Pubdate: Sat, 03 Jan 2015
Source: Honolulu Star-Advertiser (HI)
Copyright: 2015 Star Advertiser
Contact: 
http://www.staradvertiser.com/info/Star-Advertiser_Letter_to_the_Editor.html
Website: http://www.staradvertiser.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5154
Author: Jacob Sullum, Creators Syndicate

2014 WAS FILLED WITH PEOPLE SHIFTING BLAME TO OTHERS

For years, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has insisted 
that people who pay for sex and the intermediaries who facilitate 
that exchange are responsible for violence against women.

Hence his Feb. 26 column celebrating the arrests of men who were 
guilty of nothing but negotiating terms with cops posing as hookers.

In reality, it is prostitution prohibitionists such as Kristof who 
make the occupation unreasonably dangerous by creating a black market 
in which vendors are subject to theft and assault without legal recourse.

Kristof is hardly unique in avoiding responsibility by casting blame 
on others. Here are some other memorable examples from the past year:

)) Surveillance switch. In a speech last January, President Barack 
Obama expressed concern about the National Security Agency's mass 
collection of telephone records. He worried that the database "has 
never been subject to vigorous public debate" and that "without 
proper safeguards, this type of program could be used to yield more 
information about our private lives and open the door to more 
intrusive bulk collection programs."

Yet it was Obama who approved the program and kept it secret, thereby 
preventing a public debate. The president did not perceive the NSA's 
phone record dragnet as a serious threat to privacy until months 
after it was revealed by leaks he condemned.

)) Righteous wrath. Rep. Michael Grimm, RN.Y. - who last week pleaded 
guilty to tax evasion after proclaiming his innocence and this week 
announced his resignation after insisting he would not resign - 
eventually apologized to Michael Scotto, the NY1 reporter whom he 
threatened to "break ... in half" and throw from a Capitol balcony 
after Scotto asked about an investigation into Grimm's fundraising practices.

But at first, Grimm blamed Scotto for the outburst, saying, "I was 
extremely annoyed because I was doing NY1 a favor by rushing to do 
their interview."

)) Pot of trouble. After Obama observed, in a January interview with 
The New Yorker, that marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol, CNN's 
Jake Tapper asked him whether he was open to reclassifying marijuana, 
which is currently a Schedule I drug, a category supposedly reserved 
for substances with no accepted medical applications that have a high 
potential for abuse and cannot be used safely, even under a doctor's 
supervision.

"What is and isn't a Schedule I narcotic is a job for Congress," 
Obama replied. "It's not something by ourselves that we start 
changing. No, there are laws undergirding those determinations."

That last part is true, but those laws - in particular, the 
Controlled Substances Act - allow the executive branch to reschedule 
drugs without new legislation.

)) Hidden hazards? Last July, a Florida jury decided that R.J. 
Reynolds should pay $23 billion in punitive damages to Cynthia 
Robinson, the widow of a smoker who died of lung cancer in 1996.

The jurors evidently were swayed by evidence indicating that R.J. 
Reynolds executives questioned the hazards and addictiveness of 
cigarettes in public while acknowledging them in private.

Yet anyone who began smoking in the 1970s and continued smoking for 
the next two decades, as Robinson's husband did, voluntarily assumed 
the well-known risks associated with the habit.

Nothing R.J. Reynolds said or failed to say changes that reality, 
because it is impossible to conceal common knowledge, no matter how 
much the tobacco companies may have wished otherwise.

)) Baby burners. Last May, an early-morning SWAT raid in Habersham 
County, Georgia, left a toddler horribly burned by a flash-bang 
grenade tossed into his crib. Police, who were looking for a meth 
dealer in the wrong place, said they had no idea that children were 
living in the house - a fact that even the most cursory surveillance 
would have revealed.

A grand jury later faulted the cops for a "hurried" and "sloppy" 
investigation. But Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell said 
responsibility for the botched operation actually lies with someone 
who was not even there.

"The person I blame in this whole thing," Terrell said the day after 
the raid, "is the person selling the drugs."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom