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 Panel discussion
Bill: Okay, let's meet our panel. She is a conservative policy analyst and law professor at Virginia's Regent University -- Darlene Kennedy. Darlene!
[Applause]
Bill: Hey, you. How are you?
Darlene: Hi, good to see you.
Bill: Nice to have you back. Thank you. She is a very talented actress and the star of the new movie Hamlet -- oh, that's a great movie. I saw that. Her next movie Save the Last Dance opens this summer -- Julia Stiles! Yes!
[Cheers and applause]
Bill: Hey. Great pleasure to have you. Thank you very much. That's the way you get in with the host -- a little kiss. A swell comedian and a tireless volunteer for L.A.'s Boxer Dog Rescue -- as am I -- our pal Elayne Boosler right over here!
[Cheers and applause]
Elayne: So, how do you get with the host, just like this?
Bill: Yeah. That's how you do it. See? And the band is the Smashing Pumpkins. The cd is "Machina: The Machines of God." And he is Mr. Billy Corgan, ladies and gentlemen!
[Cheers and applause]
Bill: Okay, well, as irony would have it, while we were partying last week at the Playboy Mansion, a ruling on partying, in a way, came down. This is very, very influential in this country, because this is the first school district ever -- Lockney School District in Texas -- to proclaim a drug-testing policy across the board for every kid from 6th to 12th grade. They now will have the three "Rs" and a little "P" --
[Laughter]
Bill: Right into a cup, I'm saying. And I think this is good. I'm for drug testing kids, because maybe that'll get the drug Czar off the backs of adults who shouldn't have to deal with the drug Czar in their personal life.
Darlene: Well, I mean, I agree with you that it's a good idea to drug test the children, because we need to see what they're doing. Just like we allow metal detectors to be put in place in school --
Bill: Sure.
Darlene: -- to see if they're carrying weapons, why shouldn't we be able to drug test? And, in fact, there's only been, as far as I know, one parent that's complained about it with the American civil liberties.
Bill: We make kids do anything we want. We make 'em eat fish sticks in the lunch room.
[Laughter]
Bill: They made me wrestle. I didn't wanna wrestle.
Julia: Maybe that's why they're misbehaving, though, because we're so authoritarian that we don't trust them. We don't have any respect for kids.
Darlene: Well, we shouldn't trust them. They're children. They need to be guided. I mean, if you give them too much freedom --
Julia: Sixth graders? Do you think that sixth graders are doing drugs?
Bill: You don't think sixth graders are taking drugs?
Julia: No. I know high school kids definitely are doing drugs, but they know how to evade these tests. They know that all they have to do is take a little Golden Seal and they'll -- and they'll test negative.
Bill: Golden Seal? Gimme a pen.
[Laughter]
Bill: I never -- Golden Seal.
Julia: It's in every fraternity handbook. Everybody knows that. And I think it's really costly, and they could use the money for much better purposes.
Billy: We might as well put electronic bracelets on their penises and vaginas, too.
[Laughter]
[Cheers]
Bill: Then we would know what they're doing all the time.
Elayne: But that would just be for pleasure, right?
[Laughter]
Darlene: I mean, the fact of the matter is --
Bill: I think that's called a
[bleep]
Bill: ring.
[Laughter]
Elayne: But it always rings twice, doesn't it? I have a radical thing. I think they should test them for math and english so they could actually graduate learning to read. How would that be?
[Laughter]
[Cheers and applause]
Bill: Oh, that's silly. But, uh --
Billy: You seriously think this is a good idea?
Bill: I absolutely do.
Elayne: You really do?
Bill: Yes. Because children do not have rights -- they're children. And they also do not have a cognitive process -- Elian Gonzalez aside. We know, at 6 years old, he was old enough to decide who he should live with -- Daffy. But, uh --
[Laughter]
Darlene: I mean, children do have rights, but they have very limited.
Bill: Right.
Darlene: And the rights that they do have, we are able to supersede some of them. And one of them being allowance to do the drug testing. I mean, it's analogous to the metal detectors. I mean, I can't make it any clearer than that.
Bill: Right. Children are not just shorter people.
Billy: But, in the case of a metal detector, you're talking about the safety of the whole school. In the case of drugs, you're talking about a person making personal decisions.
Darlene: No, but that affects the entire school. Because, you have one kid taking drugs, and, if you're 16 --
Billy: No, the more kids that are stoned, the more learning for everybody else.
Darlene: If he's 16 driving a car, he can go out and kill --
[Laughter]
[Applause]
Bill: That's not even the reason.
Darlene: You have a number of teenagers who drive. I mean, he's saying it doesn't affect other people. It does affect other people.
