Memo to Bloomberg from The City of Night

Hey Mike. Why’d ya’ let your boys in blue close the Roxy last week? We weren’t doin’ anything wrong. We were just dancing the night away, like tens of thousands of other spirited New Yorkers were doing on Halloween weekend. We weren’t keeping anyone awake. The Roxy’s located in an industrial part of town, with virtually no residents to be bothered by the noise of a late-night club. Like other dance clubs, the Roxy stops serving booze at 4 am, then allows its patrons to keep dancing until the really wee hours. We’ve been doing this for years. Mike, we felt like little kids who were being sent to their rooms! Mike (I can call you that since I’m older than you), we’re adults! We’re people who work hard, pay taxes, vote, and expect to be treated like adults. Mike, a lot of us don’t want to go home at 4 am. Some of us are still trying to find a date. Others are just grooving on the spiritual experience of House Music, which is a very appropriate thing to do on Sunday morning. Mike, do you have a problem with that?

Clearly, Mike, you’re no libertarian. Well…okay, you’re an “economic libertarian.” You want to keep the government out of your pockets, so you can work on your next billion. But you’re not the good kind of libertarian, the kind most working Americans are. I’m talking about social libertarians. We’re the people who want to keep the government out of our bedrooms. We’re the people who don’t want the government telling us when to go to bed, or who to go to bed with. Or what to do when we get between the sheets. We’re the people who hate seeing our government held hostage by religious fundamentalists--you know, the American version of those guys who flew into the World Trade Center. Most of all, we’re the people who hate having the government tell us: Drink martinis, beer, and wine; Smoke cigarettes and take all the valium your doctor will give you. Eat all the cancer and fat inducing foods you can stuff down your throat, and then take all the “certified” big Pharma drugs you’ll need to cope with the damage. But don’t you dare ever smoke a joint! Or our cops and prosecutors and judges will send you straight to jail (thereby committing a million times more damage to your life and person than any drug could ever do.)

Many of us thought you were different, Mike. For a silly little minute I thought you just might be a humanist in wolf’s clothing. What a mistake. Turns out you’re just as much of a control freak as all your Republican buds. Mike, America has had enough with “economic” libertarians like you and your friends. You guys are running the country into the ground. You’ve even ruined the stock market, for God’s sake (read James Cramer, the Wall Street guru who tells us in the November 7th New York magazine that the U.S. has the worst performing stock market in the world. The WORLD, Mike! ) What Americans really needs is a radical shift to the proper kind libertarianism--the social kind. Our founding fathers were Social Libertarians, Mike. They’d never heard of laizze faire, let alone supply side economics.

Ah well. I guess we can always vote for Ferrer next week. But you’re counting on the disillusionment of us real freedom lovers to keep us from the polls, and that’s what probably will happen. But one of these days we’re all gonna’ wake up and discover that we have the power to nullify. If we’re disillusioned, Mike, it’s because the Democrats are control freaks too. But we have the power to nullify all of yuz’. Ever hear the slogan: “Throw the Bastards Out!” What New Yorkers and all Americans should start doing is nullifying all incumbents when they come up for reelection. Each November, we should vote for the opponent whoever he or she might be. Just keep rotating them out. And out. And out. Until finally, maybe, the politicians get the message that the people really do rule. That we are the true sovereigns of the United States of America. Unfortunately, we don't know that yet. But when despair follows cynicism, then we will all have to learn the true meaning of freedom--the hard way.