House of Eratosthenes

Last night it was pot. Now, if I go only by what I’ve been hearing, just the opinions people have about things that they want to put out there whether they can explain ’em or not — we have to legalize this stuff pronto. It is not, not, not, not, not, repeat not, a “gateway drug.” It’s cheap, it’s good for you, it makes wonderful rope and sweaters, and besides if we legalize it we can tax it; that’ll “pay off the deficit overnight,” they tell me. Besides, “contrary to popular belief,” smoking pot increases your powers of observation and concentration. You’d want your brain surgeon to smoke pot.

Well for a melodious, cheerful dinner conversation, you really shouldn’t get Dr. Michael Alan Weiner going about marijuana. This is the point where, I’m going to presume, the guests start to regret allowing the conversation to drift in that general direction, for one quickly gathers the impression the good doctor can barely contain himself. Not only is pot a gateway drug, he says, but it’s a deadly one, one that destroys the consumer’s ability to think. Yes, this is what I’d been noticing. Pay off the deficit overnight, for example. They don’t mean this year’s budget deficit, at the state or federal level; they’re talking about the trillions and trillions owed by our federal government, more properly called the public debt. A little bit of third-grade math is devastating to that argument, especially when you start applying it to interest. Let’s see…ten trillion dollars “overnight” is eight hundred thirty-three billion dollars an hour, which comes to just shy of fourteen billion dollars a minute in tax receipts on legalized, taxable marijuana.

Er, uh, yeah, says the stoner. I was speaking, y’know, whatchamacallzit, metaphorically. Yeah. Yeah sure you were, pothead. You were talking out your butt. You weren’t speaking any way except cheerleading. You were trolling for recruits.

Now I don’t really have a dog in this hunt about legalizing marijuana one way or another, but I really can’t stand looking at an issue too closely when it’s part of something much bigger, which is why we haven’t been talking about pot too much in these pages. It’s not just about smoking pot. There’s a whole culture built around this, and that’s what Savage was going after last night. Here’s his argument: Because of the year we’re in, the potheads are coming into power right now. Seems, to me, this has been going on since about ’93, when Clinton was sworn in. But it’s been getting worse. One way or another the stoners are running the show. We have this window of ages we like to see in our leaders; the ones who make the actual decisions; the baby boomers who latched on, generationally, to the pothead culture, are there right now. So pretty much every office that counts for something — in the private sector as well as in government — is filled by a pothead.

Savage’s condemnation of the plant is even harsher than mine. As I understand it, he seems to believe in once-a-pothead-always-a-pothead…as if, once you inhale in your early twenties, in your late fifties youre still making bonehead decisions. Not sure if I’d go that far. But there certainly is a lag time, and a pronounced tendency to reject humility. I mean sincere, substantial humility. The tendency I see is to say “That must be an okay thing to do, for I just did it.” And it does seem persistent across time: That other guy did something, that’s awful, terrible, horrible, bad. I did something, even something that is against the law…well hey man, it’s all relative.

Savage went on to offer two examples of potheads running the show: Shutting down Guantanamo, or at least ceasing & desisting from the “torture” conducted within, and sending San Francisco’s police department to some kind of sensitivity training. I wish he went on much further than that, and maybe he did but my commute came to an end. I know I could add to a list like that all day long.

But I’m much more into definitions than examples, here. I’m junior to the baby boomers by some twelve to twenty years or so, which means I’ve been struggling awkwardly in their impressive wake all my life and will be continuing to do so until the day I drop dead. I consider myself well-qualified to speak on this. And Savage is right — the smoke-holers are running the show. Stoners hire other stoners. Because it’s them against the world, man. So this is becoming an important issue, one that’s affecting us all even in ways we don’t understand immediately when it isn’t pointed out.