Bill: You're muddying it.
Darlene: No, I'm not muddying it.
Bill: Yeah, you are. Now, you're ruining the argument. Look, we're together on this, and now you're ruining it.
[Laughter]
Bill: It's not because of what they might do. This is because kids, as we are saying, are not adults. They do not have the same rights. And they shouldn't be using drugs. And the reason why they prosecute this drug war on adults is they say, "Well, we have to keep drugs out of the hands of kids." We do.
Elayne: Oh, stop. They can keep fruit out of this country. They don't wanna keep drugs out of the country. If they wanted to, it wouldn't come in like papayas from wherever they're not supposed to come in.
[Laughter]
[Applause]
Bill: That's wrong.
Elayne: No, it isn't.
Bill: Okay --
Elayne: Listen, you try and bring in a leather jacket without declaring it from London and see if your ass ain't locked up for the next 50 years.
[Laughter]
Elayne: They can find drugs if they want. The first thing Reagan did when he took office was to cut the Coast Guard, and little packages started floating up to this country full of drugs.
Bill: Oh, please. If papayas brought the same street value as cocaine, believe me, they would get papayas.
Elayne: Papayas do! Where do you shop? Papayas are as expensive.
Billy: Can I just take it back to the nexus of the argument?
Bill: Yes, please, Billy.
Billy: All right, beyond the sort of principle of the constitutionality "if these children have rights" what kind of pathetic example are you setting to the children to say, "You know, we don't trust you, we have to invade your every pore"?
Elayne: Right.
Billy: You're not teaching people the idea of trust, value, and belief, responsibility and faith. You're teaching them that you have to run and hide. And the intelligent ones will be rewarded.
Bill: But, kids aren't trustworthy.
Billy: Well, neither are adults.
Elayne: People rise to what's expected of them. And, if you just educate --
Bill: Children rise to what's expected of them?
Elayne: Yes, that's how you raise a child. You expect the best and you set an example. And to immediately approach it as if people are guilty to begin with, people live up to that.
Darlene: But, one of the counties in Texas that has implemented this has seen a 20% decline. 20% of the students were saying they were trying marijuana, they were trying different drugs. Ever since this testing has taken place, it's gone down to 0%. This has had an effect on these kids. And they're learning that, "Hey, maybe this isn't the right thing to try."
[Talking over one other]
Julia: No. It's gone down the night before testing.
Darlene: And the thing about this, the people make the argument that they're being punished --
Bill: Yeah, the Golden Seal.
Darlene: If they're found positive, what happens is they get counseling. So they're not getting expelled from school. It's an opportunity for them to stay --
[Talking over one other]
Bill: But, the irony is --
Billy: But, the moment they find out that sniffing glue doesn't give them a positive, they'll all be sniffing glue.
[Applause]
Bill: Sniffing glue. Another good point. I've gotta take a break. I've gotta really write down a lot of these things.
[Cheers and applause]
---
[Cheers and applause]
Bill: All right, I wanted to mention, on Wednesday, we have our lost episode of our prison shows. You know, at the beginning, we had five shows from prison. Well, we shot six, and we didn't show one.
Elayne: It got stolen at the prison?
Bill: It got stolen at the --
[Laughter]
Bill: So, on Wednesday, with "Hurricane" Carter. Okay, now you were mentioning the statistics -- how the numbers went down when they implemented this program. What do you think about this? The center for disease control tells us that linking the price of beer, raising it, makes gonorrhea go down.
[Light laughter]
Bill: I'm not kidding. They say, a tax --
Elayne: Go down easier, I think they meant.
[Laughter]
Bill: They say tax of 20 cents reduces gonorrhea by 9%, because kids obviously get a hold of beer -- that's the gateway drug, by the way, not marijuana. It's beer. I remember throwing up --
[Applause]
Bill: I think they're applauding for the concept of a gateway drug. Um, but, yeah, they drink beer, that's what they get a hold of. And, of course, when they're drunk, everybody has sex easier when they're drunk. So they're saying, if you raise the price of beer with a tax, the gonorrhea rate will go down.
Billy: What if the gonorrhea rate that year just happened to go down?
Bill: Well, that --
Billy: Have they done a 20-year study?
Elayne: What if they raised the price of hookers 40 cents?
[Laughter]
Elayne: That would really make the price go down, wouldn't it?
[Laughter]
[Applause]
Bill: But this is about the kids, Elayne. It's always about the kids. Kids don't go to hookers -- I hope.
Darlene: This is ridiculous. Once again, it's the government trying to micromanage lives by putting taxes on things. But the problem with this is not putting a tax on beer to keep kids from having sex. What you do is you tell 'em not to have sex. But, the problem is, we have watered down --
Bill: Oh, right. That will work.
