BlogWood: MT Archives

Ronda Storms favors sex and drugs

County Commissioner Ronda Storms apparently feels that the working poor are making plenty of money and babies right now, and that they should stop breeding and start having casual sex and spending their money on drugs.

"If you can't afford four children, birth control has been around since the 1960s," she said. "There is a little thing called the pill."

Ronda was in a snit because someone had the temerity to propose a living wage ordinance for Hillsborough County that would have required the county and its contractors to pay workers enough to feed and shelter themselves without having to resort to welfare or food stamps.

Municipalities across the state and country have enacted similar ordinances without causing the economic meltdowns forecast by opponents. In fact, if low wage workers start bringing home more money, they invariably spend it on things like food and clothing, thus stimulating the local economy and making everyone a little wealthier.

Storms said she has worked $2.01-an-hour jobs in her life, spent nights at Salvation Army and lived in her car. But she worked and put herself through school, she said, "crawled across glass on my elbows.

So, did Ronda spend her waitress salary on birth control, or were her scabby, blood encrusted elbows enough to turn off any would-be suitors?

Whatever. The important thing here is that Ronda has come out in favor of casual sex and drug use. I applaud the moral courage of this woman who has been known for years as a shrill, prudish hypocritical censor. In fact, a long time from now, as she is recounting this watershed period in her life, Ronda may well pause and reflect thusly:

“I worked as a government employee, spent nights in auditoriums. I slid downhill through fresh steamy horse shit as I toed the fascist line, attacking public access TV, libraries, and other repositories of unique opinion. And nudity. I hated nudity.

I found public debate boring, civilized discourse being a tool of snotty intellectuals who would have us argue every idea on its merits rather than relying on knee jerk emotional responses set in a moralistic frame.

Then I saw the light. I experienced an epiphany. Despite all of my fundamentalist leanings, despite my preachy outbursts and my crusades against sinners, I came to realize that it was not my place to tell others how to live their lives.

Of course, it took me a while to adjust my public rhetoric to reflect my new way of thinking. My instincts were still to preach, to demand changes in personal behavior, to blame unlucky folks for circumstances beyond their own control, but that all started to change when I finally admitted to myself and to the world that promiscuous sex and drug use may well be a good substitute for a fair salary.”