In the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Cynthia Tucker cautiously moves a step forward with Why not de-criminalize marijuana use?.
It’s a short post that riffs off The Washington Post article I mentioned, as well as Andrew Sullivan’s Cannabis Closet posts.
What’s interesting in this particular case, though, is some of the colorful characters that you discover further down on the page…
Say What?? says:
Why not de-criminalize marijuana use?
Hmm, why not de-criminalize the following:
- gambling
- prostitution
- alcohol (for those under 21)
- crack
- cocaine
- imbezzlement
- voter fraud (you know, help out ACORN)
- underage sex
Well, first of all, thanks for not using rape and murder. People who can’t tell the difference between smoking pot and rape will quickly stop being invited to the good parties. As far as the others, I’m actually fine with one through five, but imbezzlement [sic] and voter fraud? Really? This guy couldn’t even land a job as stock boy. He’d put the sweat socks and carburetors in the produce section.
El Jefe decides to take the sarcastic road:
Ms. Tucker – your right, we do not have enough lazy slackers in society, we need more.
El Jefe, if potheads are such lazy slackers, how do they manage to keep supplied with pot? And how is it that some of them actually know the difference between “your” and “you’re”?
Joe Matarotz made my head explode:
Being a college student in the early 70’s, I smoked a small forest worth of pot. I can say that it is one of the few things I’ve done that I am ashamed of today. Keep it illegal. Smoking pot is NOT something to be encouraged.
Let me get this straight… Joe is ashamed of all the pot he smoked and wishes it had been illegal so he wouldn’t have smoked it… but… wait, it was illegal and he smoked it anyway. If it stays illegal, will that mean that Joe will be less ashamed of having smoked pot when it was… illegal? I’m so confused.
And what about the notion that making it legal would encourage it? Well, let’s see… I believe that it’s legal to eat camel dung. Does that mean that it’s encouraged?
Wow, did you know that the U.S. government encourages the consumption of camel dung?
Sunshine… Yes, she calls herself Sunshine, and really betrays her name with another “lazy” post
Have you ever seen a pot head with a ‘to do list’ ? The answer is no. Pot heads are too lazy to do anything. The pot heads who are all for legalizing it have probably already pickled their brains and can’t see the damage it does. This country should NEVER, EVER legalize pot.
Sunshine, all your friends smoke pot and you don’t even realize it.
To Do List
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CK Hall brings takes the intellectual approach:
For all you “authorities†on Pot–Keep it ILLEGAL!
Kind of hard to debunk that. Sort of like saying “Hey, all you “earth is round” people – keep it flat!”
Public Option Heading South says:
Anyone who has seen a relative or close friend hit rock bottom because of drug addictions knows why marijuana should be illegal. Marijuana is the port of entry for stronger highly addictive drugs like crack cocccain [sic], opiates, meth etc. Alcohol, while a drug that can lead to self destructive consequences isn’t any where near as addictive for most people.
Well, that’s certainly one approach to proving your point. Simply make up shit.
Mutts R Stupid (apparently some kind of self-referential name) came up with this doozy:
Legalizing pot is ok by me, let stupid people kill themselves faster, it will improve the gene pool. My mother was a night ER nurse in a small town, and I recall her telling me a tale of woe concerning young drug users. This teenage boy came into the ER with black, cold arms. It turns out he had been told that injecting peanut butter into his veins would make him high, so that is what he did. He lost both arms.
Marijuana kills people fast, and somehow causes people to inject peanut butter in their arms. I don’t even know how to respond to that. This apparently explains the millions of armless dead pot smokers, and why they put peanut butter behind the counter.
Mutts R Stupid came back with another one…
Have you ever seen what the lungs of a long term pot smoker look like? Worse that [sic] tobacco users lungs by far. At least tobacco has some quality control, and is highly processed, and somewhat purified.
Somehow I doubt that Mutts R Stupid has personally compared the lungs of pot smokers and cigarette smokers (and if it were true, why isn’t the ONDCP trotting those pictures out all over the media?). But it’s odd that he’d oppose legalization because pot lacks quality control — wouldn’t that be a reason to legalize? And I don’t know that I’d want to get that excited about the highly processed “purification” of tobacco.
Of course, these folks are the fringe elements who populate the comments sections of local newspapers. And clearly nobody out there has an argument that could come close to denting the strength of ours.
Part of me is entertained by these specimens of humanity’s periphery, while another part of me is deeply frightened.
You should watch the conclusion of “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.” (Lazy potheads if ever there were ones)
The title characters track down everyone who slandered them on the internet and beat the crap out of them. Irresponsible and dangerous, much like marijuan laws.
What’s scary is that these hazy claims would likely be added as “facts” to Conservipedia’s pages on marijuana and medical marijuana. Apparently when they said editing of the site intended should be accurate and fair they were to lazy to follow through.
