Is it time to legalize drugs?

This linear, defeatist thinking is so emblematic of ...well, drug users.

First, you have to reject the premise that the biggest danger is on the street corner. That's a narrow, myopic view of the true peril, which exists at the management level.
Second, if there was a genuine concern for the user (the unfairness of their incarceration), then where is the consideration for the deleterious effects drug use has on their lives.
Third, we're not talking about legalization here, we're talking about decriminalization. In practical terms, the best that is possible is that you'll raise the bar by which a drug-based transaction is illegal. The "free market" has rules, regulations, and laws that manage it. What compelling reason does "upper management" have for entering a market in which they've operated with impunity for so long? Where's the effort toward "stakeholder buy-in"? Do we, as a nation, simply say "if you play by our rules, it might eat into your profits, but we'll stop hunting you?" Does that pass the sanity check? I suppose it might if you were high...
Fourth, legalization/decriminalization is not a new option; it's practiced in a number of other countries. How many of those countries, however, are attributed with 25% of the global GDP? How many are considered super-powers? How many have the economic backbone to collapse and restore itself every other decade? Before seriously considering this option, ask yourself what global complexion are you willing to let this country take on.
Look, I understand that the drug war that Nixon started hasn't been executed with the surgical precision that more recent conflicts have, but have we really run out of ideas toward either solving this problem or accepting a manageable level? Why is ceding the only remaining option? Because we're lazy? Unimaginative? Unintelligent? Or simply distracted by the all-consuming munchies...?

Calling it like I see it...

What do you call a person who…?

• Recriminates Americans, but takes no personal accountability
• Rushes to judgement on those who are not of the same race, but refuses to pass judgement on those who are
• Expresses open disdain for America, American policies, and specific groups of Americans
• Takes the message of enmity global, so that all of America’s enemies can be inspired in their hatred for us
• Works to undermine the Israel as a Jewish state by openly supporting the Palestinians and condemning U.S. Middle East policies
• Enables hostile terrorist states in their quest for weapons of mass destruction
• Claims Muslim heritage while attending Christian services
• Excuses the acts of religiously-motivated, criminal violence
  

As soon as blood is spilled, you call them terrorists…until then you call them Mr. President.

Causation thought re: Cap and Trade

“In the future, hot air will be the most widely traded commodity on the planet”.
What are the mechanics behind Cap and Trade? The regulations set forth by the government on carbon emissions are designed to punitively manipulate businesses into improving their systems such that they meet said regulations. Given that the trading of carbon emission credits has doubled in the last year and is expected to exceed $2 trillion a year, it should be noted that a great number of businesses (namely clearing houses and banks) will stand to profit hugely. Simply stated, others in this world will benefit from the punishments doled out to American businesses. At what point will those same banks, traders, and investors be disinclined to make available the financial resources businesses need to improve their systems? I can’t believe it will take very long, at all. It will be at the moment in time that we’ve finally ensured that no measure of success will ever be achieved, and the failure will be attained with mortal certitude.
Where is the morality in this? Where is the morality in profiting from the punishments of others? Allow me to be a hyperbolist for a moment and posit that the day will come where punishments will make for good “action” in Vegas. “I’ll give you 5 to 1 odds that SCAQMD (Southern California Air Quality Management District) comes down on {insert manufacturer of choice, here}, and hits them with a fine that will cost them {pick a dollar figure}. Double-or-nothing that they lay off jobs to recuperate the costs.”
Coming back to reality, it’s not hard to extend the metaphor to Wall Street, the Nikei, or any other international exchange that trades “carbon credits”. Again, where is the morality in this system? Should we simply accept that cost of American jobs is the price we pay for propping up undeveloped countries in the third world? How much are we willing to sacrifice for the sake of global citizenship?

It's no joke...

