House of Eratosthenes

So blogsister Daphne took her turn challenging my weird assertions about the laws that are supposed to stop us from puffing away at The Plant. Because, like Mr. Mackie, I say Marijawawna is bad, mmmkay? And suddenly, like the morning after, I had a thought about this I hadn’t thought before.

You know why there is such a deep split about this?

See, what we have here, is a law designed to keep us from becoming a bunch of drooling idiots…

STOP WRITING, please. I said “designed to.” Jeez you people, let me finish a point, you don’t have to keep debating that instantly, every time it comes up. Anyway. The laws against marijuana are supposed to keep us from becoming stupid. And folks like Daphne and I end up slightly disagreeing about it, although our values are pretty much the same, and we’re both somewhat ambivalent about how we’ve come down on the issue because we’ve both confronted the same dilemma and we’ve both entertained the same conflict within us. A law that’s supposed to keep people from being stupid.

Speaking for myself, I do believe you have a right to be an idiot. You might say I have exercised this right on an occasion or two, although that’s a subject for discussion some other time. As I said in the comments, the argument advanced by those who say the criminalization of Marijuana violates a sacred right to be an idiot, is pretty much the most persuasive one I’ve encountered. I’m similarly conflicted on the motorcycle-helmet laws, and the cell phone laws.

I think everyone who shares my general value system, is similarly conflicted. I am more than ready to resolve the conflict out of a sense of personal fatigue…which may be the beginning of an enormous mistake, I admit. But I am. The question is this. Am I fatigued more from having too many laws on the books; or am I fatigued more from seeing people act more, and more, and more like idiots with each passing year?

And you know why the Marijuana question divides us so?

Because it’s the only law — or one of a very, very exclusive selection of laws — that is supposed to stop us from becoming idiots. Think about it. Most of our laws that are built to manipulate us socially, on a state level as well as federal, are designed to stop us from becoming too smart. Or wealthy, or productive, or inspiring to others.

After a bit more thinking I came up with one, and only one, cousin to drug possession/consumption/distribution/sale laws: No Child Left Behind. The same people who argue about drug laws, tend to argue about NCLB — in part because Ted Kennedy helped write it. And there are some who say NCLB is designed to keep our kids stupid, not make ’em smart…others say it has had the stupidifying effect, whether intentional or not. Those splintered factions aside, though, the dynamics are the same and the dividing effect is the same. The people like us look at this nanny-state law that arguably may have the intent, or the result, of slowing or stopping our slide into an Idiocracy nation. And we have think, What’s a bigger crisis? People becoming too stupid, or people living under too many stupid laws?

I suggest that while this is a worthy question, it is also a distraction. A far worthier question would be: Why is this situation the exception rather than the rule? Laws that stop you from defending your family, should they require defending, with a handgun. Bailouts for incompetent, failing businesses. Antitrust laws. Progressive taxes. Teachers’ unions, and the spineless school officials that pander to them, conspiring to teach kids about sensitivity at the expense of readin’, writin’ and ‘rithmetic. Why does it seem to be in our societal makeup to create more and more bureaucracies and laws that have the design, and the intent, of turning us into a nation of helpless imbeciles?

Update: Small-tee tim, the godless heathen, submits a comment that is supposed to disagree with me but bears many of the same sentiments. In a helpful effort to get people to lighten up just a little bit more, he also provides a link to Tammy Bruce’s pages…maybe y’all have seen this clip already.

Still think it’s your right to be stupid. Or not.

Just don’t come to me with your hand out if you can’t get a job or you got fired for being too lazy, showing up late, or too high to do your job.
- philmon | 06/11/2009 @ 11:51
You’re saying that this year?
- mkfreeberg | 06/11/2009 @ 12:04
Heh.

I hear ya.
- philmon | 06/11/2009 @ 12:17
Average pot smoker –white, 30 yr. old male, employed. All the pot “imported” into this country is not being smoked by unwashed, liberal, Fish listening, Colorado college kids.

It’s your neighbors, the lawyers, professors, accountants…some are even (gasp), yes… Conservatives.

Ah, screw it…we’re now reading terrorists Miranda Rights…Morgan is right (a previous post) the shitheads in charge are all freakin’ stoned…make possession a life sentence, it’s obviously a very dangerous drug.
- tim | 06/11/2009 @ 12:30
Well the thing about our new redistributionist utopia is what makes this complicated, in my mind. In my kind of utopia, you do have an absolute right to be stupid and you can ride a motorcycle without a helmet. But Phil’s “don’t come crying to me” rule takes effect when you end up a vegetable.