Looking at such arguments, and adding in those encounters I’ve had with even certain psychiatists (who should know better) I’ve reached a conclusion on our differences. I’m especially thinking of the “argument” from anecdotes from doctors, ER nurses and what-not.
It all comes down to one single, inate personality trait: metacognition.
put shortly that trait is a kind of awareness of our own though-processes. We know – and humbly accept – that we are flawed human beings with flawed cognition. We can almost feel the subtle tugs of emotionally strong events on our thinking. We feel hi-jacked when listening to it. We could easily see ourselves falling into such traps as we weigh our experience with drug users in treatment or those spectacular events portrayed in the media.
A person who do not possess a natural insight into his or her own cognitive dynamics, I think, simply cannot imagine being fooled by him or herself. To them everyone else may fall victim to availability biases, scarcity/forbidden fruit and they just can’t admit that receiving a gift will definitely bias their judment.
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In reply to Jesper Kristensen,
I personally just consider it cognitive dissonance, though I basically agree with what you said. I notice the information and attitudes that are disseminated about marijuana in particular basically just teach fear. Marijuana is taught symbolically to be both qualitatively and functionally equivalent to other inherently “bad” substances or behaviors. Notice in these comments, these associations are made, but there is no scrutiny of their whether or not they are sound.
Even I once had this association with weed, and I believe one must either be presented with a different perspective, have an open mind, or independently criticize their own ideas about it. I think to have an open mind, you’ve probably already had a moment of truth in your life when you realized conventional knowledge can’t answer all of life’s questions for you.
That comment made about the peanut butter was fucking hilarious, and equally depressing if this is indeed representative of even a slim minority opinion.
Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize
“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,” the committee said. “His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.”
STOP the Drug War…
Joe Matarotz probably regrets getting busted and/or having to smoke a small forest he obviously toked schwag. More than likely sold it, and pinched some shake.
Sinshin stole the first line from rosi? – short black chick wannabe comedianne, on a CNN interview about the CA initiative. Typical cheech and chongist, degrading the subject for a cheap laugh. Yes bitch, I’ve seen plenty of stoner “to do” lists. The reason most aren’t seen is the task are complete or unnecessary or simple enough to remember.
“… and they wonder why tigers eat their young”
~ Rodney Dangerfield RIP
Ever since certain corporations and so-called ‘non-governmental organizations’ had acquired de facto control of the public education system, the quality of that ‘education’ (if you can call it that) can be reflected in some people’s ability to express themselves publicly.
It’s no accident. For those fractured, disjunct and wholly ignorant expressions are reflections of minds equally impaired. Such a populace is easily led by those whose educations were not so hobbled.
I sometimes feel about the Internet the same way Charles Lindbergh felt about aviation:
“I have seen the science I worshiped, and the aircraft I loved, destroying the civilization I expected them to serve.”
The Internet allows for knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing idiots to publicly vomit their prideful ignorance and prejudices onto the entire planet with a click of a mouse. It is only in places like this that I find some people’s ‘gray matters’ fully engaged. And what’s so ironic about it all? It’s that it’s those whom society spurns as ‘druggies’ (and by derivation, ‘pervs’) who are the most concerned with its’ welfare vis-a-vis civil liberties lost in the name of enforcing that ignorance and those prejudices.
Mr. Guither, why did you not include the pro-legalization arguments that people commented on in the article’s website?
You’re post makes it seem as if we are horribly outnumbered in our way of thinking, but looking over the comments is actually quite encouraging. A good portion of those people are making the exact arguments you make in your post, and THAT is encouraging. I think it inspires us to keep working at it, so please make sure to point out the successes that our side is having as well.
After all, talking at each other over this issue gets nothing done, but the people leaving rational comments about this, trying to convince the other side or the fence sitters, THAT’s progress.
Geran, I do point out the successes we have, quite regularly — in fact, for the most part, we entirely own the internet. Go to any major source when there is a drug policy article and the comments section is… us.
There are, however, certain pockets (like this AJC blog), where the knuckle-dragging contingent holds sway. We’re never going to convince folks like Mutts R Stupid — this post was merely intended to be an entertaining diversion by peering in on a freak show (which is why I focused on those).
Certainly, there were a number of excellent comments at that site, including Chuck, who is clearly a current (or possibly future) LEAP member.
“Hmm, why not de-criminalize the following:
1. gambling”
What a dumbass. Gambling *is* decriminalized (and state funded!) in Georgia, believe me, I know. My mother is a gambling addict whose favorite pastime was scratch-off tickets. She spent hundreds of dollars on the damn things (rarely winning *anything*) every month, all of them bought from corner stores which were proud to sell the junk for Georgia Lottery.
Also, Georgia shares the lowest age of consent (16) in the country with several other states.
I see the potheads have a new tack…pose as idiot straights in comments sections and make them look retarded…but guys, come on, you have to lighten up, no one could be alive and as stupid as you portray them so I fear this strategy will backfire.
