All I Think Is That It's Stupid

Dave Barry on laughing at Very Big Government

Glenn Garvin from the December 1994 issue

(Page 8 of 9)

Sheldon and I would argue. I mean, really argue. Well, what if a baby is born with no arms and no legs and his parents both die? Huh? Doesn't society have a obligation? Sheldon was wonderfully patient and had a excellent sense of humor and never lost his temper, which is not true of me. I'd yell at Sheldon and get furious at Sheldon, but we were still friends.

I left journalism for a while and I was working for a consulting company where I taught effective writing seminars and by my recommendation we hired Sheldon. We argued more. I was a middle-of-the-road Democrat more than anything else. I know I voted for Carter. Watergate taught me how bad the Republicans were. Then in the late '70s, I begin to see. I think the gas crisis had something to do with it. I began to realize, this is all happening because of the government. And I began to think about all the government people I knew, all the times I'd sat in meetings with Sheldon, watching people who were theoretically for the common good. Then I realized not one of them was and none of them ever have been. All these things Sheldon had said to me: There is no such thing as the common good, there is no such thing as society. He was right.

So I wrote him a letter. "Sheldon, I just wanted to let you know that in all the arguments you were right."

Reason: Here you are a libertarian and you work for The Miami Herald, conceivably the most anti-libertarian newspaper in North America.

Barry:: You mean our editorial board. The eight or 10 people who nobody knows here who speak for this paper.

I don't like anything unsigned in a newspaper that purports to be the opinion of some group if we don't know who the group is. It's laughable to say that The Miami Herald's editorials or any newspaper's editorials represent any views other than those of the people writing them, so why don't we tell everybody who they are?

It bothers me greatly that we have this system of opinion pages that dates back to when you knew who the owner of the paper was and his editorial told you what he thought. We should call editorials what they are: columns written by committees. If you want to agree with the committee, that's great. But they don't speak for me and they don't speak for a lot of people who work at the paper. I want to gag sometimes when I see who "we" are recommending that people vote for, and not just as a libertarian.

Reason: Is this a reference to the First Lady's brother?

Barry:: Yeah. We are recommending that people vote for Hugh Rodham for the Senate of the United States !

Reason: You write a lot about rock 'n' roll. From a philosophical standpoint, what's the worst rock 'n' roll song of all time?

Barry:: My nomination right off the top my head is a song that was a hit in the '70s--"Signs, signs, everywhere signs. blocking up the scenery, breaking my mind, do this, don't do that, can't you read the signs?" Basically a diatribe against property rights.

Reason: That was by The Five Man Electrical Band.

Barry:: It' s a real smug self-righteous punk kid saying nobody has the right to tell him what to do and how dare you put a sign up saying that I can't go on your property? Hey, kid! Stick this sign up your ass.

Reason: You wrote a serious column about your son's bicycle accident, in which you concluded that he should wear a helmet even though he looks like a dork. Now a lot of states are considering mandatory bicycle helmet laws. What do you think about that?

Barry:: I got a lot of mail about that column, which is the only serious column I've ever written that went out as a regular column. It was the only time I ever had anything to say, which is, "Make a kid wear a helmet."

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