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The Insane Pampered, Bowl-Of-Cherries, Cinderella Baby Marijuana War
By JESSE ATTREAU
The Unintimidated Press
Since 1937, when the federal government first outlawed the sale, possession, and use of marijuana, just who has it been in this country that has waged and perpetuated the war against adult marijuana smokers? Most people would probably answer that it's been the government. But that would be grossly simplifying it. The reason is because whether an adult should be considered to be a criminal or not for smoking marijuana is for the most part strictly a moral judgment call. And therein lies the problem. When you engage in the business of casting moral judgment on people there's all sorts of ramifications that come into play. Specifically, one must look past the actual entity or body that's doing the judging and consider just exactly who the individuals are who make up that body.
When it comes to casting moral judgment on others, what the actual status and position in a society is of the individuals who are doing the judging is really irrelevant, including whether the individuals happen to be lawmakers or not. Just because a person is a lawmaker it doesn't make them any better a judge of moral character than the average person on the street. In fact, in this country it actually makes them a worse judge of moral character.
What we do in the United States is we always let the pampered, bowl-of-cherries, Cinderella babies of our society be the ones who get to cast their moral judgment on everyone else all the time. Year-in, year-out, decade-in, decade-out, century-in, century-out, figuratively speaking, it's always the people who were tucked in to bed at night, had their food cut up for them, and who had golden opportunities to intellectually and socially mature during childhood who get to do the judging. In the case of the U.S. Congress, many of its members were born into millionaire families and came into Congress multimillionaires. And the ones that didn't still had pampered, bowl-of-cherries, Cinderella baby childhoods. No one who has ever served in the U.S. Congress ever came within a light-year of the reality of the system. You could say the same for the members of all state legislative bodies as well.
These are exactly the kind of people you do not want casting moral judgment on anyone else. It's like letting the people who got the lifeboats when the Titanic sank castigate the people who were still on deck for not just standing at attention and sucking it up and grinning and bearing it. Does anyone detect a tinge of absurdity here? Does anyone detect a tinge of outrageousness here?
In fact, even if everything that the government said about marijuana in the past was true - and practically none of it is - it would still be unjust and immoral to let people who didn't come within a light-year of the reality of the system to cast their moral judgment on adults who smoke pot. The moral opinion of a pampered, bowl-of-cherries, Cinderella baby of any other human being is completely and totally irrelevant - even if the pampered, bowl-of-cherries, Cinderella baby just happens to be a member of the U.S. Congress.
The United States of America is insane for always letting people who skated through to get to be the ones to cast their moral judgment on everyone else all the time. I don't care what a person's position or status is in a society - including that of lawmaker - pampered, bowl-of-cherries, Cinderella babies should never be allowed to cast their moral judgment on anyone else, anytime, or anyplace. Yet to make matters worse, in the United States they're the only ones who ever get to cast their moral judgment on everyone else all the time at the level where the laws are enacted. We're sick!!! Period! It's that simple!
Take 'em back to age five, give 'em a dose of reality, then let them cast moral judgment on others. The easiest thing that it is for those who escaped the reality of the system to do is to stand back and point the finger at someone who didn't and say: "Do you know you're messed up because you smoke pot? There's something wrong with you for not being just like me." Anyone detect a tinge of insanity here?
Any situation where you have a legislative body that's perpetually made up of people who were tucked in to bed at night, had their food cut up for them, and who had golden opportunities to intellectually and socially mature during childhood that is allowed to cast its moral judgment on the rest of the citizenry all the time would have to constitute an unjust and immoral situation. No sane person would disagree. But in the case of marijuana I would take it even farther than that because it doesn't just stop with merely casting moral judgment. We're also talking about branding people as criminals based on that moral judgment. And in my book, that can get insane. Casting moral judgment on people is one thing. Branding people as criminals based on that moral judgment can constitute an insane act.
Does anyone in their right mind believe that members of Congress would've been any different under the same circumstances than the people who they wage a war against? They're just luckier. This is why you do not want pampered, bowl-of-cherries, Cinderella babies casting moral judgment on others. People who escape the reality of the system are perpetually ignorant of what other people lived through and how those people were affected by what they lived through.
And even though letting pampered, bowl-of-cherries, Cinderella babies brand people as criminals for smoking pot is insane in and of itself, the marijuana laws would still be insane for other reasons even if that wasn't.
You see, branding a person as a criminal is one of the most serious things that a society can do. It stigmatizes people. It wipes them out financially. It disrupts their lives. It can tear families apart. It can destroy a person's life. This obviously isn't anything that should be done on the basis of hallucination, exaggeration, or by using arguments of convenience. It is my position that branding a person as a criminal for any reason is something that should only be done as a last resort. Well, don't waste one second of your time trying to convince me that an adult kicking back at the end of the day and taking a toke of marijuana would even come close to filling the bill.
When it comes to designating whether a person should be a criminal for engaging in a certain type of behavior or not, there can be a thin line between sane and insane. Because branding, or designating, a person to be a criminal constitutes such a serious action, it stands to reason that doing so on the basis of hallucination, exaggeration, or merely by using an argument of convenience must be considered an insane act, an insane abuse of power - an act of insanity! My position is that if a law is insane it must also be illegal.
