This release from the Women’s Marijuana Movement makes a very powerful statement.
Women and Students Say Alcohol-Related Sexual Assaults are Being Fueled by Marijuana Prohibition
Victims, parents, and advocates to speak out against laws and policies that steer people toward using ALCOHOL — the “#1 Date Rape Drug” — instead of MARIJUANA, a substance NOT linked to date rape and sexual assault
Day of action coincides with Sexual Assault Awareness Month and Alcohol Awareness Month — group calls on government agency to examine whether allowing marijuana as a safer alternative to alcohol could reduce incidents of sexual violence
DENVER — This Tuesday, April 26th, women, college students, and advocates around the nation are speaking out against laws and policies they believe fuel sexual violence by steering people toward using alcohol — a major contributor to incidents of sexual assault and date rape — and away from using marijuana, a substance never linked to sexual violence.
“I honestly believe I would not have been sexually assaulted if we had been using marijuana instead of alcohol at that college party” said Stephanie Morphet, a student at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. “Yet my friends and I have been told our whole lives that alcohol is more acceptable, and that we’d face harsher punishments for marijuana.”
Victims of alcohol-related sexual assaults, parents of college students, and supporters of marijuana reform around the country are calling on the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control to examine whether allowing marijuana as a safer alternative to alcohol could reduce levels of sexual violence. The Women’s Marijuana Movement (WMM) is coordinating the nationwide day of action in recognition of April being Sexual Assault Awareness Month and Alcohol Awareness Month. In Colorado, it also marks the beginning of the group’s educational efforts in support of a 2012 statewide ballot initiative to end marijuana prohibition in Colorado.
“If our government is serious about preventing sexual violence, it’s time to start considering the possibility that marijuana prohibition is driving people to drink and fueling incidents of sexual assault and date rape,” said Toni Fox, spokesperson for the WMM and mother of a daughter who attends Metro State College of Denver. “Our laws and policies virtually incentivize the use of alcohol over marijuana with the threat of harsh punishments those who make the safer choice. It’s bad public policy, and at the very least it’s time we took a long hard look at it.”
Virtually every organization and government agency dedicated to preventing sexual violence has acknowledged the significant role alcohol plays in the prevalence of sexual assault and date rape, whereas marijuana has never been found to be a contributing factor. It is reportedly involved in about 50% of all sexual assaults and in about 90% of the 100,000-plus sexual assaults that occur among the college-aged population each year. It is frequently referred to as the “#1 Date Rape Drug,” by rape awareness and prevention organizations, whereas marijuana is virtually never mentioned.
# # #
Of course, I would never recommend that alcohol be made illegal, but it’s pure insanity to continue to favor and promote alcohol over marijuana as a society.
You want to reduce violence (at soccer games or on campus)? Give them pot.
This might turn out to be the single most powerful point in the history of drug prohibition and drug reform. When drugs were made illegal in the past it was “our women will get raped by minorities under the influence of this drug!” Sure, it was about minorities, but it was also about protecting white women. The aspect of protecting women will probably turn out to be what gets marijuana legalized, more so even than the economics. Protecting women is the one thing that can overcome the “what about the children” scare.
Although the protecting children thing probably does carry more weight than the protecting women thing. I might have overstated it. Either way, the argument works equally: adults on alcohol are sometimes a danger to children, adults on weed are not. Not that I think alcohol would cause anyone to do anything to anybody, or any drug for that matter. I think that’s on the person more than anything else (with the exception of stealing if you’re genuinely addicted to something). But if you’re comparing probabilities of harmful behavior, weed is probably the safest drug in the world.
I have often thought about how our government seems to promote alcohol as they prohibit pot.
Call me crazy, but here is one theory:
The government wants soldiers, not peacemakers. If poverty makes people turn to the military, then ramp up poverty so the government gets lots of recruits. If alcohol makes people violent, and they crash & burn in civilian life then the government can jail them and offer them the “military parole”.
Notice how our government has greatly promoted both poverty and alcohol use over the last 50 years. Now also notice how many “police actions” our military undertaken. Coincidence?
They need to get those bodies from somewhere.
Our government wants us drunk and angry, not high and happy.
Dante’s post reminded me of something:
Waaaay back when I was in college and doing cultural anthropology courses, I came across something interesting about the Hindu caste system.
The Warrior Caste, the Kshatriya, were the only ones permitted to imbibe alcohol. Everyone else used bhang (cannabis, of course).
