Social conservatives are ruining our nation, and their actions are not the product of good intentions but rather gross incompetence and hypocrisy.

Case in point: the prudes in Iowa City attempting to cut down on student binge drinking.

While on the outside the recent steps taken in Iowa City to curb binge drinking appear to be a good idea, they are nothing more than grandstanding.

From reading the newspapers, it appears that many believe eliminating print ads publicizing drink specials would help reduce the prevalence of binge drinking. While this may sound logical to anyone who has never stood inside a bar, any patron knows that drink specials are usually printed on the wall inside the door on a dry erase board or some other form of media, like a stone tablet.

The drink specials for that day are usually listed there, as are the one’s for the next two days. This allows the socially-challenged to get out and drown their sorrows appropriately.

The advertisements in the paper are nothing more than little reminders for the memory impaired. I would wager that most Ames bar-goers have no trouble remembering mug night, penny pitchers, twofers or Long Island Iced Tea night.

These are all staples of a modern college bar society and are ingrained into the psyche more than any physics lecture. To think that limiting print advertisements is going to alter that fact is wishful thinking by the most small brained of individuals.

This is illustrated by Britain’s change in the laws concerning pub hours.

Instead of forcing all bars to close at a set time, they have found through minor experimentation that allowing bars to set their own hours has reduced the incidences of binge drinking and alcohol-related crime. Such an outcome was contrary to the long-held public view that such an action would contribute to alcoholism and in turn lead to the debasement of society.

In this instance it appears that liberal thought achieved an outcome desired by all parties but through a means vehemently objected to by social conservatives. I cannot help but think that such a change here in the States would produce the same results.

But while incompetence may preclude a workable solution to the problems of binge drinking, the hypocrisy shown by adults only makes the situation worse.

Consider the very problem of binge drinking, which is defined as drinking four or more alcoholic beverages in a night. For parents worried about their kids turning into alcoholics this is viewed as bad, as if having more than three drinks automatically turned you into the cast of Cheers.

But consider the frequency with which most adults drink. Many parents come home from work and grab a beer or two while they unwind on the couch.

Or maybe they wait and have a few glasses of wine with dinner.

The net result is the same, and two drinks a night for five days equals at least two nights of binge drinking. The only difference between the two examples is the rate of consumption, which adults feel is justified because “nobody needs to drink that much all at once.”

But in a sense adults are the real alcoholics because they have the greater reliance on alcohol. They need it at the end of every day just to cope with life, whereas the typical binge drinker does it simply to get some action on the weekends.

The charge that binge drinking is worse is thus erroneous, and it represents the highest form of hypocrisy. The people who are implementing the new laws and complaining about today’s wayward youth probably did the same things in the past. While I can tolerate people who remain true to values I disagree with, any turncoat who condemns his or her past is only becoming a hypocrite and losing the respect of peers.

The reason I blame social conservatives for harming our nation is because a good number of them were liberals in their youth but have now become hypocrites. Any person who says “do as I say and not as I do” does not have a leg to stand on, and should be suspected of duplicity. That is why I do not trust the actions of those trying to curb our imaginary problem of binge drinking. The chances are they used to get good and tanked on the weekends.

Now they are social conservatives.

The problem with being a social conservative is that it has not gotten us anywhere. Social conservatism is the mindset of fear, repression and hate.

Two hundred years ago conservatives told us colored people were less than white people and felt justified in treating them like cattle. A hundred years later they said women were worth less than men and tried to deny them the right to vote.

At the turn of the century social conservatives screamed that Asians were not our equals, and when the League of Nations was formed, Japan was unable to get a clause establishing racial equality inserted into the charter.

If it were not for the liberals who overcame social conservatives, we would be a backward country where women are property, black people are slaves and the Asian student who aced the last exam is a foreign devil who should go back where he came from.

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Aaron Woell is a senior in political science from Bolingbrook, Ill.