Drugs and Willfully Blind Americans

The following paragraphs are taken from my essay “The Myth of Inalienable Rights” at http://dowehaverights.blogspot.com. But first, the opening sentence of a report originating from the 248th session of the Salzberg Seminars, held February through March of 1986. These seminars are private, non-profit discussions on wide-ranging topics. This one was titled “The Cultural Dimensions of Alcohol Policy Worldwide.” Twenty-one nations were represented.

However much the American public may worry about illicit drug use, it remains both true and generally acknowledged that alcohol, a legal drug, costs a great deal more in whatever metric applied: medical, social, economic, or public health. (Walsh, et al.)

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Tobacco (nicotine) is the most harmful drug in use in America today in terms of deaths per year. It is generally accepted that the annual death toll from the use of the drug nicotine is over 400,000. Alcohol is the second most deadly drug in terms of deaths per year, with a yearly average of 200,000. [5] But when the effects of the present drug prohibition are factored out, that is, the violence caused by the prohibition, as well as deaths caused by adulterated drugs, deaths per year for the use of the presently illegal drugs are not more than 5,000. [6] This is one-one hundred twentieth (1/120) of the combined effects of alcohol and tobacco. To put it differently, deaths per year from the presently illegal drugs, as a percentage, compared to alcohol and tobacco, is 0.833%, or less than 1%. Yet, for those 5,000 people who knowingly and willingly choose to use the drug or drugs which kill them, we, as a nation, are willing to spend 30 billion dollars per year in the attempt (and not a very successful attempt) to prohibit those drugs. [7] Actually, that figure is probably as much as 100 billion dollars per year. [8] We are also willing to incarcerate hundreds of thousands of people who have not harmed anyone. And, I might add, that this huge expenditure and mega-incarceration is, for the most part, futile. All the laws passed, money spent, and people incarcerated has not substantially stopped the use of the presently illegal drugs.

. . . .

Consider this: If it is wrong to make and sell any of the presently illegal drugs because of the perceived or potential harm that they may cause, then how much more wrong must it be to make and sell alcohol and tobacco for the demonstrably greater harm that they cause? Can the people who sell alcohol and tobacco, the people who manufacture the booze and cigarettes, or the farmers who grow the tobacco, or the grain and fruit used to make alcohol, can those people claim rightness of purpose, legitimacy of their businesses, and moral superiority, knowing that hundreds of thousands of people will die and that millions will suffer because of the misuse of their labor and their products? Can they logically or morally be given reputable status and community support over the marijuana or cocaine distributors who also provide their drugs to willing customers, but drugs that cause far less harm overall in our society than either alcohol or tobacco?

If the government has the legitimate right and the moral duty to rid society of harmful, mind-altering, and possibly addictive drugs, then isn’t it logical that the government should put their greatest efforts into combating the most harmful drugs first? Those being, of course, alcohol and tobacco. Wow! What a war on drugs that would make! More violence, more theft, more corruption, more danger to all people at all times in all places, and millions more people put in prison. It would be for the common good, of course, but it would also be one hell of a boost to the various justice department bureaucracies, police departments, as well as the prison building and supplying industries along with prison guards and their unions. These are the ones, today, who legally benefit from the so-called war on drugs. Why, they’d have to fence off Kansas and put all the prisoners there!

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5. Extrapolated from the Fifth Special Report to the U. S. Congress on Alcohol and Health, by the Secretary of Health and Human Resources.

6. In May of 1991, Jeffrey M. Blum, an associate professor of law at the University of Buffalo, filed a (letter) brief at the request of federal judge, John Elfvin, on the question of whether the constitutional rules should be relaxed because of the drug situation. The brief stated, among other things, that the total number of deaths due to either overdose or poisoning from all of the presently illegal drugs combined was between 3,800 and 5,200 (a figure taken from Ostrowski’s “Thinking About Drug Legalization”, note number two, above). To see the full letter brief—but especially paragraphs 16-23 and 27—go to http://www.november.org/dissentingopinions/Blum.html#top.

7. Ain’t Nobodies Business If You Do, by Peter McWilliams, Prelude Press, page 183.

8. O.K., Call It War, by Max Frankel, The New York Times Magazine, December 18, 1994.

The New Aristocracy Is the Old Aristocracy

Why is politics so important to so many people? I have an ex-wife (and still good friend) who is so wrapped up in politics that she can talk about little else.

I tried to point out to her recently what I consider to be a truism. The rich rule. Always have. Always will. She wasn't having it. She still believes that if enough people get on the "same page," so to speak, and vote for the right people that change would happen and America would be a better place.

The history of the world is the history of powerful and, therefore, rich people. If they weren't rich when they came into power they became rich after they did.

In the last century the so-called communists came to power with a vengeance, spouting the dogma of that so silly and unworkable, but so persuasive quasi-religious dogma.

I call those fanatics so-called communists because true communism has never been practised anywhere in the world. The very concept is anathema to human nature. Only small, well-indoctrinated religious groups can come close to achieving the communist dogma of working according to your ability and taking only taking according to your needs. (Pure and true Christianity, anyone?)

None of the former communist strongmen--Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung (Zedong), or Castro, among others, once they came to power, ever lived like the poorest among them. They lived in luxury, like a new aristocracy.

In fact, Milovan Djilas, who fought beside Tito in the former Yugoslavia, against the German Nazis in World War II, realized, shortly after Tito came to power as the Communist dictator of Yugoslavia, that the new class merely displaced the old class. The kings and princes were replaced with the officials and commissars of communism. He wrote a book titled "The New Class," criticizing the corruption of the communist ideals . . . and was thrown into prison by Tito.

So what does all this have to do with the U.S., today. The rich, those individuals, families, and corporations with the most wealth, control the government and what laws will be passed. And the very rich individuals and families are rich, usually, because they are in control of corporations.

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country. Thomas Jefferson

Unfortunately, that didn't happen. The United States united in a revolution to rid themselves of the aristocracy of a monarchy. The French rebelled and cut off the heads of their aristocracy. The Russians and Chinese lined their old aristocracy up against walls and shot them dead.

And yet, a new aristocracy emerged. Well, not really. It is the same old aristocracy--the rich. The rich and those in power, who then become rich. They have always ruled and they always will rule. If they are smart, they will not rule too oppressively.

But eventually, slowly, incrementally, as is happening here in the U.S., those in power come to believe that they were born to rule and so they will use more power wrongly, violating the rights of the peasants, the peons, the serfs, the average person until a critical point is reached and the common people come together again in rebellion and throw the evil ones out.

The revolutionists will cheer and say that a new day has come. What they forget, however, is that to have their revolution they almost always have borrowed money from some rich entity, some wealthy bankers, some corporation. And, as we all know, he who pays the piper will call the tune.

And so it goes. Is there nothing that we, the average people, can do about this never-ending cycle of power and control by the rich? When the time is ripe for revolution we can join it and feel empowered. The rub is in knowing when the time is ripe. There has to be a critical mass of people who are so fed up with the current situation that they are willing to fight and die if necessary to take out the old aristocracy.

Until then--and it is never easy to judge when the time is right, as history has shown so many time with failed movements and revolutions--it might be best to do all you can to take care of yourself and your loved ones, within the parameters allowed you by those in control. And if you vote, perhaps you should even pretend that your vote counts for something. A little fantasy can make life little easier.

I will make one positive statement, however. To the extent that people are able to participate in the political process--that is, allowed--then the more that do so will slow, not stop, the eventual solidifying of the new aristocracy.

Narcotic Drug Use Is Legal

If I were to ask you, is it legal to use a narcotic drug that was not prescribed by a medical doctor for legitimate medical reasons, you would probably answer, absolutely not. You would be wrong. Alcohol is a true narcotic drug. You merely have to be an adult with the desire to imbibe an alcoholic beverage and the money to purchase it, no doctor needed.

Cocaine is not a narcotic. The government's use of narcotic to describe nearly all drugs is Orwellian. They are trying to brand the presently illegal drugs as evil narcotics. In the meantime, the favorite narcotic drug of the police, politicians, and judges is alcohol. Alcohol is also the narcotic drug that causes the most violent crimes merely from its use. The violence related to the other "narcotics" is caused by the prohibition of those drugs.

This situation then begs the question: If I, as an adult, can legally use one narcotic drug, why is it illegal for me to use another one? That is, if it is wrong to use one narcotic drug isn't it wrong to use any or all such drugs? Obviously not. And I guess I shouldn't confuse the issue with logic.

How or why does anything get done? Because one or more people have the desire to do it and they also have the ability to do it. Let's not get things muddled up with concepts such as rights and non-violent, non-larcenous, consentual adult behavior. Laws are no different than anything else that gets done. If some people want a law passed and have the ability to do so, then the law gets enacted.

There was, and still are, a group of people who believe that some narcotic drug use is immoral and therefore should be illegal. They got the laws of the United States and of the several states to reflect their personal moral/religious beliefs and certain substances become illegal. Anyone who made, sold, or used them became evil, heinous criminals . . . regardless of the fact that when those substances were legally available there was no criminal justice problems associated with their manufacture, sales, or use.

Religion (which equates to emotion), not logic, rules the day when it comes to the drugs issue.

A Thought to Ponder: The Political Destruction of Mexico

As I state in my header, I write about rights. Among those rights (as consenting adults only) is the right to use mind-altering, possibly addictive, possibly dangerous drugs. Alcohol is the premier example of such a drug and it is legal to adults.

