I am more upset than I have been in a long time. I am having a perfectly good anniversary with my wife, and other than the fact that my brother neglected to get us Rush tickets for the concert tomorrow, everything is great.
I was a bit upset with my brother for not getting the tickets, but I figured that I would catch Rush the next time around. Then I decide to check my school email and I saw an email from one of my students' parents. This was the kid whose dad was in the music business, and he had sent an email a few days ago saying that he understood that I already had tickets, but he could get me in for a meet and greet with the band before the show. Of course, I don't have tickets and I don't get that email until the night before the show. That F--ING SUCKS!!!!
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Sunday, August 8, 2010
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Anderson Silva and MMA
So it is no surprise to any fight fans out there that I believe that Silva should clean Chael Sonnen's clock. He is a superior fighter in all aspects of the game and has great movement. Chael has shown a great deal of willingness to get punched and keep driving forward, but that is a recipe for disaster against Silva. Just watch the Griffin vs. Silva fight at heavyweight to see what I mean. Sonnen's best chance is to drive forward and get one of his takedowns while Silva tries to counterstrike, and hope he can inflict enough damage and evade the submissions of Silva. Then he should try to smother Silva and accumulate enough points to win. I think that this is Sonnen's only chance, and it is, frankly, quite likely to be his game plan (much as he talks knockout).
But this brings me to my main point. Dana White and others have pointed out that they do not like the hang back and pick apart style of Silva - it is not flashy or aggressive enough for their liking. But here is my beef with that opinion. That is how a premier striker should fight. A jiujitsu guy stymies his opponent in the guard and prevents damage that way. A wrestler smothers his opponent by being on top and raining down blows and avoids damage that way. A striker uses good footwork, evasive maneuvering and counterattacks to avoid damage. There is nothing at all wrong with this!!!
I CANNOT EMPHASIZE THIS ENOUGH!
I have seen people praise George St. Pierre for laying on top if an opponent for 5 rounds and smothering him - not doing much damage but doing just enough to keep from being told by the referee to stand back up. This is effectively identical to what Silva did in the Demian Maia (though Silva did clown him a bit more than GSP ever does), and Sliva gets trounced in blogs and on TV for it. GSP and others seem to be more exciting because it is clear that they are in a fight - they are in constant contact with their opponents, whether on top or on bottom. People have become so enamored of the BJJ and Wrestling styles they forget that you do not have to get into a wrestling match to win a fight. In fact, I would argue that the striking style is more effective - fights start on their feet and a small striker can put out a much larger opponent the same way a small BJJ fighter can take out someone bigger. But in wrestling and infighting in general, the bigger person has an advantage against the smaller, just by virtue of weight and leverage. One need look no further than Roy "Big Country" Nelson to see this.
Yes, Nelson is a well-trained and well-rounded fighter, but he can smother someone better than he is by virtue of his size. In any kind of ground fighting, the bigger person has a huge advantage unless the smaller one is much better trained. The same is true in striking, of course, but I would argue that it takes less training to become a proficient striker in terms of self defense, and you have an easier out in running away after you inflict damage (this is strictly from a self-defense perspective not an MMA sport one).
But nonetheless, Anderson Silva avoiding damage on his feet should be lauded not derided, and if you think that this is not "exciting" enough than I would say that you are probably ignorant of the technique involved. Demian Maia had no answer for Silva's superior striking, and Silva should not have to come forward and prove that after handily winning the first three rounds. Maia should be scorned for not attempting to finish the fight in the last two rounds, because if Silva was actually tired (as many of his detractors claim) then Maia threw away his only opportunity to win. If Silva was not tired, it was still on Maia to try and win, because he had clearly lost the first three rounds. To fault Silva for this is the height of ignorance.
You can fault Silva for some of the unsportsmanlike ways in which he comported himself in the fight, but that is still forgivable, given that his opponent did not want to bother fighting him. But to conclude, just realize that the fight game is about inflicting damage on your opponent while avoiding taking damage yourself. Whether this is accomplished through grappling or striking is insignificant, and people are so conditioned to the infighting that occurs in the UFC, they forget the true skill involved in avoiding the infighting altogether. That is not at all an easy thing to do, and takes just as much skill and talent as anything else in the UFC.
