07-16-01
TEMPER TANTRUMS


A good friend of mine does something that drives me bonkers -- she calls me from her car, and will sometimes talk for fifteen minutes or longer while driving along the freeway. Often, she's interrupted herself to say "Whoops, I missed my exit"...and I am always tempted to respond "Of course you missed your exit -- you're paying more attention to the phone than the road!"

Needless to say, I am not among those who threw a fit when New York decided to outlaw the use of handheld cell phones while driving. I was among those who cheered. Now, I'm just waiting for the rest of the country to follow suit.

There are times when it's awfully fun to be petty, and I'll admit to having an extremely petty reaction when I saw that the topic of a Hannity & Colmes segment on Friday was devoted to Hannity throwing a temper tantrum because he'd gotten a ticket for - you guessed it - talking on a cell phone while driving. Hannity even invited his local assemblyman onto the show and "jokingly" asked him to "take care" of the ticket.

Now, the question arises -- what was Hannity so upset about? Obviously, none of us like getting a ticket, but this wasn't a case of an undeserved ticket -- Hannity admitted upfront that he was guilty. Sure, we get angry even when we know we deserved a ticket, and deep down inside we long for a way to just make it disappear, but for shallow people like Hannity, nothing is "deep down inside" and he couldn't hide his childish anger over the fact that he has to follow the laws just like everyone else.

What it comes down to is accountability. And, as I've always maintained, right-wingers are interested in accountability ONLY when it applies to liberals "paying" for some real or (as is more often the case) trumped-up wrongdoing. Regressives are rarely willing to take on responsibility for their own actions.

The funniest thing that came out of Hannity's mouth was near the end of his long tirade against the terrible unfairness of getting ticketed for breaking the law -- he'd already mentioned about seventeen times that his son was sleeping in the back, and as he worked himself up into a self-righteous indignation of impressive proportions, he railed against a system that would allow police to pull "law-abiding fathers" over to the side of the road.

Well, now, hang on just a minute, Mr. Hannity. "Law-abiding"? Um...no, dear. The word would be "lawbreaking".

The interesting thing is that Hannity obviously believes he IS a law-abiding citizen. And what does this tell us about how right-wingers think? Simple, simple, simple. If you're a right-winger, laws should be followed ONLY when they are in your own interest.

Though it was pointed out repeatedly that only the use of HANDHELD cell phones while driving has been outlawed, Hannity's entire argument followed the typical lines of "What else are you going to regulate? Will you keep us from eating, drinking, listening to the radio?" and arguments that other distractions cause more accidents than talking on cell phones.

But here's the thing - we want to avoid limiting freedom as much as is possible. Sure, outlawing eating, drinking, smoking, etc. would cut down on accidents, but there has to be a limit. Such sweeping laws would be unbelievably difficult to enforce, and would be too much of an encroachment on our freedom. But outlawing handheld cell phones -- when there is a simple, affordable alternative -- is easy to enforce, and makes us all a little safer. If you have to talk on the phone while driving, you can still do so. But this isn't enough for immature brats like Sean Hannity -- in true regressive fashion, he wants what he wants and laws, other people's safety, and common sense be damned.

You can't really expect anything else from them. After all, these are the people who searched for the best and the brightest among themselves and came up with...George W. Bush.



~Rose




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