115 Comments

1. jrod:

She probably doesn’t remember saying this either:
“As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am keenly aware that the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons is an issue of grave importance to all nations. Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.” — Nancy Pelosi, December 16, 1998

May 9, 2009 - 6:33 am 2. lc:

Perhaps her quiescence at the time is because she was motivated by protecting the people but my simple jaded mind cannot accept that. Besides, what we are talking about is after the fact; her motives (now) are self-serving, or perhaps serving a “greater” agenda of flogging (bringing to justice) those in the prior administration who actively sought to protect the people. Under a different context I think she needs to demonstrate she, um, “has a pair”, but I guess she left those (?borrowed? kept for safe keeping? huh?) on her government-supplied jet. I really have no respect for someone who won’t own up to something like this, especially one in such a position of responsibility and power.

May 9, 2009 - 7:05 am 3. wretchard:

Alyosha argued that we should never ascribe to philosophers what can be explained by sheer opportunism and venality, and he’s probably right. I don’t Pelosi engaged in any deep moral calculation. She just wanted to have it both ways and arguably worse than the people she accused because whatever she accused them off, she was a hypocrite to boot.

“And there could not be such a fantastic creature as your Inquisitor. What are these sins of mankind they take on themselves? Who are these keepers of the mystery who have taken some curse upon themselves for the happiness of mankind? When have they been seen? … there’s no sort of mystery or lofty melancholy about it…. It’s simple lust of power, of filthy earthly gain, of domination-something like a universal serfdom with them as masters-that’s all they stand for. They don’t even believe in God perhaps. Your suffering Inquisitor is a mere fantasy.”

But sometimes I wonder whether there isn’t a section of the public that wants to be lied to. Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who’s the most moral of us all? Nobody wants to tell the environmentalist headed off to Save the Planet how many thousands of pounds of fuel his Learjet is burning up. There’s a real market for snake oil and no shortage of salesmen.

May 9, 2009 - 7:07 am 4. E. Nigma:

I think it could be the law of comparative virtue.

Everyone wants to feel more virtuous than someone else. It is especially gratifying to feel virtuous compared to a famous politician, be it Nancy Pelosi or George Bush.

However, reality is not as subjective as the human ego in its ultimate judgements. It is said that God judges us with perfect justice, but that he also treats us with infinite mercy, which I guess will about balance it out.

As we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our souls……

May 9, 2009 - 7:32 am 5. Derek:

>But sometimes I wonder whether there isn’t a section of the public that wants to be lied to

I would say 80%.

Seriously though, isn’t that the whole issue of our time? Europe can’t afford to pay everyone over 50 pensions with full health care, and bringing thousands of North Africans to do labor isn’t going to help.

Free health care isn’t free, and isn’t health and isn’t care.

There are enemies who would destroy the US in a blink if they figured they could get away with it.

Taking from those who have to give to those who don’t ends up with everyone except the takers being poorer.

Etc.

The ideas and ideologies of the post war generation have run their course. The don’t work, never did, and depended on circumstances not of their creation. We are seeing the last gasp of that set of lies.

Another set will come along.

Derek

May 9, 2009 - 7:55 am 6. F:

Pelosi’s flawed memory strikes me as hubris. She has exceeded the Peter Principle admirable — progressed WELL BEYOND her level of competence — and imagines herself to be as clever and powerful as her title implies. Given a bipartisan government and an adversarial press, she would have her ego trimmed regularly and would deport herself with a little more modesty. But given the current setting she is admirably placed to fly in the big plane, lie about previous briefings, and cut off bipartisan debate. Certainly, Wretchard, a section of the public wants to be lied to. A larger section, I fear, does not think about what its Representatives do in Washington. I’ve said it before, but it bears saying again: our elected officials are arrogant clowns. That’s a bad combination: their arrogance prevents them from seeing what fools they are and their foolishness prevents them from understanding they are destroying this country for venal ends. Pelosi’s moral deliberation is not deep; it’s extremely self-serving. F

May 9, 2009 - 8:01 am 7. Standing in the Shadows:

There’s a real market for snake oil and no shortage of salesmen.

You do know what happened to snake oil salesmen when their scam was found out before they could hightail it out of town. It usually involved a good amount of tar and lots of feathers.

The true test of our constitutional republic, and of any government or regime, is how it handles when the truth does come out. Does it remain standing, beaten but not bowed? Does it collapse? Or, like the inquisitor, try to lock away the truth in order to buy just a little more time?

May 9, 2009 - 8:01 am 8. Tom Bowler:

But sometimes I wonder whether there isn’t a section of the public that wants to be lied to.

And I believe Ms. Pelosi is part of that public, unwilling to be honest even with herself. What a disgrace her party has been over the last eight years.

In 1998 Democrats almost unanimously condemned Saddam Hussein. As late as January 2001 The Washington Post considered Saddam the number one threat to American security. Yet when the time came to do something about that threat Democrats not only refused to act, they made political hay by resisting Bush administration efforts to eliminate it.

George W. Bush has been proven right about one thing. The only possible way that the terrorists could win in Iraq was if the U.S. quit fighting, and the only way to make the U.S. quit was to convince the American people that winning the fight was impossible. The terrorists made their case with random bombings against civilian targets.

Unfortunately, Democrats also worked to convince the voting public that winning in Iraq was impossible, using that message to carry them to a congressional majority in 2006. That put them, in fact, on the same page as the terrorists.

They have no choice but to lie to themselves now. Their moral posturing is really rather sickening.

May 9, 2009 - 8:06 am 9. programmer:

Wretchard ponders:

But sometimes I wonder whether there isn’t a section of the public that wants to be lied to.

programmer responds: Of course there is! Few want to believe that the wonderfulness that is their wonderful, exceptional self will just end, never to think wonderful thoughts again, never to experience existence any more, never again to participate in the intricate dance of life. That dark horizon that portends death of self drives many to embrace much nonsense in an effort to avoid gazing upon the void as it approaches.

Death cannot be defeated with reason or progressive ideologies, no matter how many learned articles have been published to wild peer acclaim. Only contemplation of the void with unflinching Faith can overcome selfish fear. But alas, few have faith in Faith.

May 9, 2009 - 8:08 am 10. programmer:

Wretchard,

Looking at the comments made while I was agonizingly scribbling mine once again demonstrates your unerring ability to reach out and pluck a resounding chord from the many stringed lute of life.

signed: Mangled Metaphors R Us.

May 9, 2009 - 8:15 am 11. Charles:

According to this article

Somewhere between the age of 5 and the age of 11 human minds shift from associating words primarily by similarity of sounds to similarity of meaning.

The study found evidence of an age-related, developmental shift in language, suggesting that younger children process words primarily on the basis of phonology, or sound, while older children and adults process words primarily on the basis of semantics, or meaning. The findings are presented in the article “False Memories in Children: Evidence for a Shift from Phonological to Semantic Associations,” by Steve Dewhurst and Claire Robinson of Lancaster University, United Kingdom. The article will be published in the November issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the American Psychological Society.
……………
The trouble with the discussion on torture was that there was no agreed upon semantics or meaning of the word “torture”.

There is a similiar problem with pulling Jesus into a discussion. There is no agreed upon definition of who he is or what he means.

Here is a bad definition of who Jesus is and what he means.Obama last year interpreted the Sermon on the Mount to  to mean that homosexuality is ok. The obama administration now wants the US to support a UN move to normalize homosexuality.

Even the moslems know the liberal stuff is totally bone headed. They simply eat fools who believe this stuff. Why? Even without Christ, the basic lesson of the two millenniums before Christ was that people who can’t tell the difference between men and women are eaten by people who can. It happened over and over again.

The great thing about Jesus is that he is the way the truth and the life. A civilization that is founded on the knowledge of who Jesus is–is anchored in the truth. Not just that, the language itself is anchored in ultimate reality. No one comes to the Father but through the Son. Why? Because Jesus himself was with the Father in the Beginning.

Stray off of that and you have what we have today. A constant shift and sheering of the foundations. Bad news bears. Pray guys pray. Lord forgive us for rebelling against You.

Pelosi is ever the decorative housewife. The money line always comes from her husband.

Time to mow the lawn.

May 9, 2009 - 8:16 am 12. Alexis:

But sometimes I wonder whether there isn’t a section of the public that wants to be lied to. Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who’s the most moral of us all?

Yes, absolutely! As a rule, the most effective liars are ones who convince themselves of their own lies and then tell others afterwards. Isn’t that what “The Noble Lie” is all about?

The Grand Inquisitor cares about the stability of the State. He fears what would happen when people stop believing in the state religion and thus stop regarding the state as legitimate. Was the Grand Inquisitor was acting as responsible statesman by ensuring the continuation of the status quo?

Yes, freedom is important. However, most people don’t want freedom, at least not as much as they want other things. If given a choice between their own individual freedom and letting some demagogue give them an opportunity to vent their spleen against a convenient scapegoat, most people will probably vote for a demagogue.

How can one believe in democracy when the majority votes for Communists or Islamists whose policy is “One Man, One Vote, One Time”? There are times and places when people would vote for the very leaders who later murder them; if we refuse to accept that possibility, we are living a lie.

May 9, 2009 - 8:29 am 13. Mark:

In response to Wrichard’s questions: Yes, it’s a matter of opportunism and venality. And yes, people want to be lied to.

Overall, on a social level, the Inquisitor is correct, but the greater truth is not with him. At the end of the interlude Jesus kisses the Inquisitor. By end of the novel the reader has a choice to make. Bob Dylan, borrowing from St. Paul, puts it this way: “When you gonna wake up, And strengthen the things that remain?”

About Hillary Clinton’s “It Takes a Village to Raise a Child,” it was P. J. O’Rourke, I think, who wrote: “I’ll save you the time of reading the book: The government is the village, you are the child.”