But this brings me to my main point. Dana White and others have pointed out that they do not like the hang back and pick apart style of Silva - it is not flashy or aggressive enough for their liking. But here is my beef with that opinion. That is how a premier striker should fight. A jiujitsu guy stymies his opponent in the guard and prevents damage that way. A wrestler smothers his opponent by being on top and raining down blows and avoids damage that way. A striker uses good footwork, evasive maneuvering and counterattacks to avoid damage. There is nothing at all wrong with this!!!
I CANNOT EMPHASIZE THIS ENOUGH!
I have seen people praise George St. Pierre for laying on top if an opponent for 5 rounds and smothering him - not doing much damage but doing just enough to keep from being told by the referee to stand back up. This is effectively identical to what Silva did in the Demian Maia (though Silva did clown him a bit more than GSP ever does), and Sliva gets trounced in blogs and on TV for it. GSP and others seem to be more exciting because it is clear that they are in a fight - they are in constant contact with their opponents, whether on top or on bottom. People have become so enamored of the BJJ and Wrestling styles they forget that you do not have to get into a wrestling match to win a fight. In fact, I would argue that the striking style is more effective - fights start on their feet and a small striker can put out a much larger opponent the same way a small BJJ fighter can take out someone bigger. But in wrestling and infighting in general, the bigger person has an advantage against the smaller, just by virtue of weight and leverage. One need look no further than Roy "Big Country" Nelson to see this.
Yes, Nelson is a well-trained and well-rounded fighter, but he can smother someone better than he is by virtue of his size. In any kind of ground fighting, the bigger person has a huge advantage unless the smaller one is much better trained. The same is true in striking, of course, but I would argue that it takes less training to become a proficient striker in terms of self defense, and you have an easier out in running away after you inflict damage (this is strictly from a self-defense perspective not an MMA sport one).
But nonetheless, Anderson Silva avoiding damage on his feet should be lauded not derided, and if you think that this is not "exciting" enough than I would say that you are probably ignorant of the technique involved. Demian Maia had no answer for Silva's superior striking, and Silva should not have to come forward and prove that after handily winning the first three rounds. Maia should be scorned for not attempting to finish the fight in the last two rounds, because if Silva was actually tired (as many of his detractors claim) then Maia threw away his only opportunity to win. If Silva was not tired, it was still on Maia to try and win, because he had clearly lost the first three rounds. To fault Silva for this is the height of ignorance.
You can fault Silva for some of the unsportsmanlike ways in which he comported himself in the fight, but that is still forgivable, given that his opponent did not want to bother fighting him. But to conclude, just realize that the fight game is about inflicting damage on your opponent while avoiding taking damage yourself. Whether this is accomplished through grappling or striking is insignificant, and people are so conditioned to the infighting that occurs in the UFC, they forget the true skill involved in avoiding the infighting altogether. That is not at all an easy thing to do, and takes just as much skill and talent as anything else in the UFC.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
On the Definition of Marriage
And I ask myself, should I really go here? I have a variety of thoughts on the subject and the knee-jerk reaction to my definition by someone who does not read thoroughly is "my gosh - he's anti-homosexual". So I am not even sure if I should address this topic, but what the hell.
First, I don't care what you do with another consenting adult (or group of consenting adults, for that matter) - within certain parameters of public safety and public decency. One should not, for example, hold an orgy on one's front lawn. The public safety bit is a little more difficult to pin down, but hinges on not trying to kill each other during sexual activity. Beyond that, what you do in the bedroom (or any other room for that matter) is nobody's business but the people involved, and anyone else they want to include in the conversation.
But once the term "marriage" gets involved, everyone gets their panties in a twist. Lets try to look at this from a historical perspective first, then move on from there. Both sides of the gay/traditional marriage try to co-opt the history for their own movement, but I am afraid that the heterosexuals win out on the history angle.
But don't throw your hands up in exasperation (if you are for gay marriage) or exultation (if you are for "traditional" marriage) just yet. While the historical precedent for homosexual marriage is really nowhere in any society, save for a few Roman Emperors and other Roman upper echelon folk (where it was clearly an exception to the norm), there is a lot of precedent for homosexual long-term committed relationships; they were simply never called marriages.