However, in the case of marijuana, that's exactly what the government has been doing ever since it first outlawed the use and possession of marijuana in 1937. A perfect example of what I'm talking about was demonstrated several years ago during an interview with Utah Senator Orrin Hatch. Hatch was asked why marijuana should be illegal. His response? "Drugs are killing our kids." Boy, I'll tell ya, you want to talk about hallucination, exaggeration, and argument of convenience all wrapped up into one.
But that was probably a standard response that you would get from any member of Congress. You go up to any one of them and ask why the adult use of marijuana should be against the law and I guarantee you that their response will start with "Because drugs." The problem is Hatch wasn't asked about drugs. He was asked about marijuana. There's a difference. The term "drugs" is an all encompassing term that includes any substance that's classified to be a drug. That mentality would be OK if all drugs were identical in terms of their effects. But they're not. It's the same thing as saying that marijuana is a drug and because some drugs are bad it justifies waging a war against adults who indulge in the use of marijuana. It's the same as saying that because poison ivy is a bad plant all plants are bad and it's therefore OK to pull up roses because they're also a plant. It's an argument of convenience.
The problem is that when it comes to branding a person as a criminal, that mentality just doesn't cut it. The ramifications associated with branding people as criminals are too serious to resort to arguments of convenience. However, it's exactly the sort of thing that happens when you have pampered, bowl-of-cherries, Cinderella babies casting moral judgment on others all the time.
The arguments of convenience employed by the government to justify its insidious war against adults who indulge in the use of marijuana don't stop there. What has become the government's defacto, preferred argument of convenience to justify its insidious war is the mentality that because children shouldn't use drugs it's alright to make criminals out of adults who smoke pot. Boy, I'll tell ya, you want to wage a war against someone in this country? Just find something that they do that children shouldn't do and then just cry out, "We have to save the poor little children."
No one is going to argue against the fact that children shouldn't smoke pot. But that doesn't mean that it's automatically justifiable to wage a war against adults who do. Children shouldn't smoke cigarettes either but we don't wage a war against adults that do. Children shouldn't drink alcohol but we don't make criminals out of adults that do. Children shouldn't drive cars but we don't wage a war against adults that do. And you could literally go on and on. I think you get the picture. The issue here isn't whether children should use drugs. The issue is whether or not we should make criminals out of adults who indulge in the use of marijuana. Children shouldn't even enter into that debate.
In fact, it's so easy to use the children to wage a war against someone, you could even use them to wage a war - nonviolent, of course - against members of Congress. For instance, let me demonstrate how easy it would be to use the children to wage a war against the religious fanatics in the Congress. Most, if not all, religious fanatics don't have any qualms about subjecting children to religious propaganda. Well, we could use that to wage a war against religious fanatics in Congress. We could object to children being subjected to religious propaganda and cry out, "We have to save the poor little children from the religious fanatics of the U.S. Congress."
I'll give you another example. As I was writing this, the Congress was debating immigration reform. One of the proposals being considered was to use education level as a criteria for determining who can emigrate here. Well, from my standpoint, that mentality is academically bigoted. We could use that to cry out that we have to save the poor little children from the academic bigots of the U.S. Congress.
You see how easy it is? Without even trying I easily came up with two examples of how to wage a war against someone using the poor little children. No one is safe from that mentality. In fact, I'm going to take this opportunity to issue an ultimatum to the U.S. Congress: Either decriminalize the use of marijuana for adults or I'm going to launch a personal crusade to save the poor little children from the religious fanatics and academic bigots of the U.S. Congress.
Since 1937, the U.S. government has used nothing but hallucination, exaggeration, and arguments of convenience to make criminals out of adults for indulging in the use of marijuana. Well, the time has come for us to make clear to the government that we consider the designating of people as criminals to constitute such a serious act that to apply that haphazard mentality when doing so just might constitute an act of insanity. I say to the government, continue using that haphazard approach to such a serious matter if you wish. Just be prepared to deal with the ramifications that go along with engaging in that behavior.
For years I've been trying to hammer into people's heads that the people who have been going around trying to make marijuana use look like it's something to be ashamed of have been pampered, bowl-of-cherries, Cinderella babies who never should've been, or be, allowed to cast their moral judgment on anyone, let alone adult indulgers in cannabis. So I say to people who like to enjoy the pleasures of an occasional toke of marijuana to not let pampered, bowl-of-cherries, Cinderella babies make it look like your indulgence in cannabis is something that you should be ashamed of. Go ahead and toke. Do it responsibly but do it with the clearest of conscience. And if the government gets on your case about it merely politely inform the government that if it doesn't get off your back you're going to publicly question the legality of a form of government where it's always pampered, bowl-of-cherries, Cinderella babies, who didn't come within a light-year of the reality of the system, that get to cast their moral judgment on everyone else all the time.
Copyright 2008 Unintimidated Press