Maybe we’ve reached the point of wanting to be perpetual children and adolescents. The statists have an easy sell. It’s interesting that movies and entertainment in general are not comfortable in presenting responsible grown-ups. The advertisements for aging baby-boomers increasingly feature grotesquely child-like old people (much like Pelosi herself).

May 9, 2009 - 8:30 am 14. RWE:

This is all the DC Way, folks. Willful neglect of information.

Example: Congress demands reports on funding from the DoD, even specifying the exact format. The reports are provided, but since the top level summary does not provide details of some categories of expenditures – the details are a couple of pages further down – Congress cuts the funding for some item on the basis that “details were not provided.” And of course the funding just happens to equal the money needed for some pork project. Thus, the USAF loses a radar and a favored University gains a solarium.

Besides, Nancy Pelosie is just following a highly successful Democratic Party tradition. Bill Clinton forgot all kinds of things and Al Gore was in the bathroom when some special ops were discussed. But the champion is Hillary Clinton, who had almost complete amnesia about Whitewater and had no idea how the previously demanded Rose Law Firm billing records got in the private area of the White House with her fingerprints on them.

May 9, 2009 - 9:04 am 15. Alexis:

There are those who would say, “Everyone should have a chief of staff and a set of personal assistants.” Yet, what about someone who would not gain happiness from living such a government approved lifestyle?

Historically, the United States has been divided between two ideals, the ideal of freedom and the ideal of the plantation. The ideal of each person having his own miniature plantation, also known as “The American Dream”, has gradually won against the ideal of freedom.

At what point should the State have a responsibility to protect people from their own stupidity? At what point should an individual’s pursuit of happiness lead to the State’s promotion of happiness? At what point will people give up their liberty entirely so they can live a sybaritic existence?

Let’s not equate happiness with life on a plantation.

May 9, 2009 - 9:08 am 16. njartist:

“Turner” Redford: the Mary Sue of political movies: The self-righteousness of the one outweighs the needs of the many. And there is such a one in the White House.

OT: has anyone heard from George Clooney, et al regarding the terrible affairs in Sudan? Anyone? Hello?

May 9, 2009 - 9:21 am 17. Habu:

As I stated before and was totally ignored. Yes a certain segemnt of the population wants to be lied to but a greater portion simply know their four year vote (those who bother to vote) doesn’t mean a thing.

Just don’t mess with the masses reefer, beer and blow and they’ll let every thing slide.

I suspect no one answered my thesis because more than a few were totally guilty of knowing workplaces are totally infiltated with drugs, money that finances the terrorists.

WE supply the DEMAND for most of the drugs used worldwide yet what happened when I mentioned it … stoned silence. I don’t want to hear all the “I don’t use drugs and don’t know anybody who does crap” because it’s a lie. We’ve chosen a sub rosa drug culture that voids about 90% of the populations desire for upholding constitutional rights or most anything else that requires what use to be known as “good citizenship.

In 45 years of work experience in government and the private secter I have never seen a “clean ” workplace. Since the 1960’s it is pervasive and those who don’t know it are, as the saying goes, “out to lunch”.

Let me make this bet. Since ACORN receives federal money, raid ANY of their offices. Take hair clippings and test them. If the figure of drig usage doesn’t exceed 90% I’ll move to Compton. And if in the workplace if it doesn’t exceed 75% I’ll do the same.

May 9, 2009 - 9:30 am 18. Oh, bother:

Habu, I don’t see a post from you above. Have you posted to the wrong thread?

May 9, 2009 - 9:44 am 19. Derek:

This is an interesting moment in time. For most people in the western democracies, they have never known a time of war. Maybe on TV, maybe some acquaintance of an acquaintance was involved, and the odd terrorist attack, but by any historical measure it has been very peaceful.

All the while there were wars going on that didn’t affect the population at large. The cold war, as dangerous as it was, was for the most part distant and theoretical. Even the jihadis, although fear and even casualties in New York, were distant and if you listened to 3/4 of the political class, a distraction, a small thing that good policing could handle.

There has been a systematic effort by government to isolate citizens from their own decisions, from personal tragedy. Even from decisions of government. The credit card of the state is almost limitless.

This is a historical anomaly. The US in some ways is the least affected by these trends. People are complaining about the cost of health care because they have to pay for it. And by the military might of the US, other countries can afford to pursue Utopian ideals at little cost.

And those who are on the hard edge, police, military, intelligence, are outside of the experience and reality of most, and easy prey for politicians.

Yesterday I was talking to someone who worked for the Forest Service in BC, specifically the forest fire suppression. In most areas of the province a forest fire could destroy towns and even small cities, on top of the economic value destroyed by burning timber. They do a good job in tough circumstances. Some would say too good a job, where the natural burning of fuels doesn’t happen until it builds up to dangerous, even explosive levels.

He quit working for the department. He said the goal of the department now isn’t to fight fires, but to fight lawyers. People lose their belongings in a fire, and get rewards from judges who see the Province as a ready source of money.

Fires have happened since time immemorial in these mountains. We insist on building and living in the edges of the forest. And we insist on the State to cover our losses.

This leads to weird situations like we saw in the Kamloops area a few years ago when there were nasty fires. It was very dry, very windy and the fire spread through a valley burning homes, a town, a sawmill, etc. Bad situation. People had to run for their lives ahead of the fire. Just plain lucky no one was killed. The people were housed in Kamloops. The fire control people prevented the news media releasing pictures of the area. They hired helicopters and had footage of the area showing the burnt homes. The province didn’t want the evacuees to see the photos until they could be told whether their home was burnt. For the province, that took almost a week; manpower and effort to identify homes and occupants, etc. Didn’t want to have people learn of their losses unless they had the coddling arm of the state to soothe them. People got very upset at being patronized.

The national radio service up here was broadcasting a show on necrophilia hours before a major city got engulfed in a firestorm. Very important issues, no?

Life is dangerous, short and brutish. With enormous effort we can make it better, much better as we see. But it still is dangerous, short and brutish. I honestly think that we are going to find out how dangerous short and brutish it is, and find out how good we had it. And wonder why we threw it all away.

Derek

May 9, 2009 - 9:57 am 20. lc:

I think Alyosha has it right – sort of an Occam’s Razor type situation.

It’s clear that for more than 100 years the greatest cost of government provided happiness, universal happiness, requiring total government, is freedom. But, the opposite is not true; freedom is not necessarily unhappiness; it can provide anything (and probably will) unhappiness as well as happiness.

Many attempts have been made to create the totalitarian state of bliss, at a huge huge cost. Yet, attempts continue to be made…Why? The answer, as Alyosha says, must be the plain-old venal desire for power, filthy earthly gain, and domination.

May 9, 2009 - 10:14 am 21. Cascajun:

Sounds like somebody forgot to pass the bong to Habu…and he is PO’d.

May 9, 2009 - 10:15 am 22. Leo Linbeck III:

The challenge of progress is managing the transition from childhood to adulthood.

Children are dependent and self-absorbed. Adults are independent and other-focused. At some point, we all have to change from the former to the latter.

For millennia, we pushed children into adulthood too early; they didn’t have the time to get a good education, largely because they were needed to put food on the table in order for the family to survive.

But as wealth grew in the West, we were able to leave children in school longer. This had many positive effects, including huge increases in knowledge and wealth-generation capability.

Eventually, however, we overshot the mark. Now we the spectacle of permanent childhood, a state of perpetual dependence and self-absorption. But our culture, and therefore our nation, cannot survive if the psycho-social pyramid is too bottom-heavy. There are too few adults supporting too many children.

Left to its own, such a situation will self-correct. The problem is that we have enough resources at this point to support dependent, self-absorbed children well into old age. The ballot box is leveraged to effect this transfer. This makes the imbalance greater.

But the correction will come. And the longer we delay the correction – the longer we persist in providing massive government entitlements – the worse the outcome when the bubble bursts.

The President’s proposed program of massive government expansion and enormous future deficits is like the home mortgage bubble, only 10X (or 100X) worse. Let’s hope that there are enough adults left in DC to resist this unsustainable bubble.

But will the adults there overthrow the children who are leading the charge? I guess that’s the fundamental question we’re about to see answered.

L3

May 9, 2009 - 10:24 am 23. Wadeusaf:

So Habu, do you believe that sub vino sub rosa holds, or as I suspect there is not any honor among that bunch of thieves.

90 percent is a bit of an extreme number, but given the trash that was left about a la Clinton, I am not so sure it is not a righteous figure. I confess to wanting to be lied to about it, I don’t know that I have learned anything by it. I find it tough to believe that 90 percent figure, even given the nature of people and the spread of an almost evangelical like pushing of drugs on our youth I find it tough to believe that 90 percent figure.

Oh wait, you are talking specifically about Acorn? Oh, heck no, I’m not touching that bet. Not even if you include congressional staff among in the figures. Not even if you admitted any college Journalism Class among the figures.

May 9, 2009 - 10:37 am 24. Alexis:

Habu:

You might not like my solution concerning drugs, but I think that there are key industries that ought to be effectively controlled by government – vices. As a rule, the government should stay out of industries that are not vices.

Concerning marijuana, coca, and opium, the government should carefully license the production, manufacture, transport, wholesaling, retailing, and possession of these drugs. Any person who obtains a license to use drugs would forfeit all driving privileges. Licensed drug users would be required to use government subsidized public transportation. On the other hand, all laws against unlicensed drug use would be strictly enforced.

As for prostitution, it would also be licensed under a regime called Transparency. All prostitutes would be required to join a Courtesan’s Guild and elect their leaders. The Courtesan’s Guild would also function as an enforcement arm of the government, enforcing both legislative and administrative regulations over the industry. All appointments would be routed through the Courtesan’s Guild computer, and all reviews by clients would be posted at the official Courtesan’s Guild web site. All prostitution would be transparent. Transparency would mean that the time, date, location, and the names and addresses of each party to a transaction purchasing “time and companionship” would be publicized in the official newspaper of record for the local area just as the purchase of real property is also publicized in newspapers of record.