In ancient Greece, particularly, it was common for men to take male lovers, because, though you were expected to marry and have a wife who bore you children, women were thought of in many circles as less than men, and only another man could truly understand love (this was not the position of Socrates, interestingly enough, and the way Plato describes it, he had some issues with Athenian men as a result, but that is for another time).
History is rife with examples of this kind of relationship, but it has never been granted the status of "marriage" in any but those rare Roman cases (in one case a male emperor reputedly married a male eunuch who he forced to impersonate the wife that the emperor had killed - I believe that is how the story goes). Marriage has always been a man and a woman, a man and several women, or more rarely a woman and several men.
And this is where I take a bit of an abrupt turn. In all of this discussion, polygamy has a much stronger history than either gay marriage or "traditional" marriage. And yet this is completely excluded from the discussion. Why is it disallowed? Utah was forced to drop polygamy before it was allowed to become a state. There are laws against bigamy all over the place, and yet there is no hue and cry to undo these, even though they are clearly discriminate solely based on a lifestyle choice.
Of course, were polygamy allowed, it would foul up the tax code something fierce - they would have to have different scales for three and four and five adult person households, etc. There are several fairly easy ways around this, but it would take a pretty significant revision of the tax code to deal with it.
The reason, historically, that marriage has been defined as it has is that the family is intended as a medium for procreation and passing on mores, social norms, and customs. Up until recently, this was outside the purview of the homosexual couple. With artificial insemination and adoption being much more available now, as well as homosexuality no longer being considered a mental illness, this is changing. Marriages and families are no longer solely for the generation of children, and there are a number of modern day issues that are important for married couples. The issue of visiting in a hospital and potentially making life-and-death decisions for a spouse is terribly important. Inheritance and jointly owned property and rights upon the death of a spouse are also crucial issues, as are citizenship issues.
But the real problem comes down to the word. Marriage is a religious ceremony, and has sacramental connotations. A church can and should have its own rules about who can or cannot marry (incidentally, the Catholic Church will probably never allow gay marriage until priests are allowed to marry - the celibate priesthood is the one place a devout gay Catholic male can go, and if gays could marry, you would see a radical decline in men becoming priests). The problem becomes severe when the state issues "marriage licences". Of course, a stable family unit is the basis for any society, and this is why the state has always intermingled itself in the marriage business. Especially as the society gets more complex, the legal ramifications of marriage and divorce become extreme.
But here is the real problem: marriage now implies love, even with the state licence. You aren't supposed to marry for the tax benefit (if there is one), and you certainly are not allowed to marry just to grant someone citizenship (this is illegal, I believe). But why not? The state should be involved in only the contractual obligations involved in a marriage - the so-called "civil union" aspects of it. The issue would get a lot clearer if the state just issues civil union licences and gets out of the whole marriage business. Leave that to the churches - the state does not issue Reconciliation, Anointing of the Sick, or any other Sacrament, Catholic or otherwise (and obviously, I am Catholic, which is why I am using the term "Sacrament"). If people have fiscal reasons for engaging in this contract, let them. Of course, what about polygamy? Liberals are going to duck that one forever, because it makes them way more uncomfortable than gay marriage - gay marriage panders to a voting bloc of theirs, polygamy does not.
Long story short, the state should not be in the marriage business, but it should deal with the appropriate legal ramifications of any union in terms of property rights, etc., and the state should provide equal protection to the citizens that make it up (according to the US Constitution), so there is no reason to oppose the state such licences - the term marriage, however should be reserved for the churches, and if the church of which you are a member does not recognize your relationship, join one that does.
Personally, I need neither the state nor a religious institution to validate my relationship - we do that ourselves (with some help from family and friends).
By the way, while I spent a lot of time on the history of marriage, and the heterosexual nature thereof, history itself is not a sufficient reason to be for or against something. History provides context, but it does not provide answers, and we should have the courage to embrace history when it serves us, and discard it when it does not.
A perfect example are the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights. These were codified and written out precisely because there was not much historical precedent for them, and the ratifying states wanted guarantees that the Federal government would not overreach.