I want all of the presently illegal drugs to have the same status as alcohol and tobacco. Use it at your own risk. Do not violate the rights of others. You shouldn't be arrested for using, but you should be for violating the rights of others. (Statistically, alcohol is the drug that the mere use of it is most likely to cause rights-violating behavior.) I bash the government as an anti-rightist institution for making illegal behavior that is intrinsically honest and peaceful.

In other writings of mine I have listed many of the benefits of the re-legalization of the presently illegal drugs. Those drugs were once perfectly legal and there was no criminal justice problems associated with their use. I have also listed many of the detriments to legalization. Mostly, that would be the collapse of the "Prison-Industrial" complex and the loss of many government jobs and contracts to people whose very existence perpetuates the violation of the rights of otherwise honest, drug-using people, of which there are millions in the U.S.

One detriment that I didn't think of was the possible complete collapse of the Mexican economy. I have just finished reading Elizabeth Lowell's novel, The Wrong Hostage. I highly recommend it. It is a well-written, fast-paced story.

In it, her protagonist explains that the billions of U.S. dollars that flow into Mexico from the drug trade is necessary to that nation's economy and that if it were suddenly cut off, Mexico would implode economically, and become a "failed nation", like Afghanistan, only it is our immediate neighbor to the South, sharing over 1,000 miles of border with us. (If you think the illegal immigration problem is bad now, imagine what it might become under such a scenario, as well as revolution and civil war.)

The hero, in The Wrong Hostage, goes on to explain that the reason the U.S. doesn't actually want to stop the drug trade is fear of such a thing happening and the possible "aftershock" effects on the United States.

That could be true, the economic collapse of Mexico I mean, if, somehow, the U.S. Congress took their heads out of where the sun doesn't shine and gave us, "the people", back our full and complete adult inalienable rights.

In that event the government could always use billions of the dollars now wasted on the so-called "war on drugs" (90 years of failure and counting) to help Mexico until it could get back on its feet and develop new means of supporting itself.

Of the millions and millions of Americans who do use one or more of the presetly illegal drugs, the vast majority are honest, non-violent citizens. The violence related to the drug trade has been caused by their illegality and the fact that the proceeds cannot be legally protected. The illegality of drugs is also the reason that they are extremely expensive relative to their production and distribution.

I still believe that the net benefits of re-legalization would outweigh the net detriments, especially in the long run, even with the possible Mexican problem factored in. I am old-fashioned. I believe that all adults should be free to live their lives as they choose, regardless of the outcome, just so long as they do not violate the rights of others. That is what used to be called "inalienable rights."

Naivety

Here is a quote by the Evangelist Billy Sunday, speaking upon the advent of the prohibition of alcohol (a true narcotic drug that the anti-alcohol religious people, lobbying Congress, got made illegal, thereby getting their version of religion made legal in the United States . . . 1920 to 1933).

"The reign of tears is over. The slums will soon be only a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and corn cribs. Men will walk upright now, women will smile, and children will laugh. Hell will forever be for rent."

And, of course, the present prohibition of other drugs has made the United States a better, more safe, place to live, with fewer people in prison, and so forth, too . . . yawn.

During the prohibition of alcohol, the murder rate skyrocketed and official corruption was at an all time high. But the laws could not prevent the making and sales of alcohol because too many people wanted it, therefore, making and selling it became extremely profitable, since it was illegal. This is just the same as the so-called war on drugs today. But we must remember, however, that both the prohibition of alcohol and other drugs today actually violate the inalienable rights of adults to non-violent, non-larcenous, consensual adult behavior that, in and of itself, does not violate the rights of other. . . and that should be very, very un-American.

See below

Since the blog site doesn't seem to think that a title could be more than a preset number of characters, I will put my title here:

HOW TO BE AN INDEPENDANT, FREE, AND SELF-RELIANT INDIVIDUAL AND WHY THE GOVERNMENT (AS AN INSTRUMENT OF SPECIAL INTERESTS) VIOLATES YOUR RIGHTS

First:
(a) Do it yourself.
(b) If you can't do it yourself, does it really need to be done?
(c) If it does need to be done and you can't do it yourself, hire someone to do it for you.
(d) If you can't afford to hire someone to do it, does it really need to be done?
(e) If it really needs to be done and you can't afford to hire anyone to do it, find others who think like you and also want to get done whatever it is that you want to get done, then, as a group, get it done.
(f) If you can't find enough others who think like you to get it done, does in really need to be done?
(g) If what you want to get done violates the rights of others who are not, themselves, violating the rights of others, including you, don't do it. You have no right to violate the rights of others, no matter how immoral or wrong you think they may be. That is a religious concept and we, in the United States of America, are supposed to have secular government. Move to the Vatican City or anyone of several mid-East countries if you want to live under a religious government.

You see, if after trying (a)-(f), above, and you still can't get it done and you turn to the government to do it, the government will merely extort (by force or threat of force) enough money from all of those you couldn't get to do it because they didn't think it needed to be done. (Basically, the government will, with enough persuasion, have no problem violating the rights of those whose behavior does not violate the rights of others, but merely irritates them or that those others find to be immoral--a religious concept.) The government will then get it done, but poorly, at a much greater financial cost than if done by private (free)* enterprise, and also at the cost of more precious liberty, by passing laws, regulations, or rules to support that which the people obvioulsy didn't want in the first place.

Second:
Behave towards others as you would have others behave towards you. If they are not committing acts that violate your rights or the rights of innocent others (such as: assault, rape, murder, larceny, willfull defacing or destruction of your property or the property of others, or obvious negligence leading to the harm of others or their property) then leave them alone. Non-violent, non-larcenous, consensual adult behavior that does not violate the rights of others should not be considered criminal behavior. To do so is to believe in rule by religion, not secular reason. If we are ruled by religion, we are ruled by the whims of emotion rather than the principles of logic.


* It is my firmly held belief that in the United States, today, we no longer have "free" enterprise. The very wealthy people and the corporations that they run also run Congress, at least to some extent, and get laws passed that help them at the expense of the rest of us, and at the expense of truly free enterprise. Truly free enterprise exists only when the government does not interfere with or intercede for any person or business, except as the U.S. Constitution, strickly interpreted, allows. Basically, the business of government is not business. It is the protection of the rights of all citizens and the protection of this nation as a whole entity. Corporations are run by people who are citizens, but corporations are not citizens, no matter what the legal fiction is as to their status.

Why the rights of those you disagree with are important

We are still involved in the longest, most socially destructive war in America's history: the so-called war on drugs. A large majority of the citizens of this once great nation are in agreement that the government has the legitimate power to violate the inalienable rights of those whose drug behavior does not violate the rights of their fellow citizens. Why? Is it that the average person is stupid? Is it that the average person can't be bothered to think . . . and to think logically? Is it that the average person believes that the government knows best how to control his or her life? Or is it that because the "common wisdom" is that the use of addictive and dangerous drugs in a recreational, non-medical manner is bad, so therefore the rights of those people who do use said drugs can be legitimately violated?

I believe it is a combination of all the above, but with the emphasis on the last question. But let's discuss this issue logically. Alcohol and tobacco are accepted drugs of recreational, non-medical use; tobacco less so, but still not completely unacceptable among the social majority. That fact is proven by tobacco's legal-to-adults status. Yet, those two substances are the two most harmful non-medical substances in our society. Further, almost all of the violence and much of the harm to the health of the users of the presently illegal drugs comes, not from the mere use of those substances, but rather from their illegal status. (Violent street gangs, violent drug cartels, and terrorists would have a hard time financially without the illegal status of those substances.)

If we (logically) agree that the government was given the legitimate constitutional power to stop behavior that is harmful to ourselves (which I emphatically disagree with)--that is, violate the rights of people whose behavior we may not agree with but which does not violate the rights of innocent others--then why can't the government prohibit the intake of excess calories and "empty" calorie foods? Why can't the government, using the same rationale used in the so-called war on drugs, make all of us go on a calorie restricted and healthy diet for life?

Think of all the lives we could save. It has been estimated by the Center for Disease Control that there are 300,000 premature deaths from obesity every year. That is between 15 to 30 times more such deaths than is caused by all the illegal drugs (depending on whose drug death statistics you agree with). I think we need to have a national movement to get the government to force all those overeaters to go on healthy diets. I think that there needs to be national food ration cards and government clinics to check up on all of us, even the skinny ones, just in case. Yes, let's violate the right of all the citizens and force them into National Socialist Bureaucratic way of thinking just so we can save the lives of those who won't control themselves--their weight and their health.

If the logic works for the, overall, much less harmful presently illegal drugs, how much more will it work for alcohol, tobacco, and poor diets. Let's give the government all our power over our lives so that it can keep us safe from ourselves. In the alternative, let's give all adults back their inalienable rights and only criminally prosecute those who violate the rights of others (the true definition of a crime). Then, and only then will we have a more free and liberty-loving society, if that is even what "the people" now want. Then and only then will the United States, the so-called land of liberty, stop being the world's largest jailer. And only then will the "drug" problem be put into its proper perspective, as a personal problem like obesity; to be tolerated but not causing a never-ending, rights-violating, multi-billion-dollar-per-year "war".

One last warning: The power you give to the government--when you give up certain inalienable rights--to control behavior that you disagree with, but which does not violate your rights or the rights of others, can and eventually will be used against you or your children. The Founding Fathers of the United States of America knew and said that the greatest threat to the freedom and liberty of the people was their own government. Many of us have either forgotten that or never learned it.

