Someone, well-to-do but rather liberal I suspect, gave me a little tractate listing the cost and ineffectiveness of the so-called war on drugs. As if there were such a thing. How about a war on stupid parents? My response after scanning it was, "So we should legalize drugs and hand out free needles?" "Well, maybe not go that far. There must be something in between." "Yeah, like Singapore -- their War on Drugs works. I'm all for public flogging and chain gangs. And executions." And we laughed, because he knows my sense of humor. It darts out from behind truth so fast you can't tell which you're looking at.
Forty million dollars spent annually in the US in this War. Nearly 2 mil people arrested on drug charges in 2008 -- nearly a million related to pot. 2.3 million in American prisons, almost one out of every 100 adults; highest rate in the world.
Well. Could that mean that we care, where other nations don't care, or have given up, or are too incompetent? I almost don't care what the various reasons are. I'm just against drugs. It's not entirely rational, for all that my side is most rational on this issue. The other side has only the fact that people want to use drugs because it makes them feel less. Or something.
Estimated tax revenue to California if pot were legalized, 1.3 billion dollars. A drop in the bucket of course, to California. It would pay for free teen condoms. Why do they make condoms so small? I'm just asking, is all. Impressed? Yeah, that's right. All the chicks are so into me. But maybe I should be editing myself?
I have a buddy who's dealing with a city, trying to get a business started. I'll skip the details. I'm just wondering, are all these fees and delays about the money, or the power. I'm thinking more and more it's power, somehow. Come and kiss my ring. The urge to control things that don't really need to be controlled. You'd think they'd have calculated and accounted for the needs of parking when they gave the original building permits.
Is that what drug laws are about? Controlling what doesn't need to be controlled? My bewilderment is, they sue cigarette makers out of billions of dollars, for the health damage. They sue gun makers. They sue car makers. All the taxes have already been paid, but still they sue. So if they legalize drugs, who will they sue to recover the health costs and societal damage?
If you're a contractor and raise a building using substandard cement, and it collapses, you go to jail. If drugs are legalized, how exactly would you hold the cartels accountable? They are after all criminals. If pot were legalized, there would be a higher quality, more potent, orders of magnitude beyond the ditchweed of decades past. And the criminal element, knowing only how to operate outside the law, will move their interests to harder drugs, supplementing their income and hiding their true business. But maybe I'm wrong.
It's not that alcohol is legal, so drugs should be too. It's not even that alcohol should not be legal. One stupidity does not justify additional stupidities. It's that, who will repair the damage, to families, and souls? Ease of access will certainly increase abuse. Who will take responsibility for that? The politicians? Their job, per Obama's example, is to not take responsibility. Los Angeles has the worst and stupidest leaders of any major city in America. No. Lie. Absolute scum. The one thing we can be certain of is that these reprobates absolutely want the tax dollars that drugs would give them control over. You know, so they can refurbish their offices with cinquecento tapestries and alabaster statues of naked boys in the severe kouros style,
and fly their retinues to Helsinki to study, oh, parking lots and how to tax them.
and fly their retinues to Helsinki to study, oh, parking lots and how to tax them. Well, I seem to have lost the thread of my thought. Cuz, despite any false impressions I may have deliberately attempted to convey, I've been toking, hard, for quite some number of years now. I find it totally relaxes my inhibitions, while at the same time damping my ability to act on them. I am, you see, an aesthete. Who are you to judge me? I'm a genius, for all that I'm surrounded by a vast and valueless wasteland of humanity. God how I loathe you.
J
6 comments:
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If I'd known people would read this, I'd have taken a more solemn tone. But it's great that fame has finally found me. I loathe you all slightly less now.
"So we should legalize drugs and hand out free needles?"
non-sequitur.
especially given that drugs are illegal now AND we hand out free needles at the same time.
I'm just against drugs.
as am i ... as a personal philosophical matter.
legally, it's none of the governments business whether or not i choose to use drugs.
except for the socialist programs which have been instituted which offset the cost of a drug user's personal stupidity onto society as a whole.
Is that what drug laws are about? Controlling what doesn't need to be controlled? My bewilderment is, they sue cigarette makers out of billions of dollars
one of your finer jokes.
you know perfectly well that integrity, forethought and consistency have nothing to do with most people's decision making.
it normally boils down to what they feel will benefit them the most in the moment.
And the criminal element, knowing only how to operate outside the law, will move their interests to harder drugs
which, in a principled society, would also be legal.
either that, or alcohol and tobacco would be illegal now.
It's that, who will repair the damage, to families, and souls?
you claim to be a Christian.
as such, you know that it is not possible for one man to save another.
Ease of access will certainly increase abuse. Who will take responsibility for that?
a - the people who choose to use the drugs?
b - i'm not certain that it would increase use. it is certain that federalizing drug abuse has resulted in the glamorization of drug use and the atrophying of the societal pressures not to use drugs.
Oh. A littlebertarian. I was one, in the 80s, when I was young and thought theory mattered more than reality.
Not a non-sequitur. Reductio ad absurdum. But the inconsistency in policy is noted.
Personal philsophy should inform public policy. In a gov that takes healthcare as a responsibility, personal choices become gov business. We will agree again about the inconsistency here. But since gov will continue to adminsiter emergency care, as to illegals, drug policy must be intrusive.
"Principled sociiety." Complete disagreement. You mean "unprincipled." The principle is, doing what can be done. Not, being perfect. Otherwise we'd all be communists -- paradise on earth.
"Repair" does not mean "save".
Yes, "claim" is just the right word.
A. The people who choose to use drugs have already demonstrated an innability to take responsibility.
B. Policy isn't about being certain. There's this thing called wisdom, akin to common sense.
A littlebertarian.
wrong.
i have never seen a Libertarian Party nominee that i would vote for. it amuses me that in some ways i am to the right of Limbaugh.
Not a non-sequitur.
it is, in that drug legality has nothing to do with whether or not free needles are handed out.
drugs were illegal and we didn't used to hand out needles.
drugs are still illegal and now we do.
the two subjects are mutually irrelevant.
as an aside, you don't use needles to administer marijuana. by raising the subject as you did, you imply the legalization of "hard" drugs.
In a gov that takes healthcare as a responsibility
this is socialism and, hence, diametrically opposed to my personal philosophy.
your personal philosophy may well differ.
drug policy must be intrusive.
just as .gov will find 'health care' as an excuse to legislate ever more intrusive regulations. smoking and trans fat bans fall under this AND ARE ALSO UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
"Repair" does not mean "save".
you cannot "repair" or "save" someone who has not already decided for themselves that it needs to be done.
The principle is, doing what can be done.
just because the government does not do it, does not mean that something "will not get done". in fact, having the government do it typically insures that it will be done slowly, expensively and substandardly.
nor does it prevent you from doing it if the government does not do it. quite the opposite actually. people assume because the government is "doing it" that they have no need to look into the matter themselves.
government participation drives out private participation in several ways.
I'm sorry, this subject no longer engages my interest. Now it's all about alternative energy. Discuss.
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