Prohibition - excues for big government and taking away our liberties.

By Tom Rhodes, repeat of 4/23/2009 post because it's relevant

Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Dion O'Banion, "Bugs" Moran (AKA Jack "Legs" Diamond), and "Dutch" Schultz, "Pretty Boy" Floyd, "Babyface" Nelson, Elliot Ness, Speakeasy, revenuers, G-men, The Coton Club, The Godfather, Flappers, all everyday names, places, styles. and ideas from some of our most popular action movies - Gangster movies.

Chicago - when you hear the name of that city do you think of honesty, integrity, liberty, or do you think of gangsters, crooked politics, graft and greed?

The roaring 20's where alcohol consumption was illegal, this had the following results: alcohol related deaths rose dramatically; arrests for drunkenness and disorderly conduct increased 41 percent; arrests for drunk driving increased 81 percent; organized crime grew into an empire; disrespect for the law grew; and the per capita consumption of the prohibited substance (alcohol) increased dramatically.

People flagrantly violated the law, drinking more of the substance that was originally prohibited. The problems prohibition intended to solve, such as crime, grew worse and they never returned to their pre-prohibition levels. Not only was prohibition ineffective, it was also damaging to the people and society it was meant to help. Prohibition should not have gone on for the thirteen years it was allowed to damage society.

You would think that prohibition would enhance the difficulty of obtaining alcohol. The opposite was true, liquor was actually very easy to acquire. The bootlegging business was so immense that customers could easily obtain alcohol by simply walking down almost any street. Today it's easier for a teen to get a joint than a beer. Pot's available at high school, and the local dealer doesn't card you.

FBI statistics show that in 2007 Police arrested an estimated 872,720 persons for cannabis violations, more than ever recorded in the USA. That's only the ones the police caught, many more never get caught. Even our last 3 presidents have admitted to doing pot. Well Clinton didn't inhale, so he might not count.

My grandfather born in Italy, living in Detroit, never paid any taxes from 1922 'til 1931 when for health reasons he moved to St. Louis and got a different job. (He was told to get out of town, as an independent Winsor to Detroit boatman, some people from the Purple Gang advised him that his health was in danger if he remained in Detroit.) This means that although he earned enough money to fully pay for a house, and was never without a new Oldsmobile every two years since leaving his independent delivery business, he also never paid a dime in income taxes over that same period of time. The government lost significant revenue for the 13 years of Prohibition because of the number of people earning a living "off the books".

How many of our inner city entrepreneurs currently earning a living selling a product their neighbors and friends obviously want, but happens to be illegal, are paying income taxes on their income?

Pot is a gateway drug to harder drugs. This is the argument for keeping it illegal. Beer prior to prohibition was the drink of choice for most, but because beer had to be transported in large quantities, which became difficult, the price of beer went up and thus Americans began to drink less of it. Instead, they began to drink more hard liquor, which was more concentrated and easier to transport and thus less expensive. Because of prohibition, Americans began to drink more potent drinks and so became more drunk by drinking less. This sounds exactly like what's happened to the drug business, coke, crack, designer synthetic drugs, etc. all now available because there is more punch in smaller volume. In fact it can be argued that because of prohibition pot, and cocaine became more popular (they were still legal). Hence our war on drugs can be attributed to our failed war on demon alcohol.

Two good things did come from prohibition. Sweet mixed drinks, to cover the bad taste of bootleg liquer, it was mixed with sweet fruit juices to make it more palatable. Now we have fuzzy navels, bloody marys, Harvey Wallbangers, in fact an entire industry based on making hard to pallet strong liquors taste better. We also have the most popular and most watched sport in the nation due to prohibition. Nascar, started out with fast cars that were made from everyday transportation to out run government agents, and now it's watched by millions every weekend. And the drink most associated with Nascar... Beer, gotta love the irony.

Violence of the "Roaring 20's" was legendary. The violence of today’s drug gangs is just as legendary. There are as many modern gangster movies as those set in the 20's. When was the last time you heard a shooting over a "beer deal gone bad"? When was the last time you saw the door of a winery busted down on Cops? Doesn't happen, want to end violence related to gangs and drugs, then end drug prohibition. Because it's forced into the black market, the profits from drugs are extraordinarily large. A risk/profit analysis results in many people participating in illegal businesses. If there were not extraordinary risks, then there wouldn't be huge profits. The risks are there because drug suppliers, dealers, and purchasers can't avail themselves to the court system to settle disputes, they have to settle disputes themselves. This makes people who are willing to use violence and have violent skills employable, as these skills are necessary in the absence of being able to use a judiciary. End prohibition and the need for violence will disappear, just as it did in the alcohol business.

