Living in these puritanical United States of Amerika, it was predictable that some of our watchdogs of rectitude would come up with an idea like this:
http://news.yahoo.com/...
The Yahoo/AP story tells of eight states seeking to drug test recipients of welfare, unemployment, and other forms of public assistance in order to remove undeserving elements from sucking from the public commonweal.
Let's talk about this below.
In truth, I think it is wonderful and we really ought to apply this practice much more widely where the distribution and use of public funds are considered. For my first candidates I would suggest that we drug test all recipients of TARP and TALF bail-out funding. I wouldn't be surprised if a goodly number of the once (and future...thank you Misters Obama, Geithner, and Summers) Masters of the Universe would be found with quite a bit of residues of diverse substances in their plutocratic piddles and blue-blooded bloodstreams. Next, I suggest that we drug test all those members of all those police forces that are receiving new grants and funding in the Stimulus package, recently enacted. The number of other candidates for drug testing and then punishment is endless: boards of directors of programs receiving faith-based funding; state legislators; US representatives and senators, you name it..but anyone receiving any kind of assistance that begins with our hard-earned tax dollars.
Then we need to decide what to do with these malefactors. I think, for starters, they should be deprived of all income and other benefits and their names and addresses should be published in both their local newspapers and on a special website, inaugurated by a range of clergy from all faiths, devoted to ridding our simon-pure (God-blessed) USA of these horrible people. Perhaps a few of them should really be punished by sending them to live in godless Europe. What a wonderful country we live in...where the unemployed, whose unemployed benefits derive from payments they made for years, can be considered as malingerers and whose personal habits can be policed in this way. God bless Amerika, and our benighted forces of rectitude. Cotton Mather lives!