Reefer Girl It has a lot to do with something called “love”; that’s why you have to immediately stop torturing terrorists, and that of course means you have to stop doing anything that anybody, anywhere, no matter how recklessly, might label “torture.” Pretty much just feed ’em three times a day, fluff up their pillows, find out what else they want from you, go get it, and wait for them to talk. Police shouldn’t hurt criminals, and probably shouldn’t even arrest them for anything either. Countries shouldn’t go to war, no matter the reason. Make-love-not-war.

Conversely with that, whatever the potheads mean by “love,” it doesn’t have much to do with compatibility, because they seem to be insisting that whatever confrontation might possibly happen, does happen. A woman who is madly in love with her man, and none other, is deeply offensive to them. That could be because the feminist movement came to maturity at the same time as the pothead movement. If you really want to piss off a pothead, make a suggestion, in theory or in practice, that a woman who really loves her man will go get him a cold beer out of the fridge. (I’m entirely unsure how they’re going to react if she runs into the bedroom and gets him a jay.) But everything is like that; they don’t want people, in general, getting along with other people. Not across class lines, anyway. The real contradiction here, is that this is precisely what they say they’re working tirelessly to bring about, but I’ve noticed for years now when it’s right in front of their faces they don’t see it that way, and in fact recoil from it. Everyone has to be fighting something — man. Immigrants are constantly “oppressed” by bigoted “xenophobes” who in fact are insisting on nothing more than that the law be followed. Blacks are always oppressed by whites, women are always oppressed by men, citizens are always oppressed by the police and children are always oppressed by their parents. Everyone should constantly be throwing off shackles, storming some fortress or rampart, overthrowing someone, showing ’em what’s-what.

There are no consequences for anything. That’s probably the biggest, most important item, right there. No decision is ever made out of a sense of “if-this-then-that”; there are no domino effects, there is no cause-and-effect. Decisions are made, instead, on value-systems and overly-simplistic “should”s. If you think we’ll be unable to prevent an attack after we stop “torturing” terrorists, well, you’re just wrong. This argument won’t be taken anywhere, logically, mind you. It’ll simply be ended. It’ll be answered with mocking, “The Experts Say,” some quotes from The Daily Show, maybe a recycled line from Nice Guy Eddie in Reservoir Dogs…and that’s about it. If you bring up some solid evidence of your own, such as mentioning Kalid Sheikh Mohammed or Abdul Hakim Murad, well, you’re just a mean unreasonable poopy-head. Trust me on this. I’ve been there.

So it really ends up being a child’s fantasy land, when you get down to it. I don’t mean a small child’s fantasy; I’m talking a teenager, of the slothy kind, the kind that doesn’t roll out of bed or do the dishes or cut the grass without a whole lot of nagging. Every little thing that would require some foresight or manual labor brings forth a torrent of excuses. There are lots of positive thoughts about how we all need to love each other and get along with each other — right up until positive thoughts about other people determine something decisive must be done, something that requires effort. Then we don’t need to think such positive thoughts about each other anymore. Like, for example, very wealthy people are just as much entitled to keep their money as the rest of us, and it’s probably beneficial to allow them to do so, because the rest of us are in a symbiotic relationship with them…that would be a positive, compassionate thought, one that is compatible with the continuing harmonious working of an evolved, civilized society. But you’ll never see the potheads support that one, because that’s just a bit too much civilization and “love” for them to choke down at all at once. Far better to drone onward about being oppressed, man, by that evil corporate America, man.

Every little call to take garbage out, is met with some plea for moral relativism, cry for revolution, or both of those. I mean literal garbage, such as everyday household chores, as well as figurative garbage, like making sure Big Bad Bart catches that midnight train outta here and doncha dare come back. Hippies hate cowboys, I’m sure you’ve figured out by now, and they pull no punches that the thing they hate the most about cowboys, is the white hat, the black hat and the moral clarity. They hate the way this leads to realizations, fifteen minutes before closing-credits, that a real confrontation has to take place…for consequences loom over the “town,” if it does not. The stoner hippie isn’t down with that. He philosophizes his way out of every little thing that needs doing, and all without putting down the doobie or moving his ass off that well-worn mattress.