This is all common knowledge, in fact I've been collecting data like this forever from the net, for references just use Google on prohibition, gangsters, roaring 20's etc. all this and more is out there. We know that prohibition didn't work for alcohol, and was a total disaster. We know this yet we cling to our war on drugs. Why?

Short answer is money. $19 billion federal dollars spend on the war on drugs in 2007. People running law enforcement, prisons, courts, selling law enforcement equipment, etc. all depend on the money from the war on drugs for their livelihood. Most of these are government workers or contractors. They don't want to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. If we ended the war on drugs we would only need a fraction of our prisons, law enforcement officers, and government employees. The government is protecting it job and power, not its citizens.

The stupidity of the failed war on drugs has got to stop. More illegal drugs are used in the US than anywhere in the world, the violence associated with drugs being illegal in the world has created international cartels, unstable governments, and the death and destruction of hundreds of thousands of people. We know that prohibition leads to gangs, violence, crime, stronger chemicals, more addiction, and more use. Please work at ending prohibition, it doesn't work; all it does is give the government an excuse to further erode our liberty and freedom.

Ownership

By Tom Rhodes, 6/11/2014

Ownership - A fundamental question. How you view and define ownership is THE fundamental component of your world view. The fundamental and accepted concept of ownership is generally accepted as the legal relation between a person (individual, group, corporation, or government) and an object. The object may be corporeal, such as furniture, or completely the creature of law, such as a patent, copyright, or annuity; it may be movable, such as an animal, or immovable, such as land. Because the objects of property and the protected relations are different in every culture and vary according to law, custom, and economic system and the relative social status of those who enjoy its privileges, it is difficult to find a least common denominator of "ownership." Ownership of property probably means at a minimum that one's government or society will help to exclude others from the use or enjoyment of one's possession without one's consent, which may be withheld except at a price.

You don’t really accept that. You believe that at some point societies “needs” outweigh other people’s right to own something. You believe that the state owns the people. Your vote and actions declare that the state owns all individuals, and that they don’t own themselves.

We don’t treat living things we own the same as inanimate objects. In a modern western civilization it is generally accepted that if own something living, like a dog or a horse or a cat, you have a moral and often legal obligation to be responsible for its basic health and wellbeing. Owning a living thing, like a dog, doesn’t give you the right to abuse it. Not like owning a car, if you own a car you are free to use it in a demolition derby if you choose, you’re free to crush it, hit it with a hammer, never change its oil, etc. It’s yours, you own it, so you can do what you want with it so long as you don’t use it in a way that interferes with other peoples natural rights. Not all societies think that way, that is one of the differences between savage and civilized societies. In a savage society, ownership conveys no responsibility, you can crush it, burn it, abuse it, or protect and cherish it, owning a living thing is no different than owning a rock, you use it any way you want, be it an animal or a car or even a person.

The drug war is based on the idea that the state owns its citizens. Just like you as a dog owner has the right to determine what your dog ingests, the state as owner of its citizens it has the right to determine what substances you can ingest, from recreational drugs to your very food. Some courts in the USA have ruled that you have no right to choose what food you eat (try to buy raw milk). More than what you are allowed to put in your body, your very essence is determined by the state. You as the owner of a dog have the right to name it, the state too claims the right to name property of what it owns. You didn’t get to pick your name, don’t think that your parents did either. You can’t even change your own name, oh you think you can go to the courts and “legally” change your name but that’s a façade. The state named you. When you are born, you can’t leave the hospital without your state assigned name. You can’t go to school without your state assigned name. You can’t seek the services of a doctor without your state assigned name. You can’t even purchase real property, or ask a bank to hold your money without your state assigned name. In fact the state is doing everything it can to make it so you can’t even travel without identifying yourself with your state assigned name. You can’t get on an airplane without your state assigned name. You can’t drive a car without your state assigned name. They want to make it so you can’t travel by bus or train without providing your state assigned name. Your Social Security Number.