Geran, the reason being is that the extreme anti-marijuana comments are the extreme minority… thank god…. and Pete is having some fun! Thank you Pete. I was reading through those comments on that article yesterday and I swear I wish I could debate every one of them people. They are the easiest to debate because they know so little.
I especially love the general argument “what kind of message will we be sending our children?” My answer: That adults lied, government lied, police lied. Bad lesson? I dont think so, IT’S TRUE! We need to stop “protecting” our children from the world. Our job is to prepare them for the world, not hide them from it.
I’m not a pothead but I have a to-do list:
1. learn about the effects of drugs
2. learn about drug policy
3. learn about how drug prohibition affects society
4. educate people around me
5. make a difference!
I particularly loved this comment from Jimmy62,
“I’ve got alcoholic relatives who are completely worthless. On the other hand, I smoke pot daily, and have an MBA and a very good job at which I excel. I will be glad to compete against ANYONE in a memory test. I’ll do it sober, and I’ll do it high. I’ll beat you in a math test, an essay writing contest, and even a weightlifting contest. I’ll do it after smoking so much pot you would be passed out, but I’ll still crush you in any contest of the mind. So don’t tell me how pot makes people lazy and stupid, because I know otherwise from experience.”
RIGHT ON!
yeah but jimmy said that smoking cannabis causes cancer. I pointed out the study done by tashkin and quoted him:
“We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use,” he said. “What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect.”
The actual intent of all these reform detractors is clear:
Say What?? writes : “Two words about #8 – Roman Polanski. Drugged and raped a 13 year old girl, yet there is a growing number of people who want him to be able to enter the US as a free man. Many of those same people are the stoners who want to legalize pot.”
Public Option Heading South – look at the name, need I say more?
Mutts are Stupid writes : “Oh, but you are a supporter of National Health Care, so you expect people like me to pay to treat these self inflicted lifestyle diseases. That is a big negatory.” – the commenter said absolutely nothing about health care
These people aren’t exactly anti-pot, they are anti-everything liberal. No one has told them that drug reform is actually a conservative issue. They are a dying breed. At this rate I would say the public support battle is probably won. Translating that to political victories is another story tho.
also on this note,
“so you expect people like me to pay to treat these self inflicted lifestyle diseases. That is a big negatory.”
Uhhh, excuse me? You ALREADY DO! But you are paying WAAAAAAAAAY too much to incarcerate them!
Maybe we should all begin to comment on these type of articles with the same intended idiocy…Just for fun…
Friedrich von Schiller’s famous comment ‘Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain…’ is applicable here. Idiots will always be idiots.
Ignorance is a different story. Since the people most familiar with recreational drugs are often those least afraid of certain drugs, education and stereotype-bashing remain effective tools for drug law reform.
Willful ignorance about drugs is an inseparable part of the culture war. Cultures that fear drugs tend to be those that have the most to lose from a free and open society; hence their fear of substances that act as accelerators to a greater self awareness, empathy, or insight into the world and its lies and hypocrisies. As the perceived enemy of totalitarian regimes, drugs are the weapon of choice to undermine tyrants. Tyrants know this. So we have a drug war.
Whether a person is a college graduate or a grade school drop out,they have a right too their opinion,and while I enjoy a perfectly worded and educated post,some of the simple too the point posts say it better than a long winded over educated
post that says absolutely nothing,but fills up a page too say nothing at all,of any value to anyone,,,kinda like this one.
the reason that so much nonsense prevails is that the “poster children” of pot smoking are still jeff spiccoli and cheech & chong.
Remember, we’re talking about, no offence Georgian’s, Georgia. Not really a area of intellectual enlightenment. These are the same people who perpetuated the Civil War for over a hundred years after they lost… My bet is they’ll be doing the same when the Drug War is over.
Ziggy: Hey, at least we have Atlanta :).
… and Georgia has Underground Atlanta and the Alman Brothers Band…
Bob Barr went Libertarian, at least there is hope for wayward WoD junkies.
CA has casino’s, maybe not a large KKK, but we have son of a nazi Aunuld and the long time retarded rehab profiteer, Califano.
CN BC: Editorial: ‘Pot Critic’ Is Dream Job For Marc Emery
… but it does seem many of the wingnuts slid to the bottom left of the US barrel.
Candyman Stoner
For the blue haired calvina’s…
Elvis was a junkie all by himself… and his doctors.
He never wrote a song. “B” actor, “B” Rock and Roll and Country. “King” of The Elvis Show in Vegas. Tinsel and glitter, the plastic people in the plastic places. But, he probably did a lot to spur on the blue haired pompadour’d Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Reefer Worrier Zealots like Ms. Calvina. Like other hypocrites against some plants they can’t sell home grown in the kitchen.
