A lack of critical thinking skills runs rampant through our society today, skills which would go far in reducing the problems of drinking, smoking, and other forms of drug abuse, not to mention hundreds of other social ills. Often, when writers try and address such issues, their writing is filled with flawed analogies that overwhelm any potential points they might attempt to make.
To begin with, treating drinking, smoking, and illegal drug abuse as separate issues is an error, since all three are drug abuse. All are symptoms of seeking chemical aid to alter the mood, and to some extent all serve as an escape from dealing with life's burdens. Naturally, they have some other things in common, and I have no beef with treating them equally, except where there are significant differences. Let's begin by mentioning that legality, while perhaps a significant difference in the pragmatic sense, is not one in a philosophical sense. The word “illegal” means merely that some individuals in the past decided to add force to their opinions, often when they were incapable of producing solid persuasive arguments. Sometimes this is the fault of the perpetrator; it's difficult, for example, to get a rage-blinded person to understand why murder hurts us all, or a thief to see how such actions lead to societal chaos. More often, it's a case of political pandering to the clueless.
A Common Error
One common smoking analogy is fatally flawed in that regard. Sliding down the slippery slope, smokers claim that non-smoking sections will lead to other forms of segregation; a non-drinking section, perhaps. However, a patron drinking alcohol at the table next to me is only going to affect me if they begin acting unruly, in which case I would be justified in asking the manager to remove them. A smoker at the next table affects me the instant they light up, the noxious fumes entering my nostrils within seconds. The only true analogy with liquor would be if someone at the next table insisted on pouring their booze into my glass, and then dumped it down my throat. I presume this would be fine with the smokers, but I would again expect the manager to remove the offender, much as smokers are appropriately removed to an area where they are no longer free to annoy other patrons.
Public prayer is a similar issue, but most get this one absolutely backward. I know of no ordinance, nor any court ruling, that prevents someone from quietly praying, or otherwise expressing their religious beliefs, in public. For that matter, I know of none preventing them from loudly doing so, as long as they are not violating noise ordinances that would apply equally to loudly cheering for a football team, playing the tuba, or reading poetry. Even if expressing your religion means dancing naked, uh, well, I guess there are ordinances against that, because the churches put them there . If anyone is seeking the primary source of censorship in our society, one need look no further than the local church.
However, what undoubtedly saves us from those of an evangelical nature is that little piece of paper called our Constitution, that prevents government from endorsing, or even appearing to endorse, either one religion over another or any religion over none. This applies to an even greater extent in my former state of residence, Florida, where the government (with a one-sentence exception, in a bout of good sense rarely seen in Tallahassee, actually exceeded the national Constitution) provided very specific guidelines in the state constitution: "There shall be no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting or penalizing the free exercise thereof. Religious freedom shall not justify practices inconsistent with public morals, peace or safety. No revenue of the state or any political subdivision or agency thereof shall ever be taken from the public treasury directly or indirectly in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution."
Now I'm not contradicting myself here; “it's against the law” is not, in itself, solid rationale for behavior. It just happens that this particular part of the law makes good sense on its own, which is clear to anyone who has investigated the history of church-state entanglement. I doubt I could say more than Thomas Jefferson on government's attempts to force belief: “Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced an inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.”
Crystal Clear? Not To Everyone