So since we seem so all-fired committed to milking and bilking the taxpayers at every single opportunity, there does arise a taboo against being stupid, that wasn’t there before. I think. There has to, right? I mean there has to be something there to protect we who pay the bills.

Or maybe not. But if not, then it’s just an inevitable slide into an abyss; no point speculating on the whens, hows, and what-can-we-do-to-stop-its.
- mkfreeberg | 06/11/2009 @ 12:54
“Well the thing about our new redistributionist utopia is what makes this complicated …”

Yes, this is where my “I hear ya” was coming from.

Yes, there used to be a taboo against being stupid. It was enforced by society, though, and not by the government. Plus the Government wasn’t getting in the way of society enforcing the stupidity taboo. Remember that right to associate with whom we choose – implying a right to not associate with whom we choose?

Progressives are all about removing the distinction between government and society. It used to take a village. “We are The Village™” they say. The scholars and the intellectuals.

The shame is gone, and we are forced to supplement, nay, support.

With the “it’s your right to be stupid” comment, I also meant “it’s your responsibility to deal with the consequences.” And we’re a long way from that, granted. It’s still the ideal we need to move back toward.
- philmon | 06/11/2009 @ 13:23
Yes, there used to be a taboo against being stupid. It was enforced by society, though, and not by the government. Plus the Government wasn’t getting in the way of society enforcing the stupidity taboo…Progressives are all about removing the distinction between government and society.

Bingo. Nailed it. SHUT.

Reading through your place, I notice you have a predilection toward making entire posts out of comments that start out just like this one. Hope you follow suit here.
- mkfreeberg | 06/11/2009 @ 13:54
Sigh.

OK, OK, I know I’ve posted all this before, so let me try to summarize.

Bottom line: I’m the kind of Conservative who doesn’t feel he has the right to opinions about things he hasn’t experienced. As you may imagine, this has led me to try many things probably better avoided. This position is best expressed by Epictetus’ observation that any opinions not based in directly observed experience are necessarily bullshit, or words to that effect. And in Latin, in course.

Regular readers of these threads can find a rather extensive discussion of this point between Buck and me – two guys, same age, vastly different lives and experience. Both of us have smoked weed for 40 years; I would probably have come down on the side of legalization (for all the reasons stated by others) right up until I found myself in a place where it is close enough to legal that the use of it is essentially encouraged.

Something I’ve noticed: the smart guys and gals in this environment have left it behind, largely due to seeing the same things that caused me to quit. In a situation where there is essentially no reason not to smoke it, it swiftly becomes apparent that the vast majority of pot smokers are losers. It is also impossible to ignore that, legal or not, the mindset of the stoner community is essentially criminal, and that these are people best avoided.

Add to this the fact that anybody who thinks you can keep this away from adolescents in this sort of environment is insane. As I’ve said before, the addition of mind-altering drugs to the essential confusion of puberty produces predictable results, and what can be observed of long-term pot smokers in their ’20s and ’30s is not encouraging.

Now, back to point one: This is my experience. I would go further to say that because of the circumstances of my life and livelihood, I may have seen more different kinds of pot smokers than most folks. A couple of years without it have given me lots of time to reflect on what it all meant to me, but I definitely wouldn’t have taken the opportunity without first seeing close up what an unregulated society looks like. Ve grow too soon oldt und too late schmardt.

Having said all that, it seems to me that Morgan is the only writer I’ve encountered that is willing to try to address the larger issues honestly. Do we want Big Government telling us what we can put in our bodies? I damn sure don’t. Is widespread legalization of marijuana a good idea? Not in my opinion, for the reasons stated. Not an easy situation, or one easily dismissed, which is where I think Morgan’s on the inside track. What I think he’s getting at is this: almost all arguments on both sides devolve immediately into absolutes – You Gotta, You Can’t, Always, Never, yaddayaddayadda. The situation, as his struggling with it indicates, just ain’t that simple.

Mostly I think “I made my mistakes, you make your own.” But if you think that legalizing drugs of any kind is going to do anything but mainstream another kind of criminality, you’re living in a dream world. If you’ve never lived around people with tattoos on their faces and no impulse control, lemme tell you it ain’t like television
- rob | 06/11/2009 @ 14:07
Reading through your place, I notice you have a predilection toward making entire posts out of comments that start out just like this one. Hope you follow suit here.

