And whenever anybody says "for the children" I automatically stop listening. It makes me gag a little bit.
Is Las Vegas Threatened? by Vin Suprynowicz
...Las Vegas is a boom town because of a confluence of historical accidents. Out of desperation, Nevada's politicians in the Great Depression decided to try and draw some tourism and economic activity by legalizing "sins" that were forbidden or strongly censured elsewhere – gambling, booze, "quickie" divorce and prostitution. The timely arrival of commercial air conditioning helped.
...But that's all we've got, folks. That, a big hydroelectric plant, a bombing range, and Celine. We can't fall back on the fishing fleet, the port, the great river that allows commerce into the back country – not even the proximity of coal and iron ore deposits that make this a logical place to build steel mills.
And is Nevada still the only place people can come for legalized gambling or a "quicky," six-week divorce? Of course not. Yes, prostitution is de facto legal and protected here, as any glance through the outcall "entertainers" section of the yellow pages makes clear. And tourists have doubtless spent more money in the grandiose "no-touch" lap-dance palaces of Las Vegas in the past year than in all the Silver State's low-rent legal brothels combined.
...We no longer have a monopoly on any of this stuff. And next to several tourist markets – Amsterdam with its hashish bars, its red light district, its superior architecture and restaurants and museums, comes quickly to mind – we already stand outclassed, despite the best efforts of Steve Wynn.
All that's left is cheaper airfares. Most of the Dutch even speak better English.
So, on Tuesday, what did Nevadans do to catapult themselves back into the lead in the only category that sustains this town's existence – offering "forbidden pleasures" to tourists sick of their puritan environment back home?
Why, we turned down an extremely modest half-step toward marijuana legalization and the eventual introduction of the Dutch-style hashish bar. (I don't believe for a moment that even 3 percent of voters shared my concerns over this proposal's "let's-make-a-deal" tax-jail-and-regulate paternalism.) And we told millions of visiting cigarette smokers who have previously smiled and clapped their hands with glee upon spotting an ashtray and learning that Nevada restaurants still have "smoking sections" that we'd just as soon they take all their money and fly to some casino in the Caribbean, in Asia, on some "sovereign" Indian reservation or any other damned place but here.
And does anyone think these New Puritans will now fold their tents and quit the field, content with rendering some of our favorite taverns as quiet as the morgue at midnight?
...I doubt two years will pass before this gang is back, first to demand mandatory free baby-sitting, and then to wave planted breathless exposes from their mindless mouthpieces of the press, ululating that they're shocked – shocked! – to learn there's illicit drug use going on in this town's new generation of trendy upscale nightclubs, drug use that the proprietors knew about, mind you, and which has been known to contribute to ensuing episodes of – you're not going to believe this – unprotected sex!
...I'm just saying that I can now glimpse the most likely route of our destruction. We will do it to ourselves. Hundreds of thousands of newly transplanted California or Illinois voters who don't quite grasp the source of all this wealth now routinely go to the polls and vote to "protect the children," the same way the do-gooders of Pittsburgh and Detroit wanted the regulators to "protect the children" from the grimy pollution produced by all those nasty factories – and now wonder where our industrial base went, taking all those good blue-collar jobs with it.
The Movement for Moral Hygiene knows no limits. Enact their entire wish list into law and they'll be back next year with a new one. After all, would you want your child to point at a billboard showing women's mostly nekkid butts as you drove her to Bible class, asking "What's that, Mommy?"
These ignoramuses never stop braying "for the children" till they've shut down the very industries that gave their cities life. As though Daddy's paycheck isn't "for the children."
No comments:
Post a Comment