On civil liberties, in honor of 4/20
OK nothing sexy in this post so if you don't want to hear about politics or public policy just click on away.
Today is a day where certain citizens of the United States will celebrate an unofficial holiday by indulging in a ltittle cannabis for 4/20. Some of those citizens will be able to do that in compliance with the law, but most will not. Some will do it anyway, and some of those will likely get caught, face jail time or fines or other harsh penalties, for the horrible crime of doing something that hurts no one but possibly themselves. For having a little fun that's not sanctioned under the law. I just don't get why people haven't revolted against this idea en masse.
I like to garden-- we grow 80% of our own veggies out here and they are healthier and better tasting than the shit we find at the supermarket. And if I decided it was my "thing" to take some of my tomatoes and squash the juice all over me and jerk off or whatever, that's fine (weird, maybe, but legal). If I want to grow cucumbers just to stick them in my ass, that's fine too. I can even grow tobacco for my personal use, dry it, process it and smoke it in home-rolled cigarettes (I used to do that, until I switched to vaping).
But God forbid that I grow another beneficial plant for a use like that. If I wanted to make my own rope, or my own fabrics, or process hemp seeds into oil I could get in big trouble. If the authorities found cannabis plants growing on my land, whether I had planted them or not, I could have my property seized. Add in the fact that I enjoy and exercise my rights under the Second Amendment and they could take my entire farm, which has been in my family for 115 years (committing "d**g crimes" while in possession of a firearm cranks all the punishments up to 11 in my state). So I could forfeit everything I have worked very hard to acquire and keep, just for the crime of deciding what to do with my own body on my own property, without harming, influencing, or otherwise abridging anyone else's rights.
That is 100% fucked up. And making matters worse is the arbitrary nature of prohibition. Cannabis is bad and evil, but alcohol is fine, hell it's All-American. Why is that, you figure? Is it because the alcohol lobby is so powerful, has so much money to spend, maybe? And I can get powerful "designer d**gs", strongly psychoactive with sometimes terrifying side effects, prescribed to me by my doctor, but that's fine too because those d**gs (with all their potentially-undocumented interactions with other d**gs) are deemed "safe" and "necessary", because my toenail fungus or hair loss is a much bigger problem than ulcers or renal failure. Because we aren't already so doped up on pharmaceuticals that it is poisoning our water supply to piss all those complex molecules back out into the sewers. Why is that so "OK"? Is it because Eli Lilly and Pfizer spend hundreds of millions every year to buy favorable legislation and other consideration?
When will enough really be enough? When will we accept that "freedom", as we enjoy it here, is under serious threat? Sure, it's a big responsibility, freedom. It requires us to think for ourselves, make our own decisions, stand up for what we believe in and speak out against the things we don't. Maybe some of us (perhaps MOST of us?) aren't cut out for that, need someone to hold their hands and protect them and tell them what they should do and wear and think about, but I'm not one of those people. And I wish fewer of us were those people, honestly, because the idiots get the same vote that I do, and people's being so willing to hand their freedom away for a little safety or a handout from the government or just because they don't really want it affect my ability to NOT have that happen to me, because I don't want their "safety" or "handouts" or any of that stuff. I want to live my life and do right by people without big brother looking over my shoulder.
Interestingly enough, the governor of Utah today signed a resolution declaring pornography to be a "public health hazard", requiring PC technicians to report finding c***d pornography on PCs they service under the duress of law. Now ** is hard (impossible?) to defend, and most of us just think "Yeah nail those fuckers" and I kind of understand that mentality-- I hope Jared Fogle gets pounded in the ass every day, the sonofabitch. But this law that many will embrace establishes a mindset, lays the ground work for other laws outright prohibiting porn, or at least regulating what can be shown or viewed. Do you guys out there seriously think that a government agency is even qualified, much less has the right, to determine what kinds of stuff you want to watch (once again, as long as everyone can consent and no other laws are broken)? Will one of these straws eventually break the camel's back, or will we be instead like Al Gore's famous frog, slowly boiling in a pot, not realizing until it's too late? Will we wake up one day wondering what happened to our country, our freedom we used to enjoy?
The United States of America has been a grand experiment like no other. Never before has such power been laid in the hands of so many, from the mean and menial to the grand and great-- we all share in the burden of governance, and we all share in the benefits of it, too. As I said, it is a responsibility for ALL of us citizens, and shirking it or abdicating that responsibility is like spitting in the face of those who have fought and died and written and advocated and sacrificed to ensure this experiment continues. I want my k**s to taste freedom as adults, but the way things are going, I'm not convinced their definition of the term will be what I understand it to mean, and once that power is given away, it will take more than just some talk and complaints to get it back.
So I urge you all to support the IDEA of 4/20 day, even if you don't smoke, even if you think it's for idiots. Because it represents an opportunity for We the People to correct the overreach of our government, to tell them they go too far, to resist their efforts towards control, because controlling citizens should NEVER be the job of a democratic republic. And I will fight against it to my last breath, because I love my country too much to let it slip away with a whimper and the stroke of a pen.
