What's your motivation?

Once upon a time, I went with my church youth group to a small town in the mountains of West Virginia to to work at a misson that ministered to this impoverished community where coal mining employed fewer and fewer people. Aside from the oppressive heat, a nearby (and quite vocal) chicken with insomnia and the ever-present coal dust, my strongest memory of that week is taking a walk through a local neighborhood our first evening there. In front of one of the rundown former "company houses" was a souped-up Mustang, about 10 years old. One of the kids made a snarky comment about spending our time helping people who chose to spend money on cars rather than food, clothing or housing. So we had a talk about what "charity" means, and how if you approach service with an attitude of accusing and judging those you're supposed to be helping, then your heart isn't really in the right place.

In that same state, lawmakers want to subject people who receive unemployment benefits, food stamps or other welfare to drug testing. Okay, first of all, the last time I checked you couldn't buy pot or meth or even beer with food stamps, so this isn't remotely about making sure that the state's money isn't abused. Instead, I think it's more about moralistic shaming of poor people who - despite what this asshat thinks - are in fact forced into using these social programs by virtue of the fact that the state unemployment rate jumped by more than a percentage point in the first month of this year. (In McDowell County, where my church went, almost one in 10 adults are currently out of work.)

I'm really tired of politicians who make public pronouncements without any examination of how their ideas work in reality. What happens to the children of the unemployed parent who tests positive for marijuana use? (Don't even get me started on how unreliable these drug tests are...)

But more than that, this singling out of the poor pisses me off. Do we drug test the guys on Wall Street who've gotten billions in federal aid, or the auto industry executives? Of course not, because only poor people use drugs. Horseshit. Maybe we should test Congress and state legislatures...yeah, there's an idea.

Drugs are bad, m'kay? But this is not how we get people off of them. It's more feel-good anger-fueled populist hooey that does jack to fix the real problem, and hurts a lot of innocent people in the process.