Politicians

I had a friend many years ago who had been the mayor of a resort town in the mountains of Northern California. He gave me a definition of a politician. I don't know if it was original with him or not. I've always remembered it, because I am cynical and I liked it. It goes like this:

A politician is a person who looks to see which way the herd is running, makes his way to the front of the herd and, while running in the same direction, yells over his shoulder, "follow me!"

I seriously believe that it doesn't matter who gets elected President of this once great nation because the very rich and influencial people and corporations are pulling the strings. I also seriously believe that any politician who stays in office for more than one term becomes corrupted, no matter what his beliefs and principles were when he first began--although, I believe that many of them begin with a wish, not actually to help their fellow citizen but rather, to aggrandize themselves.

A Better Use of Justice Department Resources

As many of you might know, the U.S. Government has a multi-trillion (yes, trillion) dollar debt, the interest payment of which is 200 billion dollars a year. As I read an article in my morning newspaper about mortgage fraud I thought of how the resources of the Justice Department could be put to better use. First, to the stats on mortgage fraud.

In 2002 banks reported 5,623 incidents of mortgage fraud. In 2007 banks reported 47,717 such incidents. Mortgage fraud is a form of larcenous behavior. It is the behavior of profiting through deceit, by telling lies. Banks use other people's money (your money) to secure loans. When the banks are defrauded the general public suffers from higher banking costs and harder to obtain mortgages by honest people. Mortgage fraud also leads to more defaults and foreclosures which, in turn, leads to lower prices for houses that honest people are trying to sell. Mortgage fraud is just stealing and it hurts all the honest people.

The article (As mortgage fraud multiplies, investigators can't keep up, the Fresno Bee, Sunday, December 30, 2007) noted that due to the "eightfold" increase in mortgage frauds "government agencies that investigate and prosecute [these frauds] cannot keep up,. . ." The government needs to re-focus its resource allocation to vigorously go after real, rights-violating secular crimes, such as mortgage fraud and other rights-violating behavior.

How can they do this without a budget increase, without increasing taxes? It's very simple. Take the money out of the so-called war on drugs and use it to go after real crimes. Use the personnel now involved in the so-called war on drugs to investigate these mortgage frauds.

Why do I say "so-called war on drugs"? Because, as I have consistently stated in my blogs, the so-called war on drugs is actually a war on rights. Adults--if they have the right to the ownership of their bodies and minds and if they have inalienable rights and if they have true freedom and liberty--have the right to use drugs that may be addictive and harmful to their health. My proof?--alcohol and tobacco. Those two "legal" drugs cause far more harm, death, and destruction than the "mere" use of the presently illegal ones. Almost all of the violence and real rights-violating behavior related to the presently illegal drugs come from that fact that they are illegal. Once upon a time those drugs were legal to adults and there was no criminal justice problems associated with their manufacture, sales, or use. If adults have a right to use alcohol and tobacco then why don't they have an equal right to use less harmful drugs?

We, "the people", need to tell our legislators and government officials at all levels to stop violating the rights of otherwise honest adults and uphold the principle of inalienable rights. We need to tell them to use scarce government resources to go after real criminals, those whose behavior actually violate the rights of others. After all, using a drug is a moral issue, which comes under the general heading of religion. Stop prosecuting "sinners" (who don't believe in or accept your version of morality or go to your church) and focus on the "criminals" whose behavior is wrong because it harms, physically or financially, innocent others.

Oh Wonderful Woman (a poem)

Oh wonderful woman,
So winsome,
But so wily;
You wear upon my will
And tear upon my thrill
Of seeing you and me
Flesh to flesh,
Lips locked in love,
Legs twined
Like fingers in a glove;
And fingers, too,
Touching gently
Our passioned places;
Our bodies writhing with
Sensuous embraces.
All that we can give . . .
This moment . . .
We give now.
Time has stopped,
For all intent,
And we are now.

(Originally published on Monday, July 30, 2007)

Alcohol v. Heroin

Before I get to the meat of this article, I want to make it very clear that I do not promote the use of any mind-altering, possible addictive, possible dangerous drug, alcohol included and the laws to prevent minors from having access to such drugs are good and valid, as minors do not have full adult rights. But adults, having full adult rights, have the right to use or abuse any drug they wish just so long as they do not violate the rights of others in so doing. (But for the so-called war on drugs, few if any of "the rights of others" would be violated by people merely using any of the presently illegal drugs.)

Everyone knows that heroin is really bad stuff, right? So I would like to show you a couple of examples of how heroin and alcohol can affect both the user and innocent others.

It is medically verified that if you take a hardcore heroin addict, one who is using large amounts of his drug every day, and you lock him up and he can't get his heroin, he will go through withdrawals. He will feel like he is going to die, but he won't. If you take a hardcore alcoholic, one who is legally drunk every day, for most of the day, and lock him up and he can't get his alcohol, he will go through withdrawals. He will feel like he is going to die and quite possibly could. A heavy-duty alcoholic, who tries to quit "cold turkey" or who is forced to do so, can and quite often will go into convulsions and die. This fact is, as I said, medically proven. So, in this respect, alcohol is a worse drug than heroin.

If a female heroin addict gets pregnant and continues her heroin use, her baby can, and probably will, be born as a heroin addict and go through withdrawals. But it will get over them and, if given proper nurturing and nutrition, will go on to live a healthy life. If a female alcoholic gets pregnant and continues to abuse alcohol her baby can, and probably will, be born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and it will never get over that. All of its life it will be emotionally and intellectually challenged, no matter how much good nurturing and nutrition it gets. So, once again, we see that alcohol, in this respect, is worse than heroin.

If one of the Constitutionally legitimate purposes of our government is to enforce certain moral codes and to prevent adults from harming themselves with drug use, then why isn't the government waging a "war on alcohol" as it did in the 1920's? From the two examples above you can clearly see that alcohol is a worse drug than heroin. Further, just in deaths per year from the use or abuse of certain drugs, shows that heroin is not nearly as bad as alcohol. There are between 7,000 and 8,000 deaths per year related to heroin. There are between 85,000 and 100,000 alcohol related deaths per year. So, in respect to deaths per year, alcohol is 10 times worse. But it should be pointed out that up to 45% of all heroin overdose deaths are actually caused by using alcohol along with the heroin. (Another 30% are caused by using another central nervous system depressant, besides alcohol, with the heroin. Pure heroin use overdose deaths are rare.)

Here is another interesting fact about heroin.

Unlike alcohol or tobacco, heroin causes no ongoing toxicity to the tissues or organs of the body. Apart from causing some constipation, it appears to have no side effects in most who take it. When administered safely, its use may be consistent with a long and productive life. The principal harm comes from the risk of overdose, problems with injecting, drug impurities and adverse legal or financial consequences.

That quote was taken from Drug War Facts at paragraph 20.

I emphatically disagree with the political principle that the government is legitimately, by the powers granted to it in the U.S. Constitution, our moral master and has the legitimate power to stop people from harming themselves by using addictive and dangerous drugs. But, if that was a fact, then it would only be logical for the government to stamp out the pernicious and much more harmful practise of making, selling, and using alcoholic beverages rather than heroin. An analogy is that a person has a broken thumb (heroin) and a broken leg with the bone sticking out through the skin (alcohol) but the government all but ignores the broken leg in order to attempt to fix the broken thumb.

Of course, it all makes sense if you understand that I am talking about logic, and that the government--the people running it--are anything but logical. I have hope, however, that enough politicians will, one day, pull their heads out of where the sun doesn't shine and do the right thing. It's a very small hope, but a hope none-the-less.

Comic Strips

I mentioned in my last post that I read the daily paper. I also like to read the comic strips. Some of them are actually funny, or make a good point. Today I read "Zits" and the character "Pierce" (because of all his body piercings) had a question that I think is relavant . . . it also made me laugh. Maybe you will find it to be humorous too.

"If a dude says something and his girl friend doesn't hear him, is he still wrong?"

Is that a tree I hear falling in the forest? :)

I Guess Ann Coulter Isn't a Christian

I don't read Ann Coulter articles but every now and then I will see a quote by her that just amazes me. Take today, for example. I read in my daily newspaper (yes, I am old enough that I actually like the print medium) the following quote by Ms. Coulter: "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity." She was talking about the Islamic nations.

I have read the Bible; the Old Testament twice and the New Testament once. And I was raised as a Christian, although I am no longer one . . . but then I really do try to use logic rather than emotion to analyzed the world in which we live. The thing that gets me about the above quote by Ms. Coulter is that it is so very un-Christian.

I don't have a Bible handy right now, but I do remember quite clearly that Jesus was supposed to have said something very close to this: "Bless those who vilely abuse you." And no where in the teachings of Jesus do I remember him saying go out and kill the enemy. As John Pryne said in his Vietnam protest song, American Flag Decal, "Jesus don't like killing no matter what the reason for." I believe that is one of the foundations of being a true Christian, because his kingdom is not of this Earth. So true Christians aren't supposed to be too attached to wordly things and they are supposed to try (even though they can't achieve it completely) to behave as Jesus would, or would want them to.

I also wonder if Ms. Coulter wants to force everyone in the world to become a Christian? That's very un-Christian too. As I understand it, Jesus wants each individual to come to him of their own free will. Ms. Coulter sounds like a tyrannical terrorist when she makes statements like that.

So, I guess that Ann Coulter isn't a Christian, at least not by what she says. But then, all things considered, neither is King George II, although he claims to have been "born again."