If prostitution were both legal and transparent, it may actually wither.

All advertising on radio, television, and newspapers for licensed drugs, prostitution, and lotteries would be banned. Moreover, all corporations would also be banned in engaging in these activities.

Sudafed and all other precursor chemicals for methamphetamines would be banned.

What I am effectively proposing for these vices is a police state. However, that would be a vast improvement over a status quo where these vices subsidize criminal syndicates.

Any questions?

May 9, 2009 - 10:40 am 25. Wadeusaf:

There is certainly a bit of sub rosa required to allow for the lie. Camelot was and now is a lie. It was not even a very good fiction.
No matter how many times Sir Robert Redford slays the evil business (No to be PC that would have to be dark sorry) knight, the corrupting head of capitalism continues to rise a little. The system itself is neither moral nor amoral, it is we who imbue it with a way to live, and a thing to live for.

May 9, 2009 - 10:45 am 26. Mark:

Habu writes: “As I stated before and was totally ignored. . . .”

I remember the post well, especially the economic information, and largely agree with your observations, repeated above. The drug culture is indeed part of the ongoing self-absorbsion and infantilism of a large part of population, as is pornography, gambling, spectacle, and so on. I would add that drugs, like gambling and other vices, is also a matter of justice, and not only in a narrowly legal sense.

People justify drug use, if they bother justifying it at all, as a personal choice that doesn’t hurt anyone. But anyone who sees the effect of drug trade in other countries, let alone this one, knows that choices made in this country directly impact other countries.

Why not gamble? The only persuasive reason I can cite, and it’s in my Catechism, is that it’s a matter of justice: you may win a game, but you may occasion loss for others, and the wreckage of individuals and families that goes along with it. Penny-ante gambling? That’s fine. Big stakes? It’s a matter of justice.

L3 writes: “The problem is that we have enough resources at this point to support dependent, self-absorbed children well into old age.”

Indeed, in March the ever-obliging Congress passed an expansion of the Americorps national service plan, with the number of federally funded community service job increasing from 75,000 to 250,000 at a cost of $5.7 billion. This funds lots of $10 per hour jobs that prepare new college grads for careers in ‘public service.’ Many of the jobs Americorp funds are laudable, and maybe even KIPP schools avail themselves of the subsidized labor. But as the D.C. Examiner editorialized at the time, “Lurking behind the feel-good rhetoric spouted by the measure’s advocates is a bill that on closer inspection reveals multiple provisions that together create a strong odor of creepy authoritarianism.”

May 9, 2009 - 10:55 am 27. twobyfour:

Alexis, and who gets to define vices… government?

May 9, 2009 - 11:25 am 28. Brian:

I don’t think we should lose track of why Pelosi lied: it was so she could preach from the moral high ground (as she would define it) and damn the Bush administration, using the word “torture” as her primary rhetorical club.

Now that she’s owned up to the truth, and if this were in any way a just world, she’d be demonized by the MSM for her prior anti-Bush-anti-torture demagoguery, as well as for being a liar.

Alas, this is not a just world, at least wrt the MSM.

May 9, 2009 - 11:28 am 29. twobyfour:

Speaking of vice… hmmm we may have actually two vice presidents presently.

May 9, 2009 - 11:34 am 30. twobyfour:

And two major vice witches.

May 9, 2009 - 11:36 am 31. twobyfour:

Brian/28

… she’d be demonized

She even looks like possessed. But as demonization is concerned, just give it time.

There are two rules:
1. There can be only One
2. Nancy is already damaged goods and the bus can streeeetch if necessary. She does not know it yet, but she is marked.

May 9, 2009 - 11:48 am 32. Wadeusaf:

For we decide which is truth and which an illusion.

Agent Smith: Why, Mr. Anderson? Why do you do it? Why get up? Why keep fighting? Do you believe you’re fighting for something? For more that your survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know? Is it freedom? Or truth? Perhaps peace? Yes? No? Could it be for love? Illusions, Mr. Anderson. Vagaries of perception. The temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose. And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself, although only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love. You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson. You must know it by now. You can’t win. It’s pointless to keep fighting. Why, Mr. Anderson? Why? Why do you persist?

Neo: Because I choose to. The matrix may be as close to religion as many will get.

May 9, 2009 - 12:11 pm 33. Captain Ramen:

Mark, why does someone’s drug use here create problems in other countries? Because Washington gives those other countries lots of money and weapons and equipment to go after the suppliers.

You speak of justice… is it just to put a man away and take him away from his children for a $30 rock of crack? When the prosecutor’s son is getting high at an elite university with 0 chance of incarceration?

The ugly truth is it is easier for Washington to fight the WoD over there instead of here. Habu is right, the workplace is full of drugs. How many times could jack booted federal goons raid the dorms at Harvard, Wall Street offices and Capitol Hill itself before there was a wide spread revolt over it?

May 9, 2009 - 12:17 pm 34. Subotai Bahadur:

Alexis,

This is not really a fight I have a lot of involvement in, but the debate over legalization and regulation of vices tends to overlook one key point. Most vices have what is in effect a low cost of production; be the vice prostitution, drugs, or whatever. Given the relatively miniscule production and shipping costs, most drugs, if legalized, would be cheap if the “value added” of scarcity and risk of prosecution were removed. The per transaction costs of prostitution are even less, except for the more unorthodox scenarios.

Any sort of scheme of government regulation, licensing, and/or quality control will add to consumer costs. Further, given this nation’s love of “sin taxes” to “punish” the users, the government cost is going to be a significant amount over the summed cost of production, distribution, and profit. There is the additional factor that there is going to be a huge number of people will still want to remain anonymous in their vices and not want to go through government approved channels.

No matter what, you are going to have a demand for unlicensed vices, and a profit margin that will make it worthwhile.

The government will still be involved in chasing down illicit producers, importers, marketers no matter what. Their motivation, however, will be more the protection of revenue and a declared State monopoly rather than current reasons.

One can see a Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, Explosives, Drugs, and Houses-of-Negotiable-Virtue. And no real diminution of violence, corruption, or vice.

No easy solutions.

Subotai Bahadur

May 9, 2009 - 12:18 pm 35. twobyfour:

Question: Did 0 know that Pelosi knew and how much exatly?

The reason I ask is that narcissist sociopaths can create an elaborate entrapment trap, with no concern for a collateral damage. As long as the main target unwittingly falls into the trap, all is peachy and the smoking ruins in the vicinity be damned.

I’ve seen it quite a few times, to discount the possibility. If the issue of torture starts fading from MSM, not to be talked about again and it would pop up only later in context with Pelosi, then you’d know she’s been had. And that would also mean the pattern would be recycled in other forms for other potential pretenders.

There is actually only one rule:

“There can be only One.”

May 9, 2009 - 12:22 pm 36. Fat Man:

Too much thought for Nancy. She just has the same disease that most politicians have. She just doesn’t know the difference between lying and telling the truth. She says whatever she thinks is useful to her in any situation and believes the fact that she said it makes it true.

May 9, 2009 - 12:43 pm 37. lc:

There used to be a writer for the Baltimore Sun, Gregory Kane, who had a brother sucked into the black hole of crack addiction – Kane once described how when a dealer came around all sorts of people were drawn to the pusher, cutting through back yards, running through fences and hedges, down alleys; it sounded like something from “Dawn of the Dead”.

I also know (have known) a number of cocaine users (mostly former users). It seems that road inevitably led to a decision point – end use or end life. There are two people, once quite close to me, who faced that decision; they each chose differently. What a waste, all the way around.

May 9, 2009 - 12:55 pm 38. Alexis:

2×4:

Alexis, and who gets to define vices… government?

What I propose is even worse. The people would define what is or is not a vice, through referendum.

May 9, 2009 - 1:10 pm 39. mariner:

Would she be a heroine bearing the burden of power and freedom alone?

Maybe.

OTOH she could just be a slimy lying bitch.

May 9, 2009 - 1:10 pm 40. whiskey:

Wretchard, with all due respect you cannot understand a person like Pelosi much less who keeps electing her. You’re not an American and growing up poor can’t understand the role all this wealth and opportunity plays in warping human character.

Do Pelosi’s constituents want to be “lied to?”

Not really, rather they want the lies to be real.

America is divided into two parts: they Yuppie class and the populists. This is probably an over-simplification, given the sub-groups of Gays, Hispanics, Blacks, but these two main groups, Yuppies and Populists drive most of American politics and in whatever form they take each generation always have. Right back to Andrew Jackson and before, too.

Yuppies are immensely rich. Insanely rich. So rich they support pure status symbol computers like Apple Macintoshes, the Iphone, and BMW cars. Yuppies are single most of their lives and the work lives and sex lives depend on having the “correct” politics and mouthing Political Correctness and Multiculturalism, which itself is an outgrowth of unbalanced, excessive female power in Yuppie society that is overly concerned with the values and goals of single women and the status competition around and “for” them (among single and otherwise Yuppie men). Think of Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky, Gary Condit, Chandra Levy, Naomi Wolfe, Al Gore, Shepard Fairey, and the author of “Marley and Me.”

Their social, economic, cultural, and political power all stem from the assumption that what we know to be false: I.E. PC and Multiculturalism, is in fact true. It’s Flat Earth and a Earth-Centric universe belief writ in politics AND Culture. A rejection of verifiable truth about human society. “Be nice to third world enemies and they will love you.”

Because acknowledging what Victor Davis Hanson calls the “tragic truth” of life shifts power away from a corrupt and decadent elite towards populists. Soldiers, sailors, Marines, Airmen, defense workers, engineers, none of whom are hip, cool, trendy, and profiled on the pages of People Magazine.

What happened to pass power to the Elites was that most women became single and stayed that way, becoming permanent members of the Yuppie Class. Who’s entire power depends on PC and Multiculturalism.