All modern “police actions” are corporate. The Ganjawar or Iraq the second after “Mission Accomplished” or Vietnam and Korea, lessons of WWII. You can profit on police actions, not declared wars. The trillion spent keeping Hemp and Ganja off the free trade market shelves, went into the pockets of drug worrier corporations, supplying the paraphernalia.
Its the business of mass slavery, nothing new. Religion provides the self appointed translators to opiate the masses. Herding them into whatever pasture provides the most return on investment. Herding large groups of black men from rural southern homesteads into the major city construction boom. Building the Golden Gate, Bay Bridges, Empire State Building. Then when complete, dump em, forming the welfare districts of Oakland and Detroit and New York. Then scapegoating them to the tax payers, diverting attention from Cayman Island and anti drug group tax shelters.
Most of the time the slavery is voluntary, Nixon’s drug war was by judgment. Totally a fabrication to produce results. Just not the results stated on the brochure. None of it is reality based, especially the reefer madness. It serves an “end” purpose. To perpetuate the “war”. Its not about drugs or kids or even wasting tax money. Its about selling “treatments” for chaos and maintaining the chaos. Any chaos. Abortion thru Iran. All about division, pitting one against the other keeping both from turning on you.
Now with the aid of the internet, info is getting to people, sometimes for the first time. Its definitely influencing the press. People blindly believing in, without questioning their government and corporations, politicians and church. Supreme Court and the separation of government branches. All breached since Nixon, mostly towards keeping the war on some citizens using certain substances going.
When ever we give up the basic Constitutional safeguards, for some fabricated emergency, we pay for it. The same prohibitionists starting the Ganjawar in the 30’s, traded big time with the Nazi’s and Hitler. Same propagandists styles of stigmatizing and drama aimed at those deemed undesirable. When celebrities portray Ganja and Hemp using cheech and chong references, its a way to degrade the issue, to not take it seriously. Except real citizens are in real cages because of these cowards, and then it ain’t so funny.
The drug worrier lies are only effective when its one sided. When its the only media and it is censored or programmed, the truth is not known. When it is omitted or even replaced by negative assumptions and gossip, the people get opinion, not science. School books become propaganda. Politicians thwarting reality for hobgoblins, especially those they make huge profits “fixing”. Every American should get shivers, and then anger over the childish ways they simply disregard the majority of the citizens paying for their “profits” Then getting stigmatized for daring to ask for decent health care they can afford. Or homegrown medicine they don’t need insurance for.
Always when it goes out to the G-20 corporate nations small percentage of wealthy, no teabog ditties to be found. The minute some of that tax gravy heads to the people, its nothing but chaos in town halls. Or vote recounts or Beatle album burnings or Dixie Chick CD’s all the same mob mentality as the nazi book burnings and catholic witch hunts. Ganja is or it is not.
It can be measured and weighed and its effects can and have for thousands of years been monitored. Hemp tensile strength or Omega 3 is measurable. It doesn’t take liars from Madison Avenue and a model agency to “sell” it. People are happy to buy pot. No demographics or HD multi million dollar ads with 3/4th of the time spent warning of side effects. Same drug companies spraying poisons on US and Colombian farmers. See who is left spending millions of tax dollars lying and diverting truth about Ganja and Hemp, Those making money on prohibition. Cops, rehabs, prisons and politicians depending on their campaign financing.
Nixon disregarded Shafers report, re-evaluating previous reports by La Guardia, Whooton, and the Indian Hemp Commission. Same as the IOM re-evaluated the Shafer Commission, data hasn’t changed. The prohibitionists rhetoric varies every decade. Un Motivated, Over Motivated to kill, no too passive, might become brainwashed by commies, no it causes Mexicans, no makes white women sluts, no it grows breasts and you might kill your brother, cause it ain’t the same as your mothers dope. This is your egg splattered on frying pan, any questions?
When I hear someone denigrate Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong as loser pot heads, I like to point out that both men are multi-millionaires.
This newspaper makes a great birdcage lining.
As a certified Old Fart, I recall quite clearly the early Cheech and Chong albums, in which they parodied various characters and stereotypes found in American (and Mexican) society.
You’ll note, I said parodied. Root word ‘parody’. As in ‘lampoon’ or ‘make fun of’. In short, when it came to stoners, C & C parodied society’s stereotypes of illicit drug users…and the uptight straights fell for it. Suck-kers! Too effin’ dumb to realize they’ve been had all these years, they continue to display their guilelessness with their benighted comments. While the supposed chemically lobotomized targets of their ire laughed all the way to the bank.
People that frakkin’ stupid that they couldn’t realize that C & C’s entire career was a ‘schtick based upon their detractor’s own blind prejudices shouldn’t be allowed near anything more technologically advanced than a spoon…much less a voting booth…
pete: the average person is a moron. By definition, that means 50% of people are even dumber than ‘moron’… and that’s why the people making the asinine comments you show and artfully dissect make up the vast majority of the population. Even people slightly more intelligent than ‘moron’ will still be too dumb to think for themselves, in contravention of government propaganda, and come to the logical conclusions you have.
