Somethings on My Mind

 A few conversations I've been involved in recently have stirred me up a little. Enough so that I am feeling the need to step away form my format and rant a little. Forgive me, but sometimes you just have to stand up and shout I think.

 So one of the conversations was about drugs and the failure of Ok. to make psudoephedrine prescription only. The logic being we need to force everyone to get a prescription for this, so the meth cooks can't make meth. This is of course failed logic. Anyone with any knowledge of history knows that prohibition simply doesn't work. What it does do is create a thriving criminal element that will step in to fill a market need. This criminal element is generally more dangerous than the thing you are trying to prohibit in the first place. Ever heard of Al Capone? How about the beheadings in Mexico? Gang violence? All the product of our war on drugs.

 When a person points out these flaws the response is to try and tug the heart strings. Think about the children, mothers are dieing, children are suffering. It's here that I begin to lose my normally calm and collected self. While I can maintain my civility for a short period of time in these moments, it rapidly fades. You see, I grew up surrounded by drugs. My parents first were users, then dealers, then heavy users, then serving jail time. I was moved around a lot, went unfed, unclothed and generally ignored for much of my youth. By the time I was 14 I was no longer in school, instead working as a framing carpenter.

 I went on to commit some criminal acts myself. I grew a small part time pot dealing enterprise into something pretty noteworthy. I've been shot at, shot, blown up, and beaten but that's a story for another time I think.

 Even after all this I don't blame the drugs. It's the people that choose to use them that are to blame. That is for many people a hard thing to say to themselves. To blame themselves, or their sons and daughters, moms and dads, or anyone they love. It's a hard thing to do and I understand it, but it is true and in your heart of hearts you know it's true. More importantly, there is nothing you can do about it. You can reach out to them, you can tell them how much it hurts you to see them doing this to themselves, you can make it harder for them to get the drug they crave. At the end of the day, if they want it bad enough they will get it and you can't stop them.

 This leads me back to my point about manipulating people with emotional pleas of think about the children. That a person will attempt to manipulate me by telling me about my own childhood? Go **** yourself is the first thing that comes to mind. Mild violence comes a close second.

 So, instead of spending billions of dollars trying to protect people from themselves. Instead of throwing people in prison for having an addiction, why aren't we taxing the legal sale of drugs? Why not use the money from those taxes to help those that can be helped, those that WANT to be helped? It seems so common sense to me I don't understand why no one else sees it. The only reason I can think of is because the people trying to fight the war on drugs simply don't understand what they are fighting. You aren't fighting a drug, or an addiction, or some evil being unleashed upon the world. You are trying to fight human nature, and you simply can't win.

 The other thing that has me stirred up is political. I'll make this one short as I don't really want to get into a lot of political banter here. I was told today that trying to fight the machine, trying to go against the will of those that 'choose' our candidates for us is fight that can't be won. This was in a chat about Ron Paul and the Maine caucus and voting in general.

To those of you that truly believe that I am ashamed for you. That a thing seems too large or too hard doesn't mean we should abandon  the cause and quit. Sometimes you have to dig in, suck it up, and be a frigging man. Perhaps my youth made me hard, or gave me a different perspective. Perhaps the stories of the Frozen Chosin my great uncle told me as a child made me want to live up those ideals and be worthy of that history. I don't know, maybe it's just genetic and some of us are born with it.

 There is no quitting. We never surrender.