I’m tired. I’m tired from having the same conversation. I’m tired of being condescended to by people who have the least stable foundation from which to even try it. I’m tired of being personally attacked when my opinion runs contrary to others with whom I’m conversing. Most of all, I’m tired of dealing with people whose politics are their substitute for religion.
Think about it. The last time you had a spirited discussion with a liberal, think about how it went. Were you called “uneducated”? Did it devolve into a series of unmitigated, malevolent character attacks? Did any evidence-based discourse ever take place? Perhaps it might have included emotional arguments disguised as logic. The moment you hit the wrong button (e.g. using the “S” word), an atomic bomb went off in the room. It was as though you penned a cartoon about Mohammed. It was as though you were Judas and your pockets jingled with silver. Heretics being stoned in the middle of the town square were treated better. And if that injury wasn’t enough, they were family…
There is no one who actually knows me (you’d be surprised how little family can know you) that would ever characterize me as ‘uneducated’. My Bachelor of Science degree notwithstanding (from a private university, by the way), I spend a great deal of energy absorbing information on a broad array of topics, enough to be conversant, if not fluent. That, of course, includes exploring the perspectives of those with whom I’d likely disagree. But this is where I typically get shut down. This is what tires me. There’s a fine line between persistent and stubborn, and in these cases I’ve been less successful in knowing just when to quit, of knowing when further discourse is not going to yield any new intelligence.
I can’t purge the argument from my head though, (which is probably why I persist to begin with), so there has to be some outlet; thus, this blog. It’s a long prologue to this topic, but, all of that was in my head, too. Warning: this is a logical, evidence-based argument.
Obama is a socialist; my eighth grade civics class and Wikipedia agree.
Socialism refers to any one of various theories of economic organization advocating state, public or common worker ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods, and a society characterized by equal access to resources for all individuals with a more egalitarian method of compensation.
As I also learned in Civics, it is not a political system it is an economic system distinct from capitalism. Socialists believe that capitalism unfairly concentrates power and wealth among a small segment of society that controls capital, creates an unequal society, and does not provide equal opportunities for everyone in society. Therefore socialists advocate the creation of a society in which wealth and power are distributed more evenly.
Are you a socialist?
· Do you believe there is an unfair concentration of power and wealth within a small populace?
· Do you believe that wealth should be more evenly distributed among the populace?
· Do you believe that production, distribution, and trade should be nationalized?
· Do you believe in the selective nationalization of key industries, dominating inordinately large segments of the whole economy?
· Do you believe in tax-funded welfare programs?
· Do you believe in regulation of markets?
Affirmative responses to all of these confirm that you believe in socialism. Fewer affirmative responses move you further to the right of socialism, but still well within the definitions of market socialist and social democrat.
Seriously, whatever happened to getting what you earned? I’ll tell you what happened; we lost touch with one another and, therefore, lost the perspective of what it takes to earn what we have. I continue to wonder if, under a socialist economic system, the minimum wage would evolve into the standard wage. One hour of worked performed by anybody, doing anything, would be worth the same.
Now, there is a fair argument to be made that Obama is a market socialist. Many of the tenets he espouses fit that model: production is publicly owned (General Electric, General Motors, et al); prices are determined though government committee (e.g. the proposed panel “managing” the national health care system); employee owned/managed enterprises (e.g. any business whose union has controlling interest). But the argument falls apart as soon as you examine his statements and actions, such as his appointment of a Supreme Court judge for her position on social equality. For the love of Pete, “redistribution of wealth” was a campaign slogan. I’m beginning to get the sense that those who would cast aspersions at others being “uneducated” are realizing it within themselves; they’re realizing that they didn’t understand what he was saying during the campaign. They just thought he was the best looking, most well-spoken president we’ve had in a while.

My Free Speech

Do not tell me to calm down! Do not tell me that I shouldn’t be emotional! Do not, do not, do NOT infringe upon my free speech! My speech is intelligent, emotional, and has some color. Don’t you dare presume to suppress any part of that composition! My free speech is mine and I control how I deliver it. Now, shut-up and take it like a man!

The descent begins...

I can say it; I was wrong. I was wrong when I said that the American public elected Barack Obama because he was their hope for redemption. I now realize that it was so much more than that. Whether blindly or completely aware, this country has signed up for a future so much more horrific than a little ascetic salvation. No, this will lead to asceticism of the worst kind...forced. I've said for the last 10 months, this president isn't Clinton III, nor Carter II; he is FDR IV. (For those of you who don't know history that pre-dates your primary school days, FDR was elected to 3 terms - yes, three term- before dying in office.