This is just another losing battle against stupidity. It’s why democracy does not work.
Bruce I sorta agree, though I don’t think they are morons by genetics, but they are taught ignorance and some are very good students. As for Democracy, it looks good as a headline on the brochures. I doubt if we have ever actually had a true Democracy. Various degrees of friendly and not so friendly fascism.
As for Cheech and Chong, they are successful comedians. They portray a stoner stereotype, out of college dorms and an Animal House eccentric view of mainstream media’s perception. To actually be Tommy Chong and even have a clean record, outside of Ashcroft bong paranoia and power tripping. Can’t be too stupid. Using C&C to degrade Ganja use is the same as using Popeye to sell spinach. Not like drug worriers ever had to deal with actual reality. Anyone relating Ganja use in real time to Cheech and Chong makes it easier to identify them. Its like wearing an “I’m stoopid, please disregard anything I might say about pot” sign or teeshirt.
Thank you Kapt; that was just a nail on the head and absolutely golden analysis.
DdC: I think the masses are dumb in a combination of ignorance of fact, inability to use logic and reason, and true genetic brain defect since stupidity has become a sexual asset over the past several generations (“Idiocracy” lays out this latter principle quite well). That’s not to say an idiot can’t study hard and get a good score on the SAT.
Democracy sounds good and appeals to our innate desire for fairness. But it doesn’t work, especially in the age of mass media where anyone can design a poll to get a desired result and stick it up in front of millions of people on the fly. Being able to cite to a poll (regardless of whether it’s fairly conducted or even remotely scientific) that says “the majority of americans support X instead of Y” causes people to think X is the right thing to do. And then they demand their elected representatives, who are supposed to know more about the issue than they do, vote for X rather than Y. But with the anti-intellectualism so common in America, chances are the dumbest people are the ones who are the elected representative in the first place.
So democracy does not work. We should find a very kind, well-educated person and make him/her absolute dictator, constrained only by a bill of rights. The problem with dictators has always been that the only people who get to be dictators are the ones who want it, and to get it they use brute force. I don’t really think we’d ever be able to implement my system, but in a perfect world it’s what I’d suggest. Democracy does not work in the age of mass media, and I question whether it ever did. At the very least only the most educated people should be permitted to vote. To try to get the largest voter turnout just for the sake of voter turnout does absolutely no service to the quality of democracy – quite the contrary.
Pete,
My “to do” list included flying to the US, having the VA do a full dental extraction and jaw bone reconfig last Tuesday. After all that, I see this post and it truly made my day. Thanks.
While there, I had the ocassion to talk with a retired AF S&R medic. He said he’d never touch any drugs due to his “upbringing.” I mentioned some drugs that I knew he partook in and it caught him off guard. Then, I explained to him that he was anti-drug because of his “conditioning” and not due to the facts that lie just below the surface. I directed him to this site and several others and he started listening. I also had many other conversations while up there. Oh, after surgery, they offered me pain meds (their drugs). I declined and never needed any. Guess that goes to quality of service. However, they kept trying to push them off on me until I finally had to yell “Hell, NO!”
That was my “to do” list. Now, I’m back home, in the true “land of the free” as we have no “wall” around us, ala East Germany. It’s the land of decrim so I have the meds that will do the most good for me.
Oh, did you know they fly luggage both nationally and internationally WITHOUT a passenger flying with it? Yeah, safety plus….or something like that. I will say that San Antonio TSA has the best sense of humor for a crew. LOL
Anyone that got next to me got a talking to. No one was safe. When the hospital took blood tests, I told the doctor he’d find something but not to worry because I didn’t live in the US and my home country was fully into decrim. He was in a corner. And I reminded him to Google “Israeli army,PTSD,marijuana” to figure out the “why.” He did and mentioned it before I left.
Overall, I had a great time! Considering.
PS…
My finished “to do” list included finish Ph.D, get Juris Doctorate, get FCC Amateur Extra license, finish out my Airplane, Instrument and Rotorcraft CFI certificates, to mention a few. And yes, I smoked cannabis during the entire period. I wonder what the “straights” accomplished during the same period?
2 things:
“Sunshine” stole “Have you ever seen a pot head with a to do list?” from Wanda Sykes very recent appearance on Jay Leno.
Dammit Pete, we were really trying hard to keep secret the fact that camel dung makes the best Jenkem. Way to go, it’ll be scheduled for sure now.
BruceM…. have you also noticed that since Obama took office it seems that all the idiots of the country have come out of their shell? I honestly dont remember hearing so many idiots on the news, those town halls, online…. they are everywhere!! you can tell who they are, now im not talking about your average person….. im talking about the real idiots….
it really makes me worry about the country.
I saw a story on the news last night that said that we should give our children an alcohol allowance each week. I couldnt believe it! “What message are we sending our children?” I guess we want to send the message, get drunk and die instead of get high and survive. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.16955bbbf37996b1a27427193eb82f3f.311&show_article=1
Bruce, this is why Jefferson spoke of the ‘natural aristocracy’ in his letter to John Adams, ca 1813:
“”… I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents. There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents; for with these it would belong to the first class. The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society. And indeed it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of the society. May we not even say that that form of government is the best which provides the most effectually for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government? The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendancy. On the question, What is the best provision, you and I differ…. You think it best to put the Pseudo-aristoi into a separate chamber of legislation where they may be hindered from doing mischief by their coordinate branches, and where also they may be a protection to wealth against the Agrarian and plundering enterprises of the Majority of the people. I think that to give them power in order to prevent them from doing mischief, is arming them for it, and increasing instead of remedying the evil. For if the coordinate branches can arrest their action, so may they of the coordinates. Mischief may be done negatively as well as positively. Of this a cabal in the Senate of the United States has furnished many proofs. Nor do I believe them necessary to protect the wealthy; because enough of these will find their way into every branch of legislation to protect themselves. From 15 to 20 legislatures of our own, in action for 30 years past, have proved that no fears of an equalization of property are to be apprehended of them.
“I think the best remedy is exactly provided by all our constitutions, to leave the citizens the free election and separation of the aristoi from the pseudo-aristoi, of the wheat from the chaff. In some instances, wealth may corrupt, and birth blind them; but not in sufficient degree to endanger the society.”
Me, I prefer Heinlein’s Starship Troopers Terran Federation solution. Only those willing to place themselves in the service of the Federation for 2 years, whatever that service would be (as he put it, if there’s a need for left-handed glass-blowers at the bottom of the Pacific, or testing survival equipment on Titan, and you’re willing, then that’s what you did) would get to vote after they finished their term. The pay was low, but your basics would be covered while you served…but if you went ‘career’, you couldn’t vote for 20 years (It was not, as that execrable movie implied, a fascist dictatorship.)
You’d at least get people who knew what it was like to be on the ‘business end’ of things (not generally a pleasant experience) and would naturally be abjured against featherbedding…and would have a Hell of an incentive to make sure the system didn’t allow for that.
Wanda Sykes, thats it. It was a clip of Leno on CNN. Breeding ignorance. The stations seem to rely a lot on viewer response. Being the superficial bastards they are. I think a blitz is in order for any public reefer madness.
Mr Jay Leno,
Not that I watch your show, and while I haven’t forgiven you for putting aunuld in office. I feel that your public childishness concerning cannabis is as racist as any. When a black women laughs at oppression it definitely isn’t funny. Do you even realize sick people are rotting in US cages for smoking pot? Among the 2.2 million other prisoners. Many private prisons making a killing on cannabis prohibition. A major force of opposition to anything curtailing their greed. Along with police and rehabs. Daily terrorizing of American citizens far worse than Al Qaeda.
Never knowing day to day if you can get treatments, imagine that. Can’t grow do to housing rules. Eviction or buy it, while suffering debilitating illness. Only to read the politicians want to protect the kids by making grandma go to the streets to get her pot. Jay 98% of the “eradications” nationwide is non-psycoactive wild hemp ditchweed. Saving the kids from burlap and canvas. Giving the Drug Tsar $42 billion in taxes a year so Wanda Sykes has lame material. ain’t worth it man.
Yet you and most still stigmatize cannabis users, and laugh about it. Chuckle your ass off over sick and dying people having a convenient place to obtain their medicine, and the city of LA feels this is wrong and instead of helping sick people they want to close down the Apothecaries. Now letting adult citizens who smoke cannabis do it legally is funny? Oh lordy whats wez gonna do. Burning witches was a horrible deed done by the same rationale crucifying cannabis users, and like shake and bake Jay Leno, you helped! Stop it.
Nixon lied and scheduled cannabis falsely, I know Nixon lying might be hard to swallow. I guess deep throat as a red herring would probably go right over your weird shaped head. So just keep it simple, no victim no crime and pot doesn’t make you stupid, cause cancer or lung damage and you can ask each and everyone of the 150 million of us on the planet toking our asses off, and potentially preventing the very diseases the drug worriers ain’t preventing. Now thats karma.
So stop it and tell the ignorant bitch Wanda Sykes she ain’t funny. Ask the polio victim the DEA wrestled to the ground, or Ms Johnson in Atlanta in her night clothes, as most 92 year old ladies are in the wee hours of the morning. Crash 39 bullets later she’s dead. Like Tarika holding her baby or the Missionary family shot down in Peru. 12,000 dead Mexicans that could have been growing hemp and not crossing borders or joining gangs and cartels, 6000 in Thailand, 60,000 in labor camps taking American jobs, making cheap plastic crap for Wallmart. Yes Jay your ignorance spans a lot of industry, based on a single lie from Nixon, perpetuating this dysfunction for profit going on 40 years.
