her 70s and still working for the cause of freedom and
dignity. My brother quit banking to write security software, some of which
is causing brains to hurt at the UK's DTI. 

But getting back to prohibition, do the words "when will they ever learn?"
strike a chord? It is so damn obvious that prohibition=organized crime I
can't believe it isn't genetic already, like not eating things that smell
rotten. But I digress. A book worth reading on the subject, if only for the
examples and footnotes, is "Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do: The
Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in a Free Society" by Peter McWilliams Now
available in paperback, published by Prelude Press. 

Personally, I look forward to reading more of your postings.

Stephen

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