I think that worldview will be shattered. With multiple nuclear blasts eradicating US cities. Or perhaps Iranian ones, or both. Israel seems narrowly to have rejected their Yuppie class for sheer survival. Kill about 6-12 million Americans, and even deeply pacifist, feminized Yuppies will choose the simple but ugly tragic certainties for the PC/Multi-culti religion that orders their lives and gives them power.

May 9, 2009 - 1:18 pm 41. JJRedFan:

There is no legalization that can cancel out addiction to adrenalin rush. That’s a major component of all other addictions. In fact it’s the thing that makes many dangerous and illegal activities so addictive. Also many that are allowed by law, but still risky.

The risk of injury, of exposure, of punishment, of loss… The thrill of secretly being the opposite of what everyone thinks you are, AND GETTING AWAY WITH IT…

People CHOOSE to be that way, KNOWING it’s wrong.

Sometimes, they can change themselves and stop.

But legalize any vice, and some screw-up will find some completely other thing to turn into a dangerous way of getting “kicks.”

On the positive side, Adrenalin Rush is also a part of what provides a lot of the satisfaction for people who get off on combat, carrier aviation, police/fire/rescue, Coast Guard, Park Ranger, Prison Guard, shuttle crew, etc.

To some extent it probably drives people who *imagine* themselves to be involved in dangerous activities – News reporting, serving in high-profile legislative office, etc. You always hear them describe their work in terms that come from combat. Yeah, sure.

Nobody remembers Walter Mitty.

I think this accounts for the insane choices made by Wm.J.Clinton. Also the vast majority of the spoiled brat pseudo-revolutionaries like Bill Ayers. Maybe it rubbed off on someone who admired him a lot.

May 9, 2009 - 1:28 pm 42. twobyfour:

Alexis, with Habu’s figures of drug use, do you think that a referendum is a good idea?

I simply don’t know what the actual figures are. Since I am my own boss and drugs are not my thing, I have no way of gauging the problem. My close relatives–no use either.

Sure, when young, under socializing pressures, I got drunk a few times, until I passed out… But that was young & stupid. Not being extra bright, I simply dislike a thought of clouding the meagre capacity that I have to my disposal.

May 9, 2009 - 1:33 pm 43. Charles:

Habu is making a border arguement. Bad morals and weak borders are two sides of the same coin. That’s what the OT prophets talked about. Likely a lot of border people like it that way. But when we see the results in the hinterlands of the USA — everone but everyone is thinking bloody hell.

May 9, 2009 - 1:41 pm 44. twobyfour:

Whiskey/40

This is probably an over-simplification

Yewbetcha.

May 9, 2009 - 1:45 pm 45. bogie wheel:

Re freedom:

I’m sure hell is full of wretched souls who do nothing else but curse God for giving them the freedom to choose. God’s fault for not stopping them from sinning. God’s fault for not forcing them to do right. God’s fault that they are where they are. Guilt, misery, suffering, death — all God’s fault. The blood-soaked cross — so what?

Re Condor:

I love this movie. Yah, it needs to come with a disclaimer. But as a movie, it’s one heckuva well-told story, suspenseful, smartly plotted, with fascinating characters. One of the all-time great political thrillers. (My top vote would go to “The Manchurian Candidate.”) It’s just that I can’t look at that NYT logo in the final scene without laughing out loud. Knowing what we know now, as opposed to looking at the Grey Lady through 1970s pinko-colored glasses, it’s like watching a movie character — the one we’re supposed to admire as the avatar of business acumen and uncanny foresight — announce that he has just placed every penny of his personal wealth into backing that great new automotive wonder and sure-fire standard of design for all future cars … the Ford Edsel.

Watching Redford’s character place his faith in the NYT is equally laughable. Just not for the reasons the movie thinks. It’s not that the NYT is part of Cliff Robertson’s Machiavellian, cynical company cabal. It’s that they are pathetic whores. Ugly, bitter ones at that. Envision Miss Havisham trying to seduce Pip and you’d be in the right ballpark.

Look to THAT bunch for moral judgment or purity of soul? Ewwww!

May 9, 2009 - 2:01 pm 46. Tony:

Speaking of this “want to be lied to” idea … what if this discussion of the morality of “torture” was put in the larger context of morality?

For example, as a State Senator in Illinois, now-President Obama argued against a bill that would have outlawed late term abortions. If you believe Wikipedia, and his stated position, he was only concerned that this bill would endanger all abortions. However, when the law was changed to match federal statutes, he still argued against it. This particular bill was inspired by live-birth abortions, where the fetus inexplicably survives, but the abortionist then lets the fetus die, you know, because to provide medical care to the unfortunate soul born in that body would be a threat to “choice.”

I say, let’s look at the morality of “torture” in the same context as this “choice” in President Obama’s lofty mind.

Since this “torture” was conducted in the defense of America after the deadly attacks of 9/11, let’s discuss the morality of war in general. Is it a nice thing? Nah. Is it moral to defend oneself, one’s family, one’s country in the face of war? Yeah, it is.

These same people who deny the impingement of morality on any other question – adultery, lying, perjury (Bill Clinton’s ardent supporters assured us “everybody does it”) – suddenly have a high and mighty attitude over “torture” … not quite a consistent approach to morality, eh?

Pelosi and all the Democrats watched Bill Clinton deny obvious immorality by redefining the meaning of “is” and they all think they can dance on the tip of that same pin.

Are they wrong?

May 9, 2009 - 2:09 pm 47. Demosophist:

Whiskey:

Nice to see you posting, if only in comments. I’ve discovered that people believe things that are convenient, to a much greater extent than I used to think possible. Over a billion Chinese apparently believe that Tibetan Imperialism would be a real threat to China were the Tibetans left alone. Perhaps Rinpoche thought all he needed was love, but he now admires George W. Bush:

Audience member: “Can you give us an example of a leader we should look up to as a positive influence?”

Dalai Lama (after thinking for a few seconds): “President Bush. I met him personally and liked him very much. He was honest and straightforward, and that is very important. I may not have agreed with all his policies, but I thought he was very honest and a very good leader.”

Live, and learn…

May 9, 2009 - 2:21 pm 48. Mad Fiddler:

Madame Speaker has been noted in the mainstream press years ago for her and her spouse’s insufficient commitment to unionized workers. That is supposed to be a core value of the Democratic Party! But they’ve resisted workers’ attempts to organize themselves in various businesses they own (vinyards & resort hotels, if I recall correctly…)

Pelosi may very well also have tapped a deep well of resentment among the crazed leftists in Obama’s team by her work blocking the move to impeach George W. Bush after his re-election.

May 9, 2009 - 2:44 pm 49. bogie wheel:

Habu -

I have not seen figures, but I’d be curious to know whether the incidence of drug use is evenly distributed across the population. ie whether you are as likely to find the same percentage of addicts in an Amish farm community as in a millionaire’s building on the Upper West Side or Chicago’s Grove Parc Plaza.

I somehow suspect not. And if that’s the case, then there are at least a couple other explanations besides intellectually dishonest denial as to why the non-substance-abusers don’t adequately reckon on the scope of the drug scourge in this country. Such people may be innocently naive … such people may be like Shakespeare’s Brutus (the honorable sort who will by default attribute honorable motives to others) … but they are not covering over something they know deep down. It’s that they really and truly don’t live with it daily, and therefore they’re not going to think about it that much.

Another segment of the population may live with it daily but not know it, being unaware of what the signs of addiction are, let alone on the lookout for them amongst friends and co-workers.

I don’t disagree that serious addictions are indeed a scourge in our society. I have long thought so. And I’ve found myself wondering just what it is about life in modern America that is so damn unbearable that so many people who otherwise live pretty nice lives (ie, not incest victims, children of addicts, etc) turn to drugs, drink, porn, and gambling to “deal with” whatever it is they can’t deal with sober. I’ve come to the conclusion that boredom and meaninglessness are significant drivers. It’s our national version of Richard Cory. Americans cannot deal with our own prosperity.

IOW, it’s fundamentally a spiritual problem.

Which is why neither the current WoD nor Alexis’ proposal will help us.

The only thing that will is reducing the demand.

May 9, 2009 - 2:49 pm 50. Talnik:

She ticked off the CIA.

May 9, 2009 - 3:03 pm 51. bogie wheel:

Tony –

Spot on. The “everyone lies about sex” defense of Bill Clinton is the cousin of the “Who *didn’t* smoke a little weed in college?” boomer self-exculpation.

It’s not just a juvenile, weasely attempt at tu quoque … but it’s perniciously false at the same time. NOT everyone lies about sex. And NOT all of us smoked weed (or drank, or did any other kind of illegal drug) in college, or since.

These people are so, ahhh, generous in their willingness to share their blameworthiness with you, but oh-so-stingy when it comes to sharing concepts like equality under the law. Rules, and taxes, are most definitely for you, but most definitely not for them.

Selective morality, selective outrage.

If you have ever heard Jill Stanek, formerly a nurse at Christ Hospital (yes, you read that right) in Oak Lawn, IL talk about her first-hand encounter with the late-term abortions (and the victims thereof) being practiced there, it’s utterly heartbreaking.

She personally met and spoke with Barack Obama (then IL state senator, one of those deliberating & voting on the Induced Infant Liability Act) about what she witnessed. She might as well have been reciting her story to a brick wall. The guy was absolutely bloodless.

Given the rate at which abortion is decimating the black community, you would think he would have given Ms. Stanek’s testimony at least the pretense of a sympathetic ear.

(Guess he just wasn’t as good at pretense in those days?)

May 9, 2009 - 3:28 pm 52. Habu:

My biggest beef with drugs is that the US is by far the biggest user of illegal drugs. It’s not even close. What that ultimately means is that we are financing torrorists worldwide, corrupting governments we then turn around and subsidise with anti drug money that the leader simply put in offshore accounts. It’s a huge con and unless you’re really clueless you fully realise it’s happening.
I have personally done multimillion dollar deals for IBM in Beverly Hills that began with the buyer of IBM products brazenly opening up a sterling silver container and offering some blow to open the show.

