“Negroes Riot After Smoking Marijuana.” This is the sort of lead in newspapers that helped lead to the outlawing of marijuana and rigorous penalties against its use.
Thousands of Civil War veterans became addicted to opium during the War, and even more had to have it to deal with the pain and even more with the pains diseases caught in the War left them with. During the War it was called God’s Own Medicine, the only effective remedy for pain.
Tens of thousands of veterans ordered opium in the mail, because, as you read now, “They were addicted to it.” Most of them probably ordered it because it was the only thing that kept their painful lives bearable.
George Washington had several POUNDS of opium on his regular grocery list.
Opium could not be restricted until the Civil War Army had pretty well died out. And when the campaign against opium got going, it, like the campaign against marijuana, stated that opium was causing the inferior races to go nuts. Those who criticize the War on Drugs point this out in every documentary.
Drug laws got through on racial inferiority when THAT was popular. Nothing has really changed except that the “Violent Negroes” and “Dangerous Orientals” have become “children” and nut jobs.
But the basic concept has not changed at all. Everybody believes in Freedom, but we cannot let you or me have what might fall into the hands of chinks, jigs, or, more lately, children and psychos.
When someone says “Freedom is the right to do what you wish so long as it doesn’t affect others” they are demonstrating what happens when a concept becomes Wordist and capitalized. Everything you do outside your own skull affects others, and the Freedom types want to be sure the right thing happens inside your skull, too.
It is hard to imagine a society that is less free than one in which you are not allowed to own anything that psycho could misuse. Children are officially unfree. They must be taken care of, and both our political left and our right would cheerfully extent childhood to the grave.
There is a white powdery substance that, used wrongly, could kill a million Americans. But it is freely available. It is called sugar, and it can be fatal to diabetics. Yet candy is freely available even to children and irresponsible adults.
Some people make money selling sugar with no restrictions at all. This certainly violates the Wordist definition of Freedom. People die of sugar shock all the time.
But Wordism never has to face its own silliness. In an earlier generation Prohibition was brought in with overwhelming approval. In fourteen years we learned better. Even the most fanatical anti-alcohol Bible Belt states got rid of it.
But the War on Drugs will never stop. We are not the people who learned better. We NEVER ask whether the present prohibitions WORK. It is like guns: psychos kill with guns, children should not run around shooting unsupervised, so they must outlawed.
Not because prohibition WORKS, but because they SHOULD be outlawed.
Mantra Thinking ALWAYS concentrated on what WORKS and how things really work. Wordist thinking leads to Freedom, which is, as Orwell said, is slavery. You cannot be free without Mantra Thinking.
#1 by BGLass on 03/08/2010 - 9:24 am
In all fairness, there have been a couple military campaigns against candy. NY’s calorie count laws are a step in the right direction. Of course, being the object of the endless micro-management feels like living death, then people internalize the manufactured terror of unhealth and internally self-monitor for it 24/7. I went to school with a guy who was always monitoring a “lactose intolerance.” Not a second went by when the guy was not concerned about wanting dairy, resisting dairy, berating himself for giving into the impulse for dairy. He’d been assured this dairy problem kept him from his health to the point he had become a raving obsessive. A lot of people who desire national health care would see his case as positive–evidence that the health plan is working. At least people are concerned now!!
That’s why Jesus kept saying, “Take up your mat and walk.” That was his big cure, lmao. The ministers never mentioned how funny this is, in church. In one case, Jesus even spits on his fingers and rubs spit on the person’s eyes, making an absurd show of it (and a parody of the guy’s need for a ritual, a priest, a Mommy Professor, maybe). In church, kids would crack up and get in trouble for it. Adults didn’t get it. But some of Jesus’s cures are really FUNNY.
What’s happens to kids who can’t hang onto the joke, however, is not.
#2 by Gator61 on 03/08/2010 - 9:47 am
TheOldman did a radio program on this subject on Stormfront Radio. He confirms and expands on this subject.
http://www.stormfront.org/audio/stormfront_radio-oldman-03-06-09.mp3
http://www.stormfront.org/audio/stormfront_radio-oldman-03-20-09.mp3
#3 by Dave on 03/08/2010 - 10:15 am
Because the legislatures and Congress refuse to investigate judges, because so much of law is now made by bureaucrats through rulemaking and administered by administrative law judges where there is no jury, because judges in general no longer respect the power of juries, because Congress answers to K Street Lobbyists and public employee unions and not the people, and because the Religion of Political Correctness has been established throughout all our businesses and institutions, the people have had their veto power removed.
This is a major way tyranny runs its operations.
However, what people FORGET is that the ways of exercising veto power are many. Veto power need not be confined to institutional norms.
If you stay within the narrow confines of the institution, you have no veto power.
But, in truth, your veto power is only limited by your ability to think.
And that another reason you cannot have freedom without Mantra thinking.