Today is a day where certain citizens of the United States will celebrate an unofficial holiday by indulging in a ltittle cannabis for 4/20. Some of those citizens will be able to do that in compliance with the law, but most will not. Some will do it anyway, and some of those will likely get caught, face jail time or fines or other harsh penalties, for the horrible crime of doing something that hurts no one but possibly themselves. For having a little fun that's not sanctioned under the law. I just don't get why people haven't revolted against this idea en masse.
I like to garden-- we grow 80% of our own veggies out here and they are healthier and better tasting than the shit we find at the supermarket. And if I decided it was my "thing" to take some of my tomatoes and squash the juice all over me and jerk off or whatever, that's fine (weird, maybe, but legal). If I want to grow cucumbers just to stick them in my ass, that's fine too. I can even grow tobacco for my personal use, dry it, process it and smoke it in home-rolled cigarettes (I used to do that, until I switched to vaping).
But God forbid that I grow another beneficial plant for a use like that. If I wanted to make my own rope, or my own fabrics, or process hemp seeds into oil I could get in big trouble. If the authorities found cannabis plants growing on my land, whether I had planted them or not, I could have my property seized. Add in the fact that I enjoy and exercise my rights under the Second Amendment and they could take my entire farm, which has been in my family for 115 years (committing "d**g crimes" while in possession of a firearm cranks all the punishments up to 11 in my state). So I could forfeit everything I have worked very hard to acquire and keep, just for the crime of deciding what to do with my own body on my own property, without harming, influencing, or otherwise abridging anyone else's rights.
That is 100% fucked up. And making matters worse is the arbitrary nature of prohibition. Cannabis is bad and evil, but alcohol is fine, hell it's All-American. Why is that, you figure? Is it because the alcohol lobby is so powerful, has so much money to spend, maybe? And I can get powerful "designer d**gs", strongly psychoactive with sometimes terrifying side effects, prescribed to me by my doctor, but that's fine too because those d**gs (with all their potentially-undocumented interactions with other d**gs) are deemed "safe" and "necessary", because my toenail fungus or hair loss is a much bigger problem than ulcers or renal failure. Because we aren't already so doped up on pharmaceuticals that it is poisoning our water supply to piss all those complex molecules back out into the sewers. Why is that so "OK"? Is it because Eli Lilly and Pfizer spend hundreds of millions every year to buy favorable legislation and other consideration?
When will enough really be enough? When will we accept that "freedom", as we enjoy it here, is under serious threat? Sure, it's a big responsibility, freedom. It requires us to think for ourselves, make our own decisions, stand up for what we believe in and speak out against the things we don't. Maybe some of us (perhaps MOST of us?) aren't cut out for that, need someone to hold their hands and protect them and tell them what they should do and wear and think about, but I'm not one of those people. And I wish fewer of us were those people, honestly, because the idiots get the same vote that I do, and people's being so willing to hand their freedom away for a little safety or a handout from the government or just because they don't really want it affect my ability to NOT have that happen to me, because I don't want their "safety" or "handouts" or any of that stuff. I want to live my life and do right by people without big brother looking over my shoulder.
Interestingly enough, the governor of Utah today signed a resolution declaring pornography to be a "public health hazard", requiring PC technicians to report finding c***d pornography on PCs they service under the duress of law. Now ** is hard (impossible?) to defend, and most of us just think "Yeah nail those fuckers" and I kind of understand that mentality-- I hope Jared Fogle gets pounded in the ass every day, the sonofabitch. But this law that many will embrace establishes a mindset, lays the ground work for other laws outright prohibiting porn, or at least regulating what can be shown or viewed. Do you guys out there seriously think that a government agency is even qualified, much less has the right, to determine what kinds of stuff you want to watch (once again, as long as everyone can consent and no other laws are broken)? Will one of these straws eventually break the camel's back, or will we be instead like Al Gore's famous frog, slowly boiling in a pot, not realizing until it's too late? Will we wake up one day wondering what happened to our country, our freedom we used to enjoy?
The United States of America has been a grand experiment like no other. Never before has such power been laid in the hands of so many, from the mean and menial to the grand and great-- we all share in the burden of governance, and we all share in the benefits of it, too. As I said, it is a responsibility for ALL of us citizens, and shirking it or abdicating that responsibility is like spitting in the face of those who have fought and died and written and advocated and sacrificed to ensure this experiment continues. I want my k**s to taste freedom as adults, but the way things are going, I'm not convinced their definition of the term will be what I understand it to mean, and once that power is given away, it will take more than just some talk and complaints to get it back.
So I urge you all to support the IDEA of 4/20 day, even if you don't smoke, even if you think it's for idiots. Because it represents an opportunity for We the People to correct the overreach of our government, to tell them they go too far, to resist their efforts towards control, because controlling citizens should NEVER be the job of a democratic republic. And I will fight against it to my last breath, because I love my country too much to let it slip away with a whimper and the stroke of a pen.
9年前