Yeah, if I feel that the comment would be worthwhile standing on its own for those I direct to my blog. I often work things out as I write. Part of the reason I blog. A big part, really. Sometimes I read a post that gets me to thinking. Sometimes the thoughts don’t go very far, and sometimes they congeal with other thoughts I’ve been thinking recently while I’m typing and and the comment turns into more than just a run-of-the-mill comment. That’s when I post them on my blog – often with further editing to clarify, contextify, correct, and expound where I see fit. You know, since I can 😉 When I think it says something worth remembering and perhaps going back to … you know, comments kinda get buried and forgotten after a while. And they’re certainly harder to find.

There is probably a post coming about the observation about progressives and shaping society. It’s something I’ve noticed like a nagging itch over the last few years that, the longer it nags, the more places you notice it. Just in the past few weeks it’s floated to the top of my brain like a bouy released from the ocean depths — this all ties in to the founders and the original ideal of states and a limited federal government. It’s come to the surface largely because I’m hearing it more and more as the people who want to do it so badly are now in charge — and they’re getting more and more bold about … not covering up by using tangential language. They’re just coming out and saying it, loud and proud. That thought was mentioned in just such a “comment post” that started as a comment I left on this post …. and ended up nearly verbatim in my own post here.

And it’s buggin’ the piss out of me.

So I’ll see what I can do about expounding on the thought. Thanks for the encouragement 😉
- philmon | 06/11/2009 @ 15:51
You KNOW where I stand on the subject of legalization, so there’s no sense in flogging a (truly) dead horse.

But as far as laws that exist to prevent us from being stupid… I’m thinking most laws fall into that category… laws against this, that, and the other… e.g., speeding, helmet laws, jaywalking, bigamy, you-frickin’-name-it. The exceptions… things like murder, robbery, and such… only serve to prove the rule. In modern society, anyway. And now I hear the congress has just enacted a law that gives the FDA the right to regulate tobacco. Stupidity. Don’t they have anything better to do? (That was a purely rhetorical question… no answer required or needed.)
- bpenni | 06/11/2009 @ 22:23
But as far as laws that exist to prevent us from being stupid…speeding, helmet laws, jaywalking, bigamy…

Yeah, I just don’t see it that way. Government figures out it’s “smart” to wear a helmet and then forces us to do so — that’s just like Government figuring out it’s “smart” to go to the doctor they’ve picked out for us, and then fining us if we choose to go to a different one, or Government figuring out it’s “smart” to buy a hybrid and then making us buy hybrids. To me, after Year One, it seems nobody thinks of those laws as smartening-up laws, they’re just “laws” and you’re supposed to get smacked if you dare to go outside of them. They make people less free, not smart or stupid.

Here are some examples of laws that have the actual effect, over a long timeframe, of making each generation dumber and less independent than the generation that came before:

Racial sensitivity training for teachers, since those awful white & Asians are getting higher scores on tests, how dare they.

Card check, because those selfish employees are voting against unionizing, and our goons don’t know who they are so how are they going to figure out which tires to slash and which kneecaps to break?

State lotteries…which aren’t really “laws” because they don’t force people to do anything. But they certainly do promote sloth in body and mind.

My point is that these actions tend to unify us on the conservative side because they erode both intellect and freedom. The pot-smoking issue has a dividing effect, because legalizing it would embiggen our freedoms. To partake, it seems a consensus has emerged, requires a momentary or longer-term failing of common sense, and is generally unwise. Once the partaking has been done, people tend to show a number of traits our general population already offers in great abundance. They become, overall, much more aggressive in insisting certain things should be done or shouldn’t be done; and they simultaneously become a great deal lazier in their abilities to explain what would & wouldn’t happen, if the thing was or wasn’t done.

It’s like they exchange one stifling, draconian set of rigid social codes and taboos, for an entirely different one. They develop an impulse to search and destroy others, but destroy in such a way that destructive intent can be denied even though it is clearly there. To destroy cutely. You know what’s a great example of what I’m talking about here? Letterman’s joke about Palin’s daughters. Typical pothead behavior. Here’s a “joke”…but it has no humor value…it’s just tossed out there as a message to the like-minded, to say “See, I am one of you, because I recognize Sarah Palin is a non-person and I don’t have to behave, nor will I behave, decently toward her. That makes me one of you.” And when the kitchen gets a little hot you can take the Jon Stewart approach and say “What the hell is the matter with you, it was just a joke fer cryin’ out loud.”

I know we have a different life-experience perception of this, but trust me: You gain a new perspective on it once you’ve been placed in the cross hairs of this type of mentality and people have tried their best to eliminate you. We don’t need to try any social experiments that create more of these personality quirks. They aren’t rare commodities right now. They are the norm. Liberals and conservatives both do it…liberals, far more often…
- mkfreeberg | 06/12/2009 @ 13:05

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Thursday, June 11th, 2009