RENO, Nevada (AP)-- The mayor of Las Vegas has suggested that people who deface freeways with graffiti should have their thumbs cut off on television.
...
Goodman said the city has a beautiful highway landscaping project and "these punks come along and deface it."
"I'm saying maybe you put them on TV and cut off a thumb," the mayor said. "That may be the right thing to do."
Goodman also suggested whippings should be brought back for children who get into trouble.
Where to begin, where to begin ....
Reality Mutilation TV
Okay, let's start with the freakish notion of broadcasting government-decreed public mutilation, an admittedly minor point in the overall scheme of this appalling suggestion, but telling nonetheless. While conceding that Mayor Goodman's plan is not yet in the realm of Saudi Arabia's public beheadings, it certainly seems a step or two down that barbaric road - or at the very least, a vaulting of civilization backwards to the days of joyous picnics at public hangings, a period of our history I personally am not in a rush to revisit.
The scary thing is, I'm as certain as I am that the sun will rise tomorrow that the show promo-ed by Madison Avenue as "Thumbs Off!" would garner ratings that would go through the roof. People would gather in sports bars and living rooms across America to watch gleefully such a spectacle, pumped up on Budweiser and sated by Doritos. Advertising for such a segment could command $1 million per thumb removal, and corporations across this country would line up salivating to have their names associated with the administration of vengeful "justice." Neo-cons would tell us the money flowing into governmental coffers from sponsorships alone would guarantee that the top 5% of wealthy Americans need never pay another tax dollar in their lives, which is, of course, the greatest problem facing this nation today.
Capitalism at its finest! Yay, us!
Mayor Goodman, It's a Freeway
I humbly suggest Mayor Goodman needs to get out more if he thinks the biggest problem with our highways is the visual assault of tagging. As a Southern Californian who's wasted an accumulated two years of my life stalled at the 405-101 interchange alone, I can guarantee my priorities are: (1) get the frigging traffic moving!; (2) get emission standards under control - I swear I can hear my DNA mutating from the Mulholland Drive exit to Wilshire Boulevard (East); (3) clean up the mounds of broken Coors bottles, used condoms, Big Gulp cups, discarded Daily News classifieds and Whopper wrappers along the roadside, and then I'm willing to talk turkey about the obscure gang-related (I assume) hieroglyphics currently gracing the overpasses.
And hey! Here's a unique idea! Why not have the apprehended "punks" clean up the graffiti? God knows, government employees are never going to be able to figure out how to get in the bizarre positions it must take to spray paint areas ten feet below bridge railings, not to mention that OSHA standards would certainly forbid it. (Note: I suspect the maneuvers require thumbs. Might want to think about that one.)
What's Up with the "Whippings of Children" Thing?
Don't know. Wrapping my mind around it exhausts me. Perhaps someone else should take this one on.
Property v. People: The Heart of What Really Bothers Me
In all seriousness, what most disturbs me about Goodman's stupid remark is the underlying, rarely questioned assumption in materialistic America that "things" have some sort of equivalency with "people." We saw this in the days of Katrina, when "shoot to kill" orders were issued for looters. We see it in laws that say it's perfectly okay to blast non-armed burglars and trespassers on private property into the Great Beyond.
See, in the alien galaxy from which I apparently was dropped, there are two categories of material matter. Waaaaay over here, we have "people" - flawed, struggling, sentient, pain-perceiving, irreplaceable and possibly redeemable beings (with body parts they'd probably like to hang onto). And waaaaay over there, we have "things" - non-feeling, non-sentient, unredemptive globs of non-perceptive atoms, most of which is replaceable (and most of which, in modern America, is crap anyway).
Now I like my "things" as much as the next person. Love my house, love my computer, really love my car. But there is no circumstance I can imagine in which I'd urge inflicting pain or dismemberment (much less death) on someone taking, damaging or spray-painting my things. Same goes for the "things" I own with other citizens in this country - dams, freeways, public buildings. There's simply a lack of intersection in the two categories of "people" and "things," at least in my weirdo moral universe, that makes this proposal nonsensical.
When stranded residents were "stealing" food and water from convenience stores in the aftermath of Katrina, I thought, hey, more power to them. We had an opportunity to see ingenuity and survival skills in action. When I read of someone taking plasma TV's in a city with no electricity, I thought, hey ... natural selection in action. If you're so stupid as to expend precious calories lugging around electronics when food and water are scarce for God knows how long ... well, I do believe some Darwinian winnowing out is going to take place without the intervention of local law enforcement.
But of course, the plasma TV can be valued in terms of dollars, to either an unlucky New Orleans resident or Circuit City; a human life can be shrugged off as too difficult to define in terms of currency. So instead of taking the philosophical view that human beings are above calculations of monetary worth, are arguably "invaluable" in the highest sense of the word, "shoot to kill" (or "thumbs off") policies take the lazy - and amoral - way out and implicitly proclaim they're of no worth at all.
I really don't like living in a world or a country where this is the accepted, and largely unquestioned, view. But clearly I'm in the minority. Most people are obviously really, really involved with their things.
So I'm offering some free advice to my fellow Americans to ease the strain of being overburdened with attachment to your precious, precious things: If your possessions are valuable, insure them. That's what Allstate is for, and if you have enough money to purchase expensive things that will make you go boo-hoo-hooing and want to maim or kill people if they disappear, you have enough money to pay premiums. Use it.
In the far-fetched scenario that bad people are taking your irreplaceable things that hold sentimental value (baby pictures, Grandma's china, the family coat of arms), here's another tip: Get a fire safe. God knows, my passport's been in mine for years and it's hell getting it open. Your average looter/burglar/horrible bad person is not going to waste time on it.
As for the sacred and pristine freeway defamation that prompted Mayor Goodman's original piece of intellectual obscenity, here's a final suggestion if the "apprehended taggers should clean it up" doesn't fly: The economy is headed down the toilet. Start a Vegas public works project, taxing the gamblers passing through in some imaginative way and put some Nevada residents to work. They'll love you for it, you'll get highways as clean (and as vapid) as Disneyland's Main Street, and because there'll be money in the pockets of the previously unemployed and down-and-out, you'll finally have a toehold on how to commodify human life: by wages paid.
(Cross-posted yesterday at Political Cortex.)