At least they’re not demanding special parking places (and an end to second story walk-ups)

I’m not surprised to see “science” confirm that heavily tattooed or pierced people are more likely to drink to excess. As M. Simon has pointed out many times in a slightly different context, people who suffer from PTSD are likely to do all sorts of destructive things which overlap and can thus be said to “correlate.” You might argue that wanting to do such things constitutes a disability. But many ordinary people would recoil in outrage over the social injustice of such an idea, because they all see every day that we reward the disabled. But alcohol is frowned on as a form of self indulgence as are drugs. Especially illegal drugs. Which is why many want to disregard our earlier history, and “keep” drugs illegal. We have to do what we did before, but not before the before!

Lock up the criminal degenerate scum up if they get caught, dammit! Otherwise, they will say they are sick, and inflict their illness on us. Because alcohol is legal, alcoholism is a legal disease. But because drugs are illegal, the disease is a criminal one and social disapproval is easily rationalized.

Seen this way, the ADA does much to keep the culture war going.

I say this as someone who finds his tattooed or pierced brethren very pleasantly reassuring, but cannot — no, will not — explain why.  What would be the point? I’d merely start an argument, and arguments never resolve anything. They do please argument lovers, though. But that’s hardly reason to start one.

Hey wait! If I say something to no one in particular but from my deepest “soul,” and someone then leaves a comment, who can be said to have been the one who “started it”? The one who said the thing, or the one who disagreed with it? Do you have to disagree to start an argument, or is saying something enough?

I’ve been shutting up too much, but perhaps that is not enough.

AFTERTHOUGHT: What a weird paradox it is to feel silenced by your own blog, eh? You’d think after 9 or 10 years things might have gotten easier. Alas, it has gotten harder. I’d say that learning from mistakes sucks, except that, too, might sound argumentative.