The state owns you, it even named its property so it can track its property. You are its property. The state claims first right to your labor, and graciously allows you to keep part of your labor. The entire health care and other “entitlement” debates exist because we are a civilized society, and expect the owners of living things to accept civilized responsibilities. Just as the owner of a dog is expected to feed it, and not abuse it, the state is expected to feed its citizens and not abuse them. Savage states, don’t feed their citizens, and routinely abuse them. The determination is all in how the state views ownership, but today, all societies work on the belief that the state owns its citizens.

For a very short and brief period of time in all of human history, a society was instituted on the idea that individuals are severing. That idea exists but is not accepted by any society today. That society limited the state, outlawed direct taxation of individual labor, assumed that unless specifically granted the state didn’t have the power to regulate individual. There were no laws governing what you could eat, smoke, etc. The assumption was the state had no power to tell sovereign people how to live. The state didn’t provide for its citizens, in fact the idea of using tax monies to provide charity to victims of a fire, or other natural disaster was considered unconstitutional (read: “Not Yours To Give”). That very brief experiment in individual sovereignty, is gone.

We are returning to the days of the state, controlled by a few ruling elite, own the masses. Not much different than old feudalism. Look at the uproar over mere citizens not understanding they are owned. The ruling elite are having trouble with the idea that its property, whom they graciously to allow to vote to select leadership, have actually not selected from the approved ruling elite. Eric Cantor’s loss is not an “Earthquake” as some main stream press have headlined. It’s a speed bump in the return to mankind’s historic norms, were a very few ruling elite own and control the masses. Seeing this coming, we note the ruling elite no longer protect and accept the idea that the power is distributed, they willing allow the president to create, change, ignore, and modify law in clear disregard to constitutional limits. They have also accepted and instituted the idea that judges can force legislators to create law. They moved the responsibility and authority from congress to create laws, determine fines, penalties, and fees to unelected bureaucrats. Ownership means control, and the ruling elite have taken control away from elected representatives.

Want proof your owned. There is a disease, ALS commonly called Lou Gehrig’s disease. With rare exception once diagnosed with ALS, you’re dead in 2 to 5 years. There is (was) no known drug that significantly improved this outcome. There is now a new drug in in clinical trials that holds considerable promise. The state has not granted it’s approval. In fact the average time our owners take to approve a new drug its mere property to use is 10 years. You don’t own yourself, if diagnosed with ALS, you do not have the choice to take the chance and try the new drug. This new drug is a risk, the side effects could be bad, or deadly, you might get worse and die sooner if you try this new currently experimental drug. Don’t take it and you will die in an average of 2 to 5 years. The right to take the risk and try this new drug doesn’t exist, your owner, the state, through the FDA determines what risks you can/can’t take just like you determine what food your dog eats, or if your dog gets surgery or is put down because you can’t or don’t want to spend the money. That’s ownership. The state owns you, the state not you, determines if you as an ALS patient can try the new drug. In 10 years the FDA might approve the new drug, over that time 50,000 citizens with ALS will die, without the choice of trying a drug their owner hasn’t decided on. If the owner decides the new drug is too costly, too bad, not your choice, not even the choice between you, your doctor, and your insurance company, your owner determines what medical practices are allowed, what drugs you can take, and what will or won’t be paid for. Proof you are owned, a slave to the state.

Keep voting for the ruling elite, the Republican or Democrat candidates the ruling elite offer you to choose from, each vote for an incumbent or any Republican or any Democrat is a vote to maintain the status quo, state ownership of the citizenry.

Only the Ineffectiveness of Police Allowed Obama to Be Elected.

By Tom Rhodes, 7/25/2012

"If Obama had been caught with the marijuana that he says he used and 'maybe a little blow' ... if he had been busted under his laws, he would have done hard ****ing time ... time in federal prison, time for his 'weed' and 'a little blow,' he would not be president ... would not have gone to his fancy-ass college, he would not have sold books ... made millions of dollars. ... He would have been in ****ing prison, and it's not a ... joke." ~ Penn Jillette

The simple fact is Obama is an admitted felon. He has openly admitted to committing felonies that currently result in the US having more people in prison than just about any other country. In his memoir, "Dreams From My Father", Barack Obama wrote about using drugs in his youth, "Pot had helped ... ; maybe a little blow (cocaine) when you could afford it." The problem isn't that Obama committed felonies. The problem is that the crimes he committed, which infringe upon the rights of no other, are crimes in the first place. The bigger problem is that we have so many crimes that the government, much less any individual, can't even count them all. Hell, even lawyers can't agree on what's legal and what isn't.