Say what you will about the public's sigh of relief over finally breaking the final color barrier, but don't say that it's the last we'll hear of it. Far from it, I'm afraid. Any resistance to the president's policies, no matter how logical the argument, will be rebutted with racial epithets. You heard me...those of us who see the peril of the acts forthcoming and vocally object will be labeled as racists and discarded out of hand. There is no faster way to feel marginalized and disenfranchised in this country, and the sensitivity to it seems to have disappeared like the Golden Gate Bridge in a morning fog. If you think I'm off my rocker, let me offer a piece of empirical data... During his second major press conference, yesterday, President Obama took questions from 13 journalists (and I use the term loosely) over the course of 57 minutes. Of those he responded to were notable networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN,FOX), a few online journals, (e.g. Politico) a few periodicals (Stars and Stripes, Ebony). Yes, I said Ebony. That ground-breaking, hard-hitting magazine, so noted for... uh...I don't know. Notable NOT called upon were the nation's three newspapers of record. For those of you who don't know anything about journalism, the standard in this country is that a newspaper only has to be written at a 9th grade reading level, with the exception of three. These are periodicals of record that are written at least at a 12th grade reading level and are THE periodicals that are kept in historical archives in the libraries across the country. Those newspapers are the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. Say what you will about the writing and political bent in any of them, but don't reduce them to something lower than Ebony Magazine! Not about race, huh? My ass!

And yet, all of that isn't what keeps me up at night. Yes, the close proximity of the Mexican border, coupled with regular violence in our otherwise affluent neighborhood does its fair share, but that's not it. Obama, to his credit, can see what's wrong with the current state of things. His approach to changing it, though, is comparable to throwing dynamite in a pond. That's never been an effective approach to culture change management. If you think I'm wrong, then ask yourself, how much are you committed to your community vice yourself. If the ratio is 10 to 1, then you're the next soldier in his army of change. If you're a typical American, and have grown up with our self-interests first and foremost in our minds, then you are going to be very miserable for a very long time. Join the club...we have hats.

Alexander Tytler

A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

• From bondage to spiritual faith;
• From spiritual faith to great courage;
• From courage to liberty;
• From liberty to abundance;
• From abundance to complacency;
• From complacency to apathy;
• From apathy to dependence;
• From dependence back into bondage.

Although unverified as the source, Tytler lived in the late 1700s.

If I'm making a fair assessment, our country is deeply entrenched in Stage 5. I hope I never live to see the next stages.

Self Flagellation

Mere weeks before the election, I had an epiphany. It occurred to me why Barak Obama had such significant support throughout the country. As I listened to talk radio and references to him as the”Messiah”, it finally hit me why the moniker was so apropos. Looking back over the last 8 years, it’s easy to see the way society has cultivated a healthy dose of self –hatred. The actions of the administration have either been tolerated or detested. Whereas the global perception of the U.S. becomes a direct reflection upon its constituents, the self-loathing was continually fueled by outside forces.

Then along comes Barak Obama, by all accounts an outsider; barely born a U.S. citizen, brought up outside the mainland culture of the U.S. His coming of age, though, could not have been better timed. The societal self-loathing had reached a crescendo, committing to geo-political policies that left nearly everyone with a bad taste in their mouth. The only thing worse at this point than staying the course would be to reverse course. In either case, both were considered “evils”. What society needed was a leader to make the decision for them, to execute the desired plan they were secretly unwilling to articulate.

Society needed someone to make the self-loathing cease. They needed someone who was willing to take the heat for the decision they refused to make – to withdraw militarily from the world stage. Moreover, the long-standing angst over our global citizenship with regard to the environment could not be ignored any longer. If that wasn’t enough, Obama brought more latent issues out into the open, such as the state of the health care system, that hadn’t been addressed since the first Clinton presidential term.

With that said, with Obama’s ability to empathize with the emotionally damaged constituency, he also brings salvation through pain. Atonement can’t be achieved without a “higher power” providing absolution, through whatever means. As their Messiah, Obama will bring that absolution to those who seek it. He will forgive the sins of those who illegally enter this country, influence the economy, and offer only burdens in return. He will bring absolution to the wealthy who feel no responsibility for their wealth, who will “share” it with the less fortunate so that they may mitigate the feeling that it was ill-gotten. In so doing, he will also assuage the guilt of those who believe our country suffers from the Microsoft Syndrome. That is to say that our global, economic domination (like Microsoft) has no morality to it.

The significant irony to all of this is that the cure to what ails us is so draconian as to stagger the mind. In India, there still remains a remnant of a pre-Christ religion known as the Jains. One of the tenets of Jainism revolves around absolution through asceticism. I contend that it is a modern form of this that will ultimately satisfy the masses who believe Obama will deliver them. Through pain is absolution. The real question for the rest of us, whose convictions have not faltered over the last two terms, is how much pain will we ultimately endure? Will one term be enough? Will two? Or, if you subscribe to Obama’s rhetoric, three?

As I conclude my thoughts on the matter, it further occurs to me what the next decade holds for us. I contend that we aren’t in for an extension of the Clinton years. Instead, I ardently believe the next decade will hearken back to FDR and the social programs that emerged from the Great Depression.