Both sides of the gay marriage argument want history to be on their side, but it does not matter a whit. What matters is the rights of the individuals involved, and right now the state does a good job of fouling everything up by inserting itself in a religious matter.
That is enough for now, not like anyone will ever read this.
First, I don't care what you do with another consenting adult (or group of consenting adults, for that matter) - within certain parameters of public safety and public decency. One should not, for example, hold an orgy on one's front lawn. The public safety bit is a little more difficult to pin down, but hinges on not trying to kill each other during sexual activity. Beyond that, what you do in the bedroom (or any other room for that matter) is nobody's business but the people involved, and anyone else they want to include in the conversation.
But once the term "marriage" gets involved, everyone gets their panties in a twist. Lets try to look at this from a historical perspective first, then move on from there. Both sides of the gay/traditional marriage try to co-opt the history for their own movement, but I am afraid that the heterosexuals win out on the history angle.
But don't throw your hands up in exasperation (if you are for gay marriage) or exultation (if you are for "traditional" marriage) just yet. While the historical precedent for homosexual marriage is really nowhere in any society, save for a few Roman Emperors and other Roman upper echelon folk (where it was clearly an exception to the norm), there is a lot of precedent for homosexual long-term committed relationships; they were simply never called marriages.
In ancient Greece, particularly, it was common for men to take male lovers, because, though you were expected to marry and have a wife who bore you children, women were thought of in many circles as less than men, and only another man could truly understand love (this was not the position of Socrates, interestingly enough, and the way Plato describes it, he had some issues with Athenian men as a result, but that is for another time).
History is rife with examples of this kind of relationship, but it has never been granted the status of "marriage" in any but those rare Roman cases (in one case a male emperor reputedly married a male eunuch who he forced to impersonate the wife that the emperor had killed - I believe that is how the story goes). Marriage has always been a man and a woman, a man and several women, or more rarely a woman and several men.
And this is where I take a bit of an abrupt turn. In all of this discussion, polygamy has a much stronger history than either gay marriage or "traditional" marriage. And yet this is completely excluded from the discussion. Why is it disallowed? Utah was forced to drop polygamy before it was allowed to become a state. There are laws against bigamy all over the place, and yet there is no hue and cry to undo these, even though they are clearly discriminate solely based on a lifestyle choice.
Of course, were polygamy allowed, it would foul up the tax code something fierce - they would have to have different scales for three and four and five adult person households, etc. There are several fairly easy ways around this, but it would take a pretty significant revision of the tax code to deal with it.
The reason, historically, that marriage has been defined as it has is that the family is intended as a medium for procreation and passing on mores, social norms, and customs. Up until recently, this was outside the purview of the homosexual couple. With artificial insemination and adoption being much more available now, as well as homosexuality no longer being considered a mental illness, this is changing. Marriages and families are no longer solely for the generation of children, and there are a number of modern day issues that are important for married couples. The issue of visiting in a hospital and potentially making life-and-death decisions for a spouse is terribly important. Inheritance and jointly owned property and rights upon the death of a spouse are also crucial issues, as are citizenship issues.
But the real problem comes down to the word. Marriage is a religious ceremony, and has sacramental connotations. A church can and should have its own rules about who can or cannot marry (incidentally, the Catholic Church will probably never allow gay marriage until priests are allowed to marry - the celibate priesthood is the one place a devout gay Catholic male can go, and if gays could marry, you would see a radical decline in men becoming priests). The problem becomes severe when the state issues "marriage licences". Of course, a stable family unit is the basis for any society, and this is why the state has always intermingled itself in the marriage business. Especially as the society gets more complex, the legal ramifications of marriage and divorce become extreme.
But here is the real problem: marriage now implies love, even with the state licence. You aren't supposed to marry for the tax benefit (if there is one), and you certainly are not allowed to marry just to grant someone citizenship (this is illegal, I believe). But why not? The state should be involved in only the contractual obligations involved in a marriage - the so-called "civil union" aspects of it. The issue would get a lot clearer if the state just issues civil union licences and gets out of the whole marriage business. Leave that to the churches - the state does not issue Reconciliation, Anointing of the Sick, or any other Sacrament, Catholic or otherwise (and obviously, I am Catholic, which is why I am using the term "Sacrament"). If people have fiscal reasons for engaging in this contract, let them. Of course, what about polygamy? Liberals are going to duck that one forever, because it makes them way more uncomfortable than gay marriage - gay marriage panders to a voting bloc of theirs, polygamy does not.