I watched since the 60’s the subculture become a oxymoronish mainstream subcluture complete with all the ritualalized sociological behaviors. Parents now indulge their kids reefer because they do it with them while the terorists are buying C-4 to blow us up…too many simply look away and accept the drugs now as part of our culture as if it were a normative behavior, which it has become.

Come on folks you don’t have to confess here at BC but how many of you know contemporaries, or parents, or kids who regularly do reefer and coke? A bunch ..

I say tax it, up the THC and coke purity and allow those who finance terrorists who attack us OD. You’d remove the importation temptation to a large degree, and by comission kill off those who have abused the freedoms we have by siding with the enemy. And don’t tell me buying reefer and coke isn’t siding with the enemy.

To put a bow on the thread this originate from drug usage, condoned and enriched by a very large part of our population is the price we have paid for our freedoms. The average Joe and Jane are too powerless to change anything worth changing, our politicians are as corrupt as they’ve always been (go back to the election of 1800 and read it’s sordid history in depth)and as a consequence they have capitulated to a corrupt system. Those who stand and fight are ridiculed (Alinsky rule 5. Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.) by the corrupt, ie Clinton,obama,biden,pelosi et.al.

Rome cease being great when similar “norms” became accepted.

May 9, 2009 - 4:37 pm 53. Dave:

Nancy Pelosi lives in utter hooror of having to go back to being a mere Congresswoman and having to fly commercial again. Sell her country to keep her conscripted jet? I got a feeling she would sell her soul.

This goes along with what L3 was saying. I have noticed that people who “have it made”,
(secured wealth, safe seat, not a material care in the world) are all too often those
that suffer abnormal, even psychotic, fears
about trivial inconvenience.

These are simultaneously the most manipulative
people you can encounter and the most easily manipulated as well. They lie and are lied to with equal aplomb. As like seeks like,
they attract constituents/followers like themselves.

Does BHO follow the same pattern? Does an usurus horriblis move his bowels within the confines of the timbered regions?

His reactions to the “born alive” legislation and to the nurses’ testimony are ample proof
of that. He felt threatened with some nameless dread if the baby lived. I have personally witnessed/inspired the same reaction interrogating a “chien tri vien” or political officer of the NVA. He could not have cared less about all us white-skinned and long-nosed imperialists. He simply could not abide the thought that some of his own people would show so much as common courtesy to us. Another person that is the same way is Jose Marie Sison, (JOMA) Wretchards old protagonist.

Such people are possessed by demons of their own making (and possibly those from down below as well).

May 9, 2009 - 4:38 pm 54. ridgerunner:

Re Habu’s belief that drug use by the middle and upper classes is a crisis: Three personal examples of broken lives. 1) An intelligent fellow who smoked weed regularly for twenty-five years and forgot to check the whereabouts of a resident alligator before entering a pond. Lost an appendage. 2) An academic scientist who smoked weed at semi-public functions with his department head and thought that meant he could be a pornographer on the side. Lost a career. 3) Grandson of a bank VP who did armed robberies for crack money. Lost 20 years in prison. Note that only one of these tragedies would be in official statistics for the damage caused by drug use. How would legalization have prevented any of these failures of judgement?

May 9, 2009 - 4:50 pm 55. Dave:

Ridgerunner: How did prohibition prevent these failures of judgement? Did not.

All three incidents are common enough among those who consume alcohol. Did alcohol prohibition prevent or reduce such incidents?

Au contraire. Alcohol-related incidents and alcohol dependency/addiction did not begin to subside until after the end of prohibition.

Whenever H Sapiens tries to force sobriety
by means of prior restraints, he gets the opposite results.

The solution is NOT Carrie Nation, it is the personal responsibility typified by Bill W.

Final answer.

May 9, 2009 - 5:20 pm 56. Demosophist:

I don’t know anyone, not a single person, whom I know or even suspect has used illegal drugs in the past 35 years. I met people during the 70s who used cocaine and a number of other recreational drugs, but haven’t even seen any of them since. I think one of them was the son of former Oregon Governor, Tom McCall. Can’t even remember his name. The attitude sort of reminds me of a common hallucination of those on LSD that “everyone is stoned.” It’s a kind of magical projection.

But I could also just be extraordinarily naive, and everyone really is stoned. In which case, I should wealthier than I am…

May 9, 2009 - 5:22 pm 57. Alexis:

Subotai Bahadur:

I think what we are finding here is a classic “why don’t you yes but” game. I carefully tailored my idea toward freeing up police and prison resources while depleting the coffers of criminal syndicates. This proposal wouldn’t turn the world into a utopia precisely because every policy has its tradeoffs. If you press a balloon in one direction, it bulges in another.

Yes, there is a basic human appetite for criminality with the effect that no set of laws will ever get 100% compliance. However, a lack of government regulation creates the specter of massive corporations with huge economies of scale selling toxic substances to an eager public by hiring advertising firms to make amazingly slick advertising targeted toward children, powerful lobbyists to schmooze with our politicians, and public relations firms to portray any opposition against using heavy drugs as un-American. The problem with straight legalization is that once a vice becomes legalized, the raw power of the particular vice lobby suddenly becomes so powerful that legislators are scared to regulate it at all.

Yes, criminal syndicates can and will attempt to take advantage of the price of regulation. Actually, they already do. Against such criminality, a government can drain away revenue by using a “carrot and stick” approach. Licensing would be a carrot while law enforcement would be a stick. (Please note that professional criminals generally prefer some form of “decriminalization”, which essentially means that the police simply don’t enforce existing laws. Also note that prostitutes, where the sex trade isn’t illegal, tour in the United States precisely because the prices are higher in a criminalized environment.)

Vices are, by definition, self-damaging behaviors. Either that or they violate some widely held moral taboo. As a rule, people damage their lives by engaging in a vice, whether it is gambling, prostitution, or some kind of drug. Vices are dangerous, and they are called vices precisely because they are so damaging. So, let’s put red tape to good use. Let’s mummify vices that presently subsidize terrorists in a straitjacket of red tape!

In gauging one’s response to a vice, one needs to consider how bad it is. On the one hand, is marijuana abuse worse than abusing alcohol, tobacco, or even lottery tickets? On the other hand, do we want powerful marijuana, coca, and opium growers lobbies demanding and getting massive government subsidies just like tobacco farmers get? Do we really want RJ Reynolds or Philip Morris (or their equivalents) running the marijuana industry just like they did with the tobacco industry?

My worry concerning any form of legalization is that the industry lobbyists would then become so powerful that nobody would be able to stop them from doing anything they want. I think the only way to rationally allow for any form of legalization of vices (preferably without massive taxation and advertising) is to make it abundantly clear that the choice is between legalization with heavy-handed regulation and no legalization at all.

May 9, 2009 - 5:24 pm 58. Alexis:

I have been going back and forth on whether obtaining a license to buy drugs ought to not only mean giving up any privilege to drive motor vehicles or use heavy machinery, but also would mean voluntarily giving up one’s right to vote. (After all, should a vote be regarded as valid if the voter were marking his ballot while he’s stoned?)

If we had a choice between allowing the voluntary disenfranchisement of drug abusers and the status quo, I do wonder how many people would rather see drug addicts give up the right to vote if only to tilt the balance of power in future elections. I think this particular twist to regulated legalization has tradeoffs in either direction.

May 9, 2009 - 5:43 pm 59. bogie wheel:

Alcohol abuse is what I see more often by a long shot. One relative of mine is a chronic alcholic, another died of it in January 2008, a good friend is a “functional,” and another good friend is a recovering.

Cousin of mine did coke and reefer back in his 20s. Also alcoholic (worked as a bartender, of all things). Also recovering.

But like Demosophist I honestly can’t name a single person among friends or family who I know or even suspect is currently using marijuana, cocaine, meth, heroin, or abusing prescription drugs. Maybe I’m just not nosy enough. Or maybe they know better than to pull that s**t out when I’m around. Or just maybe … booze and only booze is the drug of choice among the people who constitute my circle.

Habu, I would assert that porn is a lot more mainstreamed than even illegal drugs these days. Exposure to porn among teenage boys runs something like 90%. I doubt reefer use rates that high. Obviously the financing issues are not the same, but … widespread pornography use does not bode well for the future of marriage in this country. There’s damage and there’s damage.

May 9, 2009 - 5:50 pm 60. dannyfrommiddletown:

This story about Pelosi being caught in another lie really doesn’t have much traction. Why? The republicans always assumed she was a liar and so seeing it clearly is no astounding revelation. The democrats may not have known she was a liar, but upon demonstration, most have now realized that they don’t care. Hence, a big yawn all the way around.

May 9, 2009 - 6:02 pm 61. bob:

Shoot the pushers. If that doesn’t work, shoot the users.

May 9, 2009 - 6:11 pm 62. erc rodson:

I have the misfortune to live close to San Francisco and thus have been able to follow Ms. Pelosi’s career in some detail. I have the fortune not to actually live in San Fransisco or her district. She is an embarrassment but probably unbeatable in her district. This is largely the result of California’s shameless gerrymandering of district boundaries, whereby incumbent politicians of both parties are protected at the expense of any potential challengers. And, look how well it’s worked out, as California blithely goes broke about next July.

May 9, 2009 - 6:48 pm 63. buck smith:

There is the additional factor that there is going to be a huge number of people will still want to remain anonymous in their vices and not want to go through government approved channels

Teh government could allow distributors to make the vice transactions anonymous while still collecting the sin tax. This is the case with alcohol.

May 9, 2009 - 6:56 pm 64. Habu:

It is not a question of alcohol vs marijuana and which is the worst of the two vices.

The question is spending billions of dollars that go directly to illegal syndicates ,cartels, etc. that then undermine governments, and drain our coffers to prop up governments.

If it isn’t a problem and we wish to treat it casually then fine, but don’t turn around and use it as an excuse to fight around the gglobe those druglords that supply mostly the USA.

Some say they haven’t seen it in years? Great , it must mean we’re winning. Anyone believe that? Seems to me the gross tonnage of cocaine has been on a rocket trajectory for decades. Either someone isn’t looking very hard, lies are being told, or any number of other variables is askew. Be we are told that the crops are always more robust etc. So whose using this stuff inever increasing quantities? The USA…and every dollar spent is going to de stabilize the world.

Yes, we could all be terrorized by a nuke in the hands of the Taliban but we’ve been in a drug denial by our population that the money spent on drugs goes to build another ride at Disneyland, not to buy another AK-47 or RPG to our troops with.

Some of the testmony here is not credible in the face of a mountain of snow and a cash crop that is the biggest in the world, ganga.

May 9, 2009 - 7:15 pm 65. buck smith:

It is interesting that this post about enhanced interrogations, torture, and Pelosi has generated a lot of discussion about drug use and war on drugs. The war on drugs causes far more civil rights abuses than the war on terror. Plus the abuses are directed against thousands of US citizens, not a few score jihadis. The worst abuses in the war on drugs are caused by asset forfeiture and no-knock raids, neither of which should be powers allowed to the government, IMO.

May 9, 2009 - 7:16 pm 66. steeple:

Habu, totally agree with you. Alexis, I’m pretty close to your position too. I enjoy reading the thoughts from both of you along with many of the other well-spoken participants on this site.

And the next item is to reduce our oil dependency by substituting natural gas for oil/gasoline/distillates whereever possible in the US so that we can drain the finances of the OPEC states.

Same deal; we’re paying for both sides of different albeit likely related wars.

Happy Mothers Day to the Moms at BC

May 9, 2009 - 7:31 pm 67. Habu:

65. buck smith:
It was residue from unfinished business on the last thread. My apologies for inserting it into a thread not of it’s milieu.

However you have still entirerly missed the point by turning the discussion to abuse of civil rights. If people didn’t support terorist with their drug habits then the incidence, which is small, of civil rights abuses would be a nullity in that area.

May 9, 2009 - 8:11 pm 68. Scythianeedle:

An argument could be made that the primary consumption of cocaine is the Hollywood community.

(Proof: Any blockbuster movie script and its advertising package; most network TV shows, even the ones I think are fun to watch…)

Closely followed by the Television Network Upper Management.

(Proof: Any utterance of Dan Rather in the last decade; the craven slutful promotion of one presidential candidate over all others in the last election; other items too numerous and depressing to mention…)

Hmmm.

If someone suggested that the idiotic and erratic behavior of the current admin is clear proof of sustained massive cocaine abuse, they might be liable for libel unless some supplier were to come forward. If they kill the supplier for spilling the beans, whose gonna volunteer to be their replacement crack connection?

May 9, 2009 - 8:53 pm 69. Subotai Bahadur:

Habu,

Yeah, I jumped in too. I very carefully included the concept of corruption as one of the remaining results of drug legalization. You and I are both cognizant of what we could do if the government would decide to really put a hurt on drug imports. It is in the personal interest of politicians to keep the border open. Illegal entrants to the US are a benefit to corporate America as a source of cheap, non-union labor; and to the American Left as a source of illegal votes and as a dependent group to add to their power.

Politicians of both parties, at all levels, are accustomed to, and willing to ignore the law for their own benefit.

There are literally billions of dollars involved in process of importing drugs into the United States. We have a national political class which has as a constant that regardless of how relatively poor they are when they enter office; always leave office in the top 1% of our wealthy.

If pretty much every cop, state governor, and almost all of the Federal officials in Northern Mexico are in the pay of the drug cartels; how many people can rationally believe that the collection of fools, miscreats, maladroits, and unindicted co-conspirators that we are pleased to call a national government has not also cut themselves in on the money in return for a quid pro quo? Especially since being part of the Federal government usually means no punishment for criminal offenses.

Subotai Bahadur

May 9, 2009 - 9:11 pm 70. Robohobo:

Just a small addition and an observation or two.

The only reason you get widespread drug us of addictive proportions is when you have enough wealth in the society to have large amounts of leisure time. If you are working too hard to just feed yourself you do not have the time for heavy drug use. Beer was invented as a way to preserve grain and was a staple of the diet for centuries. But it was not high alcohol content and served as a source of nourishment.

Habu, there are many, many people who do not abuse drugs in this country or even use them. I know both types, or I should say, those on both sides of that divide. Those that use and those who would never. The druggies think everyone is a user. The non-users do not even consider drug use as something that most people could do. And I am not counting recreational, light drinkers. The folks who have a glass of wine or a scotch now and then.

I think one thing that confuses most in the US is this. Most people confuse freedom and license. Think on that one. It explains so much. That and the utter lack of faith in any type of higher power.

And finally, Pelosi. She is either brazen in her lies or believes her narrative. Either one does not speak well for her. The best we can say is she is a liar or deluded. Just frakkin’ great.

May 9, 2009 - 11:06 pm 71. Charles:

45. bogie wheel:

Guilt, misery, suffering, death — all God’s fault. The blood-soaked cross — so what?
………..
People do think that way. But its not Christianity.

There is a tension between God Sovereignty and Man’s Responsibility.

May 10, 2009 - 12:03 am 72. 13times:

San Francisco is home to seventy medical marijuana cannabis clubs. It may be interesting to note that these state-sanctioned medical marijuana distribution clinics see a very large spike in consumer demand on both Friday and Saturday nights.

May 10, 2009 - 1:34 am 73. bob:

Shoot The Dealers

May 10, 2009 - 2:05 am 74. bob:

William James in the Varieties of Religious Experience and other places expressed the view that boozing and drugs was a search for transcendence. Course, you really can’t get there that way, which hasn’t kept multitudes from trying. Anyway if he is right it shows at least that there is an urge towards transcendence in the race, which should be considered an optimistic fact I’d think. Just that it often goes terribly wrong.

May 10, 2009 - 2:18 am 75. ledger:

What is up with Pelosi making a surprise visit to Iraq?

Is it a partisan head-fake to take the heat off of her for her not so truthful comments about water boarding?

[JPost]

“US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was in Baghdad Sunday morning for a surprise one-day visit to meet with the prime minister and discuss US-Iraqi relations, Iraq’s government spokesman said.”

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1241773217899

May 10, 2009 - 3:33 am 76. Charles:

74. bob:

imho a lot of this conversation has been driven by bad boundaries and the loss of sovereignty. You can see Orson Wells take up this issue in his movie 1952 movie “A Touch of Evil” about a Texas border cop and a UN official.

It may not be a permanent thing however. The 19th century saw the end of the frontier. That end of the “dream space” could argueably been part of the reason for the emphasis on alcohol and drugs. Of course, I wouldn’t push this notion. I will get in line for the new Star Trek. That said, 19th century americans talked about how somehow pushing out the frontier had a renewing effect on the USA. It even purified American morals in a way reminisent of the early 1500’s when the reformation began 30 years after the discovery of the New World.

So arguably when the first generations go off world in 3-4 decades –the effect on earth may well be electric. It may well straighten people out.

In any case, there is historical precedence for this kind of argument.

May 10, 2009 - 7:33 am 77. Mad Fiddler:

What the f**k is a Speaker of the House doing meeting with the head of state (isn’t that what the Iraqi Prime Minister is?)????

Doesn’t the Constitution… ?

Ooops. I’ve answered my own question, haven’t I?

The U.S. constitution has been nullified by Democratic Party and the Supreme Court of the United States.

Does anyone have a copy of the rules we’re supposed to follow today?

May 10, 2009 - 8:36 am 78. Mad Fiddler:

Seriously, I’m pretty sure the conduct of affairs with other sovereign nations is explicitly defined by the U.S. Constitution as the domain and prerogative of the President.

In the past when U.S. citizens have on their own initiated unauthorized contact, negotiations, or in some cases mere meetings with representatives of foreign governments they have been subject to sanctions, including in extreme cases, criminal prosecution and penalties.

(Pay no attention to that Botoxed Brow* behind the curtain…)

Pelosi may have cleared this meeting w O. It would be interesting to know if her 2008 meeting w Iraqi P.M. Maliki was cleared by then President Bush or just by some leftist flunkie in Froggie Bottom.

If NOT — if she didn’t make appropriate tugging of her forelock unto the goons of O to get prior approval — she might have further alienated his affections.

The country is staggering drunk through a field of claymores.

* John Kerry is supposed to have met with reps of the Communist North Vietnamese while he was still a member of the U.S. military yet never seemed to receive any reprimand or sanction. Go figure.

May 10, 2009 - 8:57 am 79. Habu:

68. Scythianeedle
“If someone suggested that the idiotic and erratic behavior of the current admin is clear proof of sustained massive cocaine abuse, they might be liable for libel unless some supplier were to come forward.”

It would be interesting since he has admitted in the past to being a drug dealer. I wonder how the discpvery process would play out if a libel case were brought and the defense asked for a hair sample to test for drugs? I imagine it would be resisited on 5th amandement grounds but just to get him in the dock explaining his past drug dealing would be worth the price of admission.

May 10, 2009 - 9:11 am 80. Mad Fiddler:

Here are a few sites that address Constitutional issue of WHO has the power to speak for the United States to foreign entities:

This website ONEcle Court Opinions refers to the text of the Constitution, and relates that to letters written by Presidents and other high officials, and to court opinions & decisions.

Here’s the website of the Council on Foreign Relations widely perceived as leftward leaning. But at least they still acknowledge the Constitution as authority. This site discusses attempts by individual congresscritters to conduct foreign policy through U.S. history

This link is to U.S. Diplomacy – subtitled “An Online Exploration of Diplomatic History and Foreign Affairs” cobbled together by the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training.

The site states it is meant in part to assist entry-level personnel in the Foreign Service and related activities, and has a caveat indicating that information has not necessarily been cleared by the U.S. State Department.

