Reading through Wil Wheaton's blog, and coming across his entry about drugs, I was curious about why it was necessary for the government to pass a constitutional amendment to have a prohibition on alcohol (18th Amendment), why isn't it necessary to have one to combat drugs?
The powers of government haven't changed, and the goals and methods are the same, so why did one require a Constitutional amendment, but the War on Drugs does not.
Something seems amiss.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/09/24/walmart.photo.suit.ap/index.html
I used to think there was a discerning difference between democrats and republicans, but now I know that they're just two different faces on the same sickness, like the two faces of Kali, the Destroyer.
I used to think that government's role was to protect me and provide for me, but that they were failing miserably, but now I know that the true role of government is to protect my freedoms and they're still failing miserably.
I used to think that Bill Clinton was a good president, but now I know that his administration did many things that were violently anti-constitutional, destructive, and terrible.
I used to think that guns were bad, and they had no place in the home, but now I think they're an essential tool in preserving freedom and ensuring liberty.
I used to think that all people that were against the government must be dangerous, and just another brand of facists, but now I know that there are many people that feel just like I do that it is not government in and of itself that is bad, but that the current incarnation no longer respects it's oaths or it's constituents.
I used to think that democracy was the highest ideal we could achieve, but now I know that democracy is just a fancy word for 'rule of the mob', and that we should be first and foremost a Constitutional republic, which would protect the rights of the people from the capricious whims of the masses. Then, democracy takes over, after essential liberties are protected.
I used to think the War on Drugs was important, and saved lives, but now I know that this unconstitutional war perpetrated by the government against it's own people has needlessly jailed hundreds of thousands of people who have done nothing wrong, allowed the government to seize property belonging to innocent people, and has greatly expanded the rights of law enforcement to trample on the lives of regular people.
I used to think the Constitution was out-moded, and needed to overhauled, but now I know that while the Constitution is flawed, it's better than what we've got now.
So, this has very little to do with the ticket I just got (59 mph in a 35). I have been thinking for a while about speed limits, both on regular roads, on the PA Turnpike.
These two ideas are not really related, though they could be I suppose:
1. I think that the speed limit on the Turnpike should be raised to 100 mph. Then what happens is, every mph over the normal speed limit (65) I go, I would pay a little extra when I exit the Turnpike. So for example, I go between 75-85, I pay an extra $0.15 when I exit.
The extra money would be a windfall for the State, and it would be a great benefit for the drivers because we could drive safely at a speed we're comfortable at, without running the risk of getting caught, or having to slam on our brakes everytime we see a cop.
Let's face it. Many cars and drivers can safely go faster than 65, and on the Turnpike, or some other mostly straight stretch of road, 65 seems SOOOOOO slow. It's natural for you to want to go faster. So we should let people pay for the privilege.
2. On the other hand, perhaps we should abolish the speed limit and create a speed advisory system again. Look at it like this. There are times that you need to go faster, and there are times that you want to go faster. That should be a choice you as an adult should be allowed to make. But some roads certainly should provide some guidance to the driver. So they post a 'Speed Advisory' saying 'Recommended Speed: 45'. You have the choice of driving 75 on the road and not get in trouble. You can drive 80 on the road, and pass by a cop, and not get in trouble.
But if you're going above the advised speed and you get into an accident due to your own negligence, there could be additional penalities if it goes to trial. If you're going above the advised speed and you get into a terrible accident, your insurance company may not pay all of the expenses.
The idea is to let the driver decide how fast they feel like driving without having to worry about getting caught, or getting in trouble, and if anything goes wrong the responsibility returns to the driver.
This system I find much more agreeable to the proposed English solution that would monitor your speed and automatically issue you a ticket if you exceed the limit. What if you're driving to the hospital because your wife is giving birth? Oooo, that's going to cost you extra. What if you're going to a very important client meeting, and you're late? Too bad for you.
Would either of these systems work? Well, sure! We're all adults, or some reasonable facsimle thereof. Many roads in Germany do not have a speed limit, and they do not suffer from more, or more tragic, traffic accidents. There are roads out west in the US that do not have speed limits and they also do not suffer from greater or more tragic accidents.
I'm always in favor of systems that allow people to act on their own best judgement with a minmum of interference.
I know that can sometimes be scary, but I think once you got used to it, you'd like it too.