Hippies and those oh-so-hated cowboys are close cousins, in a way. They’re both all about confrontation. But the cowboy uses bullets instead of rhetoric and the hippy doesn’t like that. The dirtiest secret of all lies within that special hatred for bullets. It isn’t the property damage, or the death, or the carnage, or the danger to the bystanders the hippy hates when hot lead is flying around the saloon. It is the finality of the solution. No more negotiations; they never began. An elegant Obama/Cronkite lilt to the voice doesn’t count for shit. Settlements to disputes are not proposed, only implemented. Nothing is up for appeal.

In other words, decisions actually get made. Situations get changed. That is what cannot be tolerated on Planet Pothead. Ain’t that a kicker? The culture began for the express purpose of upsetting the status quo on a grand, cosmic scale; once it got some momentum built up, it became all about preserving status quos, even within microscopic, practically insignificant settings. Every situational change is a verbal agreement, which is just meaningless jibber-jabber, since every agreement has a loophole.

So I think Savage has a point here, and it’s a little bit of a frightening one when you think about it. Potheads are making the decisions now, and that means all decisions are cosmetic in nature, accountability never figures into it, consequences aren’t to be reckoned with. Do we have a society that can withstand that for long? Are our most influential and powerful positions-of-trust grappling with decisions on a daily-basis, decisions that can be made well, or at least harmlessly, by people who don’t believe actions have consequences? People that are only there to enforce contrarian social codes, love without accompanying feelings of symbiosis, and surreal & tie-died systems of quasi-moral babbling?

Can our culture stand for very long, when there is no human passion worth satisfying except lusting for the perverse, and the next case-of-the-munchies? With every single office that really matters, turned into a “work-free-drug-place”?

There’s the big question.

I guess we’ll be finding out the answer pretty soon, now.

I probably didn’t pay enough attention to your post, Morgan, given as how I skimmed most of it. That’s my pothead legacy in play, I suppose… short attention span ‘r’ us.

I will say this, though: Savage is a frickin’ idiot. I’ll go so far as to say all Drug War proponents are frickin’ idiots. You’d be damned hard pressed to name another Federal program that has thrown SO much money down the rat-hole with SO few positive results, such as fewer “users,” reduced inflow of drugs across the borders, yadda, yadda. But Hey! I further suppose we should be proud of the fact we are THE nation with the highest incarceration rate in the industrialized world, a large percentage of which are incarcerated for non-violent, simple possession. That’s a good thing, innit? (/sarcasm)

All I have to offer is the anecdotal personal experience of being a pothead for well over 30 years, in the past. During the time in question I had two successful careers, raised two pretty danged good kids who seemed to have made their way in life fairly well, despite the obvious moral and personal responsibility failings of their father (dang. sarcasm, again), all while (seemingly) retaining my mental faculties, moral grounding, discharging my civic and social responsibilities, managing to stay off heroin and crack cocaine, yadda, yadda. And became a conservative during that time-frame, as well. Go figure.

Note I said my pot use was in the past. We’ll not talk about the present, one way or t’other. Shorter: “I neither confirm nor deny…”
- Buck | 01/08/2009 @ 16:52
All fine and good, this is NOT a post in favor of the war-on-drugs. This is a post about the culture.

And the culture is one of rampant extremism. When they want to not make any war, they want to not make ANY war, for ANY reason…until the number of people dead because of no-war, well exceeds the number who’d be dead were one allowed to took place. And they want to run everything. We just saw that in Minnesota with that absurd recount. Why did they need to indulge in “Find Phony Ballots for Gore Part Deux”? What was the point of that? They already own everything else this year. Answer: It’s never enough. They always have to have more. I think Saxby needs to watch his back, I really do.

There’s a certain cognitive dissonance taking place within the culture about which I complain. It’s that “the world needs more tolerance, and I’ll crush beneath my heel anybody who gets in the way of it” mindset; a passive-aggressive substance beneath a phony peace-and-love surfacing. I’m pretty sure the mind-altering substance in pot is what makes this possible, based on what I’ve seen.