One of the purposes of our government is to arrest, try and punish criminals, real criminals, people who violate our rights. Why our government at all levels is in the business of forbidding and punishing individuals for conduct that violates nobody else's rights, and creating a set of laws so complex to govern actions that might possible harm, rather than keeping itself to regulating and policing actual harm, should be examined. The reason is clear, politicians want power and control, our constitution makes that difficult. Unlike most governments ours is based on limiting government not individuals.

Lawmakers say the hundreds of thousands of pages of law are for our own good. Sorry but how the hell do they know what is best for each individual. The purpose and reason we created our government is clear; to protect fundamental rights of individuals from being abused by others or even the government. That's it, no more, it is not to provide for anybody's basic needs, protect people from poor life choices, or limit the choices people can make.

If the police and a prosecutor had known and could prove Obama's felonious acts, they could have and would have destroyed Obama's life, like so many prosecutors have done to millions of other Americans. The only reason Obama was a viable presidential candidate is because of the ineffectiveness of our police and prosecutors. If they were effective in prosecuting laws created for our own good, Obama would have been typical of so many other black men. A convicted felon, with a rap sheet, unemployable, unmarriable , unuseful, and an unwanted drain on society.

Depending on where you look it is reported that Right now we lock up about 750 of every 100,000 people, most for possession of drugs or drug paraphernalia. This is absurd. What is more absurd is the hypocrisy of both parties, specifically Obama; destroying millions of people's lives, putting them in prison for doing what they openly admit to doing. In fact over the past 20 years all of our sitting presidents admit to committing the same felonies that their justice departments prosecute with the zeal of warriors. The entire War-on-Drugs, is about power and control not about doing what's in our own best interest.

A faction (small fraction) of people in government and society has decided that it is better for everybody to give up liberty so that they can make everybody safer. They believe that they, a small group, can and should decide what is best for everybody. They believe that the government has the right and should determine what and how much everybody should eat, where and how they should live, what safety gear people should be forced to use, and what mind altering substances should be legal. Because they have moved to give the government the power to provide for "health care" of everybody, they now believe that the government because it "must" provide for everybody, now can dictate everybody's actions. This is an insidious evil and is contrary to how the vast majority of Americans used to want to live.

If recreational drugs were so evil and damaging that we must protect people from themselves, how do you explain the success Obama, Bush, or for that matter success the cannabis growing forefathers like Jefferson and Washington. "Overcriminalization" describes the trend in America - and particularly in Congress - to use the criminal law to "solve" every problem, punish every mistake (instead of making proper use of civil penalties), and coerce Americans into conforming their behavior to satisfy social engineering objectives. Criminal law is supposed to be used to redress only that conduct which society thinks deserving of the greatest punishment and moral sanction.

But as a result of rampant overcriminalization, trivial conduct is now often punished as a crime. Many criminal laws make it possible for the government to convict a person even if he acted without criminal intent (i.e., mens rea). Consider retiree and orchid grower T George Norris, federal agents raided and ransacked their Texas home in 2003, he was arrested and served two years in federal prison with rapists and murders. His crime was improperly filling out government paperwork related to perfectly legal orchids he grew and sold out of his back yard.

Imagine a high school girl who's parents abandon her and her siblings, she manages to maintain grades high enough to keep her on the honor roll while working two jobs as sole bread winner. Providing for herself and what's left of her family she has been forced to miss some school. Despite Honor Roll grades, she has been fined and forced to spend time in jail for truancy and now has a criminal record. "Her criminal record will stay with her for the rest of her life, jeopardizing her ability to find work or gain admission to a university."

Half a century ago we were told that our government would make it impossible for the average man live without breaking the law, thus giving the government power over everybody. "There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. When there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws." ~ Ayn Rand

We are about to embark on a lawless America. The people cannot follow the law, nor does anybody any longer respect the law. The overcriminalization of morally righteous and laudable acts, has and will result in the people ignoring the law. Because nobody can follow the hundreds of thousands of laws; because even our own president openly admits to committing felonies; because it has become painfully obvious that the rule of law is no longer applied equally in our nation; we now see without any shame, people openly ripping off the government welfare system, openly violating laws, and thumbing their nose at the government. Neither the left nor right of the political spectrum respects the law.