Someone in your neighborhood puts a basinet in their window with the sign "Watch the baby starve". You can't see in the basinet, and tell for certain there's a baby in there, but you can see movement. How long does this go on before you're authorized to use force to save the baby?
What if it's a box full of kittens with the sign "Watch the kittens starve". Can you use force to save the kittens?
Why?
You know, George Carlin once said "There's a bigot in every house on every block in America" and I laughed when he said it. His statement echoed similar statements from other people like Malcolm X. But I never really thought it true.
But thinking about it, I realized that I am indeed a bigot. I'm not a bigot ala David Duke, or Archie Bunker. I've got black friends, and Indian friends, and friends of many other colors. But I'm still a bigot.
I grew up in a neighborhood full of people from all around the world. My mom's from Europe, and my baby-sitter during the day while my parents worked was a kind old black lady named Mrs. Jackson. (She eventually moved away from Virginia to join her family in Jacksonville, FL, which to me as a kid was the coolest thing ever. I wanted to live in Reevesville. I even asked my mom one time if they named the town after her, I idolized that woman that much.) But I'm still a bigot. Yes, still a bigot even though I regularly go to lunch with my Indian co-workers at the local Tandoori grill, and hang out with the Chinese people at my office.
How am I still a bigot?
I can't stand poor white people, specifically, those known as 'white trash'. I have an immediate, rabid reaction to "white trash". I don't even know why, but it's automatic. I can't go to Wal-Mart (there seems to be a higher concentration of white trash in my local Wal-Marts than you find elsewhere) without breaking out in hives. It's not a reaction against the South. I love the South. It's not against poor people in general. I've been poor in the past, and I'm not rubbing elbows with Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. It's not even country music, or fans of country music. See, I can't even plant my finger on the exact combination of characteristics that bother me, but I know it when I see it.
I'm not happy with being a bigot. I'd like to think that I judge each person on their own merits, and give everyone a chance, and I guess I do, though "white trash" has a much harder time convincing me.
This is something I've felt since I was a kid! I remember mocking my cousin because he had a thick Southern accent, and was an overall-wearing, shoeless, backwoods, countrified white-boy, and it drove me crazy then.
So, what's the cure then? Go to a bunch of county fairs and get in touch with my white roots? Meet the kissing cousins, and go catch me a greased pig? Hop on the John Deere and drive down to a John Michael Montgomery concert, wearing my nicest Skoal cap? More importantly, how do I make sure that I don't transmit this down to my own children.
Maybe Carlin, Malcolm X, and the rest are right after all, and our bigotry isn't just confined to other races or genders, but can be applied to any group, by anyone.
Owen's doing much better! He's off the C-Pap, and he's breathing on his own. He's tolerating his feedings well, and I got to feed him today. They're even letting us hold him.
It's wonderful. I really hope that he'll be coming home before we move.
I have been yo-yo-ing a bit with the weight, but I'm finally back on the Atkins full-time for now. It's been a little harder with Owen being born, and most of my meals eaten on the run, but so far, I've been good.
I did have a Mt. Dew today. It felt nasty.
But that's beside the point. Today I'm down to 318 lbs!!!!!!!!
That's a 25 lbs loss from my heaviest. It feels great.
I went and saw Owen on my way home. He's doing fairly well for having been born 6 weeks early. He's doing his own breathing, and tolerating his feedings pretty well, so all is good. I'm thrilled to have a son, and I'm glad that he's so healthy. There's always a fear when you have a baby that you'll be hit with some bad news when he's born. I'll admit though that in a way I feel like I have to worry forever now that something else bad will happen later in his life and I'll be heart-broken.
I think I live my life always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Right after Heather and I had McKenna (in 2002), Keane laid me off. Right after I got married, and returned to work from my honeymoon, and on 9/11 of ALL DAYS, Pipeline Interactive laid me off. Now, Owen's born, and I'm looking around to see what will befall us next. I hate thinking that way, but it's become ingrained.
On another note, I was talking with my buddy Jeff yesterday, and we were talking about the current state of the US, specifically how the Patriot Act is being abused (who didn't see that coming?) to convict non-terrorists and punish them more harshly by twisting the wording. Jeff said that people have too many rights, and the Constitution was good in theory, but it needs to be revised. And Jeff's not the only person I've heard that from. Many people have said to me "The Bill of Rights is only a piece of paper, and can be repealed at any time!" to which I respond "A right is a right is a right, and no government can take them from you."