Er, not that that’s directed toward anyone individual, mind you.
- mkfreeberg | 01/08/2009 @ 17:11
Well look who got out on the grumpy side of bed this year!

Eh. That’s ok. So did I. 😉 Besides, you made me laugh a lot reading that.

Of all the radio talk show hosts I’ve heard, I think I like Savage the least. It’s not that I never agree with him on anything… I just think he’s a blow-hard and a conspiracy theorist. There are worse conspiracy theorists than him, but IMAO, he falls squarely in that category. I avoid him almost as much as I avoid Maureen Dowd.

Personally, I’m for legalizing pot. Not to solve the federal deficit problem. Not because I’m a fan of pothead culture. It’s because I believe in liberty and personal responsibility (two sides of the same coin). It simply should never have been made illegal. It’s a plant. You can do some stupid things with that plant, and you can do some stupid things with alcohol. Hell, you can do stupid things with salt. I’m against people who do stupid things. You want to grow a plant and smoke it? Fine. Hey, if it were legal I might even try it. Why? Because I trust my sense of self-discipline, and I have better things to do than sit around stoned all the time. Doesn’t mean I don’t think it might be fun once in a while. But I do think it would be stupid to elect potheads to run the country. Or even to let potheads choose the people who run the country. Lay on the couch, dude, and watch your MTV. Or Nickelodeon. Whatever.

A couple of things you said did remind me of a revelation I had over the holidays. Couple of Progressives in my circle of influence have moved from just hating Wal-Mart to having an aversion to “the people that shop there”.

I decided next time some progressive brings that up, or anything about the Nascar crowd or people who live in small towns in, oh, I don’t know, somewhere like ALASKA… I’m just going to quietly ask…

“What, are you afraid of people who aren’t like you?”
- philmon | 01/08/2009 @ 17:22
Oh yeah, I realize that the post wasn’t on pot, pro or con. Just brought some things up in my warped little mind.

The things you bring up about culture are well said and well taken.
- philmon | 01/08/2009 @ 17:27
Well I appreciate that you appreciate it Phil, but I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to Mr. Grumpy McGrumperson over there in NM.

Here, I’ll make it even shorter:

If you want to close down Gitmo, and your reply to “Where do we move all the detainees to?” is a big fat I-dunno, but you still want to close it down, I don’t care if your brain is addled by wacky-tobaccy or if your excuse is that you’ve been raped up the butthole by space aliens. Forget running for office, forget voting. You shouldnt’ even be allowed to have pets.
- mkfreeberg | 01/08/2009 @ 18:11
[knee-slap] … Mr. Grumpy McGrupmperson … heh. No, I knew you weren’t talking to me. I was just tossing in my two cents and the qualifying it, that’s all.

Kinda sounds like all three of us are a little grumpy these days. 🙂

Or should that be :-/ ?
- philmon | 01/08/2009 @ 18:37
ahem, and theN qualifying it. Bejezuz. Cain’t even type. Gittin’ old!

[Grump!]
- philmon | 01/08/2009 @ 18:39
Heh. Mr. Grumpy McGrumperson. I LIKE that. Mainly coz it’s TRUE.

The whole “War On Drugs” thing is a SERIOUS hot-button for me, obviously. As is the inference that folks who light up and inhale smoke from a proscribed plant are somehow less rational, less perceptive than folks who indulge in a lil single-malt, a couple o’ beers, or tee martoonies. That’s just bullshit, pure and simple. Sure, I’ll agree there’s some truth in that ol’ Cheech and Chong stereotype. I’ve known countless numbers of layabouts who just wanna get stoned and watch American Idol or listen to Led Zep/Pink Floyd/Mozart/whatevah. But I also know an equal number of folks who appreciate the occasional buzz without negative repercussions the next day, i.e., hang-overs.

