Sorry, but I've been busy and haven't had a chance to weigh in
on the Bill Bennett brouhaha. But here are two pieces worth
checking out. Michael Kinsley's Washington Post op-ed,
Bad Bet By Bill Bennett, makes a strong case that, yes, the
conservative virtue maven and compulsive gambler is guilty of
hypocrisy. Of Bennett's defense that his gambling never hurt anyone
else, Kinsley writes:
Bennett can't plead liberty now, because opposing libertarianism is what his sundry crusades are all about. He wants to put marijuana smokers in jail. He wants to make it harder to get divorced. He wants more "moral criticism of homosexuality" and "declining to accept that what they do is right."
And IGF's Walter Olson wrote a column for Slate a few years back, William Bennett, Gays, and the Truth, that took Bennett to task over his promotion of a claim that "homosexuality takes 30 years off your life." How many years is it for playing of the slots?
Let me say that I think we do need to promote "virtue" and
values, especially among the young. But we've let the social
conservatives mix civics with their own brand of prejudice for far
too long - which has only served to give self-discipline a bad
rap.
-Stephen H.Miller