Sweet Memories of Susan . . . a poem

How I ache at the loss of you.
But, oh, the memories that I keep.
How I hate you for becoming my enemy,
Taking from me that which was sweet.

Never more shall I hold you, hear you,
See you, smell you . . . or taste your lips.
Never more shall I dream of you and me
And Bunny Ranch. That's gone now; rest in peace.

But I have my memories,
Slightly tinged with bitter over the sweet.
I have my memories still,
Which, overall, are good and I shall always keep.

Oh Susan my love! Oh Susan my enemy!
How I hate you, but mostly, oh, how I love you,
And ache with memories of other times;
Memories that are happy; memories that are sweet.

(February 1998)

A Foundation for True Personal Freedom and Liberty

In the news today, reported several times in an hour on several news programs, was a report how the king of Arabia pardoned a 19-year-old woman. She had been sentenced to six months in jail and 200 lashes* (upped from 90 lashes because she appealed her sentence and, according to the Saudi Justice Department, tried to use the media to sway the court). The woman was a married woman. She met with a man who was not from her family. She was not escorted by a male member of her family. In Arabia, as in most of the strict Muslim nations, that act was tantamount to adultery. She was seen in the car of the man she met and she was taken by several men and raped. The Saudi court, following religious law, said that she instigated the rape by her immoral actions of meeting with the man in the first place.

We in the West think that the punishment was wrong . . . completely and absolutely wrong. But then we believe in something that the Saudis don't and that the Muslim religion disagrees with: women are people in their own right and not the possessions of their husbands, or their fathers, or some other male member of their family if not married. The Muslim world is ruled by the Muslim religion . . . and men.

In the West we also believe in something that the Muslims don't: the principle of individual, or inalienable rights. At least most Western governments, the United States included, give the principle of individual rights lip service. (Quite often what is taught in schools and what the politicians and leaders say is different from what laws they pass and enforce, as we shall see, below.)

The Muslims believe that it is okay for a man, if he can afford it, to have as many as four wives. We believe that is immoral. We believe that it is okay to make, sell, and drink alcoholic beverages. The Muslim religion, and therefore the laws of their governments, such as in Saudi Arabia, believe that is immoral and strictly forbid alcohol, punishing severely anyone caught making it, selling it, or drinking it.

Because I am a product, if you will, of the West, I believe that our tradition of individual rights, when it is actually upheld, is the only logical and correct way for a society to be truly free, with liberty and justice for all. There is a problem, however, as I have indicated. Quite often the principle of individual, or inalienable rights is only given lip service. The so-called war on drugs is an important example of the violation of the rights of otherwise honest citizens by the government.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that there is no definite legal--or socially accepted--definition of what an inalienable right is. That is why I have proposed my own definition:

Any and all non-violent, non-coerced, non-larcenous, consensual adult behavior that does not physically harm others or their property, that is not a direct and immediate threat to others and their property, that does not disturb the peace or create a public nuisance is an inalienable right.

Therefore, if a person grows, sells, or uses, say, marijuana, that is that person's right. The government, of course, has the legitimate power to regulate the growing, selling, and even use . . . to some extent, as it does with alcohol and tobacco. And this right extends to all of the presently illegal drugs, also.

I should not have to remind you that alcohol is a true narcotic drug. It is also the drug that (the mere use of which) causes about 50% of all violent crimes, including murders. And its abuse by pregnant women causes Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, the greatest cause of retardation in newborns. Yet this drug is legal and marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and so forth, are illegal. Those drugs, combined, the mere use of them, doesn't cause one-tenth the problems that alcohol does. And tobacco is even worse (in terms of premature deaths per year, medical costs, lost work time, and so forth). Yet they are legal.

Well, in Saudi Arabia it is legal for a man to have four wives. It is legal to kill a woman who has committed adultery . . . or even fornication. Several years ago one of the Saudi princesses was caught in a sexual affair with a man. She was not married. She was condemned and publicly beheaded . . . so was her lover. Does that shock and disgust you? It should. But there are people in the United States who have not violated any one's rights either and they are on death row, or serving life in prison, or just serving 20 to 30 years . . . for non-violent, non-coerced, non-larcenous, consensual adult drug behavior. That should shock and disgust you too. It should shock and disgust you that our supposedly free and liberty-loving nation, the people of it, allow the government to pass laws that violate the rights of otherwise honest people.

You don't have to agree that using certain drugs or substances is moral, but to agree to allow the government to put people in prison for using them is immoral also. Vices aren't crimes. The use of "recreational" drugs is a vice; that includes alcohol, tobacco, cocaine, and heroin, among others. If you say that it is right that heroin sellers and users should go to prison, then what about the alcohol and tobacco makers and users, as those two drugs are much, much more harmful to indviduals than the presently illegal ones. And I wish to make it clear that I am talking only about adults, never minors. Besides, under a system of regulated re-legalization it would be harder for minors to obtain the drugs that are now illegal but available nearly everywhere and anywhere by anyone who wants to buy them, adults or minors. .

If we don't have a solid foundation on which to place the principle of inalienable rights (such as my definition), then we are no better than the Saudis and the other religiously-ruled Muslim nations. If a person does not have the right to use his or her body and mind in any way he or she chooses, where such use does not violate the rights of others, even if it brings a person to ruin (as alcohol does to so many), then we are not truly free and do not truly have our liberty. We only have the right to do whatever the government allows us to do. And that is not acceptable to me. I hope with all my heat that it is not acceptable to you either. Remember, America, the so-called land of the free, with only 5% of the world's population, has 25% of the world's imprisoned population. We have over two million people in our prisons and jails, nearly half of whom are there for drug behavior that did not violate the rights of others. That is an outrage and an obscenity . . . but it is legal.

* Two hundred lashes, administered with a proper whip and as they are supposed to be administered, can and, quite often, will kill the recipient of the lashes, especially a 19-year-old woman.

A Few Words by Micheal Crichton on Global Warming

How many of you knew that Micheal Crichton, the famous novelist, had graduated from Harvard Medical School and that he was a "fellow" at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, after having finished his doctoral thesis? What does that mean? It means that he is well studied in scientific method. He's not just some loony writer who spouts his mouth off about controversial subjects.

Here is some of what he said in a speech he gave in 2003 about global warming and weather predictions:

Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're being asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future? And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost their minds?

Let's think back to people in 1900 in, say, New York. If they worried about people in 2000, what would they worry about? Probably: Where would people get enough horses? And what would they do about all the horseshit? Horse pollution was bad in 1900, think how much worse it would be a century later, with so many more people riding horses?

But of course, within a few years, nobody rode horses except for sport. And in 2000, France was getting 80% its power from an energy source that was unknown in 1900. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Japan were getting more than 30% from this source, unknown in 1900. Remember, people in 1900 didn't know what an atom was. They didn't know its structure. They also didn't know what a radio was, or an airport, or a movie, or a television, or a computer, or a cell phone, or a jet, an antibiotic, a rocket, a satellite, an MRI, ICU, IUD, IBM, IRA, ERA, EEG, EPA, IRS, DOD, PCP, HTML, internet. interferon….

Now. You tell me you can predict the world of 2100. Tell me it's even worth thinking about. Our models just carry the present into the future. They're bound to be wrong. Everybody who gives a moment's thought knows it."

The above was quoted in an excellent article entitled Diagnosing Al Gore: Truth in Balance, by Mary Ellen Tiffany Gilder. You might want to read that article and look around the site a bit. (I had the URL here, but it no longer works, but if you type "Diagnosing Al Gore" into your search bar, you should come up with "Diagnosing Al Gore: Truth in the Balance - Man Made Global Warming." This is a "siteweave.net" site and by clicking on the title you should get to the article. Then, on the right, in the blue box, click on "Unlikely CO2 . . . ." and go to the bottom of that section for the Michael Crichton quote.)

Obedience or Support: Adult, Child, or Slave

In the essay Personal Responsibility under Dictatorship, by Hannah Arendt (found in her book Responsibility and Judgment), Arendt states:

The only domain where the word [obedience] could possibly apply to adults who are not slaves is the domain of religion, in which people say that they obey the word or command of God because the relationship between God and men can rightly be seen in terms similar to the relation between adult and child.

Arendt was discussing the difference between "obeying" and "supporting" a person, idea, principle, or law in a political and moral context. To obey is to suggest you are a slave (or a child). To support is to say that you agree and go along with whatever it is that is being asked or demanded of you.

Therefore, to obey a law that violated the rights of others, when you are neither a slave or a child, means that you must support that law . . . or you have lost the ability to think logically, along with your moral compass.

With that in mind, do you obey, that is, support the anti-drug-use laws where the imbibing of a narcotic drug (alcohol) is seen a socially acceptable and legal, but the inhaling of the smoke of a marijuana cigarette is seen as criminal and morally wrong. The use of alcohol or marijuana (among other drugs) does not, in and of itself, violate the rights of others. Yet the rights of a marijuana smoker can be violated by his or her arrest, confiscation of property, and loss of care of his or her children, as well as imprisonment; all for not violating the rights of others.

The government is not God. It is supposed to be a secular organization dedicated to the protection of rights and not the purveyor of correct moral standards where no one's rights are being violated by other private citizens. The war on drugs, the anti-drug-use laws are the greatest quasi-religious violation of the rights of all adult citizens of the United States in the history of this once great nation. And the majority of those citizens support this violation of rights.

Drug War Facts

One of the sites that I have saved in my "favorites" is Drug War Facts. Here are a few of the facts that everyone should know.