And thanks for invoking the Libertarian argument, Phil. I find it VERY interesting when conservatives, who are ostensibly ALL about “personal freedom,” rag on people who want to exercise that same personal freedom… albeit in a space that ISN’T in tune with the prevailing school of thought. “Rag on” is actually the LEAST of my issues here… these same people demonize pot smokers and want them incarcerated. Hunh? How the HELL does one get there from here? I just don’t get it…
- Buck | 01/08/2009 @ 19:01
Doesn’t pass the “younger-gen” test. There are some things I’ve done that I would never in a thousand years tell a young person just starting out to go ahead and do. Buying a new car and takin’ er up to 110 on an unfamiliar highway, is one. Pursuing an engineering career with a high school education, might be another. We’ll call that a “maybe.” Drinking just to the point of getting that tingly feeling in your fingertips, then getting behind the wheel — definitely no. Drinking at ALL, like, after you’re in for the night? That’s a definite “why the hell not?”

Pot as to get a no-siree. It stays in your system for a very long time, can be tested, shutting you out of some good work contracts. Sort of falls into the same category as a tattoo that covers your face. You can vent your spleen that they oughtn’t be doing this, but they iz. As far as interfering with your judgment…well hey, friend in NM. You got all fed up with them libs and made the switch, for the most part. In so doing, you ruined your value as a representative sample, as far as what these folks are going through, and where their attention span gets attacked. Most of them hear a left-wing pol spout off about “ending war” and they’re sold. Fits right into their tie-dyed dreams of fluffy bunnies, candy rainbows and unicorn farts. You know it’s true.

As far as voting to continue the War on Drugs…I’m really not sure how I’d punch that chad. It’s definitely a local issue, I don’t want the feds involved in it at all. My county or city? I’m leaning away from that as well. But if the war-on-drugs folks win at the county level? I don’t see too much wrong with that, really. Kind of like outlawing buying beer on Sundays. I disagree with it, but they’ve a right to do it.
- mkfreeberg | 01/08/2009 @ 20:24
Doesn’t pass the “younger-gen” test. There are some things I’ve done that I would never in a thousand years tell a young person just starting out to go ahead and do.

Ah… the ol’ “don’t do as I do, do as I say!” argument. And I’m in semi-agreement, to a point. You and I both likely have numerous episodes in our lives that we’re lucky to have survived and wouldn’t want our offspring to mess with. Yet still and even, kids are gonna do what they want to do, sage counsel from their all-knowing elders aside. The SOLE reason I’d advise younger folks not to go where I’ve been is the legal ramifications of being unlucky (or stupid). The system is unforgiving in its current incarnation where drugs, even the milder drugs, are concerned. As you said Morgan, one can rail all one wants, but the fact of the matter iz what it iz.

And to bring this full circle, perhaps the Obama administration will change the status quo where pot laws are concerned… at least on a federal level. (I doubt it, tho. There are too many entrenched money-grubbing bureaucracies involved, and those are some serious oxen that won’t take kindly to goring.) My parenthetical comment aside, “Change” is abroad in the land in this space; the various and sundry medicinal marijuana laws are evidence of this. Ma and Pa Kettle ain’t EVER gonna buy into it, it’s the bi-coastal Blue Elites that will force the issue… if and/or when it’s forced. I find myself in agreement with said elites in this one particular instance. Horrors! 😉
- Buck | 01/08/2009 @ 21:11
I changed the picture. Couldn’t stand it anymore.
- mkfreeberg | 01/09/2009 @ 10:50
I changed the picture. Couldn’t stand it anymore.

And thank you EVER so much for doing so. The new one is much more indicative of why some people indulge. 😉
- Buck | 01/09/2009 @ 18:32
Mheh! Yeah, ya won’t get tired of THAT one, now, will ya?