Why does President Obama, not do everything in his power to end the absurdity of 750 of 100,000 people being in jail. He has the power and could pardon every person in federal prison convicted of non-violent drug crimes, and could direct the Dept. of Justice to not prosecute any and all non-violent drug crimes? Any actions less than this is complete hypocrisy as he admits to possessing, using, and purchasing both pot and coke, but now persecutes those who do as he did. Talk about saving the country money. Imagine the hundreds of millions that would be saved starting tomorrow, if zero non-violent federal drug crimes were prosecuted, and millions of non-violent people, only convicted of doing the same actions that exactly what Obama freely admits do doing were no longer imprisoned.

Home Brewed Racism

By Tom Rhodes, 4/4/20125

All the talk and accusations of racism concerning Trayvan, when it is now clear that to make this look like a racist event; a Hispanic man is labeled as white; reliance on what have now been confirmed as doctored both audio and video to publicly convict Zimmerman regardless of the facts (he may be guilty but the facts are not all out); Calls for inquiry and seeking the truth are labeled as racist; total disregard for any evidence that doesn’t meet pre-conceived conclusions; and what appears to be the total disregard for much more heinous racist hate crimes. This is a case of home brewed racism, not real organic racism.

Have you heard about Allen Coon, the 13-year-old white kid in Kansas City, soaked in gasoline and set on fire while the two young black men yelled, “You get what you deserve, white boy!”? Wasn’t a headline story on NPR, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, etc. Why no cry for Sharpton and Jackson to fly off to Kansas City and admonish the local community, and to insist on the Kansas City Police to arrest those clearly racist assailants? Why didn’t the President call for some soul searching as to why black teenagers would do this to a white boy? The sad evil truth that nobody is allowed to say is that a disproportionate amount of black/white hate crimes is not white’s attacking blacks, but blacks attacking whites. Worse yet is the sad fact is that young black men are murdered far more often than any other group in our country, not by whites but by other black men. Want some very scary but we can’t talk about information; if you exclude black on black murders, the US murder rate is not any higher than other industrialized western nations.

If you really want to address racism then we need to address two issues, the drug war and the fact that 3 of every 4 black babies is born to an unwed mother. The war on drugs is disproportionately applied to blacks, and once a person has a criminal record you can “legally” discriminate against them. It’s not racist to refuse to hire somebody with a “criminal” record. The racism was creating and maintaining laws which make certain activities illegal based on ancient cultural preferences. In America we’ve got home brewed racism based on old cultural preferences for brew over plants.

People use mind altering drugs, always have always will. There is no scientific ground to claim that alcohol is less dangerous than pot or coca leaves, and the concentration of either through processing like distillation makes both sources of mind altering substances far more dangerous. Although virtually all cultures use both, the generally preferred mind altering substance of whites is alcohol, of minorities it has been coca and pot. The reason is anthropologically sound, availability of mind altering substances in the ancient historic dwelling places lead to cultural preferences. European heritage lead to a preference for fermented fruits, grain, etc. because that is what was easiest to acquire. Asian, African, and western hemisphere natives have a preference for smoked or ingested plant leafs, because that is what was easiest to acquire. It is easy to conclude that making leaf and flower based mind alter substances illegal, while keeping fruit, berry, and grain fermentation products legal is a subtle but functional method to keep Eurocentric racism acceptable. The idea that it is criminal to use one natural based mind altering substance like pot, while it is socially acceptable (and expected in powerful social circles) to use other mind altering substances like wine, is patently absurd.

Being a single parent is less than ideal, it is not desirable, and not the best way to raise children. Right now 3 of every 4 black babies is born to an unwed mother; Why? The answer is easy and the same; the racist war on drugs. Black women don’t have a socially acceptable pool of black men to marry who are not criminals. The social standard to marry morally upright and “good” man is greatly hindered by the fact that a huge percentage of black males are “criminals.” Prohibition resulted in Al Capone, and massive gang warfare, police corruption, murder and made normal honest people criminals. The war on drugs does exactly the same thing, but because it is targeted to minorities it provides racists a socially acceptable method to discriminate, the result is massive numbers of young black men permanently labeled as criminals, making them unsuitable for other employment and diminishing their standing as marriage material. No woman wants to marry a man who spent his teens and 20’s in and out of jail rather than developing skills that would make him a good provider, father, and husband. End the war on drugs, and the result will be a significant decrease in unwed mothers in the communities it affects.