May 10, 2009 - 9:36 am 81. Habu:

Well, I’ll close my drug campaign by reinterating a few things.

To those who believe cocaine and marijuana use is contained in a small portion of the population then I would say that population is spending one helluva lot of money. Consequently I can’t buy into your thesis. Usage is pervasive.

To those who believe it is a victimless crime I say …go ask the amputee US soldier who lost a leg to an IED attack that was in part purchased with cocaine money, or the border patrol gents who served time for doing their duty.

But my experience tells me that what I have presented is accurate. Those in a work place who are known non users don’t ever get included in the underground activity. But that underground activity in every workplace I’ve been in , with the exception of the domestically based CIA types was always in the majority, doing deals and always asking “who do you know with some good blow of smoke?”

It is heartening to know that so many of our contributors have almost know knowledge of this underground interstate, given as they are to the honesty of their own lifestyles. It gives me hope.

But still, how does one account for the increasing BILLIONS of dollars spent on coke..it ain’t all coming out of NYC and LA.

I began by stating that Americans have sold out their rights to the numbing efects of “recreational” drugs. I believe in hoi polloi frustration of their daily lives it is an easier escape than fight for what is right and proper. Subotai Bahadur was also astute enough to point out something I missed and that is the totally corrupting effect it has at so many levels of government.

So I’ve exhausted myself and many of you are probably ready to throw me in the roiling pot, cauldron. Thanks for the indulgence.

May 10, 2009 - 9:38 am 82. twobyfour:

Habu, I don’t know what is the average age of BC posters, but it won’t be in mid 30’s. That may somewhat elucidate the lack of data on the pervasive drug culture.

May 10, 2009 - 10:10 am 83. markb:

Maybe the subterfuge isn’t at this end.

Is it possible the governments at war with the suppliers are lying about the supply to maintain cash flow from the US?

I just can’t believe that the popularity of these drugs would not be as evident as it was in the late 70s in the pop culture. Especially if the use is dramatically higher.

Also, I think marijuana should be legalized. OK, restrict it’s use to age 18 or 21. Don’t smoke and drive. DEA, use some of those hard earned funds to create a test to see if a driver is stoned. If a driver is found stoned, throw the book at him.

Everyone who is in jail for a Marijuana offence, release them and put them on probation for the remainder of their sentences. Expunge their records if it is their only conviction (after their probation ends).

I once had a job as a computer programmer. My boss congratulated me on passing my initial drug screen about a month into my job. The did a pre-employment drug screen as part of a pre-employment physical.

I had no idea, being fresh out of the Navy that civilians did drug tests, so I asked him if they had random drug screens and he replied affirmatively. I told him feel free to check again. I will be seeking new employment after you get my negative results.

If your employees are using drugs and you can’t tell by their job performance, why should you care? Conversely, if my job performance is so poor that you suspect I am using drugs, why do you need a test to fire me?

Of course I went on to work at a civilian nuclear plant, where it was discovered that I did not use drugs, so I was given 9 “random” drug tests in my first 6 months. Probably to pull the average up.

May 10, 2009 - 11:35 am 84. Habu:

83. markb

If your employees are using drugs and you can’t tell by their job performance, why should you care?

Geez.. because your money is going to cartels that undermine governments and eventually cost US and indigineous lives. I thought I had made that perfectly clear. So is what you want to support illegal ,vicious drug cartels with your money, because that is what you are doing.

You can’t be on both sides of the fence.

May 10, 2009 - 12:24 pm 85. Habu:

BTW, I looked up some stats on worldwide drug usage and importation ..the USA is in a league that dwarfs the rest of the world. We’re talking trillions of dollars going to the BAD GUYS who kill the GOOD GUYS.

May 10, 2009 - 12:28 pm 86. bogie wheel:

Habu -

No, not ready to toss you in the cauldron.

But you are smart enough to realize that there is no “one” uniform lifestyle of each of the 300+ million people in the United States. Context is king. A person working in a particular industry or a particular geographical location among a particular socio-economic set is going to see the drug use (or non-use) for that context only. Which isn’t everyone’s context.

In 2004, SAMHSA cited illegal drug use among Americans 12 and older, within the past 30 days, as 19.1 million. Since this is self-reporting you could argue their numbers are crap. Okay, let’s say it’s twice as many … 40 million people. That’s still just slightly over 10% of the population. So if your circle of fairly-well-known daily contacts (those with whom you have more than a few minutes’ superficial conversation daily) is 10 people or fewer, you are still statistically entirely likely to not have any illegal drug users in your circle.

Incidence of use also tends to be higher in certain age groups than others. Back when I was in high school and college, if you had asked me who was drinking or smoking pot, I could have reeled off a LOT of names. Some of the drinkers were friends of mine who were among the “good kids” crowd — got good grades, played sports, did not get into any other type of trouble, but they did go to grove parties and get sloshed one or two weekends a month.

Since college, my circle of fairly-well-known daily contacts has diminished by about half. It consists of 1 best friend and about 8 co-workers. And it has been the exact same group of people for the last 3 years. We’re not exactly talking your vast demographic swath of America here. When I say I don’t know or suspect anyone in my circle of using illegal drugs, that’s the context of the assertion … a very, very, very small sampling of people. In a very conservative work environment. It’s a potentially fireable offense at my bank if you bounce a check. No kidding. Their rationale is, money management goes to character. They don’t want the risk of someone with chronic money problems working around money or sensitive customer information.

I’m fully prepared to believe that some workplaces, esp. those in big-money, power-corridor sectors, are well nigh infested with drug use. But just as I am not out there claiming that MY workplace is “the norm” (after all, all I did before was say “this is what I see and hear”), I don’t see why someone else feels compelled to claim that their workplace is “the norm” either. It’s a spectrum, and examples exist all along it.

Back in February, Arlen Specter (ptooey) came to Point Park U here in Pittsburgh to ’splain why he voted for Obama’s $787 billion porkulus. My best friend, who works at the U and went to his appearance, said that someone asked him how he could vote for such a terrible piece of earmark-crammed pork. He justified himself thus: EVERYBODY is looking for a handout; that’s just the way things work; if you don’t give it to “A” then “B” will get it; EVERYBODY is hustling for them and theirs.

To which I replied to my friend, Specter has been in Washington too damn long. In D.C., YES, pretty much everyone IS on the make. But that’s D.C. (and sectors of L.A., and NYC, and Chicago …) D.C. is not America. A lot of people out here in flyover country are not hustlers & takers; they’re the ones who are busy with their noses to the grindstone, generating all that tax money that Specter and his cronies seem to have no trouble passing out to the hustlers & the takers. That Specter is unaware of the existence of the productive folks proves that he is unfit for office. First, because he has a distorted view of the country, its people and its economy. Second, because he is supposed to be representing the productive folks. And if they are invisible to him, he has no business voting to confiscate and redistribute their wealth.

Specter’s bubble mentality exists in a host of forms. Christians who only ever interact with other Christians. Hollywood A-listers who only hang with other A-listers. Parents with young kids, other parents with young kids. Crooks with crooks.

But it’s not just the world that’s a big place. America is, too.

May 10, 2009 - 12:28 pm 87. Habu:

twobyfour:

Good point ,however they all went through high school, many through college …. they know EXACTLY what I’m talking about but because we by and large don’t talk about the trillion dollar drug market and those over thirties now have kids, many of whom use drugs they go the route of the head in the sand scenario.

Many want the problem fixed by having the government regulate it, which I think is better than the subterfuge we go through now.

Will Rogers once said that taxes made liars out of more people than anything else …well the drug situation in this country is pushing that age old saying pretty hard.

May 10, 2009 - 12:35 pm 88. 907ie:

You guys haven’t even touched on prescription drugs, controlled substances only.

Good grief, talk to some pharmacy people sometimes

May 10, 2009 - 12:43 pm 89. bogie wheel:

and those over thirties now have kids

Again, not everyone.

I do realize I’m a demographic oddity, being in the superminority on the never-married-no-kids-at-40 front, and in the minority on the never-done-illegal-drugs, never-smoked-cigarettes, no-constant-prescription-drugs, virtual non-drinker category either.

But I do exist. And I’m neither a liar nor an imbecile.

I don’t see it in my daily circle. And I do think it’s a national scourge on a variety of levels — spiritual, national security, family coherence, workplace productivity, crime. Both assertions can be true at the same time, and in my case, are.

May 10, 2009 - 1:06 pm 90. markb:

Habu:

I do not stand on both sides. I am firmly on the legalize side. As all supply-siders should be.

As you have been arguing, supply will meet the demand. Paying foreign governments to eliminate the source of their new found wealth will not work!

The anecdotal “drug problem” I was referring to at the nuclear plant, was actually a “contractor” problem caused by getting temporary labor from the union hall at 3/4 scale.

I guess the drug free workers “demand” a little higher pay.

May 10, 2009 - 1:25 pm 91. Marie Claude:

I have been reading a few things about Drugs traffics and CIA involvement, Also on EU policy vis-à-vis drugs traffic, that said that making Drug supplies and addiction an every-day worry was/is a way to keep populations under control.

Drugs finances permitted that certain abroad operations could be possible

here a sum up for CIA

http://www.ciadrugs.com/

May 10, 2009 - 1:43 pm 92. Marie Claude:

and some politicians are thinking of legalise some drugs, a way to get taxes

http://www.rue89.com/droguesnews/2009/05/09/michael-douglas-veut-taxer-le-cannabis-schwarzenegger-y-pense

May 10, 2009 - 1:48 pm 93. Habu:

90. markb

You’ve tried to finesse the MAIN issue. Your purchase of drugs is going to BAD people who kill American service men and women.

Is that what you want? Of course you’ll say no but that IS exactly what is going on with your drug spent dollars. How do feel about making widows and orphans so you can get high? Or is a blown off leg an ok price?