The reasoning given was exactly as Dante put it; alcohol, being an neural irritant, brings out some of the worst of human behavior, the sort of behavior you want to foster in those assigned the role of slayers.
After I graduated and then enlisted (yes, I said enlisted) while on active duty, I was surprised at the degree of tolerance for a lot of alcohol-fueled violence on the part of my fellow soldiers. The Strip outside of Ft. Bragg was no place to be after payday if you wanted to avoid vomit and busted-bottle drunken brawls. I pitied the MP’s on Friday nights after the ‘eagle’ had ‘shat’.
Needless to say, this doesn’t enhance one’s relationships with your spouse…and I had once overheard an NCO make a comment to the effect that he had gotten drunk once and struck his wife…and then made as if this was somehow acceptable, and his wife should now have a better appreciation of him when he was sober. I had one NCO make the sign of crossed fingers against vampires when I told him I didn’t drink (too many of my Irish uncles had a problem with ‘the poteen’, and I didn’t want to test the theory that alcoholism is genetic; I’ve never touched the stuff to this day). Needless to say, I was considered weird because I didn’t get smashed.
‘Drunk and angry’, yep, that’s it, bang-on target, fire for effect. Alcohol deadens (in more ways than one) and cannabis enlightens. And one thing you don’t want if you’re some power-mad pol or megalomaniac general is an enlightened army…they might start to ask the very questions that alcohol keeps them from asking.
“And one thing you don’t want if you’re some power-mad pol or megalomaniac general is an enlightened army…they might start to ask the very questions that alcohol keeps them from asking.”
Isn’t that pretty much what happened in Viet Nam? GIs got into weed and noticed the protests at home, stopped seeing the war as needful, and started seeing the Vietnamese people as people instead of “the enemy” (I imagine some did the opposite, and started seeing them all as “the enemy” due to paranoia and experience).
didn’t the repeal of the 18th amendment begin with women..?
It’s more accepted that the ratification of the 18th amendment was majorly influenced by the temperance movement supporting suffrage and working hand in hand with politically and socially active women. There was considerable overlap between the suffragettes, Christian morality movements, and the temperance movements.
There was a always a small yet vocal and active Woman’s movement working to fight against, then repeal prohibition. This was probably due to the surge in crime and the unregulated, non-policed, ease of access to alcohol that prohibition had so wonderfully created.
There’s a book that I keep meaning to read, published in ’96 “American Women and the Repeal of Prohibition” that focuses on this part of the story. So much to read, so little time.
The Woman’s voice in social matters seem to have a far greater influence sometimes. When you can no longer say ‘think of the children’ because they did and realised prohibition was the worst thing for them, it makes the policy a lot harder to support. Politicians want to avoid mothers screaming at them that they are hurting their children… A sorry state that this is how change has to come about, but hopefully this is part of the swing to critical mass…
Oh totally. The rallying push of “think of the children” can work both ways. “How do we protect the kids?” is an honest concern amongst parents. No one wants harmed children. Minimizing and mocking the concern is a dead-end tactic for sure. Mocking those who brandish such concerns like some saintly god shield, however, that’s fair fuckin’ game. 😉
Addressing concerns is the way to go. Mothers who worked to end alcohol prohibition definitely understood that and created a dialogue of mothers to mothers. They showed the reality and immorality of the actions taken due to previous calls to “save the children” and “live morally”. However, I think that such dialogue against drug prohibition is much more difficult to engage in now because of the increased militancy of child protective services.
Also of course, not all women share the concerns of mothers so that dialogue only reaches a portion of the audience.
Pete definitely raises the other major concern. There’s a reason I didn’t and still don’t drink amongst strangers but if I knew where the weed came from, I’d smoke. It is part of understanding reality (as well as taking responsibility for yourself.)
Of course in the end, the substance doesn’t make the person. An angry person will probably still be angry, but they will tend to expand upon that anger differently depending if they are on alcohol or on cannabis.
That was the TV Eliott Ness Untouchable version of History, not reality… Not anymore than the same Hearst Industrialists version of Reefer Madness being History and I think we all know how that went…
Al Capone and Watergate were red herrings to divert the countries attention from the Fascist acts of eliminating competition. Booze/Ethanol or Ganja//Hemp.
Whoa Whoa Whoa there guys. Hold your horses! We shouldn’t be buying into this hooey phooey. Our lord and savior, H.J. Anslinger, has empirically proved beyond a reasonable doubt that not only does marhuana cause darkies to think they are as good as us white folks but that it sends them into a murderous raping rampage that can only be stopped by killing them before they can rape and kill again. I mean do you want to be the ones responsible for letting lose the black mans insatiable hunger for white woman through his inebriation from marhuana? I SURE DON’T! THINK ABOUT THE WHITE WOMEN! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD THINK ABOUT THE WHITE CHILDREN!!
Now back in the real world. This is so wonderful! Alcohol prohibitions repeal was pioneered by women so why shouldn’t cannabises?
Here is some interesting data;
2007 – Alcohol
46% of individuals with less than a high school education drank alcohol in the last 30 days.
78% of college graduates drank alcohol within the last 30 days.
2007 – Cannabis
18.5% of individuals with less than a high school education used cannabis in the last 30 days.
12.4% of college graduates used cannabis within the last 30 days. (up from 11.7% in 2006)
(Source: SAMHSA, Office of Applied Studies, National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 2006 and 2007.)
“We estimate that over 1,400 students aged 18-24 and enrolled in 2- and 4-year colleges died in 1998 from alcohol-related unintentional injuries, including motor vehicle crashes. According to surveys conducted in 1999, in the preceding year, over 2 million of the 8 million college students in the United States drove under the influence of alcohol and over 3 million rode with a drinking driver. Over 500,000 full-time 4-year college students were unintentionally injured under the influence of alcohol and over 600,000 were hit or assaulted by another student who had been drinking.â€
(Source: Magnitude of alcohol-related mortality and morbidity among U.S. college students ages 18-24. Hingson RW, Heeren T, Zakocs RC, Kopstein A, Wechsler H. – Social and Behavioral Sciences Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Massachusetts 02118, USA.)
Prohibition doesn’t work for Alcohol either. (Alcohol prohibited for individuals under age 21)
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Are you sure that statistic isn’t more accurately that only 12.4% of college graduates were dumb enough to admit using cannabis to an agent of the government taking a survey?
Government agent: As you know, using cannabis is against the law and can produce stiff criminal and civil sanctions. We’re wondering if you enjoy cannabis despite the fact that we want to put you in jail and steal your stuff because of it.
Gosh why would anyone with a brain say yes in the first place? My same reaction when the drug czar says D students enjoy cannabis 4 times more often than A students. Perhaps the A students are just 4 times more likely to not admit to a serious rules infraction that can cost them financial aid for college and land them in a drug “treatment” program. Back when I was in high school the “D students” were also apt to do and say things just to torque the school administrators. “why sure, I shoot up with heroin daily before school!”
I can’t imagine the students in my high school in the late 1970s saying that it was difficult to find drinking alcohol. There was a keg kept in the woods next to my school and often there was a line of student customers trailing out of the woods waiting to buy beer. That memory is the major factor in my belief that the age floor for cannabis use should be 21, not 18. The drinking age for beer and wine in Virginia in the late 1970s was 18. The 18 year olds were able to get away with selling to other students, but a 21 year old trying the same would have been arrested. There’s a big difference between adults setting up a bootlegging enterprise at a school and a student enrolled at the school doing the same, at least back then. IIRC there were only 4 incidents of police involvement with those kegs and two were the direct result of a police officer’s kid getting drunk and Officer Dad figuring out where he bought the swill. Even that didn’t make it go away, it just changed the faces of the beer vendors. One dealer gets busted, the next dealer sees a business opportunity. Well it also got the police officer’s kid blacklisted in this case.
The clamor of Know Nothing hysterical rhetoric has risen several notches in Massachusetts in recent weeks with the Know Nothings blaming the 2008 decriminalization of cannabis for raising the incidence of pot smoking among teens, even while they’ve been able to lower the incidence of the use of drinking alcohol and tobacco. For some reason they don’t seem to notice that drinking alcohol and tobacco aren’t illegal for adults in Massachusetts and still believe that decriminalizing petty possession of cannabis makes it impossible to lower teen youth rates. The difference of course being that there’s no incentive for black market cannabis vendors to avoid selling to teens. Umm, hello? hello? Is there anyone at home? How do you Know Nothings get along with those inoperative brains? Hello?
Duncan, data is just data. It’s what you do with it that is interesting. Like your interpretation.
While I understand your reasoning behind the 21 age limit with cannabis, I am not convinced that it is necessary. Your example of 4 keg incidents shows how even young people can find a way to engage in questionable behavior and create an orderly outcome. This speaks to a nagging supposition that prohibitions are not necessary, for alcohol, drugs or most any other activity. Children by the age of three have mastered walking and talking, by five they are crossing the street and going to school, by sixteen driving a car and having sex, by eighteen voting and dying for their country. The arbitrary limitations we impose on dangerous or questionable activities ignore the inherent ability of the human animal to adapt and survive. Without organized appropriate guidance through the hazards of life, utilizing the wisdom of past, we are doomed to reinvent the wheel every generation. Even without guidance, kids in every generation still figure it out, round rolls, square does not.
That being said, I can live with a 21 age limit. I can put up with the nagging supposition, so long as I can have my orderly outcome.
Yeah, David, my take as well. When I was growing up the age limit where I lived at that time for beer and wine was changed to 19 from twenty-one, for only a few years. as it happened, the law changed back to 21 on January first, 1980. guess who got back from Central America in July, then turned nineteen on December 12, 1979? Yep. Law changed two weeks into my (legal) drinking binge….did said drinking binge stop, or even slow? Not for ten frikking years.I drank myself near to death to get away from C.M.PTSD and lots of other things too. Never ever had a problem getting whatever I wanted unless I was flat broke, and even then I found a way. Drank in a virtual blackout though my undergrad and graduate years, right up to and including my doctorate. It’s amazing I have any clear memory of it at all. “Age limit? That affects me, how?” was my attitude.
Pennsylvania was always 21 in the late 60’s and early 70’s when I started popping tops on Iron City beer. A couple years after they stopped bottle caps using openers that came with the case. “gargkeys” they called them? I still hold the underage drinking fines record in my hometown. $36 fine for each offense.
Legally it meant driving to one of the three surrounding states where the drinking age was 18. I have to hand it to the powers that be. Having some sense in those days. Where it went I don’t know. But they let this old mafia guy open a bar in his basement. Full bar, with draft beer, not 3.2 as in the lower age states. All he served was 16 to 21 year olds from our high school. If you didn’t know someone you didn’t get served. The first time I went with fake ID I thought telling him I knew someone might get them tossed. I said I have ID and went to show this little bald fat Italian guy. He literally came half way over the bar chasing me out. A month or so later I tried again and this time told him the truth and he said welcome.
State cops would come by on occasion and get an envelope. Shooting pool and half assed juke box. Good times. Last time I was there in the eighties the bar was still there but he didn’t open normally until 8 at night, so I don’t know if he was still running it. I’m sure it saved lives. He also had a rule we had to smoke pot outside and no one drove if they were loaded. Other than that we had field parties or someone’s house. Fake ID was easy with paper licenses. Remove numbers on the first layer from id# or ss# then put them over the date of birth. Laminate and it worked. Liquor in state stores, beer in beer distributors, both closed at 9 pm. 6 packs in bars open until 2 am in “wet” counties and nothing in grocery stores or “dry” counties. Dry counties in the home of the Whiskey Rebellion. Damn Puritans!
You are so right on the money Dante,about our government wanting us Drunk and angry instead of high and happy, what you are saying does make lots of sense hey I have only been smoking cannabis for almost three years for chronic pain and even though I take a bunch of muscle relaxants,anit-convulsents and pain killers I was always depressed and very cranky and I still take them but supplement with medical Marijuana yeah family members notice how calm happy content I am when I use Cannabis yes i am High and happy, and more pain free too.
Had a relative who was always bitchy cranky angry,drank alcohol almost everyday not sure If alcoholic but drank some wine everyday and was always very angry person and more so the more she drank, I know it’s anecdotal evidence but I’m sure many have similar story’s.
Speaking of Cannabis here is a link that shows a little from Canada that overall lifetime Marijuana use tend to be more educated,single and earn descent money.
Yeah so much for that silly commercial about pot frying your brain and making you dumb.?
http://www.marijuana.com/legal-issues/19713-cannabis-users-likely-well-educated-top
page not found, you sliced a couple of characters off the end of the address.
http://www.marijuana.com/legal-issues/19713-cannabis-users-likely-well-educated-top-wage-earners.html
The Wall Street Journal is writing about investments in medicinal cannabis industry, two stories in the last two days.
Sorry oops, Duncan here is link again for above.
http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6513
Oh damn you linked it already no I’m not stoned just ADD I missed it yeah ,I’m scatter brained.
Wow maybe I had better smoke some Cannabis so I CAN FOCUS BETTER HA HA.
Big Alcohol funds our politicians campaigns who refuse to legalize marijuana at level for any reason.
Politicians provide funding to “drug free” groups and law enforcement who speak out against marijuana being legal in any form but rarely criticize the expansion of alcohol sales and promotion in their communities.
The “drug free” hypocrisy at its worse.
So they can still look like public safety advocates they pass laws against drunk driving and implementing dwi checkpoints. However, isn’t weird that very few family violence/sexual assault groups ever talk about alcohol and its strong connection to violence. The reason may be found on their Form 990, where most of them are also funded by state and federal govt grants. If you run a nonprofit in such fashion, I guess you don’t bite the hand that feeds you by biting their benefactors.
I’ll say it again: the grassroots is great, but drug policy reform is a top-down deal – not a bottom-up one. Presidential leadership is the key – nothing else will work. President Obama pulled a fast one on the drug reform movement, and our drug reform “leaders” continue to give him a pass. Ethan et al. need to grow a pair…
And I’ll say this again: if you want your voice heard come November 2012, vote for the Libertarian candidate. He/she won’t get elected, of course. But neither will Gary Johnson or Ron Paul, as they won’t even make it onto the ballot. And for all you that don’t want to “waste your vote” on someone who won’t win the White House, how valuable do you now consider your vote for Obama?
Say what you want about the Libertarians – they’re crazy, anarchists, or whatever – but our party is the only one that includes repealing drug prohibition as a core platform policy, and has since its founding in 1971.
Daniel that is totally false. Obombo was never a “Liberal” or especially an abolitionists or even a half assed reformer. 8 years of Boosh and silence is golden. Obombo got the lesser evil vote. Liberterrorists are too close to the Teabog dipshits and the Dick Armey. Whack medicare and bail out the banksters in the name of Liberty? Also false about “the only” drug reformers. Greens and Nader and Kucinich voted against the lies in Iraq, against prohibition and against the bankster bail outs. Your GOP lites were pushing Bob Barrbarian for christ sakes. The only way it is happening now is without government intrusion. By citizens, from the ground up. Every instance of a citizens initiative outside of Prop 215’s Constitutional provisions. Is being tweaked by local, state and feda political saboteurs.
True the only way this mess can be removed is in DC. By removing the lies of Nixon starting it. Remove the bogus scheduling. Obombo is moot as the next clown they send in. Totally practicing Fascists, especially about Hemp. The Libertarians are attached by the nose ring to Wallmart St. Moneysluts. Harry Browne rivers comes to mind. RIP. I liked Harry, but he was either totally naive about the corporate influence or most likely being a stock broker. He wished it away for the profits, keeping competition off the market. That ain’t Patriotism dude. Coming from a so called Libertarian that should be obvious. John Birch is dead, let him roll over and over in eternal agony without invoking blind conformity… Grow up. A hell of a way to make a paycheck, appeasing for candidates!
What Part of Coal is Clean?
Urban Sprawl
Cutting down the all the trees and naming streets after them.
Have You Threatened Your Children With Eternal Damnation Today?
The solution is simple. Eat the rich
Well, I was feelin’ sad and feelin’ blue I didn’t know what in the world I wus gonna do
Them Communists they wus comin’ around They wus in the air They wus on the ground They wouldn’t gimme no peace . . .
So I run down most hurriedly. And joined up with the John Birch Society. I got me a secret membership card. And started off a-walkin’ down the road. Yee-hoo, I’m a real John Bircher now! Look out you Commies!
Now we all agree with Hitler’s views. Although he killed six million Jews. It don’t matter too much that he was a Fascist. At least you can’t say he was a Communist!
That’s to say like if you got a cold you take a shot of malaria
Well, I wus lookin’ everywhere for them gol-darned Reds. I got up in the mornin’ ’n’ looked under my bed. Looked in the sink, behind the door. Looked in the glove compartment of my car. Couldn’t find ’em . . .
I wus lookin’ high an’ low for them. Reds everywhere. I wus lookin’ in the sink an’ underneath the chair. I looked way up my chimney hole. I even looked deep down inside my toilet bowl They got away . . .
Well, I wus sittin’ home alone an’ started to sweat. Figured they wus in my T.V. set.
Peeked behind the picture frame. Got a shock from my feet, hittin’ right up in the brain. Them Reds caused it! I know they did . . . them hard-core ones
Well, I quit my job so I could work all alone. Then I changed my name to Sherlock Holmes. Followed some clues from my detective bag. And discovered they wus red stripes on the American flag! That ol’ Betsy Ross . . .
Well, I investigated all the books in the library. Ninety percent of ’em gotta be burned away. I investigated all the people that I knowed. Ninety-eight percent of them gotta go. The other two percent are fellow Birchers . . . just like me.
Now Eisenhower, he’s a Russian spy. Lincoln, Jefferson and that Roosevelt guy.
To my knowledge there’s just one man. That’s really a true American: George Lincoln Rockwell. I know for a fact he hates Commies cus he picketed the movie Exodus.
Well, I fin’ly started thinkin’ straight. When I run outa things to investigate Couldn’t imagine doin’ anything else. So now I’m sittin’ home investigatin’ myself! Hope I don’t find out anything . . . hmm, great God!
Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues by Bob Dylan
Whatever, DdC… But how can you say my post is totally false and then agree with me? You just seem to be an angry dude. Perhaps it is you that needs to grow up.
And getting your answers from a rock ‘n roll song isn’t the best idea. Bob Dylan himself said his early songs were basically bullshit – he just used them to get in with the folk-music scene in New York.
sorry Daniel but havta chuckle a bit… I can only say one word: “Bob Barr”
and personally… it’s not an election it’s a celebration of wealth and pomposity, a virtual Mammonite orgy… unless we reform elections and undo the Supremes’ tilt towards corpocracy what we think and who we elect is a moot point – the next President will be a Dem or a Repub. And I don’t say which way I vote, I like secret ballots.
And if Obama doesn’t live up to the ideal… his problem. he was elected on a promise, not a solid “I promise” but an etheric sense that the man would make a difference. Again, personally… I think the fact that the US showed itself to be mature enough to elect a black man President will in the end be an event of great magnitude. And I should have said “mature enough to elect a black, pot smoking man President”… cause ya know with some of these days he’s having he’d just love to smoke a bowl.
Actually, Bob Barr is two words – but I get your point. That said, BB was the only candidate on the ballot that said he’d end the drug war. Like Obama though, it was empty rhetoric. But we’re gonna try a bit harder in 2012. And you can bet whomever we nominate, he/she will be the only candidate advocating an end to drug prohibition.
Thanks for writing such an easy-to-understand arcltie on this topic.
In light of the topic I think it’s worthy of note that successful investigations and consequent prosecutions of rape cases is only about 15%. Here in Oregon there are around 1,000 rapes a year… solving only 150 of them means something… if only I were good at connecting dots.
Whatever, DdC…
I sense a “But” coming…
But how can you say my post is totally false and then agree with me?
Same as I can say this sentence is totally false for saying I agree with you. You say its Obombo’s fault when he never promised anything. I say its the fault of Nixon and his lies you all seem to disregard as matter of fact or imperial decree without a chance of over turning. Without that, we Incrementalize state by state with feds bullying and counties challenging and meanwhile mine and others patients are terrorized each day not sure if they can use or obtain their meds. So don’t forget this is the internet and you can’t steal words just to make a point. I think you know better, at least you can c&p my moniker.
You just seem to be an angry dude.
I am. When a problem is so obvious and easy to solve and hundreds of appeasers and opposition clamp down on their denial. But not to the point of letting it change my perspective. I’m calm and cool about calling them fascists. They are. libertarians need to bury the hatchet and get with the Greens and moderates. You advocate for profits of a few and I advocate for everyone, rich and poor.
Perhaps it is you that needs to grow up.
Dude I’ll be retired before that happens. I prefer being child like, you prefer childish. That is the difference. Like I said I advocate for all and you have an agenda for a few corporatists. You want to blame the poor for the rich stealing. You want to cut taxes for the rich and over load the workers who always get the bills. Exxon Valdez is being cleaned up by the workers paying 99 cents on the dollar while exxon keeps their 47 billion profit… and get subsidies. Your kidding right, oh no you’re not.
And getting your answers from a rock ‘n roll song isn’t the best idea.
I give my answers in my own words, I back them up with references. Occasionally I’ll show the absurdity of the birchers as well as the birthers with old time tunes pertaining to the matter at hand. Like being more afraid of the people than the international corporatist fascist of the G-20. No sovereignty, no allegiance, just money.
Bob Dylan himself said his early songs were basically bullshit – he just used them to get in with the folk-music scene in New York.
Blowing in the wind is what he sang in the early years as a folk singer. You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows dude. He has no say in how others interpret his words. Most songs are bullshit. Most words. All just particular vibrations. This came later and it is a ditty with a ring of truth. Since it still hits the mark, its worthy of repeating and listening too. If that’s what you’re into, and I am. The point is the birchers killed Americans with their commie phobic rhetoric along with racists and McCarthyism. With his side kick Ronnie Rayguns. Same as the drug worriers do today. Pick on the weak and advocate for the rich. Pitiful. When you have the compassion for poor Americans that you have for the rich, we’ll talk.
When you get it in your profit minded head that clean air and water is Liberty. Maybe you won’t be so hard on the Environmentalists. If Libertarians ever really want to get somewhere. You have to stop stealing band aids and start fighting the mad slashers cutting the people into pieces. The government regulations are only as good as their enforcement. That is only as good as the cooperation you get from the people. Unless you just toss them aside and buy the laws to aid your profits at the expense of everyday people. Like those living around factory farms and oil rigs. Gutting environmental controls to make it easier for some British corporation to exploit the Gulf is about as Un-Sovereign as I can think of.
Same with outsourcing jobs and busting Unions. Or trying to prohibit a natural substance. You say you’re against it and yet you side with the prohibitionists doing wall streets business. Or authorizing fast tracks on dangerous substances like Rumsfeld and Aspartame. So when you aren’t selling something, and it shows up in a post I’ll be happy to consider your side. What I post always comes with refs on how I formed my opinions. You still seem to be reading memo’s. Privatizing everything will remove Liberty from everyone who haven’t got the funds. The poor and downtrodden are only some. Disabled citizens. Vets and Birth defects from politicians fast tracking thalidomide or the hazardous waste of processing aluminum. Or aluminum oxides now showing up. Depleted uranium shell casings. The right to DDT. The right to bare Pocket Nukes?
15,000 gallons of crude oil leak out of tankers. 90 million pounds of poisons are sprayed on the US cotton crop. A lot of it in the bible belt. Where operation rescue farm wives drink the run off seeping into the aquifer. Then its pumped out of the wells. Aborting more than RvW. What about their Liberty to drink clean water? You side with Monsanto. Their hatchet lawyer was Cliarence Thomas. Fought 7 years for the liberty to dump dioxins in the Mississippi river.
Now nukes all over the place and each one has to hide the spent fuel. Hide it from terrorists and leaks. Many going on 4 decades. Maintenance spare parts from GE and Westinghouse. Paying no taxes so the workers you and the teabog dipshits are soooo concerned about have to pick up the slack. From these corporate deadbeats like the Koch’s and Exxon and GE. You know they won’t loose profits. It will come out of the workers electric bills, and then you will blame the environmentalists and whistle blowers. Crazy dude.
Your teams worship of money is sickening and nothing to do with the America I know. Enron was flat out busted for slacking on California power plant maintenance, causing more shutdowns and off line time. More power plants shutting down, more brown outs and then recall. Then Arno and the GOP just ram rodded the recall candidate out and took over. We now pay for it. We had to buy gouged price electric from Enron in Texas. We’re paying over $300 billion in interest on loans to bail out the banks loaning us the money to pay off Haliburton and to bail the banks out. The nukes are no different except it doesn’t contain well. Liberty from radiation? Stankgirl Colter says its good ferya. Like child labor to some idiots, mostly GOP and Bob Barr Fascistarians.
Yet you no doubt side with Citizens United for buying lackey’s to basically legislate what they’re directed too. Again it cost tax payers more to remove the Band-Aids. Liberals aren’t “humanitarians” or do gooders. Or more compassionate. But they are closer to the people and the working class. When you say its ok to outsource jobs for cheaper labor, a huge bite out of the over head. Its workers layed off, then bitch about unemployment. Taxes for roads and bridges the corporations tear up, and then pay nothing being HQ’d in the Caymans or given for anti drug propaganda. Where’s Lou Dobbs raising hell about that as he does my Liberty to toke a joint.
A Trillion for a known lie into Iraq. Another for bin Laden in Afghanistan. That is going well enough to tunnel out 500 from the prisons, Obviously less secure than what they use for stoners and growers. Two trillion to your masters of war in wallstreet. A trillion for the Ganjawar the Banksters and Corporations make money on. You’re against the laws preventing a personal right to inject heroin and probably think the same about Ganja. Disregarding the medicinal use or Hemp potential as ploys to legalize. But where are the raging town halls and Becky’s and Sarah’s shreiks about these trillions in taxes mentioned? Practicing the Golden Rule… They who got the Gold, make the rules.
Never admitting that maybe the government is lead by the moneysluts making the laws in Heratage Foundation think tanks. The same as they plotted out the road to Iraq. Its the money, and that is not mentioned in the Constitution. Actually Life is, and the prerequisites of Life, therefore are covered too. Yet we have two million homeless, even more hungry kids and that isn’t the most recent count. Where are the Libertarians for their Liberty? Where are the Greens? Another politically correct band aid seller totally disregarding the corruption and more screwed up priorities keeping Hemp on the back burner.
Whether its Justice, Prisons, Pollution or War you need look no farther than the money and who is making it. Taxes are like sex to Haliburton. They’re horny all the time. The prisons and war toys and cop shops all love us paying taxes. I have been writing about exemptions for patients disease tax over 20 years and no Libertarians come running. No teabog ditto’s or dick armey brat’s. 1/3rd of the patients expense goes from their pocket to Washington and Sacramento. If its a disabled quadriplegic getting entitlements. Thats 1/3rd of the local support budgets going to Obombo.
Where’s the nurses and doctors who are also many times tax paid or privately paid or even paid by insurance? Taxing necessities or nature is or was against the rules. Still can’t tax raw tobacco. Still have to adulterate it with poisons and chemicals for your pleasure, that are doing the harm. Yet where is the Liberty in simply being informed? You seem to blame “government” as the thugs pulling the triggers and side with and profit on the geeks in the cubicles crunching numbers that initiate and then perpetuate it. In spite of the human casualty.
Sorry dude, I’m a faithful follower of the Realists. The Laws of Physics are what I have faith in. Not John and his xenophobes. Bush Cheney administration was more Liberal than FDR. Yet FDR saved the seniors and kids in factory’s and helped the workers keep their limbs in Henry’s mass productions . Boosh stole from the people in many ways, and put it in his own pockets. Science works for Industry and War Machines. No money in prevention and cures, only treating with foreign manufactured products. You treat misery and want a Constitutional guarantee to do it. But like the junior says… Bring it on… Bring refs.
Al Capone and Watergate were red herrings to divert the countries attention from the Fascist acts of eliminating competition. Booze/Ethanol or Ganja//Hemp.
Come you masters of war. You that build all the guns. You that build the death planes. You that build the big bombs. You that hide behind walls. You that hide behind desks. I just want you to know. I can see through your masks.
You that never done nothin’. But build to destroy. You play with my world. Like it’s your little toy. You put a gun in my hand. And you hide from my eyes. And you turn and run farther. When the fast bullets fly.
Like Judas of old. You lie and deceive. A world war can be won. You want me to believe. But I see through your eyes. And I see through your brain. Like I see through the water. That runs down my drain.
You fasten the triggers. For the others to fire. Then you set back and watch. When the death count gets higher. You hide in your mansion. As young people’s blood. Flows out of their bodies. And is buried in the mud.
You’ve thrown the worst fear. That can ever be hurled. Fear to bring children. Into the world. For threatening my baby. Unborn and unnamed. You ain’t worth the blood. That runs in your veins.
How much do I know. To talk out of turn. You might say that I’m young. You might say I’m unlearned. But there’s one thing I know. Though I’m younger than you. Even Jesus would never. Forgive what you do.
Let me ask you one question. Is your money that good. Will it buy you forgiveness. Do you think that it could. I think you will find. When your death takes its toll. All the money you made. Will never buy back your soul.
And I hope that you die. And your death’ll come soon. I will follow your casket. In the pale afternoon. And I’ll watch while you’re lowered. Down to your deathbed. And I’ll stand o’er your grave. ’Til I’m sure that you’re dead.
~ Mr. Dylan
Wow – you are truly delusional.
In other words its over your head.
Why don’t you punks try saying what it is you disagree with and stop making such asses out of yourself with lame ad hominum? Come on Denial, just pick an issue you don’t understand and post it. I’ll be happy to bring refs or splain it to your Libby mindset.