The fact is that racism, the real lynching murdering racism of the past in the USA is all but gone. There are very rare events where some racist slime murders those whom they hate, but it is very very rare and is not tolerated by anybody of any race. The reality is that real racist organizations like the KKK and the Black Panthers are pretty much powerless and a mostly good for late night joke material. The vast majority of Americans see people like Sharpton and Jackson as opportunist race baiters. The massive fraudulent communications by the press to try and make Trayvan/Zimmerman racist issue which as more evidence is exposed, it clearly isn’t, is only hurting race relations and not productive. Failure to recognize that our current laws which criminalize eon’s old behavior based on cultural preferences are racist in nature and need to be eliminated is a far bigger problem. Since the powers of big government have found that the war on drugs is profitable (for government), can be used to control a significant portion of the population, increases government power, and allows discrimination against “criminals,” don’t expect any real changes anytime soon.

This is Legal:




This is not:




Why?

The solution is simple, liberty. Drug laws are very anti-liberty, they imply that the government can and should control what kind of natural mind altering products you choose to use. The absurdity and double standard are appalling. My hobby, brewing, allows me to make up 200 gallons of primo-hooch every year. Being of European decent, I prefer hard apple cider to other drugs. My latest, “Drunken Moose Mead,” was brewed from local honey and store bought apple juice right in my kitchen, not only does it tastes great but with a 22% alcohol content, it produces a potent buzz. Why is this legal, socially and culturally acceptable, yet gardening plants in the back yard, or window box that when used produce a similar mind altering state a crime? The reason is that beer and wine making are a traditional European “Craft” and growing pot, coca or poppy plants is a third world criminal “enterprise.” That is just racist and sick. I don’t plan to stop brewing, but will work to make all kinds of gardening legal. Home brew is legal, home grown isn’t, that has to change.

Any Questions?

By Tom Rhodes 2/27/2012

Liberals tout the seasonally adjusted employment numbers being improved as proof of the success of government economic stimuli. They conveniently ignore the fact that many more millions of people are "permanently" out of work so are no longer counted as unemployed, than there have been new jobs created. The fact is that the government "adjusts" the numbers to send the correct political message. The simple fact is that we have more people living in the USA than we did when Obama took office, and the total number of people employed is significantly lower. That is not job growth, Period. The method the government uses to count employment, etc. are continuously changed to reflect the political message the government wants to portray. If you want real numbers and an honest comparison look at the numbers and data from John Williams' Shadow Government Statistics. The basic problem we have is not that there isn't enough government stimuli but that the ruling elite are addicts. They are addicted to spending money they don't have.

What is needed is solid foundational jobs, production, and consumption based on real economic availability and demand. Artificial demand won't increase availability, nor entice those who produce to produce more.

People have been taking and using artificial stimulants longer than we have been recording history. Whether it be cocoa leaves or cocaine, coffee or amphetamines, drugs to keep energy levels unnaturally high have been used by people forever. They are not bad in and of themselves, a temporary stimulus to complete a task is not a bad thing, provided you don't continuously use them in place of food or sleep.

Consider cocaine, it can give you a short-term boost, but it can also cause your hart to race so intensely that it explodes. There is no nutritional value to artificial stimulants. They just accelerate the consumption of energy reserves that your body would not normally use if left to natural metabolic mechanisms. It does not create those reserves; replenish those reserves; sustain those reserves; it just uses them up. To be health you need normal amounts of food and sleep. When stimulants wear off, you either crash or take more. The long term effects are usually very bad, a wasted withered body that needs slow long term, and costly, recovery, or worse yet death. Nobody would claim or accept that being strung out on coke or amphetamines is healthy, wise, or effective way to live.

Economic stimulus doesn't work for the same reason. Economic stimulus is based on the same kind of thinking people who use drugs to stimulate their bodies for a prolonged time. It's based on a completely wrong notion of what spurs prosperity.

Liberals are now using a short time span graph, to illustrate that new European austerity programs (actually the ending of artificial stimulants to the economy), are actually hurting their economy. Have you ever seen a drug addict and what happens when the drugs are cut off whether by benevolent hospitalization, or by self-induced privation? They don't look or feel good, in fact for a period of time it is much harder and worse for them than if they had stayed on the drugs. Would anybody argue that the short term hardship, pain, and misery the drug addict suffers during rehabilitation is worse than continued drug dependence, which inevitably leads to self destruction.

