Johnny Carson ’s dead … long live Floyd R. Turbo, American

knee-jerk
Function: adjective: readily predictable
: AUTOMATIC <knee-jerk reactions>; also : reacting in a readily predictable way <knee-jerk conservatives>

Today in the New Albany Tribune, Managing Editor Chris Morris hands over the editorial slot to the renowned former 9th District congressman Lee Hamilton and moves to Amany Ali’s usual place in the center of the page for a column of his own, entitled “Reading this could lead to termination.”

Boy, should it, but almost certainly not in the way the ‘Bune’s resident sportsman intends as he selects what he perceives as a likely cream puff of a slo-pitch softball from last week’s wire service reports, gives it his best Ruthian uppercut … and pops out weakly to the catcher.

Take it away, Chris.

“How would you like to work for a company that has the right to tell you how to live? They could dictate what you eat, whether or not you could smoke, and if you can have an occasional beer?

“Well, that company already exists.

“Last week, a Michigan health care company fired four of its employees for refusing to take a test to determine whether they smoke cigarettes. The company enacted a new policy this month allowing workers to be fired if they smoke, even if that smoking takes place after hours or at home.”

That’s just the beginning.

It gets far, far worse.

Anyone who ever watched Jerry Springer, listened to Rush Limbaugh, voted for the tickets of George Wallace and Ross Perot, drank Bud Light at Hugh E. Bir’s in the company of an ash tray piled so high with butts that the whiskey bottles on the back bar have completely disappeared, looked furtively at the headlines of the check-out line tabloids, enjoyed 3-for-1 Big Bufords for lunch and dinner after a breakfast of Big Red and Tostitos, drove to the foot of the 50-yard-long driveway to get the mail, shook his or her fist in impotent fury at the way those book-smart pointy-headed elites dump all over the common folk … or, became by an accident of geography a member of that most unfortunate of species, the Tribune subscriber, knows what sort of “reasoning” that Chris will use to attack Weyco Inc., the straw man in this lamentable exercise in non-journalism.

Back to Chris for a medley of gems.

“Since when did smoking a cigarette at home, on your own time, become so terrible that it can get you fired? … (it’s) an attack on one’s freedoms … I thought Saddam Hussein was in prison … free people (should be) allowed to do legal activities … the reason for the Gestapo tactics is to help the company save money on insurance claims … all we can do is wait, and hope a court will tell this business owner that we are not living in Nazi Germany.”

Chris, what about Al-Qaida, or did mentioning Saddam imply the presence of Osama bin Laden in the Bushian sense?

Or worse yet, could it be Archie Bunker’s pinko faggots?

Have we already forgotten about the Communist Threat?

Flouride in the drinking water?

There are times when living in this town makes one want to scream, and this is one of them.

But before tackling these and other meaningless questions, NA Confidential proposes a revolutionary act of breathtaking simplicity.

Unlike the New Albany Tribune, we’ll provide you with another side to the story. It’s as easy as traveling to the web site of the company in question, consulting it, and weighing the options for yourself.

After doing so, you may well conclude that Chris’s viewpoint is the one for you, that he is correct, and that there is no excuse for such tyranny on the part of dastardly bosses.

Conversely, you may also decide that the issues involved are complex and deserving of reflection, not hyperbole, and that there’s more to all of it than inflammatory references to freedom, bogey men and the sort of “thinking by spit ball” that is practiced by junior high school students and other sufferers from excessive hormones.

The point is this: By doing so, you will have exercised your brain.

And, you will not have assumed that all New Albanians who read the Tribune are imbeciles and should be told only what they want to hear and are capable of understanding.

So, go to Weyco, and make sure to read the text of the company’s “Drug, Alcohol, and Tobacco-Free Workplace Policy”.

Back with us?

Frankly, NA Confidential is troubled that Chris Morris, who at heart is a good person, a frequent advocate of educational issues and a consistent supporter of learning when it comes to our city’s schools, shows so little recognition for these concepts in his column.

We have a right to expect a higher standard from someone who occupies a position of authority.

Sure, it’s a feel-good sort of venting to carelessly throw terms like “Nazi” and “Gestapo” and “Communist” and “Terrorist” around in the same way that the proverbial drunken sailor tosses barroom furniture onto the street.

But it’s also pandering to the lowest common denominator in human discourse, which is the intellectually lazy desire to eschew rationality and blame an enemy.

Any enemy’s fine, just so long as righteous indignation is allowed to outweigh the distinctive human ability to think the problem through to a solution.

It remains that progress in human affairs occurs through the exercise of the brain, not the emptying of the spleen.

Furthermore, Chris’s choice of comparative bogeymen is both disproportionate given the target of his rant, and insulting to the memory of the victims of real-life Nazism and the Gestapo.

Simply stated, as yet there are no deep, dark, Nazi-level fundamental human rights violations to be found in the decision of a private health care company to formulate rules for employment that differ very little from rules that employees have been observing for centuries … that is, observing if they wish to keep their jobs.

Chris might explore the many questions that arise from Weyco’s policy rather than attack all of them based on just one having to do with smoking.

For example, to what extent is employment in America a “right”? Is that in the Bill of Rights? Is it written anywhere at all?

In America, there are laws prohibiting employment discrimination on ethnic and religious grounds. Do these pertain to regulating the playing field with respect to seeking employment, or do they imply that we have an inalienable right to permanent employment under our own terms?

Actually, our society has not mandated the individual’s right to specific employment at a specific company to perform a specific job. Instead, we recognize a regulated variant of unfettered capitalism whereby these matters are resolved contractually between employer and employee.

As a side note, NA Confidential can’t help but speculate as to the nature of Chris’s views on labor unionism. There are those who would suggest that the presence of strong unions might reduce the incidence of employer tyranny.

Obviously, to unthinkingly use words like “Nazi” and “Gestapo” as character references in the context of Chris’s screed manages only to cheapen and trivialize their significance within the framework of history.

For proof of this, Chris might consider perusing an article in yesterday's Courier-Journal on the topic of Auschwitz.

Chris, the systematic and violent deprivation of human rights by state-sanctioned, jack-booted thugs is what the Gestapo symbolizes, not the imposition of a non-smoking rule in an air-conditioned workplace.

Chris, the calculated slaughter of millions of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and “undesirables” of all ages and sexes is what Nazism symbolizes, not a private company’s desire to help its employees be healthier while saving money on insurance premiums in the process.

Chris, living in New Albany should not imply the meek acceptance of lowest common denominators, ignorance and mediocrity. Genuine community leadership should challenge and seek to uplift, not pander and permit to dumb down.

How do Chris Morris and his superiors at the Tribune vote on this issue? The proof’s in the newspaper, and it’s as sad a commentary as Chris’s column is today.

Doesn't anyone hear believe in getting better?