Me, I’m still lookin’ at the original on my desktop … woooahhh! Maaaaannnnn!
- philmon | 01/09/2009 @ 18:37
I think you’re confusing “hippies” and “peaceniks” with potheads. Maybe you have a point anyway. But this pot-smoking, classically educated, Palin-loving conservative Republican thinks you’re extending this argument far beyond its natural bounds.
- Apollodorus | 01/09/2009 @ 21:01
Also, there sure is a pothead culture, but there is also a fratboy-douche beer-swilling culture. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t sensible people who smoke pot and drink beer/wine/liquor and aren’t stoners or fratboy-douches.

Hell, I’m with you all the way on mocking that culture. I just think it has next-to-nothing to do with the virtues of marijuana.

I’m with Buck. Incidentally, I am in NM as well.
- Apollodorus | 01/09/2009 @ 21:10
And thanks for invoking the Libertarian argument, Phil. I find it VERY interesting when conservatives, who are ostensibly ALL about “personal freedom,” rag on people who want to exercise that same personal freedom… albeit in a space that ISN’T in tune with the prevailing school of thought. – Some guy named Buck that Morgan quotes waaaaay too often

Uh huh. And I’m supposed to think you’re fighting alongside the rest of the conservatives on all the rest of the government incursions into our private lives, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why do 90% of self-described “Libertarians” I run into really not care a whit about dealing with any of the other supposed violations of our freedoms? This live-and-let-live attitude rarely extends to guns or anything else that’s actually, you know…important. Most of them just want to legalize pot. It’s as transparent and phony as the Cannibis Coalition folks I ran into in campus back when I was in college. They didn’t give a shit about glaucoma patients or terminally-ill cancer victims. They just wanted to be able to toke up in public without the police bothering them. It was a smokescreen…scuse the pun.

The ones who really do belong to the Liberatarian movement usually are also the ones fighting alongside the Left, demanding the withdrawal of American combat forces from Iraq and all of our foreign bases. Pffft.

I’ve never been in favor of legalizing pot, and I’ve heard all the arguments. All it would do is send the OK message to a bunch of people who look to the government (instead of God) for moral guidance, and convert a comparatively small criminal problem into a gigantic social one. It’s like Ann Coulter pointed out – alcohol and tobacco drain bank accounts, cause health problems, land people in jail and tear families asunder. This is supposed to be an argument for legalizing another drug like them?

I think I’ve heard just about enough about this from the likes of the Vietnam/Baby Boomer generation that grew up in the 60s toking up the way normal people drink coffee. Frankly, I think that was essentially the thrust of Morgan’s post – enough years have gone by since the Peace Lovin 60’s that the drug-addled are now running the country. I also notice that most of them claim that while they used to smoke a pound a day of that green shit, they “don’t do it anymore.” Why not? I thought it was harmless and all that?

Give me a Buck-ing break.
- cylarz | 01/10/2009 @ 00:37
OK, Cylarz… you’ve got a Buck-ing break. Now get a spell-checker to go along with it.

BTW… your arguments are specious. Thus sayeth the way-too-often quoted Buck. Shorter: piss off.
- Buck | 01/10/2009 @ 21:06
Buck, m’friend,

You’re making a common error here. I wouldn’t expect you to bow down and kiss the hand of the guy who’s letting loose all this smack toward you (or people with whom you choose to identify…in error, IMO…more said about this below). But people making your error are already the subject of a Thing I Know I currently have in draft form — said Thing I Know being, paraphrased…

If you take the initiative to form genuinely independent and/or leading-edge thoughts in your noggin (as you have), the price you pay for this is the privilege of speaking on behalf of others. You stick to the beaten path or you veer off it, there ain’t no in-between.

