Ron Paul, Hookers, and Heroin

That was my not-so-well-articulated point. Every twelve year old kid I know has at least one motorcylce.

 

Heck, by twelve, I already had a pretty fair gun collection. I already had a .22 that I loved more than anything and I got my first shotgun at twelve.

And motorcycles? I was already driving tractors and cars by the time my feet could reach the pedals.

 

I stand by my original thought. We preach salvation to individuals, not government-enforced behavioral mandates. The Holy Spirit is a better guide than man-made law.

 

I agree. Our goal shouldn't be to legislate people into morality, but to present the Gospel in order that people be convicted of their immorality.

 

The other night I was watching tv, something I seldom do. It seems that someone come up with the idea to create a substance called bath salts that the kids are smoking to get high. These bath salts can be found in gas stations and discount tobacco stores. It's sold under different names and packaged in various ways but it's basically the same chemical with a few additives.

The kids (and adults) were asked why they would smoke this stuff and most of them said because it was a legal high. They could get high and still pass mandatory drugs tests.

As you might imagine the only solution according to the news people and those they interviewed, public servants, school teachers, police and such was to make it illegal.

Okay, so let's say we make it illegal and take it off store shevles. Is that going to make people stop wanting to get high? No. They'll find some other way probably something even more dangerous. The bottom line is people want to get high and they'll find ways to do it no matter if it's legal or not.

I thought why not just legalize grass and let people get high? I bet whoever is making this bath salt would go broke inside a month and it wouldn't be on store shelves. It wouldn't even be an issue.

The truth is as Hillary Clinton said government will not legalize pot because there's to much money in it (for government). It's not about protecting our health. It's not about keeping us safe as anyone who has ever been to the wild side of town knows. It's about revenue and control.

This country is being turned into a stasi police state what with the war on drugs and war on terrorism and such. Laws are passed everyday that limit our freedoms. Fear is being used to convince us that we cannot have any choice in what we eat or what we wear or how we act or even what we say because only the central planners and the giant corporations they serve know what's best for us.

At some point we have to stand up for ourselves and the vision of liberty that our founders intended for us to have or throw up our hands and surrender to the control freaks in DC and their militarized police state and total security/surveillance grid that's rapidly closing in around us all. Legalize freedom!

 

My Old Man liked to say, "My rights end where your nose starts." Activities that only effect the adult actor should not be regulated.

 

What revenue does the government currently receive for illegal pot use?

 

Frankly I don't see how this applies at all. Lot threw his daughters to the wolves, it had nothing to do with preaching good news or repentance. And the picture we are given of a city totally lawless and out of control doesn't lend much credence to the less-government-control point of view.

That aside, maybe legalization is the way to go in that it would take the profit motive away from the gangs and the dealers. On the other hand if pot or other substances are legalized then it will mean way more government control since they would now be involved with quality control, distribution regulation, taxation etc. of what would now be legal substances. I'm not sure that would be pleasing to libertarian folks.

 

Here's just one example.

Here in Tennessee the police pull over out of state drivers and confiscate their money whether drugs are found or not. The idea is that drugs come into Nashviille in the east bound lane and money goes out in the west bound lane. Guess which lane gets the most attention.

Out on I-40, interdiction officers have a choice: Conventional wisdom is that the drugs come in from Mexico on the eastbound side. But the money goes back on the west.

While both agencies have made some big drug cases, we spotted both the 23rd and DICE staging time and time again with their backs to the drug side.

In fact, a review of daily activity sheets kept by the 23rd discovered that, when officers noted the location of their traffic stops, there were 10 times as many stops on the money side.
Review activity sheets for 23rd DTF, Oct-Dec 2010
Review summary of 23rd DTF cases, 2009-2010

Both DICE and the 21st Judicial District say they do not keep such daily activity reports.

UPDATE: A review of case summaries supplied by DICE shows that the entire team made one drug seizure -- 602 grams of heroin -- from Interstate 40 in all of 2010. Those officers arrested six people during stops on I-40 during that same 12-month period -- four of them on fugitive warrants, not for drug possession. Most DICE cases were seizures of money in the westbound lanes.
Review summary of DICE cases, 2010

http://www.newschannel5.com/story/14643085/police-profiting-off-drug-trade

In other words they pay little attetion to the drugs that are coming into Nashville. They're after the money not the drugs. Seems like common sense would dictate that if you want to stop drugs from entering Nashville you'd go after the drugs not the money. So it looks like the police here care very little about stopping the drug traffic. What would happen to this source of revenue if they actually did put an end or seriously curtail the drug traffic coming into the city?

