JLooney.com

This is Senator John Valentine, representing Utah’s District 14 (Orem). He looks like a pretty reasonable and happy guy, right?

I thought so, based on some of his proposed bills in this years legislature. For example, S.B. 133, which makes it a 3rd degree felony for a caretaker to abuse or neglect a child. Or S.B. 162, which would prohibit the use of campaign funds for anything that would classify them as taxable income (basically making it illegal for lawmakers to pocket excess campaign funds for their own use).

I can’t for the life of me understand why someone who seems to be so rational would propose a bill as useless and clearly unnecessary as S.B. 187. It doesn’t even really address a known or documented issue. There’s no research or data to suggest that bars in restaurants encourage underage drinking or drinking in excess. And yet, now Valentine wants to pass a law requiring restaurants to shell out $100,000 or more to build a wall inside their business that theoretically prevents people from knowing there’s a bar there. Huh?

Yeah, it will mandate that any restaurant which also has a bar (see: just about any restaurant you’d take a date to, excl. Chuck-A-Rama, Golden Corral, Et.Al) to erect a 10-foot wall that obscures the bar from the view of minors, and make it illegal to appear drunk in public.

I don’t even know where to start with this one.

I really just want to understand the rationale behind the 10-foot wall. So, if kids can’t see it, we’ll prevent them from flying into an alcohol-lust fueled binge of drinking and excess the likes of which are unrivaled even by Keith Richards, the God of all alcoholics? Is this presumably what we’re being protected from by our all-too-paternal legislators in their “we-know-what’s-best-for-you-and-we’ll-make-you-comply” nonsensical and utterly unnecessary (not to mention nigh-unconstitutional and overly religious) oversight?

The news clip below from FOX13 in Salt Lake City does a pretty good job of explaining the implications and absurdity of this bill, but my favorite part comes at around 2:14, check it out:

Seriously? “When my kids see [alcohol], they think it’s apple juice, and then they want to try it?” Are you effing kidding me?!? Somebody call DCFS on this icon of parental idiocy and ineptitude right now!

Here’s a thought – say no! You are (in name if clearly not in action) the parent, for God’s sake act like it! Or, here’s an even easier route for you worthless, confrontation-with-your-child-avoiding miserable people so stuck in your own microscopic prejudicial comfort zone that you are unwilling to talk to your kids about sex, drugs, smoking and alcohol – GIVE THEM APPLE JUICE IF THAT’S WHAT THEY ASK FOR! The rest of us are adults, and some of us like to have a drink with our meal. Why is your lack of parenting my problem?

There’s more from FOX13 here.

And now that I’m good and warmed up, exactly who will judge who ‘appears’ to be drunk in public? How do you even measure something like this? What if you encounter someone with Parkinson’s, MS, muscular dystrophy or any number of other diseases that could be mistaken for drunkeness? And on the flip side, I know several people who can be piss drunk and still conduct themselves reasonably enough to be mistaken for sober.

NEWS FLASH! We live in America, and last I checked, as adults we have the freedom to drink if we choose. I believe that we should exercise a little common sense and be proactive in educating our children about the dangers of alcohol, sex at an early age, smoking, drugs, etc. I also believe that it’s absolutely despicable for an elected official to support legislation that supports the limiting of our freedoms as Americans and adults in the name of “protecting the children”, “protectiung us from ourselves”, or any other unnecessary and/or unwanted “protection”. And just because some of your constituents are willing to legislate their own freedoms away doesn’t make it any less a transgression of justice and an affront to the constitution.

Leave me and my beer alone!

P.S.
I don’t really drink beer, it’s not my thing. I do enjoy a nice margarita or some other fruity drink along with my meal, though, so leave that alone, too, dammit!