Long story short, the state should not be in the marriage business, but it should deal with the appropriate legal ramifications of any union in terms of property rights, etc., and the state should provide equal protection to the citizens that make it up (according to the US Constitution), so there is no reason to oppose the state such licences - the term marriage, however should be reserved for the churches, and if the church of which you are a member does not recognize your relationship, join one that does.
Personally, I need neither the state nor a religious institution to validate my relationship - we do that ourselves (with some help from family and friends).
By the way, while I spent a lot of time on the history of marriage, and the heterosexual nature thereof, history itself is not a sufficient reason to be for or against something. History provides context, but it does not provide answers, and we should have the courage to embrace history when it serves us, and discard it when it does not.
A perfect example are the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights. These were codified and written out precisely because there was not much historical precedent for them, and the ratifying states wanted guarantees that the Federal government would not overreach.
Both sides of the gay marriage argument want history to be on their side, but it does not matter a whit. What matters is the rights of the individuals involved, and right now the state does a good job of fouling everything up by inserting itself in a religious matter.
That is enough for now, not like anyone will ever read this.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Why Marijuana Should Not Be Legalized
I believe there are several reasons why pot should not be legalized, least among them is the feeling that we should not legalize another intoxicant, but that is not the reason I have for wanting it to remain illegal. The key reasons it should remain illegal are the lack of a reliable test for driving under the influence, and the length of time one remains under the influence of the drug.
The problem with the test for marijuana is that it shows up in the system for 30+ days after use. A person is not impaired for those 30 days, but the drug shows up nonetheless (principally because it is fat absorbed, rather than water absorbed like alcohol). This is a problem because while studies have shown impaired motor and cognitive skills for up to 3 days after using marijuana, the test has no time signature for impairment. What I mean by this is that if one were to use the drug, get pulled over a week later for impaired driving, you would test positive for marijuana even though you were not under the influence while driving. You would then get convicted of driving under the influence of the drug when you actually weren't. A state supreme court (I don't remember which, but I am pretty sure it was a state supreme court, though it may have been a federal appellate court - do a net search if you care) recently prohibited the use of this test in obtaining convictions for precisely this reason - it cannot accurately tell if you were under the influence during the driving incident. Since there is, to my knowledge, no test out there that can actually ascertain the level of marijuana intoxication (analogous to the BAC from a breathalyzer), legalizing would pose a significant problem for "high driving" enforcement.
Of course, pro-legalization folks say that there is no "high driving" problem, and that alcohol causes way more accidents than pot, etc.; these are not good arguments for legalizing pot, they are better arguments for criminalizing alcohol. As the drug is legalized, its use will become more widespread (virtually inevitable - people who might not have tried it when it was unavailable to them may consider it if it is legal) and we may actually start to keep records of marijuana related driving incidents (I don't believe we currently do keep those records - I may be wrong, but I don't know of any).
I already referenced the second reason for maintaining marijuana's current illegal status - it is a fat-absorbed drug. A person stays under the influence much longer and has impaired motor and cognitive functions up to three days after use. Obviously, the impairments grow less severe the further you get from the use date, but the fact is that you remain under the influence of the drug for much longer than alcohol. This is why marijuana is such a powerful psychologically addictive drug. You are seldom not under the influence of the drug if you use even as infrequently as once a week. It does not flush out of one's system easily like alcohol, and consequently, frequent pot smokers never have the "morning after" regret that many alcohol abusers have.
This is what makes alcohol very addictive, because you use more to avoid the regret, but it also is a mitigating factor against addiction - you feel bad after use when the alcohol is out of your system, and you decide to abstain for a while. It is a factor that allows people who generally don't have addictive/compulsive personalities to avoid falling into chronic use.
