Guest Commentary
Is your child property of the Texas Senate?
Mack Hall

Your democratically elected Texas senators, who recently invited a Khomeini-praising imam to open a legislative session with a Muslim prayer, are now focusing on the young people of Texas.

No, not quite like the Texas Youth Commission, that playground for middle-aged Texas men for whom the phrase "the eyes of Texas are upon you" carries an ominous double meaning for young prisoners.

Under the proposed law, random testing for steroids would be imposed on randomly selected student athletes.

What? Not on the chess club?

Randomly selected. Hmmm. Who selects? On what basis?

Your urine, please, comrade.

Random means some, not all, and is thus a denial of equal protection under the law. But let us consider first things: why testing at all?

The illegal use of drugs is, well, illegal, like entering the USA without a passport, or robbing banks. Smoking marijuana at an outdoor concert in a cityowned park (perhaps in an unnamed nearby city?) is illegal, even when the authorities ignore it.

So why should the State ignore open violations of law and then pick on your kid - but not somebody else's kid - who wants to try out for an athletic team at your local school?

Look, steroids are deadly. We know that, and the scrawny kid who wants a Super-Bowl ring doesn't. Adolescents usually don't have highly developed critical thinking skills, and because of their youth and raw emotions are vulnerable to predators with little bottles

and envelopes of magic powders and beans and elixirs. We adults should intervene whenever we can.

The question here is why the State, against constitutional principle, is proposing a law that would apply to a very limited - and non-voting - segment of the people.

If Senator Kyle Janek's (R - Houston) proposed law is fair and just, let him consider expanding his drug-testing program, starting with him. Here's your cup, m'lord. Let the senators require that each other be tested for drugs at the door to the senate chamber. Would the honorable senators find being required to pee into a cup humiliating and presumptuous? Well, let's ask the teenagers that the honorables so easily bash in their frequent spasms of prissiness.

We could require drug testing of anyone who receives a check from the State, from the governor to your old auntie on welfare to, yeah, me. If drug testing is good for teenagers, it's certainly good for anyone who receives a benefit of any kind from the State. And that's all of us: we all drive on state roads, for instance. We could find ourselves being stopped at the occasional roadblock and being offered a little plastic cup by a representative of the awesome majesty of the Texas legislature.

If it's good for the kids, it's good for us, right?

Nope. Drugs are bad. And so are some senate bills.

Mack Hall is a resident of Kirbyville