Thursday, June 29, 2006

Reed Hillman: Demagogue

In today's Globe, Kerry Healey's handpicked candidate for Lt. Governor added this bon mot to the current debate about a needle exchange program:

"Imagine your children not only coming upon dirty needles in the park, but standing in line next to a heroin or crack addict in a drugstore,"

Well, I guess the Commandant is agin' it.

Humble Elias could rant ad nauseum about Hillman's clever use of fundamentally despised strawmen (addicts) to whip up the usual tedious hysteria about crime and anarchy.
However...Look at it this way; suppose we follow the line of Hillman's rant to it's logical conclusion and lock up every addict in the Commonwealth without fear or favor and especially sans any provision for AIDs prevention?
What we would have then, is thousands of junkie behind bars with HIV all of whom would be costing the public coffers bigtime to usher them out of life even in a minimally humane fashion.
Reed Hillman would rather spend that money than swallow his pride and do something unpleasant now to prevent a costly epidemic later.
Ah but Reed wants to win and sound like a big tough guy in the bargain...Well we've had sixteen years of this kind of pseudo leadership and look where it has landed us?

Sick
Demented
Typical...

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