In the era of torture memos, government spying and secret rendition, Republican Sen. Greg Brophy is blogging about “surrendering liberties” in response to laws that would regulate phoning-while-driving.
“It’s all about liberty and logical thinking,” he writes, reaching for the stars. “The banning of cell phone usage is an affront… Liberty cannot be surrendered without careful consideration. Society must benefit greatly from the surrender of liberty and in this case society doesn’t, so it is just an unwanted and unnecessary infringement.”
Yeah! Ditto! Digital kids across the state will be cribbing that like crazy for their eighth-grade Constitution Tests.
All politicians should have to blog for themselves. Brophy’s blog is great and revealing and unfortunately rife with the kind of talking points fueling the impression that the GOP is in full-blown crisis, its leadership at sea and its ideas awash. There’s a lot on Brophy’s blog, for example, about Democrats gone wild taxing and spending, blah blah… But there’s not a whole lot in the way of big policy ideas that could address, say, the Great Recession rocking Colorado and the world!
Which is too bad because Brophy speaking candidly as regular person is so much better than Brophy as talk-radio-style dime-store philosopher of US political history. If he dug deep, he might deliver some home-spun notions that could be shined into bipartisan gold. Here he was, for instance, before he felt the need to make silly allusions to “surrendering liberties”:
It’s folly to pass a bill that will be summarily ignored by a vast majority of the citizens of the state. Come on, be honest, you will still talk on your phone. And 99% of the time, or more, you will do it responsibly.
Agree or disagree, there he’s making a worthwhile point based on his experience as a citizen and lawmaker and doesn’t demonize or disparage anyone in the process. If he keeps that up, he could be the next… um, Michael Steele?