A U.S. Department of Justice report, dated April of 1998, indicated that "for more than 40% of convicted murderers being held in either jail or State prison, alcohol use was a factor in the crime." Paragraph 16, of the Drug War Facts regarding crime. Also read paragraph 1 and see the chart about the rise and fall of murder in the U.S. It is directly related to prohibition--of alcohol, in the 1920's, and of other drugs, from the 1970's to the present.

In another Drug War Facts report, on alcohol (from the same U.S.D.J. report as above), it stated that "[o]n an average day in 1996, an estimated 5.3 million convicted offenders were under the supervision of criminal justice authorities. Nearly 40% of these offenders, about 2 million, had been using alcohol at the time of the offense for which they were convicted. That is at paragraph 3, but also see paragraph 4.

Finally, from Drug War Facts, in a report about annual causes of deaths, the chart shows that the three leading causes of premature death in the U.S. are: Tobacco at 435,000, Poor Diet and Physical Inactivity at 365,000, and Alcohol at 85,000. The figure given for All Illicit Drug Use, Direct and Indirect is 17,000.

I have a bit of a problem with the above figures. It is not clear, but I believe that I am right when I say, that the figure for alcohol should be increased by at least 8,000, as the number of verifiable homicides committed by people who had been drinking when they committed their crime is 40%. (Just check the links I gave you and you can see that this is true.) Therefore, the figure for alcohol should be, at the very least, 93,000. (But a CATO report from 1989, Policy Analysis 121, Thinking about Drug Legalization, by James Ostrowski [May 25, 1989], puts the deaths from alcohol per year at 200,000. Click on the link and go to Table 4 and sub paragraph b.)

Then there is the fact that the figure for all drug use includes deaths not caused by the mere use of the drugs, but by the effects of trying to prevent their manufacture, sales, and use: murders, as well as, HIV and hepatitis infections mainly. So the 17,000 could be several thousands less were those drugs to be re-legalized.

In any case, it is extremely clear that the two legal drugs, alcohol and tobacco, are several times more harmful than the presently illegal ones when it comes to just premature deaths per year. The combined figure for alcohol and tobacco, in deaths per year, is 435,000 plus 93,000 (my adjusted figure for alcohol), or 528,000 versus 17,000 (but probably less). This means that alcohol and tobacco use are 31 times more harmful than the presently illegal drugs.

If the purpose of government is to be our parent and religious/personal moral standards leader (which it most definitely is not) and to protect us from our own bad choices (bad being a subjective word), then why doesn't Big Daddy Government ban the two most harmful drugs--more harmful by far--instead of spending billions and billions of your tax dollars on the much, much less harmful drugs?

But more, if you and I, as adults, have right to use and even abuse two such harmful drugs as alcohol and tobacco (just so long as we do not violate the rights of others in so using or abusing), then why don't we have an equal right to use or abuse the other, less harmful drugs (again, just so long as we do not violate the rights of others)? The so-called war on drugs is not about drugs, it is about the violation of the rights of otherwise honest adults to chose how to live their lives, whether for better or worse, without the illegitimate interference of a quasi-religious government trying to force us to be moral by the standards of some of the people. That is tantamount to the government saying to me and you that we must go to a particular church, even though we don't practice that faith.

And you thought that we were a nation of personal freedom and true liberty.

Mixed Bag

DRUGS:
I recently came across two U.S. Supreme Court cases (I'm editing a book on ineffective assistance of counsel) in which the defendants were convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Also, they both suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome. For the uninitiated, alcohol abuse by pregnant women and the resulting fetal alcohol syndrome is the number one cause of retardation in newborns. I have never heard of or seen anything that could point to marijuana as having such a damning and damaging effect. But, of course, alcohol is legal, marijuana isn't. Which just goes to show once again that legal cannot be equated with justice. Fifty percent or more of federal prisoners are in prison for marijuana law violations. Producers and sellers of alcohol, in the mean time, are considered honest, honorable, upstanding citizens.

POPULIST IDEAS:
When an idea is promoted by politicians and other influential people, especially if it gets enacted into law, and the public--trusting souls that they are--believe that, because the government has adopted this idea, it must be right and good, they take to it as if it was written in stone . . . even if it is a bad idea . . . and it is all but impossible to stop it. (Examples: The war on drugs, welfare, nationalized medicine (coming soon), and that the government must restrict your liberty in order to ensure your security.)

RESPONSIBILITY:
If you, as an individual, choose to eat a poor diet and live an unhealthy lifestyle, including smoking and drinking alcoholic beverages, and if you become seriously ill years later because of your choices, whose fault is it? And do your neighbors, through their taxes, have an obligation to pay your medical bill, in full or in part. You have the right to harm yourself. I have the right to refuse to help you when you do. Or, as a wise man once said, "let them die in the desert." (He was organizing a bike tour from Phoenix to Tucson and had made detailed maps and instruction when one of his helpers suggested that some people might need to have a real person at a couple of the junctions in order to keep them from getting lost.)

CONSENSUAL SEX:
I believe that all sex should be consensual. What to I mean by that? I mean that the people involved (masturbation is, by definition, a consensual act) should be old enough, mature enough, and knowledgeable enough to understand the emotional as well as the physical risks, and accept those risks. By this definition some fifteen-year-olds could have consensual sex, and some fifty-year-olds could not.

MOVIES:
the Golden Compass is catching some static from the religious community, especially the Catholics. That's a bit hypocritical. The Bible clearly states that we (the believers in the Bible as the word of God) are not to have "graven images." I've seen enough "good" Catholics praying to statues to know that they are idolaters. And, as to Narnia, written by C. S. Lewis, who was a Christian apologist, well, to have animals portrayed as being human-like, speaking, reasoning, and so forth, also goes against the teachings of the Bible. But this is all about fantasy and emotion--which is a good definition of religion. For a little logic, you might want to ask yourself what the good lion king in Narnia ate. After all, lions are pure carnivores. They must eat meat to survive. So which of his subjects did he eat when he was hungry?

Old Nonsense From the U.S. Supreme Court

I am proofreading a legal book about ineffective assistance of counsel. I was checking on some quotations from Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), when I came across the following in the majority opinion: "Where rights secured by the Constitution are involved, there can be no rule making or legislation which would abrogate them." 384 U.S. at 491.

I call this nonsense for the following reason. The principle of inalienable rights (which is merely given lip service at all levels of government) should mean that a person actually and completely owns the property of his or her body and mind. That would mean that a person could use that property as he or she wants, just so long as in so doing that person does not violate the rights of others. That means, as adults (minors do not have full adult rights) a person should be able to use any chemical substance or drug he or she wishes--for any reason--if not violating the rights of others in so doing. Yet the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the laws that prohibits the manufacture, sales, and use of certain chemicals and drugs; laws that violate the inalienable rights of otherwise honest adults; the above Supreme Court quote notwithstanding.

Oh, and did I mention that the legal drugs, alcohol and nicotine, cause between 40 and 50 times more harm--disease, disability, and death--than all the illegal drugs combined? Or that the use of alcohol is the number one cause of both violent crimes and retardation in newborns? None of that matters because they are legal, whatever that means. One thing it doesn't mean is just.

Never confuse the fact that legality and justice do not equate. Otherwise, why would nearly one-half of our prison population, nearly one million people, be incarcerated for drug related activity? The vast majority of those people did not violate anyone's rights with their drug behavior. What they did was to offend the moral and religious beliefs of people who were able to get their beliefs enacted into secular law. That is not justice and it should be illegal.

And Now, a Word From an Expert about Anti-Drug Legislation

Stop the War is an article that Joseph D. McNamara, former Police Chief of San Jose, California with 35 years of police experience, wrote for The Washington Post, Sunday, May 19, 1996.

Here are some excerpts from that article.

Most Americans are startled to hear that until the passage of the Harrison Act in 1914, drug use was viewed as a medical and social problem and was not against the criminal law. There was no billion-dollar black market. No violent drug trade No widespread official corruption. No widespread disrespect for drug laws. Drug users went to their doctors if they needed treatment.

There were drug problems. In fact, around the turn of the century large numbers of housewives were addicted to opium. Nerve medicine for women, containing opium, was sold across the counter at drug stores. Other addictive substances were sold as patent medicines. Gradually. the medical profession became more aware of the addictive nature of some drugs and supported the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which required labeling and warnings for habit-forming substances.

That law was a civil one; it did not criminalize drug users. It is instructive. The number of addicts and users was greatly reduced by educating them, not by arresting them.

Criminalizing drugs in the United States was a remarkable change in public policy. But it wasn't the police who were lobbying for the passage of the Harrison Act, which was the cornerstone of increasingly punitive laws against drug users and sellers. The Protestant missionary societies in China, the Women's Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League and other organized religions were the prime movers. In their view, drug use was sinful and people had to be saved from their baser instincts. In effect, they managed to get their version of sin enacted into the penal code, an old habit of power elites in America.

This view of drug users as criminals continues to haunt us and makes rational political debate impossible. It is too appealing for politicians to picture themselves as the good guys fighting evil.

....

Nobel-winning economist Milton Friedman, doing a comparative analysis with homicide rates during Prohibition, estimated that as many as 10,000 murders a year are caused by the illegality of drugs. In addition, corruption of law enforcement, the legal profession and even the armed forces related to drug money is spreading.