Marijuana does not clear the system that rapidly so people generally do not get the same regret feeling they get after a binge with alcohol; since the drug lasts in the system so long, and clears out very gradually, the dividing line between the "high" personality and the "sober" personality is blurred.
I do not know any of this from personal experience; those of you who know me know that I have never had a drink or done pot (or anything else for that matter), and some would say that this invalidates my opinion (pure foolishness - I have never raped anyone, yet I still contend that rape is bad). You do not have to engage in a behavior to condemn it, it is a weird kind of antihypocrasy at work in this argument - you don't know the experience so you can't judge... but if I had done it and then deemed it bad, I would be a hypocrite for having done it.
That notwithstanding, I would like to address a couple of the things that I find irritating in the pro-legalization left (particularly the left because it is incompatible with other views of the California left - the pro-pot right, libertarians mostly, irritate me but are more consistent).
The problem with the test for marijuana is that it shows up in the system for 30+ days after use. A person is not impaired for those 30 days, but the drug shows up nonetheless (principally because it is fat absorbed, rather than water absorbed like alcohol). This is a problem because while studies have shown impaired motor and cognitive skills for up to 3 days after using marijuana, the test has no time signature for impairment. What I mean by this is that if one were to use the drug, get pulled over a week later for impaired driving, you would test positive for marijuana even though you were not under the influence while driving. You would then get convicted of driving under the influence of the drug when you actually weren't. A state supreme court (I don't remember which, but I am pretty sure it was a state supreme court, though it may have been a federal appellate court - do a net search if you care) recently prohibited the use of this test in obtaining convictions for precisely this reason - it cannot accurately tell if you were under the influence during the driving incident. Since there is, to my knowledge, no test out there that can actually ascertain the level of marijuana intoxication (analogous to the BAC from a breathalyzer), legalizing would pose a significant problem for "high driving" enforcement.
Of course, pro-legalization folks say that there is no "high driving" problem, and that alcohol causes way more accidents than pot, etc.; these are not good arguments for legalizing pot, they are better arguments for criminalizing alcohol. As the drug is legalized, its use will become more widespread (virtually inevitable - people who might not have tried it when it was unavailable to them may consider it if it is legal) and we may actually start to keep records of marijuana related driving incidents (I don't believe we currently do keep those records - I may be wrong, but I don't know of any).
I already referenced the second reason for maintaining marijuana's current illegal status - it is a fat-absorbed drug. A person stays under the influence much longer and has impaired motor and cognitive functions up to three days after use. Obviously, the impairments grow less severe the further you get from the use date, but the fact is that you remain under the influence of the drug for much longer than alcohol. This is why marijuana is such a powerful psychologically addictive drug. You are seldom not under the influence of the drug if you use even as infrequently as once a week. It does not flush out of one's system easily like alcohol, and consequently, frequent pot smokers never have the "morning after" regret that many alcohol abusers have.
This is what makes alcohol very addictive, because you use more to avoid the regret, but it also is a mitigating factor against addiction - you feel bad after use when the alcohol is out of your system, and you decide to abstain for a while. It is a factor that allows people who generally don't have addictive/compulsive personalities to avoid falling into chronic use.
Marijuana does not clear the system that rapidly so people generally do not get the same regret feeling they get after a binge with alcohol; since the drug lasts in the system so long, and clears out very gradually, the dividing line between the "high" personality and the "sober" personality is blurred.
I do not know any of this from personal experience; those of you who know me know that I have never had a drink or done pot (or anything else for that matter), and some would say that this invalidates my opinion (pure foolishness - I have never raped anyone, yet I still contend that rape is bad). You do not have to engage in a behavior to condemn it, it is a weird kind of antihypocrasy at work in this argument - you don't know the experience so you can't judge... but if I had done it and then deemed it bad, I would be a hypocrite for having done it.
That notwithstanding, I would like to address a couple of the things that I find irritating in the pro-legalization left (particularly the left because it is incompatible with other views of the California left - the pro-pot right, libertarians mostly, irritate me but are more consistent).
- Legalizing will reduce crime - yeah, I guess, in the same way that legalizing anything reduces crime - that act is no longer criminal. As far as any other impact, drug cartels will still bring in heroin and cocaine, whatever pot they bring in they might still to avoid the taxation, but it is just as likely to be replaced with another drug in the shipment - besides, a lot of pot is grown here (ask anyone in Marin) so it will not impact Mexican or Central American cartels.