It would be reduced or dry up. Can't have that now can we? There's too much money to be had by letting the drugs in.

The Profits Made By Keeping It Illegal

The only profits made by keeping marijuana illegal are made by the drug cartels, prison industry, and legal drug companies. Not to mention oil companies. Please enjoy the videos. (I've already shown in an earlier post how the banks launder billions of dollars for the drug cartels every year. That's like one of those symbiotic relationships no? Cui bono?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Yqyx0pCIHA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx50lhkQcf0&feature=related


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oloobzAU-3Q&feature=related


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKbfXabxddg&feature=related


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVQoz1dFIuE&feature=related

SOURCE

Marijuana was criminalized to protect the profits of wealthy men just as Henry Ford's automoblie which was meant to run on alcohol had to use gasoline instead. To protect the profits of wealthy men. Legalizing hemp and marijuana would threaten the profits of wealthy men in the paper, textile and petrochemical industries.

Got nothing to do with keeping people safe and protecting them from harmful substances. Marijuana is less harmful than alcohol and it may even have medical benefits. Alcohol is more harmful yet it's legal. Go figure? (TAX) Marijuana is less harmful by far than many of the legal drugs being pushed by big pharma. Got any doubts about this? Listen to all the side effects listed in the commercials for their wonder drugs.


One of their legal drugs may help with one condition but may cause several other more dangerous conditions including death. Some are very addictive. Pain killers. Big time black market industry here. Seems like every other person in this state is taking them without a prescription. It's illegal to take them without a prescription of course but this isn't stopping people from getting them.

Then we have the prison systems in the U.S. both public and private. That incarcerate people because of non violent crimes like drug use. Maybe into the hundreds of thousands or millions. This is a big drain on you and me because we pay taxes to support the largest prison population in the world. Right here in "the land of the free". The war on drugs also supports and expands big government. Which costs us more and more tax dollars. So, government benefits from keeping drugs illegal. Where's the incentive to win the war on drugs if those fighting it in this case our government benefits so much from losing it? And how much is all this costing us?

STATISTICS

Ninety-seven percent of 125,000 federal inmates have been convicted of non-violent crimes. It is believed that more than half of the 623,000 inmates in municipal or county jails are innocent of the crimes they are accused of. Of these, the majority are awaiting trial. Two-thirds of the one million state prisoners have committed non-violent offenses. Sixteen percent of the country's 2 million prisoners suffer from mental illness.

Global Research

Question. How many people die from alcohol use every year? How many people die from marijuana use every year? Question. Why is alcohol legal then? Answer, prohibition doesn't work and encourages criminal activety. We already found that out from past experience didn't we. And yet here we prohibiting away like crazy! The definition of insanity I'm told is to keep doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. We know prohibition doesn't work and encourages criminal activety yet we keep prohibiting things. Is that not insanity?


Shall I go on?

Little off topic but I find this interesting . . .

According to the Left Business Observer, the federal prison industry produces 100% of all military helmets, ammunition belts, bullet-proof vests, ID tags, shirts, pants, tents, bags, and canteens. Along with war supplies, prison workers supply 98% of the entire market for equipment assembly services; 93% of paints and paintbrushes; 92% of stove assembly; 46% of body armor; 36% of home appliances; 30% of headphones/microphones/speakers; and 21% of office furniture. Airplane parts, medical supplies, and much more: prisoners are even raising seeing-eye dogs for blind people. SOURCE

Is this how our government is creating new jobs? Who benefits? Why Wall Street and the bankers of course! Here we have the prison industrial complex supplying the military industrial complex. Is that one of those symbiotic relationships? I'd like to think this our government trying to save us poor taxpayers some money on our numerous never ending wars on everyone and everything but all it's doing is lining the pockets of Wall Street and the bankers.

Where's the incentive to win any of these wars if Wall Street and the bankers richly benefit from them so?

 

I didn't say it did. My statement, which still stands, despite twisting and conjecture, is our responsibility is to witness, not legislate.

 

Err ok. Offering daughters to gang-rapists is not my idea of witnessing, but then I have been wrong before.

 

You arent' wrong now, save for the fact that you are asking me to explain something I never said.

 

I think it was the big fad before Evangelism Explosion.

 

Never really caught on.

 

That's because LifeWay wasn't marketing it.

 

Insert Rimshot HERE