Somehow we've gotten this notion that we're granted our rights by the government, and they have the right to take them away, instead of how our Founding Fathers truly intended it: we have our natural rights, and we grant limited power to the government to help us protect those rights. That's a very different notion than what people have come to accept, and it scares the hell out of me that people are willing to stand by and let thugs steal their freedom by presidential mandate.
Baby Owen Reeves was born last night!
He's 5 weeks premature, but weighs 6.5 lbs (2.94 kg), and 18.5 inches long (47 cm).
He's healthy, though because he's preemie, he's in the NICU for now.
Heather's doing well also, and recovering nicely.
Obviously, most of my spare time will be spent at the hospital until Owen comes home.
I'd want to sue my senators, representatives, members of Bush's administration, and George Bush himself for breach of contract.
"What contract?" I hear you mutter. Why, their oath to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States" which they took when they were sworn into office. An oath is an oral contract, one that the swearer is bound to follow or suffer the consequences. A good example would be the oath witnesses take in court to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth", which, if they violate, they are arrested for perjury. Or how about the oath that members of the military take to follow orders and defend the Constitution, which if they violate, they are subject to imprisonment on a raft of charges. In some states, someone can be charged with adultery if they break their wedding vows!
So back to the matter at hand. What have these collected politicians done to qualify them to face such a suit?
is it stealing if Heather and I have all of the free movie channels by some accident, but we're not paying for them?
In the literal sense of the word, yes it's a crime because we're enjoying something that doesn't belong to us, and we're not paying to use it, even if the fault for us to have it lays with Comcast
But what exactly are we stealing? Theft of jewelry is easy enough to prove: It was here, in my drawer, and now he has it in his hands. Theft of ideas is easy enough to prove: I wrote this book and he copied my words verbatim without attributing me, and is making money off of it.
But what about here? In this instance, who's the losing party?
I suppose you could say that Comcast licenses these movie services from the channels themselves, and expects compensation in return for making them available, but do they pay a flat fee, or a per-user rate? If it's flat-fee than Comcast alone is losing the money. If it's per-user than both the movie channels and Comcast lose money.
But still, what's the tangible item we're taking, if any?
More importantly, should I call and let them know that we've got them for free, or wait until they discover it themselves?
Apparently, the delivery guy that blew (himself?) up WAS carrying a gun. However this was a single shot gun concealed in a cane, and not terribly effective.
Even more unusual is he carried it in with him to the bank.
More and more of the evidence points to him having an active hand in this whole affair.
This however does not for me change my about why we should be able to carry more guns because I was not speaking about him in particular, but in general about coercion, and having the freedom to defend yourself. Those are independent of Mr. Wells, and whether or not he was behind the whole robbery.
I need to make peace with my own lonliness, for the sake of my budget. When I'm driving home each day from work, I get so lonely sitting in the car that I just want to call EVERYONE. There can't be enough numbers in my phone for me to call.
That's why my cellphone bills get so high.
I start driving, and I start jawing.
On Sept. 3rd, Marketplace, a daily business news radio show broadcast on NPR, had author and consumer advocate Jamie Court on to discuss who he viewed as the real culprit of August's East Coast blackout. He squarely placed the blame on deregulation and called for more government oversight and control of the grid and energy companies.
However, Mr. Court did not consider, or mention two things:
Why are the virtual Mondays after a long weekend, so damn hard to deal with? This day feels like a Monday x 10...
*yawn*...I even got up early and got to work early.
I left the car seat in the car, when Heather needs it today, I have Heather's keys with me in addition to my own, and she has a doctor's appointment, and I've got a pile of work a mile high.
Things have improved with Brian, and I've gotten to spend time with him. Heather and I went out with Brian and Charlotte. The service at the restaurant sucked, though they seemed to be having problems all around, in the kitchen, getting people seated, everything, so either they're completely understaffed, or the management's incompetent.
I've always believed that problems in an organization bubble down from the management. Bad employees are one thing, but if management's on it's toes, then bad employees don't remain employees for long. I always say that if you see a company suffering, look at the management first.
All of that's a side issue to the fact that I got to spend time with Brian today, and it was great. I've really missed him, and it was good to see him again. I love him like a brother, and I am much happier now. It feels like family's back together again.
