The Most Ridiculous Political Blog Of The week Award

This week's most ridiculous political blog of the week award goes to Portland Oregon's only openly Gay city commissioner, Sam Adams, who proclaimed on his blog that "Last saturday, I visited 4 porn stores, 5 strip clubs and bars in five hours...".

Not only was the statement on it's face a clear slap in face of the First Amendment and the right to freedom of speech for controversial speech in a free society, but the sheer credibility of the bold statement was challenged by a reader named John V. who noted that only two long time downtown Portland, Oregon strip clubs exist, Mary's Club and Magic Gardens, both probably far older than the age of the young city commissioner. Instead of answering this credibility question with some proof to support his claim, Adams instead chose to cut off comments on the post.

In psychology there is something known as reaction fromation, where a person seeks to justify their own views or lifestyle by finding something else to create a controversy with. Voters in Portland have decided to judge Mr. Adams solely on the basis of qualifications and skills and not his Gay lifestyle when they elected him to office, but instead of offering the same tolerance to others, Adams atempts to create a controversy by his attack on some businesses that largely cater to a heterosexual male clientale. And some of the businesses such as Mary's Club are located very close to the Heathman Hotel that the President of the United States, and top businessmen usually choose to stay at, with many of these businessmen the clientale of this club to discuss business deals over some cocktail. There is no real evidence of problems with the businesses that Adams blasts, nor does Adams offer any proof that local livability is impacted by these businesses, it is only a typical vague "reaction formation" smear attack.

Despite whatever moral concerns that can be raised about entertainment establishments such as Mary's Club, men will continue to support them because it is only a natural part of their human nature to have a visually stimulated natural sex drive. You can't change human nature.

On the other hand it might be asked why Adams would walk around for five hours to search out adult entertainment just so that he can make some political point when most men nowadays no doubt sit in front of their computer, sometimes in their bathrobe, surfing the Internet for porn. Adams could have saved his shoe leather and day long walk if he realized this modern point. Walk-in adult entertainment businesses all over America are closing down not from local laws or other government actions, but the ease of searching out the sleazy entertainment of almost any man's hidden desires on the Internet. This natural law of supply and demand closed most adults only movie theatres in the United States some years ago when video tapes and then DVDs provided too much competition. Now many men can simply pay some download fees with their credit card and download outrageous films from all over the world if they so desire and avoid having to even leave their office or house.

Adams paints himself in a political corner by being a controversial elected official who picks a controversial fight with a deeply held American value, freedom of speech. Voters had three attempts to weaken the First Amendment over about the last 10 years, and turned down all three. Voters just don't share his wacky antiAmerican values views regarding free expression. Adams' latest crusade is to follow a San Francisco ban on plastic bags from stores, not bothering to consider that Portland is a wet and rainy city where plastic bags will resist rain compared to paper bags which get wet and break apart within minutes if you have to walk with in the rain. Too many wacky crusades and Adams may be painting himself out of a job as a city commissioner. A wise politician knows when to pick their battles, but Adams appears to be either too young or too inexperienced to understand this critical point of political survival.