The return of Godwin's Law

First off, if you're not familiar with Godwin's Law then you can read about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law .

So I'm at my normal Toastmasters meeting on Thursday and during our normal business meeting an interesting motion pops up: "Moved that Prince George Toastmasters members are required to wear duly-award Toastmasters nametags at meetings". To make a long story short, the motion ended up passing at the club with one negative vote, myself.

Now I like business meetings and I like parliamentarian procedure. I am probably the only person I know that literally will watch CPAN (Canadian Parliamentary Channel) for hours on end when left to my own devices. I don't know why legality speaks to me but it does. So before I get into any moralistic argument I would note that the discussion motion is effectively a dress code and thus falls under a bylaw change of the organization and thus requires prior notice of motion, quorum at the meeting where it is discussed, and a majority of votes to pass.

Legality aside, I personally disagree with this sort of motion regardless. I think that any time you start forcing people to wear identification badges you run down a slippery slope, whether an Office Space "pieces of flair" or a WWII Star of David. Of course, I made my objection in the meeting and it wasn't until I was ranting about it to my wife later that she correctly pointed out the invocation of Godwin's Law.

So what is a person to do? Legally speaking I don't believe the motion is in order. Personally speaking if the motion was something that was enforced I feel strongly enough about it to find another club to spend my time at. I think where I'm left is to approach the Vice President of Membership and make a formal objection on this level.

I personally suspect that it's a non-issue, other silly motion passed which means nothing to no one, but to me it really bothers me. I can't even articulate why it bothers me so much but it really does. I don't mind name badges in the workplace, I don't mind name badges at a conference/networking session, but somehow in the context of a non-profit club meeting it really bugs me.

I wish I could understand better as it feels to me that Godwin's Law has a corollary:

• Unless you're talking about racial genocide or similar atrocity, invoking Godwin's Law demonstrates only that the person arguing has no logical basis to stand on.

Beer

One of my new loves at 30 is beer, specifically Sleeman Honey Brown Lager.

As some of you are aware, I went through a long dry spell where I forswore drinking. After my dad died in 2000, I had decided that alcohol was not for me. I went a bit over 8 years (3000 days and change) before I decided to re-evaluate. To be honest, I felt that I had made my point. I wanted to know for myself that as a drinker, and I drank pretty heavily 1999-2000, that I could walk away from it if I wanted to. I wanted to live part of what my dad did as an alcoholic so I could understand better.

To be honest, it was painfully easy for the most part. When you have obsessive compulsive tendencies, maintaining a routine is not too difficult, and the trauma around my dad's death naturally set the stage to break my existing habit at the time.

It wasn't until I had gone through my first common-law "divorce" and was within days of going bankrupt that I decided to re-evaluate. A lovely lady by the name of Colleen stopped into my mostly empty house and persuaded me to try some mudslides with her. The next thing I knew I was back acting like a "woo girl" and drunkenly calling people on my cell phone. Ah, good times.

Looking at it with slightly more mature eyes, I'm the kind of guy who likes to have the odd beer. A beer a day is fine, and maybe a couple on the weekend, but that's about my limit. I don't like to get completely wrecked - I don't like to make an ass out of myself regularly or operate machinery.

I will say that marriage and children aside, two inconsequential things have marked 30 for me: beer and sawdust. They do tend to be somewhat related for me. A beer before a project keeps me amused, and there's something about drinking honey brown while staining wood.