That last paragraph is significant because the government figures for deaths from drugs for all causes is between 16,000 and 20,000 per year. If 10,000 are drug-law-related murders, that means that only 6,000 to 10,000 deaths per year are related to the mere use of the presently illegal drugs. Compare that to the 85,000 to 100,000 people dying prematurely due to the use of alcohol, or the more than 400,000 from the use of tobacco. And yet we, as taxpayers, are allowing the government to scare us, and lie to us, and to violate our inalienable rights, and use our money to the tune of anywhere from 50 billion to 100 billion dollars a year to try and stop the 6,000 to 10,000 deaths per year caused by the mere use of certain drugs. (If drugs were re-legalized, like the re-legalization of alcohol in 1933, the murders related to the drug prohibition would stop, as they did after the alcohol prohibition.)

I'm not saying that 6,000 to 10,000 people that misuse drugs (alcohol plus heroin is the usual cause of "heroin overdose" deaths) are to be dismissed out of hand. But compared to the extremely greater amount of deaths caused by the legal drugs alcohol and nicotine, they shrink into insignificance. Besides, adults are supposed to have inalienable rights. That means that they own the property of their bodies and their minds and have a "right" to use them as they wish, even if in so using them it causes them harm or death. That's what true personal liberty and freedom is all about. Otherwise, the government would have the legitimate power to ban all activities that might cause people harm or death . . . like driving race cars, climbing mountains, skiing, swimming, or just the daily commute.

If you don't like a person's personal moral beliefs or lifestyle, you can't force that person to stop or change, unless that person has harmed you or your property, or is a direct and immediate threat to you or your property. Merely snorting cocaine or smoking marijuana, or injecting heroin does not rise to the level of harming or endangering others. And if you, as a private individual can't force someone to change their lifestyle, then the government can't either. The government derives its proper power from the people. If the people don't have it, the government can't have it.

But that is just so much boring political history, brought to us by the Founding Fathers of this nation, who would be shocked insensible at the amount of government interference that now exists in the lives of otherwise honest, self-supporting citizens . . . and is tolerated by them.

Wake up America. The government has become a tyranny.

My question to you, America, is why are you allowing this b.s. to continue. And why do you believe that religious beliefs should be the basis of our secular laws and secular government. I, and millions like me, don't worship at that church.

Individual Liberty v. Government Force

"[T]he police must obey the law while enforcing the law; that in the end life and liberty can be as much endangered from illegal methods used to convict those thought to be criminals as from the actual criminals themselves." Spano v. New York, 360 U.S. 315, 320-21 (1959). So said the United States Supreme Court in 1959.

Where are we today with the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretapping, cellphone tracking, and so forth? When a government, in the name of security, destroys liberty, as our Founding Fathers knew, you will have tyranny. You will have tyranny because the type of person who wants to be in government, in control, is not the kind of person to be trusted out of your sight. All people are weak in one way or another, or in many ways. The desire to attain power over others is one of those weaknesses, one that will lead, eventually, if unchecked, to an absolute and complete tyranny over the people.

You don't believe me? Julius Caesar took the Romans from republic to tyranny. Lenin and Stalin change one tyranny, the rule of the Czar, for another, the rule of the "party members." Hitler, slowly and legally, changed Germany from a relatively safe and sane country into a tyrannous and paranoid regime. This desire to control and to be powerful is an addiction, from the level of the policeman in the street, city alderman, state or national legislator, or prime minister or president of a nation. Power is a seductive drug that few, given the opportunity, can resist.

It is not a matter of if America develops a totally tyrannous government. It is only a matter of when it will happen. Remember, to govern means to control. How much control by a politician or government bureaucrat do you need? How much will you put up with before you openly and vehemently protest? And will it be too late then?

Now here are a couple of quotes by two wise people:

"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny." Thomas Jefferson

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." Ben Franklin

But there is more. I started out with a U.S. Supreme Court quote. I want to now briefly mention, along with individual liberty, the antiquated and no longer supported principle of inalienable rights. The anti-drug laws that the U.S. Supreme Court upholds fully and without hesitation, violate the rights of otherwise honest people who wish to make or sell, certain chemical substances, natural or synthetic, or merely use them in a mind-altering, recreational manner.

The vast majority of the people who use these drugs do not violate the rights of others due to the mere use of these drugs. Almost all of the violence surrounding drug use (alcohol excepted, of course) is due to the laws making them illegal. In the last part of the 19Th Century and the first part of the 20Th Century, these drugs were legally available (and inexpensive), but there was no, I repeat, no criminal justice problem associated with their use . . . and addiction rates were dropping as more people were becoming aware of their addictive nature.

The drug war is a direct violation of the inalienable rights of adults and yet the U.S. Supreme Court upholds those rights-violating laws (which are based on religious and personal moral beliefs). The U.S. Supreme Court, in the mid-19Th Century, also upheld the vile and rights violating institution of slavery. It upheld the Fugitive Slave Act, which allowed slave owners to go into "free" states and capture runaway slaves. It also made criminal anyone helping slaves to run a way from their evil incarceration.

Slavery in general and the Fugitive Slave Act in particular were evil and they violated the rights of people, yet they were legal and the Supreme Court upheld this evilness because it was legal. So, when you think of the Supreme Court decision that are being handed down today, think: justice or legal? Because what is legal quite often does not equal justice.

I will leave you with a couple more quotes:

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." Thomas Jefferson

"It is true that, in the United States, at least, we have a constitution that imposes strict limits on some powers of the government. But, as we have discovered in the past century, no constitution can interpret or enforce itself; it must be interpreted by men. And if the ultimate power to interpret a constitution is given to the government’s own Supreme Court, then the inevitable tendency is for the Court to continue to place its imprimatur on ever-broader powers for its own government." Murray Rothbard.

Think about it, okay? That's all I ask you to do.

LUCIFER

Puzzle me this, Christians: An ancient meaning for the word "lucifer"--a pre-Christian meaning--was "light bringer", referring to Venus, the morning "star."

One who brings the light. The light for what? Merely the precursor to the sun? Perhaps. But also, remember that Prometheus, a Titan in Greek mythology (as opposed to Christian mythology) brought light (fire) to mankind . . . and was punished forever for that act.

Christians call the great evil by several names. Among them are Lucifer, Satan, and Devil, or rather, "the Devil." But from where did the Devil come.

Again, Christians belief that their God created the universe and everything in it. They also believe that their God is all-powerful and all-knowing. Ergo, their God created the Devil, knowingly--because to have create "it" without knowing would logically mean that said God wasn't all-knowing. Ergo, the Christian God created what we call evil. Or, in the alternative, the Christian God is not all-knowing and all-powerful . . . so then what else is it not?

Something from the introduction of my "52 Perverse Questions"

Most people have a hard time dealing directly with sexual issues in a logical manner, especially when it comes to their own sexuality. Here is a question of logic for you to answer. Would the Creator God (assuming such a thing exists) have made humans to be so sexual for no reason whatsoever? How sexual are humans? Both men and women have a great capacity for sexual enjoyment, in many different ways, from many different people…or objects…and, yes, even from animals. Women do not have a sexual “season”. If approached in the right way by the right person, a woman will have sex at any time of the day or night, any time of the week, month, or year. A woman may even initiate such action. Women have a great capacity to enjoy a lot of sex in many ways and they have this wonderful ability to have multiple orgasms. (However, having the ability and having the desire, are two different things.) Men, of course, are ready to have sex whenever and where ever they can find it. And, unlike most mammals, most men when in their prime can have sex every day, sometimes more than once a day, for weeks or months or years on end. Also, human males, pound for pound, tend to have the largest penises of almost all, if not in fact all, mammals. * So why, then, would a Creator God tell us (through his priestly minions on Earth) that sex between one man and one woman, who are married, in which they participate only in face-to-face, penile-vaginal sex, and only for procreation and not pleasure, is proper and correct sex…if you have to do it at all. Now that’s perverse!

If sex didn’t feel good and we weren’t supposed to have sex except to have babies, then we wouldn’t have overpopulation and six billion plus people on this planet. So why did the alleged Creator God create us with the ability to enjoy sex so much and then tell us that we shouldn’t do it except under certain restricted circumstances? That’s illogical…unless the message was garbled in the translation from God-Talk to human-talk, and the real message was that we were supposed to enjoy sex as much as we can, but that we are supposed to be careful; don’t cause unwanted pregnancies, don’t pass diseases around, don’t harm other people in our sexual urges, and be responsible for our actions and their consequences. Of course, there could be another explanation; that there is no creator god and that we have to learn these things by using our logical brains.

* The blue whale is the largest mammal alive today. By the best estimates of scientists, a male’s erect penis can reach a length of six and a half feet, or 78 inches. Blue whales can reach weights of up to 150 tons, but for this analysis I will use a weight of 130 tons, or 260,000 pounds. A thoroughbred stallion of 1,200 pounds can have an erect penis length of 30 inches. A human male of 200 pounds can have an erect penis length of 6 inches. (There are men with penis lengths much greater, but 6 inches is a good average. I have also seen photos of men with penis circumferences that rival or exceed those of many horses.) If we divide the penis length in inches by pounds, we can establish ratios for comparative penis size of these three mammals.