Government stimulus through deficit spending does the same thing for the economy that stimulants do for the body. It takes value-added production that serves markets that want the goods and are able to purchase them to maintain real healthy and sustainable economic growth. When for various reasons not enough of that is happening, economic growth will slow or regress for a short period of time. Nobody enjoys that period of time, but necessary corrections are a necessity from time to time.

We sometimes refer to the economy as an engine. Adding nitrous-oxide and a performance exhaust to a car engine that has leaky valve or two may give that weakening engine temporarily power boost, but will also lead to far greater damage taking a far longer downtime to recover from needing to totally rebuild the engine than if the time was taken to do the more minor head work.

Drink too much on New Year 's Eve and you have a hangover New Year's Day. You can avoid that hangover if you stay drunk. Eventually you have to sober up, failing to do so is self destructive. The government is replacing the value-added, market-serving production that generates true economic growth with the superfluous spreading of borrowed money. Just like staying drunk to avoid a hangover, it doesn't work.

Not only our economy but the world's economy is past the point where a small temporary stimulus will provide an energy boost to get over the hump. Our federal government can "stimulate" our economy back to health. That's why Bush's TARP, and Obama's $862 billion stimulus were both boondoggles. Effective and lasting economic health will not return until we release the productive sector of the economy. The productive sector of our economy is the business sector, investing, taking risk, and succeeding and failing based on how they serve the people. The government needs to quit trying to pick economic winners and losers; to get out of the way of energy production; to cut taxes on businesses and individuals; and to stop treating everyone who earns a profit like a felon.


Our economy on stimulus is only getting us a federal debt now larger than the size of our entire economy, and a government addicted to spending, just like an addict is addicted to drugs.

From one of the most famous and memorable PSA's ever created came the phrase "Your brain on Drugs." The first version of this PSA, created in 1987, showed a man who held up an egg and said, "This is your brain," before picking up a frying pan and adding, "This is drugs." He then cracks open the egg, fries the contents, and says, "This is your brain on drugs." Finally he looks up at the camera and asks, "Any questions?" It was later shortened to this:



An economy running on borrowed money used to create unproductive artificial stimulus is analogous to your brain on drugs. Self destruction is the inevitable result if we don't stop; just look at Greece.

"Any Questions?"

Obama Admin does something right!

Damn, Damn, Damn, Damn, Obama deserves credit.

Federal drug agents won't pursue pot-smoking patients or their sanctioned suppliers in states that allow medical marijuana, under new legal guidelines to be issued Monday by the Obama administration. Two Justice Department officials described the new policy to The Associated Press, saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state law.

OK it’s not legalizing pot or ending the failed war on drugs but it is a step in the right direction. I have give credit where credit is due. The Obama administration is moving in the right direction on this one.

Prohibition - an excues for big government and taking away our liberties.

Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Dion O'Banion, "Bugs" Moran (AKA Jack "Legs" Diamond), and "Dutch" Schultz, "Pretty Boy" Floyd, "Babyface" Nelson, Elliot Ness, Speakeasy, revenuers, G-men, The Coton Club, The Godfather, Flappers, all everyday names, places, styles. and ideas from some of our most popular action movies - Gangster movies.

Chicago - when you hear the name of that city do you think of honesty, integrity, liberty, or do you think of gangsters, crooked politics, graft and greed?

The roaring 20's where alcohol consumption was illegal, this had the following results: alcohol related deaths rose dramatically; arrests for drunkenness and disorderly conduct increased 41 percent; arrests for drunk driving increased 81 percent; organized crime grew into an empire; disrespect for the law grew; and the per capita consumption of the prohibited substance (alcohol) increased dramatically.

People flagrantly violated the law, drinking more of the substance that was originally prohibited. The problems prohibition intended to solve, such as crime, grew worse and they never returned to their pre-prohibition levels. Not only was prohibition ineffective, it was also damaging to the people and society it was meant to help. Prohibition should not have gone on for the thirteen years it was allowed to damage society.