I guess to Wanda Sykes thats nutin compared to 500 years before we/most “got it” about slavery in the south. Somehow different than prison slavery, or sweatshop slavery or a minimum wage 1/4 the cost of living slavery. Probation slavery for being sick and finding a remedy without Insurance Corps blocking it. Or caging healthy people or the public servants growing and peddling it.
We request pot Jay, no one “sells” it. TV sells Germany’s Budgeiser using cute chicks and some of the dumbest characters in love with their suds like a religion. They look like what the Wanda Sykes degrade stoners as. Cut the shit Jay, Americans have forked out one trillion dollars hiding research, lying and arresting pot tokers since the 1937 bogus Marijuana Tax Act, overturned in 69. While tricky Dick rejected his own tax paid Commission report stating clearly to not schedule cannabis a number one substance. Yet he did, and added Hemp and Medicinal for the hell of it.
Drunk on gin, hiding behind the rhetoric of Watergate. slipping this ridiculous legislation through Congress into the law books. Causing over 800,000 Americans to became criminals in 2007. Its not funny, No racism or culture bashing is funny to any but the ignorant. I know its your largest demographics but your getting old Jay, and knowing your jokes persicute Americans can’t be sitting too well. Stop following in the steps of some really nasty stigmatizers, shunners and terrorists. Tell the truth.
Show the Hemp products that American farmers, Indians and the poor could grow by simply telling the truth. Tumor research buried and number games keeping it out of Pharmaceutical Crude Oil and Pesticide company competition worries. Stop it. Simple as that, Obama overturns the CSA and we stop selling Americans for cheap labor on empty morals and unfunny comediennes spewing mouthfarts. Have a nice day or whatever you do for fun except profiling stoners. For everyone you see, a thousand toke in the shadows. Bring them into the light Jay. Set My People Free!
Lighten up, Francis.
Just Legalize It: in hindsight, it seems naive to think that the election of a black president wouldn’t bring all the crazies out of the woodwork, as they’d see it as the final sign of the coming apocalypse, the final nail in the coffin of traditional values (i.e. whites in control), and a good excuse to vent their frustration directly at a black man. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – there is no way Obama will make it through his first administration without getting assassinated by some Faux news watching, Glenn Beck worshiping jesus-licking idiotfuck. Then the right wing will complain about how much the Obama funeral costs and how they don’t want their tax dollars going to celebrate the memory of a socialist anti-american, and “how dare they bury him in Arlington National Cemetery, send his body back to where he came from – Kenya!” Get ready for it. America will collapse soon thereafter (not as a result of Obama’s death – even if the Secret Service is able to do their job, and I hope they are, Obama (or VP Biden taking his place) is going to be the last American president.
Kaptinemo: of course i completely concur with Jefferson (one of my heroes). I think the problem with the “starship troopers” model you suggest is that plenty of idiots sign up to “shoot sand niggers” in Iraq (you know, as revenge for 9-11) and any system that rewards them by allowing them to participate in the political/voting process at the exclusion of others would be a complete failure – worse than what we have now. At the present only the dumbest people (for the most part) are joining the military – they can’t get any other job, their probation officer makes them do it, they want to shoot “towel heads,” etc. Of course I’m assuming you’re equating the “starship federation” with service in the US military. Maybe that’s a bad assumption on my part.
Somewhat off the subject, but how about this: all police officers and prosecutors have to spend one year in prison before being permitted to go to work (they can get paid a yearly salary for it, that’s fine). Give them an idea of what one year actually is. And what prison actually is. That might give them some pause before they advocate sending someone there for 50 years for selling some leaves.
Don’t Call Me Francis
OK Sergeant Hulka…
The name’s Francis Soyer, but everybody calls me Psycho.
Any of you guys call me Francis, and I’ll kill you.
You just made the list, buddy. And I don’t like nobody touching my stuff. So just keep your meat-hooks off. If I catch any of you guys in my stuff, I’ll kill you. Also, I don’t like nobody touching me. Now, any of you homos touch me, and I’ll kill you.
Lighten Up Francis
BruceM: I did not vote for Obama and find that I disagree with most of his ideas and initiatives. That said, I can not imagine a greater catastrophe for our country should he be assassinated, short of nuclear war. It would change politics for the worse for the next hundred years. Let’s hope that never even gets close to happening.
Kaptinemo: I read Starship Troopers too, and I liked the sound of his ideas. But our own constitution sounds pretty noble too. It’s just that over time everything corrupts, and Heinlein’s model would, too. The trick is finding a way to renew the system and clean out the corruption without starting over or throwing the good out with the bad. Nobody has figured out how to do that yet.
I think one of the biggest problems in the criminal justice system is that crime is now so commonplace. Since all manner of things are crimes now, and a felony at that, the whole idea of criminality is watered down.