Darlene: No, in our school system, there was a time when we didn't infuse the schools with all this sex talk, giving out condoms, giving out contraceptives. All the school systems do now.
Billy: You're confusing me though. You're confusing me. You don't wanna with the taxes, but you wanna make sure that they're not doing drugs. It's sort of --
Darlene: It's not me.
Billy: No, no. No, I'm just -- I'm searching further.
Darlene: What?
Bill: Yeah, what's -- Darlene, tell me --
Billy: That's counterintuitive. You're saying one thing -- you wanna monitor every function that a child has, but you wanna just be able to tell 'em what to do. It doesn't --
Darlene: Well, this is -- you know, a tax is not going to stop people from buying anything.
Billy: Taxes, devices, metal detectors, why stop?
Bill: Okay, but, here's the thing. Taxes are a way to raise revenue. They shouldn't be a way to modify our behavior. I don't like the government micromanaging and social engineering my life, telling me that churches are good, so they're not taxed, but cigarettes are bad, they are. Maybe I think cigarettes are good and churches are bad. I'm a free American. Isn't that my right?
[Applause]
Bill: Look, some people agree with me.
Billy: It's your show, Bill. They're gonna agree with you.
Bill: Yeah, but they're all your fans. You're the guests.
Elayne: Yeah, but the thing that's really unfair is that only rich kids are gonna be able to smoke and drink and get gonorrhea now.
[Laughter]
[Applause]
Billy: Don't you think, though, that sin taxes aren't such a bad thing, because, basically, it helps sort of meter out the costs for, what you were saying, all these drunk-driving deaths and health-related things? It'll all wash out.
[Talking over one other]
Bill: What's that?
Julia: Who decides what is a sin and what gets taxed?
Billy: Well, because, if we could just throw the church in there, then we'd have all the sins covered.
Bill: Yeah, but that's the thing, they don't want that.
Julia: If the churches can decide that a photography book with nude pictures of women in it --
[Talking over one other]
Bill: You're right. Somebody has to decide what the sin is. And I don't think --
Billy: I think that's you, bill.
[Light laughter]
Bill: I would not be a good one for that.
Darlene: I mean, the fact of the matter is, it's not gonna stop kids from buying alcohol if they want to. And it's sad, because we need to -- you know, the way to stop getting kids to buy alcohol is to start enforcing some of the laws we have about selling to underage children. You're not supposed to sell alcohol to anyone under 21 in the first place.
Bill: I know, but --
Darlene: If we start enforcing those laws --
Elayne: If they sell the alcohol without naked women in the commercials and everybody scoring with a beer, and they just sold it as a drink, instead of, you know, pimping it, maybe it wouldn't lead to getting --
[Laughter]
Bill: That is so right on!
[Applause]
Bill: Every beer commercial is, if you drink this beer, you'll be bangin' a supermodel.
[Laughter]
Elayne: Yeah, exactly.
Bill: 'Cause that's what supermodels want -- gassy, flacid, beer-drinking guys.
[Laughter]
Elayne: That's right. Big, sloppy guys.
Darlene: But it's the same argument people make about cigarettes. If you have the Camel guy, kids are gonna wanna buy cigarettes. This is ridiculous.
Bill: It is ridiculous.
Elayne: This is a direct lead.
Julia: But if you're authoritarian and you don't educate the kids about why, having unsafe sex, for instance, is a bad thing, then you're just being authoritarian and kids are going to want to break the rules.
Darlene: Kids should not be having sex anyway.
Elayne: Well, they're going to.
[Talking over one other]
Billy: You know what's ironic? Kids have had sex for thousands of years, you know?
Bill: Yeah. Why should -- yeah. Why shouldn't kids be having sex? I mean, older --
Darlene: A 12-year-old should not --
Bill: We're not talking about 12. 12's a little young.
Billy: We'll draw the line at 13.
Elayne: Right, at the Playboy Mansion.
Bill: Oh, Mr. Rock Star, right.
[Laughter]
Bill: Listen to this.
[Applause]
Bill: Getting on me. Yeah.
Billy: I've never been to the Playboy Mansion.
Bill: Oh, you don't need to be to the Playboy Mansion, you have your concerts where you have groupies come back. You don't need the playboy mansion.
Elayne: You sound so jealous.
Bill: I am.
[Laughter]
I'm extremely jealous! And I'm extremely late -- for a commercial, that's all.
[Applause]
Announcer: Join us this week on "Politically Incorrect" when Bill's guest will include -- Spin City's Michael Boatman, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, actor/comedian Gilbert Gottfried and fashion designer Diane Von Furstenberg.
