I'm well aware that my last several posts have not exactly been rays of sunshine. I should hope you come here for bracing candor and do not expect to be fed pablum.
But across post-America yesterday, the results in some off-year elections offer us some not-to-be-minimized reasons for encouragement.
In an age when "equal rights" ordinances are nearly becoming routine (Indeed, the argument is made that they are necessary economic-development tools for cities; such was a major rationale when the one in my city was recently passed.), a biggie - the one in Houston, which has a militantly lez mayor - went down in flames.
Conservative-base hero Matt Bevin won the Kentucky governorship. And, because you just about have to take note of these things in this age of identity politics, the new lieutenant governor is a black woman tea-party activist.
And score one for the gig economy: San Francisco's Proposition F, which would have ensnared Airbnb in regulations, lost.
Chalk up a twofer for the city by the bay: Sanctuary-cities-supporting sheriff Mirkarimi lost his re-election bid.
As did comprehensive weed legalization in Ohio. I am not stridently for or against the smoking of marijuana. As a musician and music historian, I understand its place in our country's cultural development over the last century. But as a conservative, I think a headlong rush to a nationwide embrace of it is ill-advised. Per my previous post, there was a time when I would have raised my fist in enthusiastic support of a stoned America, but I've reconsidered the matter. When you're stoned, facing evil just looks like a big bring-down.
And it appears that the Virginia state senate will remain in the hands of the Pubs, a huge blow to the gun-control push spearheaded by Governor Terry McAuliffe and his pal Michael Bloomberg.
So there is a point to remaining fiercely principled, vocal and prayerful.
This thing is far from over.
Yep, when you're stoned drunks look pretty evil.
ReplyDeleteSo the idea if marijuana is legal all the people would be stoned all the time? Or the stone is such that it weakens the spirit 24/7? You smoked, when you were young, right? Well, perhaps it does indeed cause brain damage of the nature you exhibit.
ReplyDeleteNot sure if we can't fight evil stoned, but I guess drunk does do it for us here in America the Exceptional:
ReplyDelete"By the time of the Revolution, the colonists' drinking habits had escalated until each colonist was drinking almost twice as much as the average person drinks today." The militia at Lexington was cross-eyed drunk. Ethan Allen began his day with a rum-and-hard-cider eye-opener. Other popular quaffs of the day had names such as "Rattle-skull and Bombo, Cherry Bounce and Whistlebelly Vengeance." Next time I'm in a snotty hotel bar, I'm going to ask the bartender for one of those.
Abraham Lincoln's bodyguard left his post at Ford's Theater to go boozing at a nearby bar. That was determinative. Perhaps as sadly consequential was the elbow-bending by a number of John F. Kennedy's Secret Service detail during the wee hours of Nov. 22, 1963. Hangovers do not improve reaction time. The driver of the presidential limousine fatally applied the brakes after the first shot, providing Lee Harvey Oswald a better target for his next. Worst of all, none of the agents noticed what many bystanders had: a rifle protruding from the sixth floor of a book depository. This section makes for wrenching reading, even if the material is not new, much less part of a "secret history."
Read more at http://www.denverpost.com/books/ci_29009606/susan-cheever-writes-sober-history-drinking-america?source=infinite-up
On the other hand, Willie & Chip Carter burned one on the roof of the
ReplyDeleteWhite House and we had the following father figures to deliver us from evil:
George H. W. Bush: It’s probably safe to say Poppy Bush never touched a reefer. He is the president who brought us the Drug Czar’s office and closed off the experimental federal medical marijuana program when AIDS victims started applying en masse. On the “scourge” of drugs, Bush specifically called for “intolerance” of drug users and prophetically announced that “Some think there won’t be room for them in jail. We’ll make room.”
Ronald Reagan: Given that he died from Alzheimer’s disease, it is a shame the Gipper wasn’t able to embrace the cannabis medicine that could have protected his brain. Not that he would have used it, since Reagan told us, “I now have absolute proof that smoking even one marijuana cigarette is equal in brain damage to being on Bikini Island during an H-bomb blast.”
read more at http://www.hightimes.com/read/11-us-presidents-who-smoked-marijuana
And even with all that drinking, America continued to fulfill its destiny, become ever more fully what it was intended by God to be - exceptional, an example of how a free, virtuous society could thrive long-term, leader and protector of the civilized world. And beginning about 50 years ago, weed began to get mainstreamed. And that is the same period of history in which the USA has become post-America - grotesque, hobbled, stiff-necked. I suppose that could be a coincidence . . .
ReplyDeleteI guess you're with Bush & Reagan, i.e., off your rocker on this issue.
ReplyDeleteLess than 10% of the US population regularly smokes marijuana. About the same percentage of drunk maniacs running around.
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