Chris Baldwin's all-male golf club stance a common sense answer to a nation with too many laws

Reading Chris Baldwin’s column on the all-male golf club in Arizona, I was hit dead on with the imagery of Baldwin in the late 1970s, coming back from an interview with Jim Jones saying things like:

“Oh, he’s not so bad. He’s working on this punch that’s just going to be delicious.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not calling Baldwin a murdering-cultist-nutjob sympathizer, I’m just saying that thus far everyone from Justin Timberlake to Rush Limbaugh to naked No Doubt drummer Adrian Young has charmed him. Basically, to get in Baldwin’s good graces, all you really need to do talk to him.

Of course, I basically agree with Baldwin’s column on the all-male club – I’m just dogging on him for sport, having sucked him in with a positive headline. But, in essence, he’s right that clubs like Southern Dunes should have the right to be all-male if they so choose to be.

For one, it’s something that should be common sense: While there are all-male golf clubs throughout the U.S., it’s not as though the vast majority of clubs are looking to do the same. They’ll gladly take a woman’s money.

Much like we shouldn’t question the right of Curves to exist in current form, it comes down to common sense.

These are the sort of issues that must drive a real conservative nuts. Not today’s “conservative-equals-whatever-the RNC-tells-us” conservatives, but the real ones, who believe in things like fiscal conservatism and keeping things simpler.

A recent story in the South Bend Tribune struck me as the type of story a real conservative would enjoy. It seems that the Eberhart-Petro Municipal Golf Course in Mishawaka, Ind., has given in to sin and decided to allow both drinking and smoking on its course.

That may not seem like much, but I’ve lived in both California and New York, where it’s often illegal to smoke in a bar. Let me write that again in all capital letters, bolded and in italics for maximum effect:

IT’S ILLEGAL TO SMOKE IN A BAR

I just struggle to see the common sense of things like that. I just see more laws being put on the books.

From having a harmless boys club to being allowed to smoke on a golf course or in a bar, so many simple issues can be solved via gaining knowledge of a situation, then acting with common sense.

Of course, having studied at the Chris Baldwin School of Journalism, I could change my mind on this should someone talk to me about it.

–WKW