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When I learned that card-carrying membership in the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) might disqualify Michael Dukakis from the job he wants, I examined my memberships for anything that might work against me if I need to get a real job someday.
There is the local Friends of the Library.
The
Salida Regional Library may carry the seditious works of
Karl Marx, but I belong because I like the way that Friends
of the Library is run.
All small-town organizations raise money, but only Friends of the Library does this sensibly. The others conduct bake sales or car washes that waste entire weekends and net all of $18.37. The Friends just send a letter every spring, asking for money. If this group has meetings, officers or other tedious wastes of time, I've never heard of them.
What may be subversive, though, is the Salida School
Board Monitoring Commission.
The other member is Kirby
Perschbacher, a local contractor. As public-minded
citizens, we attend the school board meeting on the second
Tuesday of each month. Ten minutes after the board adjourns
from the public meeting into the usual closed session, the
Monitoring Commission convenes at the Victoria Tavern.
There we discuss education, among other things. Someday
our wives will believe that it is merely a coincidence that
Tuesday is Men's Night
at the Vic, with half-price
beer.
Last Tuesday, our session was diverted by Ray James, who was a respectable bartender before a stint as managing editor of the local daily. Now he's running for the state legislature. He just keeps sinking deeper into degradation.
Ray had several complaints. His entire campaign treasury wouldn't impress a parking meter, and he said the Republican incumbent had a $25,000 war chest. The incumbent has been anointed by the National Rifle Association (NRA), whereas Ray got a black mark.
On the first NRA questionnaire,
he explained,
I said I had qualms about the availability of cheap
handguns. I recanted a week later, but I'm still on the
NRA's hit list.
Kirby and I, both registered Republicans, tried to explain matters to Ray, a Democrat who has sometimes sentiments associated with the L word.
Around here, an endorsement from the NRA means more
than a notarized letter from Ollie North,
Kirby pointed
out. Politically, you're dead meat, Ray.
Besides that,
I broke in, I have a lot of
respect for the NRA.
You?
they both wondered.
Sure. Look at most vices in America. They're okay for
the rich, who are presumed responsible, but they're crimes
when practiced by the poor. You can get as drunk as a lord
if your chauffeured limo is waiting outside, but you're a
criminal if you have to get yourself home. When you're
rich, you can hire a doctor to prescribe whatever drugs
make you happy; when you're poor, you're a criminal for
buying the same stuff on the street.
Ray interrupted my beer-fueled oration. What's that
got to do with the NRA?
The point is, the NRA doesn't just support the right
of the wealthy to own custom-made shotguns for hunting
doves on their weekend estates. The NRA will support your right
to bear arms, even if all you can afford is a used .22
revolver. The NRA defends everybody's constitutional
rights. I admire that. I just wish that all Americans were
as zealous in protecting their other constitutional rights
as the NRA is in defending the Second Amendment.
I see what you mean,
Kirby said. I've never
heard of a National Free Speech Association or of a Society
to Suppress Unreasonable Searches and Seizures.
It's ironic,
I continued. The NRA looks after
the Second Amendment. The only organization that always
cares about protecting the other nine parts of the Bill of
Rights is the ACLU. The NRA and the ACLU should be close
allies. But instead, the gun nuts at the NRA hate the
bleeding hearts at the ACLU, and vice-versa. Can't they see
they're all working for the same thing -- to protect all
our rights?
Ray rose, just as it was his turn to buy a round. No,
they can't see that. Politics are real weird. If you don't
believe me, run for office sometime yourself.
Although both Kirby and I had both given thought to
running for school board next spring, we passed on that.
Maybe the board does interesting things during its
executive
sessions, but they couldn't be half as
much fun as the meetings of the Monitoring Commission.
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