Now if you want to use the intellectual fortitude the Good Lord gave you to figure out the left-wing politicians are as useful as a bag without a bottom, then God Bless You. And if, as a veteran of the evil weed, you want to figure out I’m picking on your peers and come out swingin’ on their behalf, God Bless You for that as well. But make a choice between those two. You’re part of the problem I’m exploring, or else you aren’t. And there is definitely a problem. The vast multitude of them are all passive-aggressive the same way…there is a consensus that prevails well beyond the logic or reason that might support it, that all war is bad, even war that demonstrably has the potential to avoid much larger wars. Generally, that consequences delayed, are consequences avoided entirely, in spite of the many lessons real life offers to the contrary. I don’t think you fall prey to this…but that’s my point. This is a choice for you to make. If you’re part of it, fine, if you’re not part of it, even better. But it simply isn’t reasonable for you to demand, just because you’ve matured past these bits of fallacious reasoning, that the rest of us are to deny the existence of this culture most of us have spent decades upon decades seeing with our own eyes.

In my eyes, you are proof positive the potential is there to shake off the nasty effects described herein. Whether there is a tendency for that to be done, is an entirely different question.
- mkfreeberg | 01/10/2009 @ 22:08
Conservative, when it comes to politics, is a coalition. It is not monolithic. We generally have a lot in common, but obviously, we’re gonna have differences. Drugs in general (I’m pretty hard core about this — I’d legalize cocaine and meth, too. ) No, I wouldn’t be doing them myself, but again … personal responsibility. No Gummint Nanny. Mommy & Daddy and Auntie and Uncly and Grammy and Grampa are supposed to be your nannies. Not Uncle Sam. Just because it’s stupid doesn’t mean it should be illegal. I’d treat it like alcohol, legally. Nope, kids can’t do it. I’d probably go along with that — even though I don’t have a problem with responsible parents letting their kids have a little wine or something on occasion (usually special ones). See, even THAT really shouldn’t be illegal.

Here’s the deal, Sparky. A lot of perfectly responsible people use drugs responsibly. I realize a lot of people think that’s an oxymoron. I’m not one of them …. because I’m irresponsible… (budddump bump!) … no, I’m not one of them because the penalties are too great. The consequences of those actions, while I find them unjust, could be too great. So I don’t. ESPECIALLY with pot, I have never, EVER heard of someone getting doped up on Pot and going out and killing people, or even beating them up. Pot makes you L-A-Z-Y. M-E-L-L-O-W. Peaceful, pretty much.

If you believe in God, especially the Christian way, you believe God gave you free will to accept or reject his rules. The way our government was basically set up — as long as you’re not stomping on someone else’s Life, Liberty, or Pursuit of Happiness … you are free to reject the rules of any given religion. Smoking pot does none of those things.

If you can’t handle it, and you end up breaking some law because of it… then you’ve broken THAT law, and should be prosecuted for it. But this whole business of laws that are designed to keep you from breaking laws is stupid … because where does it end? Do cocaine, get hepped up and kill somebody, or rob somebody — go to jail. Or the gas chamber. Because you robbed or killed, not because you did the cocaine. Those things deprive other people of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The doing of the cocaine didn’t.

Maybe we should outlaw pockets. Pockets, after all, allow you to hide things in them, say, in a convenience store, that you haven’t paid for. Or perhaps cars. Cars kill many more people a year in this country than guns do. And you have all these people clamoring to ban guns. But not cars.

Don’t get me started on guns. 😉

Now, what Morgan’s really getting at here is that a lot of people who don’t want to think about the real consequences of their actions — and when I say “real” I’m talking about what actually happens in real life, not the way you think it should happen … get caught up in the stereotypical “pothead” culture. Matter of fact, if it weren’t for those people, pot would probably still be legal (yeah, it wasn’t always illegal) — nobody would give any more thought to it than they do to alcohol. And it is that culture that has gained a lot of traction on the progressive side of the ledger, the people who think you can just legislate that people all get along (as long as they agree with the progressives — otherwise they should be snuffed out!) — who are all excited about “Hope Won”. And they got no gol-darn freakin’ idea what they mean. And they elect “Hope”, and ergo those people are running the country.