It used to be that crime was pretty clear: You hurt other people, didn’t pay your taxes, or offended pretty outrageously against the moral code of the day. Some of those laws may have been unjust by today’s standards, but the overall set of laws was pretty simple to understand.
These days you can go to jail without ever intending to do something illegal. And even relatively mild acts are called felonies, as we in the drug reform movement are well aware.
Felonies used to be SERIOUS. Grand theft, burglary, assault, rape, murder, fraud…things that everyone recognized as a crime. These days felonies include growing the wrong kind of plants in your back yard, downloading the wrong kind of dirty picture, dialing back the odometer in your car, shipping a chemical without the right kind of warning on the package…tens of thousands of things that ordinary people may think of as negligent or naughty, but certainly not worth years in the slammer and the loss everything you own.
This post has more comments than any other I’ve seen since I started coming to this site.
Chris, there was a post last month that had 65 comments, but I believe this one is second highest (at least since we moved to the new software).
Paul: I agree, and I did vote for Obama but right now I’m having a serious case of voter’s remorse – he’s just another Bush, and his audacity of compromise has already destroyed his presidency. But yes, if some whackjob killed him it would be horrible. I think it will happen, though. Usually there is no point in killing a president for ideological reasons because the VP is no different (i.e. kill bush you get cheney). But if you’re a racist and can’t stand a black man in the Oval Office, you can remedy that by killing Obama and getting Biden – a white guy. For all racists, I’m quite sure a white guy you hate is a better president than a black guy you hate.
I will hold Fox News liable for any assassination attempt on Fox News, and I hope the government does the same. Free speech only goes so far – it does not include incitement to violence and that’s what Beck, O’Reilly, and Hannity do night after night. O’Reilly is already responsible for one assassination (that abortion doctor he kept telling his viewers needs to be killed “to save the lives of the unborn”). Unfortunately Obama has no balls (and his autopsy will confirm this) and he won’t go after the political opponents who attack him day after day. If the situation were reversed and Obama did the torturing and a republican president were elected, ex-president Obama would be in handcuffs and charged with crimes of torture within a week of the new president’s inauguration, along with his entire cabinet. But Obama wants to “look forward not backward.” All criminal prosecution is by its very nature looking backwards.
But the country will collapse within the next 2 years, even if I’m wrong about Obama getting assassinated by some racist redneck Fox News viewer (and I hope that I am wrong about that, I really, really do… but I never am wrong about these things). Like I said, taking American history as a whole, it seems naive to think the first black president would not get assassinated. I don’t even trust the secret service to protect him with the same zeal they protected Bush – most law enforcement types are conservative, church-going types. Would the same percentage of secret service agents who were willing to take a bullet for George W. Bush be willing to take a bullet for Obama? Hell no. I’m sure 99% are extremely devoted and highly competent at their jobs and would take a bullet for the president no matter who he is, but it just takes that 1% to turn an assassination attempt into a successful assassination. Meanwhile all the right wingers are carrying guns to presidential appearances, and they are proud of it, encouraged to do it by Fox News, and even if the secret service is operating at 100% effectiveness (and I hope they are) there is only so much they can do, unfortunately, when the wacko-to-normal ratio is so high.
Pete, you are my hero. In my opinion, you are more deserving to the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize than the guy who actually received it. Peace to you and the people in your life!
It’s a cheap shot, and I know I really shouldn’t, but I’m kinda addicted y’know. I bet this woman isn’t as alone as she thinks:
Born with half a brain, woman living full life
Something that grinds my ass catagorey…….
Since when is it Illegal to be lazy in this country and…since when does keeping cannabis illegal keep people from being lazy?
I know many lazy asses that dont smoke cannabis,fact is I know many pot smokers that arent lazy that live full interesting lives…
Paul…nice post .
All drugs should be legalized. This sounds offensive to people, but if you would stop thinking the way you are taught to think, you would see the answer as clear as the nose on your face. The current “war on Drugs” go back to Nixon who was elected to president in 1969. It gained mandatory felonious strength in the penal system by,none other than the man we are reeling with “blowback” problems in the economy, Ronald Reagan. All drugs should be legalized and strictly controlled. There should be a law legalizing drugs with a “sunset clause” in the same manner That Alcohol wasmade illegal in the 20’s. The major differenceis that the government should manufacture and distribute the drugs not because drugs are good but for the sme reason that prohibition was lifted, CRIME. probably the two most violent times in America are now and the 20’s.You cannot make illegal the “supply-side” of drugs, spend billions of dollars fighting the “demand-side” of this simple economic equation. Do you think the FBI, the CIA or the DEA, other than costing the American taxpayers billions and billions of dollars can prevent or close a multi-billion dollar market like this?Now if the government legalized drugs we would now start having CONTROL over a problem, that as long as it stays illegal, we absolutlely have no control over and the only control exercised over “drug commerce” is increasing violence.Just how many sticks of dynamite have to be put into your ears to realize this. This problem is just like health care, the status Quo cannot be maintained