• 78 divided by 260,000 = 0.0003
• 30 divided by 1,200 = 0.025
• 6 divided by 200 = 0.03

The larger the number, the greater the penis size is in relation to the body weight. (And 0.03, three-hundredths, is one hell of a lot bigger than 0.0003, three-ten-thousandths.) If we use the human male’s ratio number as a whole number and adjust the other two numbers to it, then for humans, horses, and blue whales we have a comparative ratio of 3 to 2.4 to 0.03. As we can see, even though the blue whale has the largest actual penis, by far, it has an incredibly small erect penis length as a ratio to its body weight. That would be like the human male having an erect penis length of 0.06 inches, six-hundredths of an inch (0.06 divided by 200 = 0.0003). And, our human male also beat out the stallion in comparative erect penis length. So ask yourself this: Why would a creator god create a human male with such a comparatively large erect penis, from which he can derive so much enjoyment, and then tell him not to use it except in the most restricted of circumstances? (Male gorillas, which are much more massive than human males, effectively breed their females with a penis that only averages one and a half inches in length.) You should also know that a healthy, mature stud (stallion), in a good breeding season and in a natural setting, such as in a pasture or field, may breed between 25-30 mares. It will then need a long break—like until next year—and be glad for it. Hell, when I was 35, I met and fell in love with a woman and shortly thereafter we were living together. We had sex nearly every night, or day, sometimes more than once a day, for at least a year before we slowed down…slowed down, not stopped. And I am sure that there are men out there who have done even better—if sex more than once a day for a year is better.

KOYAANISQATSI

Koyaanisqatsi is a Hopi (Indian) word for a world turned upside down, or something very close to that. (By the way, when I use the word "Indian" I am referring to the first inhabitants of the Americas -- North, Central, and South. I an not referring to a people who were better than the Europeans who came later, just different.)

So why is the world turned upside down? Because your government (I learned years ago that the U.S. Government was not mine by choice) continues to do really illogical and stupid things.

Recently in the news, the U.S. Sentencing Commission decided to reduce the penalties for "crack" cocaine, making it more equal to "regular" cocaine. (The physiological effects upon the body is no different.) And now they want to make the reduction in prison sentences retroactive. The Bush administration is strenuously objecting. They are saying that the, approximately, 20,000 inmates in federal prison (this will not affect state prisoners) are "hardcore" drug dealers and this would be a community disaster to let them out all at once.

First of all, they won't all be let out at once. It's just a bit more complicated than that . . . and the Bushies know that. But second, and more importantly, those now in prison for "crack" cocaine (or any of the presently illegal drugs) by and large did not violate the rights of others while selling their drugs. How can something be a (secular) "crime" if no one's rights are violated? That sounds like a religious law to me. And, of course, that is the basis of the so-called war on drugs: a religious (or personal moral issues--which is just another way of saying religion) war on those who believe in the right to the full and complete ownership of their bodies and their minds. And, if we do actually own our bodies and mind, then, under the principle of inalienable rights, we can use drugs (as adults--minors do not have full adult rights) if we so desire.

The vast majority of all the violence involved in the manufacture and sales of the presently illegal drugs is due to their illegality. Once (over 100 years ago) they were not illegal and there was no criminal justice problems associated with their use, unlike alcohol, a true narcotic drug, the very use of which causes the majority of all violent crimes. Also, 100 years ago, as people were becoming more aware of the addictive nature of those drugs, and with the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act, which mandated listing addictive drugs on the labels of products for human consumption, addiction rates were going down.

Okay, so far? Then, on "Fox and Friends" (Thursday, 8 November 2007), Sean "Diddy" Combs was promoting his new product, a specialty vodka. Vodka is an alcoholic beverage and alcohol is (as stated above) a true narcotic drug. It is addictive, its use causes the majority of violent crime; its use is the number one cause of retardation in newborns, and there are millions of people who are addicted or who have serious problems due to alcohol. The premature death rate because of the use of alcohol is around 100,000 per year. (All illegal drugs is under 10,000--government figures of 15,000--and at least half of those are due to the violence caused by the war on drugs.)

So, as I said, this is a world turned upside down, where the inalienable rights of adults are openly violated by the government and very few people stand up and protest the tyranny of our moral masters. And, also, a narcotic drug that causes far more harm than all of the presently illegal drugs--in spite of the violence caused by their illegality--is promoted on a respected morning news program.

Koyaanisqatsi! In spades!

A Lesson Learned

Many years ago I had a friend who was put in federal prison for not violating the rights of others. He made a friend of a young man from Nepal who was also in prison for not violating the rights of others. One morning at breakfast, the man from Nepal exclaimed: "Meat, eggs, milk, cheese, fruit, vegetables, every day. I tell you, if I didn't have a family waiting for me at home I would do it again."

He was serving five years in federal prison for attempting to smuggle heroin into the country. He had made one successful trip and had been able to build most of his house for his family. The second trip was to finish the job.

We, in America, are used to "meat, eggs, milk, cheese, fruit, vegetables, every day" but the vast majority of the people in the world don't have it as good (food-wise) as the average prisoner in America.

Soon it will be Thanksgiving Day. Think about it.

Sugar v. Cocaine

Scientists have recently proven that sugar is more addictive than cocaine. In an article in the Los Angeles Times (I saw it in The Fresno Bee, Sunday, November 11, 2007) it said: "Researchers have learned that rats overwhelmingly prefer water sweetened with saccharin to cocaine . . . ."

Now, with the "obesity epidemic" that's going on in America, with the related health costs due to obesity, of which taxpayers are having to pick up the bill where private insurance leaves off--and considering that so many people are un- or under-insured, that is probably a rather large bill--it's time for the federal government to do the right thing: make sugar a prohibited substance.

Let's face it, sugar is in every prepared food that you buy: sugar, malt, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, etc. The processed food industry has addicted the American people and it is causing a health crisis. It has to stop, now. JUST SAY NO TO SUGAR!

What do you think? If we run it up the ol' flagpole, will people salute it? Hell, they took in the "drug use is immoral and causes crime" b.s., hook, line, and sinker, they should go for this one too. Oops! I forgot. When the government, due to religious pressure, started the war on drugs in 1914, there was no multi-billion dollar a year cocaine, heroin, or cannabis industry to lobby Congress, like the multi-billion dollar a year processed food industry.

Ah well. It was a thought. Might have saved a lot of pain, suffering, and premature deaths by banning sugar. It would have worked too, just like the war on drugs has stopped drug manufacturing, sales, and use in the good ol' U.S. of A.

The Evils of Government

I'm a Libertarian and I know that the so-called war on drugs is evil. This does not mean that I am suggesting that everyone, or even anyone, should use drugs in a recreational manner. Drug use for non-medical purposes is a decision that each adult has the right to make. It's called an inalienable right. Any behavior, by an adult, that is done alone or with other consenting adults, and that does not violate the rights of your fellow citizens, especially if done in private and on private property is your right because you exist. If this is not true then inalienable rights do not exist and we are at the mercy of our governmental moral masters.

Think about the following. Marijuana is an illegal drug. Growing it, selling it, and possessing it (in kilo or more quantities) can get you serious jail time. Still, it can be, has been, and is now being used for some very good medical purposes. Also, there is no record of anyone dying from using marijuana. (I suppose if one smoked it constantly, like tobacco cigarettes, one could or would develop some of the same illnesses . . . but who, other than seriously socially and emotionally retarded people, does that?)

Then examine tobacco use. It is widely accepted that over 400,000 people a year die prematurely from using that substance--nicotine being the addictive drug. Most people think of tobacco related-disease and they think of cancer. But over 100,000 heart attack deaths are caused by the nicotine in the tobacco. (35 milligrams of pure nicotine, injected into your vein, will stop your heart instantly upon reaching it.) And then there is the second-hand smoke issue, that is, causing disease and death to non-consenting others.

Tobacco has no redeeming value. You don't even get "high" from smoking it. You only continuously take in tiny addictive amounts of nicotine, thereby keeping you addicted. With marijuana, if you are not taking it for a legitimate medical reason, at least you can enjoy an altered state of mind, one of the hallmarks of being a human, with a history that goes back many thousands of years.

So with tobacco being so bad and marijuana being--if not so good, then not nearly so bad as tobacco--why does the federal government extort taxpayers to pay tobacco subsidies? From 1995 to 2005 $530 million taxpayer dollars were paid to support this evil weed.

We have people in prison for the wonderful weed marijuana and evil legislators still supporting both tobacco and the war on drugs. That is what I mean by "the evils of government." To govern means to control. How much control do you need by a politician or a government bureaucrat?

What is an inalienable right?

Perhaps I should not ask what is an inalienable right, but rather, how do you recognize it?

I have given this a lot of thought over a long period of time. A few years ago I came up with what I thought was a good definition of how to define or recognize inalienable rights. This, of course, only applies to people who believe in these mythical things and to governments who uphold them . . . which is exactly zero governments in the world.

Here is my definitions of inalienable rights:

Any and all non-violent, non-coerced, non-larcenous, consensual adult behavior that does not physically harm other people or their property or directly and immediately endangers same, that does not disturb the peace or create a public nuisance, and that is done in private, especially on private property, is the inalienable right of all adults.

That means there is a whole lot of behavior that us rightfully yours, if you wish to participate in it, but which is now considered illegal.

I think that my definition is pretty much self-explanatory. "Disturbing the peace" would mean, more-or-less, making loud noises and/or commotions that would not normally be legally licensed or normally expected in the place and/or at the time that such noise or commotion would be made, thereby disturbing the tranquility, quiet, or peace that people living in those places would normally expect.

Creating a "public nuisance" requires that whatever the nuisance is, it must be done in public, not in private, out of sight of the public, and especially if done on private property. My dictionary defines "nuisance" (legally) as "something offensive or annoying to individuals or the community." I think I need to define it a bit more definitely, as there are many things and many people that some would find to be offensive or annoying, but should be perfectly legal by right, as those things or behaviors do not harm or endanger other people or their property. (Many years ago, I wore quite long hair and a full beard. I was verbally accosted on more than one occasion by people who found my appearance to be offensive or annoying.)