[Applause]
Bill: Okay, we were talking about kids and what's going on with them. Kids, I guess -- to us they're kids. Even college students who are graduating now -- and I talk about this every year, 'cause it bugs me. They give out honorary degrees. This year, for example, Tom Selleck got one. Please, feel free to laugh.
[Laughter]
Bill: Because it deserves laughter. Gladys Knight -- another scholar. John Mellencamp, Drew Carey -- and, yeah, I mean, Drew Carey, who brags about dropping out of college because he overdrank and overslept his way through the first year. And, you know, Drew Carey deserves everything he gets in show business. He's a great comedian, and his show is great. But, you know what? This idea, talk about sending a wrong message to kids, that, you know, you work for four years for your degree, but, then, a celebrity, which trumps everything else in society, shouldn't academia be the last place, where -- ?
Elayne: Don't a lot of sports players get honorary degrees, bill?
Bill: Evander Holyfield got one last year.
Elayne: No, I meant when they're graduating.
Bill: What?
Elayne: When they're graduating.
Bill: Yeah, that's a form of honorary degree, you're right.
Billy: Well, after the kids have been tested and probed and have no rights, and then they actually go to college, they deserve a real degree, not one of these sort of phony, watered-down degrees.
Bill: Let it go.
[Laughter]
Bill: Let the probing go.
Darlene: It trivializes what this was all about. I mean, when they implemented these honorary degrees, they're usually for people who had some humanitarian work -- someone who made a major impact in society.
Elayne: Albert Schweitzer.
Bill: Yeah, Albert Schweitzer. Exactly.
Elayne: You don't think he worked hard enough? Oh, Albert -- partying all the time.
Darlene: Yeah, I mean, now, we're just -- you know, if you're a celebrity, "Hey, come to our school, we'll give you some bucks and you can have this sheepskin." I think it's ridiculous.
Bill: It is awful.
Darlene: It's a marketing tool for colleges so they can say, "Look who we had at our graduation."
Elayne: Can I ask, on the other side -- just devil's advocate here -- don't they sometimes, when you go to college, give you some credits for life experience, already what you've learned? I mean, could this be that? I mean, is it that you go to college to learn how to be successful at something, and here are people who became successful at something and --
Bill: But that's something else. That's not college, okay? That's life.
Elayne: But college prepares you for life, right? They're not getting math degrees, they're getting honorary degrees. They're successful.
Billy: So then they should give Drew Carey four extra credits for being a drunken lout. And, then, if he wants to go for the rest, you know, then he starts there, you know?
Elayne: Yeah.
Bill: But, I mean, a celebrity already gets amazing perks in society.
Elayne: Oh, no, I agree.
Billy: No, no -- there needs to be more.
[Laughter]
[Applause]
Billy: There's never enough.
Elayne: Yeah, you don't need an honorary degree when you get to the top of all the transplant lists, do you?
Bill: Yeah -- hmm. That's a good point. And adoption lists -- right. I mean, celebrities get everything. They shouldn't get -- this should be the one place --
Elayne: They should have to take math tests when they go back to those schools.
Julia: They don't get housing in New York, that's one thing.
Elayne: That's right, they can't get housing in New York, 'cause they are celebrities.
Julia: Mariah Carey, Madonna, all those people.
Bill: What do you mean they can't get housing?
Julia: Those co-op houses in New York, they won't admit celebrities because it draws too much attention to the precious yuppie neighborhood.
Elayne: It's not yuppies, it's old money. Yuppies is new money, right?
Bill: But, I'm talking about people who are allowed to speak. John Mellencamp said --
Elayne: They are not allowed to speak, they're hired to speak.
Bill: Right, as if this is the wisdom we should be getting for our children. You know, "Listen to John Mellencamp, kids. This is the best wisdom we could find." He said, "Life is about getting exactly what you want." There's a great message to send kids out in the world with.
[Laughter]
Julia: Yeah, that's awful.
Bill: "Here, kids, life is about --"
Darlene: Unfortunately, I mean, I have to agree with you to some degree -- not necessarily about the athletes, although that is true. But, to some degree, some of our students that are graduating out of these colleges who can't read or write either, so, you know, at some point it's just like --
Bill: Join company with the dumb celebrities. Yeah. Okay, we gotta take a break.
[Applause]
---
[Cheers and applause]
Bill: All right.
Billy: Where is he now though?
Bill: Exactly.
Elayne: He got an honorary degree.
Bill: You got an honorary degree. Michael Boatman tomorrow, Gilbert Gottfried, Judith Krantz and Kellyanne Fitzpatrick.
Taken from Politically incorrect - May 21, 2000
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