The funny thing about this thread is that … it’s all way off of Morgan’s point. Far, far off of it. His point is well taken.
- philmon | 01/10/2009 @ 22:26
Regarding Libertarians that “just want to legalize pot” – that’s bull puckey. Horse hockey. Sure, there are a lot of pot-smokers who are libertarian, but there are many, many self-described libertarians who wouldn’t touch it.

Thomas Jefferson was the original Libertarian. Probably a bit of an overstatement since he wasn’t the only one, but it’s true enough. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t all about smoking pot.

Go read http://www.intellectualactivist.com or http://www.reason.com

Libertarianism ain’t about pot.
- philmon | 01/10/2009 @ 22:39
I agree with Philmon. Though Morgan’s point is well taken with this one too, because I almost always know the “Things I Know” for myself.

Glad this wasn’t one of them.
- Apollodorus | 01/11/2009 @ 14:13
You’re making a common error here.

And that error would be… what? Speaking strictly about my response to the stream-o-consciousness, anecdotal ramblings of the not-so-often-quoted “cylarz?” I ain’t gonna mud-wrestle with pigs… but his arguments ARE specious, aside from being shop-worn, all-too-predictable, and so on. I’m not defending anyone here, other than myself. Poke me in the eye and you’ll get the same in return.

While I’m on about next to nothing… I apologize for hijacking your thread. My comments were off-topic in the strictest sense, but I felt (heh) I had something to add to the conversation. The title of your post is “Pothead Culture,” after all. I’m familiar with said culture in its various permutations, and my point was similar to that of Apollodorus (NICE nic, btw!)… the culture ain’t monolithic. No one rants about “Single Malt Heads,” now… do they?

And hey… apropos of nothing… have we just set a new record for “most comments on a single thread” here at HofE? I think we might have…
- Buck | 01/11/2009 @ 17:58
And that error would be… what?…the culture ain’t monolithic. No one rants about “Single Malt Heads,” now… do they?

Well that’s your other error. I remember teasing my baby-momma about this (I’m a native of Washington State, she’s a native of Cali) when she’d go into an apoplectic fit in response to my derogatory comments about Californians. The litany is unimportant, but it goes like this…they think 75 degrees is chilly, they’re shitty drivers, but worst of ALL, when they see a climate condition that makes them uncomfortable like snow or hail, they speed up. Anyway, she’d just come out swingin’. And I’d pile insult to injury by pointing out — Hey! You want to start making fun of Washington State people, I’m down with that. Hell, I’ll join you. What’s with this union-loyalty thing? Like, one redneck saw a UFO, you’d better not doubt him because I’m a redneck too?

But your first error is that you forfeit your position within the collective when you think like an individual. Cylarz was certainly no diplomat, and I don’t agree with all his (her?) words. But it’s like this: I’m a computer-guy, and there’s undoubtedly a computer-guy culture…in fact, I got my start in the grunge-capitol known as Seattle…but I drink a lot more beer than the typical Seattle/grunge late-1980’s computer guy. I’d never deny the “Birkenstock” trait, although I wear sneakers myself. What I’m saying is — stereotypes remain somewhat fair, even if you find some stragglers that don’t fit into them, and especially if you are one of the stragglers, offering yourself as evidence of exceptions. Once you use your brain for its God-given purpose, to come up with original ideas, you lose your position within the collective and can therefore offer no testimony to prove or disprove things about it.

But these aren’t computer programmers. They’re hippies. Their existence was for the purpose of establishing a culture, giving it unique traits, an identity, etc…making themselves culturally recognizable. And of course there was that whole thing about the Vietnam War, the whole protesting-it thing. Does it really say something that you, one guy, partook in some of these things without partaking in others?

As for most comments in a thread — yeah, maybe. I seem to recall we got in the twenties before, but I could be mistaken. Maybe there’s a way to query that in WordPress. You got me curious. I’ll dash off a note to Terry.
- mkfreeberg | 01/11/2009 @ 20:44

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Pothead CultureThursday, January 8th, 2009

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Thursday, January 8th, 2009