Fidel Huckabee?

Mike Huckabee channels Fidel Castro on “quarantine” for HIV-positives.

I doubt that calling homosexuality “sinful” will hurt Mike Huckabee with anyone who was likely to vote for him in any case. Even his opposition to more Federal funding for AIDS research (paired with a sneer at “celebrities”) probably won’t do him much harm. And his proposal (back in 1992) that HIV-positive people be “quarantined” might actually appeal to the growing Christofascist voting bloc, allowing Huckabee to compete with Giuliani for the coveted “Most Likely to Do Something Appallingly Inhumane to People Not Like Us” prize.

But the problem with proposing something astonishingly un-American is that someone Americans don’t like might have proposed, or even done, exactly the same thing. From now on, I suggest that the Governor be referred to as “Fidel Huckabee.” After all, he can’t really object to being called “faithful,” can he?

Author: Mark Kleiman

Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out. Books: Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken) When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993) Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989) UCLA Homepage Curriculum Vitae Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com