May 10, 2009 - 2:00 pm 94. Dave:

Habu: Those monetary stats appear to be in the finest traditions of Robert S. McNamara.
You know, the joker whose quotes amounted to
eliminating 288% of NVA capabilites monthly, or was that weekly?

A bundle of marijuana was seized in the Big Bend. (A rarity there.) If cut, processed and sold as individual tokes, that would amount to $xxxxxx.xxxxx. Since authorities only intercept one bundle out of Y, this means
at $25xxxxxx.xxxx makes it through and is consumed. And since for every bundle of marijuana there is .5 kilos of opiates, cocaine, methampetamines etc and since these cost $Z times as much, we are now up to over $100 million dollars worth of money going to buy IEDs and RPGs. In addition to which, since 10% of all those drugs are presumed to be consumed locally, of the 8,000 souls who live there, 14,892 of them will test positive for banned substances.

I am not going to work through (and hire help) to calculate the precise numbers going in nationwide, but what is being publicized is pure garbage.

BTW: in the Great Big Bend Drug Bust and Sting of the 1980s, the only confirmed consumption of mood-altering substances was
$75,000.00 in Deputy Sheriff bar tabs. Ain’t these Federal anti-drug grants wunnerful?

One more time: When people do not have the false security of statist intervention, most clean up their act and stay clean. Others depart this vale of tears in short order.
Chemical dependency then gets down to irreducible minimums and stays there or very close to it.

This is so obvious, Nancy Reagan figured it out. JUST SAY NO. It works. Nothing else does.

May 10, 2009 - 2:17 pm 95. Charles:

The Mexican drug lords are currently taking over a lot of small town in California as a way to invest their money and send money back across the border. Here’s an particle on this practice

May 10, 2009 - 3:06 pm 96. Habu:

94. Dave

The government estimates that it intercepts perhaps 10-15% of the illegl drugs entering this country, and those numers easily top $250 billion. I extrapolated, elongated, and pumped up my numbers to look impressive ..who knows but I’m confident on what I do know that it exceeds a trillion bucks.

May 10, 2009 - 4:14 pm 97. bob:

Charles said–

That end of the “dream space” could argueably been part of the reason for the emphasis on alcohol and drugs. Of course, I wouldn’t push this notion.

Neither would I. We were here–my ancestors–from the beginning of the settling of this patch of frontier, and there was plenty of boozing then, according to reports. If drugs had been available, those would have been used to, I believe.

And, lest we think it was Paradise before we whites came, I recall for you that when Lewis and Clark came back from the Pacific Coast, on their return, they witnessed, near where I am sitting, humplillieps, or whatever his name was, just back from a trip to the south, to Shoshone country, with a necklace of human scalps around his neck.

Twas a rough place.

The trick is to be really really out on the far edge of the frontier, ahead of the misusers, even ahead of the indigenous, or, if one finds oneself trapped, as we all are now, to find a frontier in one’s home and one’s mind.

May 10, 2009 - 9:37 pm 98. bob:

Message for Marie Claude: you really need to get out of Paris for a bit, or where’re you’re at.

Damn, not even the fishing is good over there.

You try to think too much.

May 10, 2009 - 9:45 pm 99. Marie Claude:

Bob, huh ?

May 11, 2009 - 12:18 am 100. bob:

That’s what I expected.

May 11, 2009 - 12:29 am 101. Marie Claude:

You tried to think too much.

May 11, 2009 - 12:52 am 102. bob:

I’d make the argument that mankind has a drive towards God.

And that is all we are.

That is the only thing that counts.

Therefore:

anything that interferes with that is sin, a gross violation of what it is to be human.

Therefore: something as physically addicting and deadening as poisonous drugs should be fought with all our strength.

They will kill you. Physically and spiritually and mentally.

Other things, like divorce, or homosexuality, etc., or such matters, are of lesser importance, and I think should be left up to the states to decide.

But pushing poisons, which kill the body, mind, and more importantly the spirit–

I think we should kill the pusher.

May 11, 2009 - 12:52 am 103. bob:

I’m something like one sixteenth frenchy, the only part of my being I am shamed of.

I want to be Swede, and half Sioux, like some of my friends.

Throw in a little Jew too, if you like, like papas partner.

May 11, 2009 - 1:01 am 104. bob:

Remind me again, would you Habu, of all those frenchies that caved.

I got to get some sleep.

May 11, 2009 - 1:08 am 105. Marie Claude:

Bob I am 3/4 Brittanish (not Britton), 1/4 Croatian (Dalmatian dog from Korkula that might have been a sailor or a pirat, with drops of jew blood becuz of the name) while I dreamt to be a blond Russian girl with long legs, or may-be a pilot that fought the Germans in the skies, uh no, just a French that “irritates” Americans, is quite interesting !

May 11, 2009 - 1:16 am 106. Marie Claude:

“Remind me again, would you Habu, of all those frenchies that caved”.

in your dreams only, but your poropagandists would recall you, though these times they are out !

May 11, 2009 - 1:20 am 107. LarryBoyColorado:

Habu,

Normally I really enjoy your posts, but I’ve got a few arguments re: drug use.

First, right now, (some) drug purchases definitely do fund IEDs/jihad. BUT, this is because they’re illegal, driving up the price (and thereby funding) by a factor of 100x. If drugs were legalized, drugs’ price would drop by 99%, and funding would drop by 99%. Mr. Afghan-Poppy-Grower might even find better revenues growing, I dunno, alfalfa. Although then alfafa might fund jihad to an extent.

Second, 90% just seems ridiculously high. Some countries have legalized pot; do anywhere near 90% of their populations “use”?

Third, 20% of beer drinkers consume 80% of the beer made. I suspect a ratio like that is going to hold for drug users as well (thinking back to high-school/college would seem to anecdotally confirm this hypothesis). I lead a somewhat-sheltered life here in the midwest running a business, but gads, if 10% of the people I know are drug users I’d fall out of my chair.

Just food for thought.

May 11, 2009 - 10:38 am 108. markb:

Prohibition. I thought we learned our lesson in 1933. How is this any different?

Not to mention the advantages of turning gangbangers into stoners.

And would leave more amow for the rest of us.

May 11, 2009 - 11:37 am 109. Habu:

107. LarryBoyColorado

I think somewhere along the line I mention legalization for coke and ganga..Tax it , get that good revenue and do a good deal of harm to the bad guys.

Just to clarify. I personally don’t object to personal drug usage. I just know that what ever the true numbers may be, and we may never know ,but all the evidence points toward a good deal of the money going to fund guys who kill our guys..that weighs heavily on my brain.

Belive me I’ve done my share but one day on TV I saw the commercial that pointed that out and I just said, not me brother, I can grow my own or wait til they make it legal but I’m not fighting terrorism by subsidizing it ..that would be too big a stretch in logic.

It took breaking a long time habit but like rules, bad habits are made to be broken.

May 11, 2009 - 1:06 pm 110. Scythianeedle:

Had an uncle who was with the U.S. Marines that marched across Nicaragua from one coast to the other fighting Sandinistas in 1929.

Nineteen Twenty Nine

He told me his next billet was on a U.S. Navy ship stationed in a Chinese coastal city where he got a lot of opportunity to see the solution Chiang Kai Shek and his troops worked out for Opium addiction.

They marched a bunch of addicts to the river bank every day and chopped off their heads.

Singapore seems to have a similar idea.

China, too maybe?

Also — China charges the family of the executed convict for the cost of the round sent into the brain.

They also harvest the epidermal tissues of freshly executed convicts, process them to extract the collagens, and sell the gunk to European manufacturers of fine cosmetics.

Waste Not etc.

Don’tcha love it?

How those lips doin’ Pam?

May 11, 2009 - 3:01 pm 111. Marie Claude:

#110 Scy, impossible cuz of
1-deontology,
2-moral,
3-criminal condamnation,
4- mad cow is much costless and more profitable becuz of the large amount of merchandise,
5-you invented that story, tell that to your naive fellah LMAO

May 11, 2009 - 3:20 pm 112. Habu:

110. Scythianeedle

I have a neice who was born in Singapore where using chewing gum could cost you big time …can’t remember if it was your life or the Bobbit part but lots of those countries are tough.

Pam’s lips …lets go to the video.

May 11, 2009 - 5:44 pm 113. Charles:

97. bob:

I want to apologize to whoever it was that worked a thread 5-10 wretchard posts ago ….– to whom I compared to an old buddy of my mine — Charles Hayes. Thirty years ago we smoked pot together. I gave it up because I thought the drugs (and alcohol) would kill me. I was only able to give up the drugs and alcohol & cigarettes because I came to Jesus. I could not have done it by my lonesome.

May 11, 2009 - 7:29 pm 114. GerryP:

Habu and drug commenters,

Two things. One is how drugs got into the American mainstream big-time. It was through academia. Harvard, to be exact. From professors Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (later known as “Ram Dass.) They urged American youth to “turn on, tune in, drop out.” It caught on like wildfire.

I remember that about 1964 the Houston Post or Chronicle ran a 2-page, full-color spread in the Sunday paper about new drug use by students at Houston’s Rice University. It was a breathless article about how “in” and wonderful it was to turn on with drugs. Color on-campus pics of students in a turned-on state of bless were used. Before 1963-64, drug use was not common.

Only 4 or 5 years later, kids who had been hippies had become “freaks” (Hippie-junkies, that is.) They grew into the Boomers. I saw it first-hand, as a grad student then a college teacher.

The other thing: some drug users use a LOT of drugs. That is about all they do. They use too heavily to hold a job, and get their money mostly by stealing. In fact, most theft is to support drug use, if I remember the numbers correctly. Those heavy users may account for much or most of the volume of drugs used.

May 11, 2009 - 10:14 pm 115. Steynian 354 « Free Canuckistan!:

[...] THE GRAND INQUISITOR– Did Nancy Pelosi know? …. [...]

May 12, 2009 - 8:07 am

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