Therefore, a "nuisance" should be defined as a thing or a behavior that has the potential to physically harm people or property, or disrupts the normal flow of traffic (foot or vehicular), or is a public display of behavior that would deeply offend the religious and personal moral sensibilities of a large percentage of the citizens subjected to the behavior such that they would avoid the (public) area where the behavior is being done (disruption of traffic) and not allow their children to be exposed to it. Disturbing the peace would be considered a public nuisance too.

Therefore, naked dancing women, in public, could (and most likely would) be considered a "public nuisance" by many in your community. However, naked dancing women, on private property and behind closed doors is an inalienable right of adult women. And watching said naked dancing women is an inalienable right of all adults.

Playing your music so loud that it bothers your neighbors is "disturbing the peace." A band, booked into a local sports arena where loud noises are expected, is not disturbing the peace.

But mostly, my definition of an inalienable right has to do with behavior that will neither disturb the peace nor create a public nuisance. A Saturday night poker game where the participants agree to bet money on each hand. If all the participants are adults, no one is coerced to play, no violence is used, and no stealing is going on, and as long as the participants do not disturb the peace or create a public nuisance, then it is their inalienable right to so gamble. If a person loses money in the game, but can't cover his bets (why accept them if the money is not on the table in a "friendly" game), then the loser could be taken to court.

The same can be said for using drugs other than alcohol in a mind-altering, or medicinal, or recreational way. Ditto for sex among consenting adults, with or without the transfer of money from one person to another.

Any behavior that adults, alone, or with consenting other adults, wish to participate in, as long as it does not violate the rights of others or directly and immediately threatens to violate the rights of others, is an inalienable right, but only if we are serious about the concept of such rights. Otherwise, we are left with either religions or governments (usually influenced by religions) telling us what we can and cannot do, even if what we want to do does not harm or threaten others. And then, as we are today, we are not fully and truly free. We are slaves or quasi-slaves to those who can punish us for behavior that does not meet their standards, even though said behavior does not violate the rights of others.

And, as I said above, there is not one nation on the face of the Earth that truly and fully respects and protects inalienable rights.

How Often Can We Be Fooled?

Abe Lincoln said: You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

I'm a "child" of the sixties. I had friends and acquaintances go off to the "police action" in Vietnam (Congress never declared it was a war!) to get killed, wounded, and psychologically impaired. What was that all about? Stopping communism? I don't think so. There had to be a monetary interest in there somewhere . . . a big monetary interest in order to get so many thousands of our young men killed.

I never believed that Iraq was an immediate and direct threat to the United States, with weapons of mass destruction . . . to be used against us, or anyone for that matter. So why are we there? It's big money again, you can bet your life on it.

Big government and big business are the modern personifications of evil. They are what the ancients called Satan. And we keep falling for it.

Excerpts From My "52 Perverse Questions" Regarding Incest

Incest is universally banned and, it seems from research that I have done, universally practised. The incest that is most practised is fathers, brothers, or uncles coercing or forcing sex upon minor girls. That is a violation of the rights of that person and is a true crime and should be punished as such.

But what of consenting adults? What if you had a close relative--brother, sister, mother, father, uncle, or aunt--that you found to be sexually attractive and that person let you know that he or she felt the same way about you, would it be wrong to have sex with that person, to give and receive mutual physical pleasure? If you both were concerned about pregnancy and took all the precautions necessary to prevent it, would it be wrong, as adults who fully own the property of your bodies and mind, to have sex with such a close relative? If it is wrong, why is it wrong?

In my "test", 52 Perverse Questions (see side bar) I wrote a section (Section V: A Short Discussion About Incest) about this very subject. I am interested in right and wrong behavior and why it is considered right and wrong. I also try to be logical about what I write.

The following paragraphs are from Section V of my 52 Perverse Questions.

Richard A. Posner, in his book Sex and Reason (1992), at page 200, says this: “Sibling incest would be rare even if not prohibited, because persons brought up together from early childhood rarely find each other sexually attractive. . . . But some siblings are not brought up together, and others do not possess the avoidance instinct.” Almost all children who are “brought up together from early childhood rarely find each other sexually attractive.” This includes adoptive children; children not genetically related to each other or their parents.

As to early separation, where siblings, or children and their parents are separated when the child is at an early age, quite often there is no incest avoidance if they are reunited as adults. In fact, there can be the opposite effect, leading to consensual incestuous affairs. (Go to the website http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_sexual_attration, where this is discussed more fully.)

As Richard Posner also pointed out in Sex and Reason, at page 200, regarding the need for laws prohibiting consensual adult incest and the probable fear that most incestuous couples would have about producing children, the “[i]mprovements in techniques of contraception and abortion thus have weakened the case for prohibiting incest.” If we are talking only about consenting adults—not forced or coerced adults, and definitely not minor children—then whether or not to have an incestuous affair is a protected right under the principle of inalienable rights.

Now, before you get outraged (probably too late for that, eh?) let's have a look at the Christians' holy book, the Bible. Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden. No mention was made of God creating a large breeding population of other people, so we have to assume--if the Bible is the Word Of God--that Adam and Eve had a bunch of children who all had incestuous sex in order to populate the world . . . not a peep out of God. The same with Noah, his wife, their sons their sons' wives, and the children they all had . . . incest city. Then there is Abraham and his wife Sarah, half brother and sister--same father, different mothers--yet God chose that incestuous couple to start the Hebrew ethnic group, which we now call Jews, and from whom the Christian God derives, yet their incest was not a problem to their God. And finally, here, there is Lot and his daughters getting it on in the wilderness after mom got made into a pillar of salt for merely looking back at Sodom and Gomorrah, but God allows the incest between Lot and his daughters? Very interesting.

So, from a religious historical point of view, incest isn't all that bad, eh. Well, I could go on about this subject, but you could just read Section V of my 52 Perverse Questions. It (52 Perverse Questions) is nearly 70 pages of interesting, and sometimes outrageous, questions, with an answer section, and sections on obscenity, rights, incest, and bestiality. So, how perverse are you? Check out the side bar to see how to get a copy of this work about using logic versus emotion to guide one through life.

Even More Success in the War on Drugs

An Associated Press article, printed in the October 25, 2007 Fresno Bee, caught my eye. The U.S. is to throw away....uh, spend even more money in the war against inalienable rights, a.k.a., the war on drugs.

Supposedly American taxpayers will now have to shell out 1.4 billion dollars "to help Mexico battle violent drug gangs." I have been saying for years, if the drugs weren't illegal, there wouldn't be any violent drug gangs, cartels, terrorists, etc.

The conventional stupidity is that if drugs weren't illegal, that is, if Big Daddy Government didn't protect us from ourselves and fight against the growth, processing, manufacture and sales of certain natural and synthetic substances, then all Americans would be drug addicts and the nation would be lost. What kind of idiots come up with that kind of idiocy? If that principle held true, then, since both alcohol and tobacco are legally available to adults, and addictive drugs, why isn't everyone in the U.S. a 3 pack a day cigarette smoking alcoholic?

In Mexico, most people, including most of the people in the police forces, don't care about the Norte Americano's drug use and problems. The average policeman only makes 500 dollars a month, and no, that's not very much money even in Mexico. Then, when they can make another 500 or 1000 dollars by protecting the drug dealers, well, guess what they will do? Also, the average person, including the policemen, knows that the really big corruption and money-making happens at the top, with the major political players. It's always been that way in Mexico. It probably always will. So, to the policeman on the street, taking a little mordida is only natural. If he ever expects to rise in the ranks, maybe go into a political career, he will have to know how to graciously accept bribes. If he never goes beyond being a police officer, why should he refuse the offer to live a (slightly) better than average life?

Abe Lincoln once said that you can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. I just wonder how long it will be before the "some of the people" finally understand that the so-called war on drugs is a sham good only for scaring the public, building political careers, and for supporting a huge number of government employees and support personnel, all living at the taxpayers expense without producing any beneficial results and, in fact, by making life in American, on the streets, and in the homes, a much worse place. (Remember, America, the land of the free, is the number one jailer in the world. We have more people, actually and per capita, in jails and prisons that any other country in the world. Now isn't that something to be proud of, especially when nealy half of all prisoners are non-violent drug law offenders who were not violating the rights of others . . . which is how a crime should be defined.)

Give us back our right to full ownership of our bodies and our minds, as adults, and we will take care of ourselves, and no, all of us wil not become drug addicts. Most of us are strong enough and intelligent enough and able to handle our emotional stress, without using drugs to help us through the day. We have families and futures. Those that don't, or believe they don't will do the drugs anyway, regardless of all the laws against them. That's why, even in nations with the death penalty for drug dealers, there still are drug dealers.

But the real issue is this: If you truly own, as an adult, the property of your body and mind, then you have an inalienable right to use that property any way you wish, whether in so doing you harm yourself or not, just so long as you do not violate the rights of others. And that's what most drug users, even those who use the legal drug alcohol, do. And alcohol is the single most likely drug to cause violent behavior merely from its use. Whereas, with the presently illegal drugs, any violence associated with them is almost always because of their illegal status.

But why do I care. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. Translation: You can show the people the truth but you can't make them believe it. Sorry, America, but you are going to hell in a hand basket of your own choosing. Enjoy the trip!