- Legalizing is a good revenue source - Again, doubtful - if you make the tax too high, there will be a black market for it (hell, there is for cigarettes already to avoid taxes). Why would anyone pay a tax on it if they can grow it themselves, or buy from someone they know with a growing operation - are we going to licence everyone who grows, or will it be illegal to grow, or illegal to sell what you've grown, etc. You open up a can of worms on creating a bureaucracy to just deal with the fact that it is legal. Don't be surprised if it is legalized if the revenues are not as high as you have hoped.
- Kids will not be able to get it - because it will be more available being legal, underage kids won't get it, the same way they don't get alcohol. If you believe that you must be high. Of course kids will get it - they do already, if it is legal, it becomes more available to them, not less.
- It is natural, so it can't be bad for you - Another high thought. I just checked, cobra venom, opium, belladonna, poison oak, poison sumac, trans fats, and a whole crapload of other things are natural - natural does not mean good or bad, just stop saying that pot is natural, man - it just makes you sound stupid. You like getting high because it is fun, it has nothing to do with it being natural. Fess up and move on - that is a perfectly good reason to like getting high.
- First contradiction for the Left - do you know how much fossil fuels are used for the cultivation of marijuana - grow lights, hot houses, etc. That plant is mainly tropical (native to China and India) - to grow it here requires a big indoor operation that sucks up a lot of power. It is not environmentally friendly, it is generally environmentally horrendous. Even outdoor grow operations tend to be bad because of the combinations of fertilizers and pesticides used to maintain the valuable crop - Marin has severe environmental problems from abandoned grow operations, though this may be mitigated if it is no longer illegal (less people will abandon their operations, leaving less environmental harm). I don't believe in the whole anthropogenic climate change thing, but if you do, Mary Jane ain't helping, and you should stop its use just to save the environment.
- Second contradiction for the Left - The federal government has primacy over state governments. This is a big argument as to why Arizona can't have its own immigration policies, why nationalized mandates for health care purchases are fine, antidiscrimination laws, and a whole host of other things. Of course, Arizona can't make a law that deals with immigration (even if it is remarkably similar to the federal statute), but California can make laws in direct opposition to federal law? At least try to be a little consistent. Personally, I think that the federal government may have overstepped its bounds in criminalizing drugs, but the interstate commerce clause could be used as justification. (interestingly enough, the only president who presided over an administration where more money was spent on treatment rather than on enforcement was Richard Nixon - put that in your pipe and smoke it ;)
- Third contradiction for the Left - the war on drugs and its cost. The general way that this has been put has been akin to "we spend too much money, yet drugs are still a problem, people still use, you are filling the jails with people whose only crime was the drug, etc". The gist of the argument is that we do not get enough bang for our buck - this seems to be the only place where the Left is fiscally conservative. The same argument could be made for Johnson's War on Poverty - we have spent a ton of money on welfare programs, and people are still poor. We should stop trying to make people not poor. Of course that would be ridiculous, but it is the exact same argument used against the War on Drugs. Stop demonizing poverty, allow those people to choose to be poor, the war on poverty is an abject failure, and we shouldn't waste our money on it. The answer the Left sees is -continue spending inefficiently on the war on poverty, even though the ideas haven't worked, stop spending on the war on drugs, even though the ideas haven't worked (obviously, the right is guilty of similar folly, but I would argue that some aspects of the war on drugs have worked, but that is for another time). A similar issue is in the criminalization of firearms - we have strict laws, yet there are still gun crimes. What's the answer - more gun laws - the exact opposite of their conclusion on drug laws. And guns are specifically enumerated as protected in the Constitution.
I could go on, but I am not going to, because I am bored of writing. The last bit is just a tirade against logical inconsistencies I perceive on the Left. Yes, I know that you could point out similar inconsistencies for the Right (but not for me, I would hope), but that does not invalidate the illogical stances of the Left (arguments of "you do it too" are fallacious and do not actually render the point of contention moot, much as people may like them to).
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