You would think that prohibition would enhance the difficulty of obtaining alcohol. The opposite was true, liquor was actually very easy to acquire. The bootlegging business was so immense that customers could easily obtain alcohol by simply walking down almost any street. Today it's easier for a teen to get a joint than a beer. Pot's available at high school, and the local dealer doesn't card you.

FBI statistics show that in 2007 Police arrested an estimated 872,720 persons for cannabis violations, more than ever recorded in the USA. That's only the ones the police caught, many more never get caught. Even our last 3 presidents have admitted to doing pot. Well Clinton didn't inhale, so he might not count.

My grandfather born in Italy, living in Detroit, never paid any taxes from 1922 'til 1931 when for health reasons he moved to St. Louis and got a different job. (He was told to get out of town, as an independent Winsor to Detroit boatman, some people from the Purple Gang advised him that his health was in danger if he remained in Detroit.) This means that although he earned enough money to fully pay for a house, and was never without a new Oldsmobile every two years since leaving his independent delivery business, he also never paid a dime in income taxes over that same period of time. The government lost significant revenue for the 13 years of Prohibition because of the number of people earning a living "off the books".

How many of our inner city entrepreneurs currently earning a living selling a product their neighbors and friends obviously want, but happens to be illegal, are paying income taxes on their income?

Pot is a gateway drug to harder drugs. This is the argument for keeping it illegal. Beer prior to prohibition was the drink of choice for most, but because beer had to be transported in large quantities, which became difficult, the price of beer went up and thus Americans began to drink less of it. Instead, they began to drink more hard liquor, which was more concentrated and easier to transport and thus less expensive. Because of prohibition, Americans began to drink more potent drinks and so became more drunk by drinking less. This sounds exactly like what's happened to the drug business, coke, crack, designer synthetic drugs, etc. all now available because there is more punch in smaller volume. In fact it can be argued that because of prohibition pot, and cocaine became more popular (they were still legal). Hence our war on drugs can be attributed to our failed war on demon alcohol.

Two good things did come from prohibition. Sweet mixed drinks, to cover the bad taste of bootleg liquer, it was mixed with sweet fruit juices to make it more palatable. Now we have fuzzy navels, bloody marys, Harvey Wallbangers, in fact an entire industry based on making hard to pallet strong liquors taste better. We also have the most popular and most watched sport in the nation due to prohibition. Nascar, started out with fast cars that were made from everyday transportation to out run government agents, and now it's watched by millions every weekend. And the drink most associated with Nascar... Beer, gotta love the irony.

Violence of the "Roaring 20's" was legendary. The violence of today’s drug gangs is just as legendary. There are as many modern gangster movies as those set in the 20's. When was the last time you heard a shooting over a "beer deal gone bad"? When was the last time you saw the door of a winery busted down on Cops? Doesn't happen, want to end violence related to gangs and drugs, then end drug prohibition. Because it's forced into the black market, the profits from drugs are extraordinarily large. A risk/profit analysis results in many people participating in illegal businesses. If there were not extraordinary risks, then there wouldn't be huge profits. The risks are there because drug suppliers, dealers, and purchasers can't avail themselves to the court system to settle disputes, they have to settle disputes themselves. This makes people who are willing to use violence and have violent skills employable, as these skills are necessary in the absence of being able to use a judiciary. End prohibition and the need for violence will disappear, just as it did in the alcohol business.

This is all common knowledge, in fact I've been collecting data like this forever from the net, for references just use Google on prohibition, gangsters, roaring 20's etc. all this and more is out there. We know that prohibition didn't work for alcohol, and was a total disaster. We know this yet we cling to our war on drugs. Why?

Short answer is money. $19 billion federal dollars spend on the war on drugs in 2007. People running law enforcement, prisons, courts, selling law enforcement equipment, etc. all depend on the money from the war on drugs for their livelihood. Most of these are government workers or contractors. They don't want to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. If we ended the war on drugs we would only need a fraction of our prisons, law enforcement officers, and government employees. The government is protecting it job and power, not its citizens.

The stupidity of the failed war on drugs has got to stop. More illegal drugs are used in the US than anywhere in the world, the violence associated with drugs being illegal in the world has created international cartels, unstable governments, and the death and destruction of hundreds of thousands of people. We know that prohibition leads to gangs, violence, crime, stronger chemicals, more addiction, and more use. Please work at ending prohibition, it doesn't work; all it does is give the government an excuse to further erode our liberty and freedom.