Post #52,908
9/23/02 6:38:33 PM
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Ashton...
I'm not completely advocating Puritanical lifestyle, but I'm clearly stating that I think the pendulum has swung too far to the anarchy (hang loose, do what feels right) side of the equation, and I do think that people need to learn to restrain themselves, or have authority restrain them.
I don't really give a darn if you do drugs, hire a prostitute, masterbate, watch lots of X-rated movies, watch Gladiator, etc. in your own home until it spills out on the street where my 7, 5, and 2 year old are watching (presuming you were my neighbor).
However, I do believe that when it does spill out in the street it has to be answered in order for a society to remain civil and for the city/state/country to remain safe.
I will tell you though, that whatever you sow, you will reap. And if you choose to fill your mind with filth, then that's what your life will become. You can't NOT be affected.
I'm not telling you can't smoke pot, but I am telling you that if you do it in my neighborhood, or outside of the places where it's expected, then guess what? I think you're breaking the law.
All the more reason to have places where these kind of activities CAN be done.
Ya'll have a good time (and leave me out of it).
Thanks.
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Post #52,961
9/24/02 3:25:48 AM
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We might grow up (?) then again..
Many people have their equivalents of, as ye sow... Karma comes to mind as representing meaning to probably the largest slice of world population. But 'karma' or other (always merely human concepts for ineffable matters) doesn't belong in laws applied to all.
Billions of words have already been written about the absurdity of US drug laws, the overtly-Christian basis for our control of even pain-relieving drugs PLUS our per-capita usage of mutitudinous kinds of drugs! unequalled by any society in history. But Certain ones - we reserve the kinds of punishment for, as most sane societies reserve for murderers. Etc. We are a mass of contradictions and especially of hypocrisy.
I have no beef with Christians defining their personal life-rules by their tenets. I have lots of problems with the same tenets being enforced by the police of a society: the part that is Caesar's.. not Jesus's OR Mohammed's. And it's the latter that is behind most-all the draconian and arbitrary Drug Warz idiocy of today. Now militarized, yet!
I don't know what consensus would be for 'street behaviour', but I doubt that it is necessary (or desirable) that all permissible actions are to be measured by "what is good for children". Or we must all remain children - umm, maybe our culture does tend to promote this idea.
Ditto your last. Trouble is, in the US today: there is no place safe from busybodiness; from Authority imposing itself under the guise of Morality and not mere maintenance of social 'order' (unless order means homogenization to some LCD). Certainly not even in your own home, not even when your actions affect only yourself - are you safe from the censor variants. (Of course the richer one is, the less expected everyday surveillance, infrared checks etc. But that is our Other problem - the one about distribution of 'things', not wisdom)
Maybe in another 100 years we'll get over minding everyone Else's business. Maybe.
Ashton
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Post #53,099
9/24/02 8:39:36 PM
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The Far Right utters...
Your analysis stands if and only if your behavior affects you exclusively. The impact of non-therapeutic use of psycho-actives, however, DOES indeed affect the society at large - and quite often results in death and/or dismemberment of innocents (children and adults), to speak nothing of the millions of dollars spent on publicly funded rehabs, hospitals, halfway houses, etc.
All the arguments pro-private drug use depend upon one fallacy: non-therapeutic use of psycho-active drugs affects only the user. That's wrong and since it is wrong, all arguments dependent upon that premise are without value.
Putting on my armband and jackboots now,
Mikem
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Post #53,105
9/24/02 9:08:04 PM
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Yes, that is our 'logical' Catch 22
between individual rights to ride motorcyles, climb mountains, walk tight-wires VS the cost of hospitalization -- and the general preference of every Authoritarian that -- everything be orderly, homogenized and safe. (Which is called 'morality' by many too lazy to think)
As to the proper approach to the problem of escalating *desire* for psychoactives: my preference is ever to seek root causes just as, My Other computer is your IIS Server suggests.
What is it about our present daily milieu which drives an increasing percentage of our 'consumer ex-citizens' to seek escape from our environment: At Any Cost, including the threat of draconian jail sentences exceeding those given axe-murderers and CIEIOs who steal millions?
All the rest IMho is merely the expected Spy VS Spy Cant VS Cant - which drowns out any prospects for facing-up to just how Fucked has become our kultur! (perhaps simplest guess to summarize: for the poverty of its daily aims? the fleecing of suckers = that which everyone thinks everyone else Is?)
Got some root solutions?
Ashton
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Post #53,163
9/25/02 10:05:04 AM
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Re: Yes, that is our 'logical' Catch 22
As to the proper approach to the problem of escalating *desire* for psychoactives: my preference is ever to seek root causes just as, My Other computer is your IIS Server suggests. Some people just have some genetic affinity toward some types of drugs. I'm not saying it's predistined that they'll be addicted (gawl got too much of that predestination stuff in college) but some *will* be almost, not always, addicted. Others will try, and discard, drugs like coke or marijuana. Dammit, there's a much bigger problem to society posed by alcohol than marijuana, or cocaine, or damn near any other drug available (legally or illegally.)
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Post #53,262
9/25/02 6:47:53 PM
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Yes to all: __ "Welcome To The Monkey House"__ (Kurt V.)
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Post #53,296
9/25/02 8:49:49 PM
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Are you baiting me? Or just jesting?
What is it about our present daily milieu which drives an increasing percentage of our 'consumer ex-citizens' to seek escape from our environment: At Any Cost, including the threat of draconian jail sentences exceeding those given axe-murderers and CIEIOs who steal millions? What is it? Please. You know what it is.
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Post #53,371
9/26/02 3:22:59 PM
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Just asking a 'root' question.
Which happens to be.. tragico-comic in its implications.
I'm sure that most any of us could write an essay, from entire experience - trying to capture the ingredients of the suckiness (see, already I need to use a technical term).
Look.. we're a clinical basket case! It's that ol war of opposites again:
Puritan sanctimoniousness VS the joy of sex and other pleasures.
Mind your *own* business VS the Authoritarian Need to watch, to 'correct', to discipline: ultimately to crush! opposition to a nice Orderly Homogenized group of "comfortable people just like Me".
Xenophobia VS variety - and *liking* that variety.
Hypocrisy VS noting one's own propensity to become most angry at.. seeing 'what I always do' - in another.
The concept of Original Sin\ufffd - and *all* that implies: screw society = people; get Raptured out and watch the suckers burn, while chortling over your Gooodness. (Daddy will give you a New play pen, next.)
Mainly: [our version of] the built-in, guaranteed massacre of peaceful coexistence which is promised by the tenets! of the world's organized religions - that Albatross around the neck of most of the world's population: created by the Priest-Power class, ever guarding its sinecure of Man-constructed fantasies about the Unknowable.
And the rest of the long list of contradictions here - where sex sells but.. pleasure is Suspect (and most likely the work of that ol Debbil) + the rest of related fantasies.
Our material 'wealth', and the means we have used to obtain it, while largely ignoring the exploited balance of the planet? That's just the Machiavellian aspect of our hypocrisy. (It's also the easiest 'symptom' of our depravity - as $$ happens to be our actual God here, no matter what the priests reassure the flock.)
Maybe on some future bright morning, when all (but token copies for the museum) of the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, the Bhagavad Gita, etc. are burned actually or symbolically -- can mental health be far behind the shedding of those fantasies (?)
Bon appetit; lunch time. Now you can straighten me out - correct all the above scurrilous Lies about our obvious Wonderfulness ;-)
Ashton
merely passing through
Yep - it's just a play
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