Reflections …

Ah, December 31, a day for reflection. My problem is that I don’t reflect much. I never have in the past, and won’t start now. And I don’t do resolutions – those times in my life when I have made substantial changes, like quitting religion or smoking or starting exercise … had nothing to do with year ending or beginning. Quitting smoking, in fact, was a birthday present to myself, best one ever.

But I was thinking this AM as we drove relatives to the airport that during 2009 I really took enjoyment at one phenomenon and learned one thing.

The phenomenon is “medical marijuana.” I’m happy for the people who now have access to it for pain and nausea relief. But I’m laughing at all of the law ‘n order types who are quietly seething about it. You can hear the sphincters tighten every time a legal sale is made. A few of them may turn inside out, so great is the tightening. I love it!

Are more people smoking pot now than before? Who knows, who cares. Some sick people are comforted. Will medical marijuana laws lead to legalization? One can only hope. A lot of blacks and Latinos will be set free at last. The whole point of marijuana laws is repression of the underclasses.

In the mean time, libertarians and free-market types – take cheer. Commerce is percolating, Mary Jane is taking on new product forms, and sales are brisk. Markets are doing their magic.

I’m not a midnight toker myself. God knows I’m mellow enough as it is.

And then, the thing that I learned: While I still believe that the presidential election was stolen in 2004, I finally came to understand that it doesn’t matter. It didn’t matter in 2000 either. Obama has taught me that party politics are pointless, even counterproductive. Yes, Republicans care about being in power, as do Democrats. But it’s only about the perks of power, who gets to load up on friends in high places, which industries are favored. There’s nothing in it for us ordinary folks.

Just think of the presidential election it as the quadrennial football game between Harvard and Princeton. It is very important to some folks, but otherwise meaningless.

13 thoughts on “Reflections …”

    1. I am open to suggestions. We have thought about Costa Rica – seriously thought about it. As far as making substantive changes in this country, it is as oppressive a system as has ever existed, far more so than in the Soviet Union, as in that place people did not imagine they lived under democratic rule.

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      1. 🙂 – well, leaving is an option.

        I, personally, like Belize. They speak English and it follows Common Law.

        Costa Rica is very nice, but speak Spanish, and follows Civil Law.

        I’ve lived in many countries, and suffered under the curse of local illiteracy. It’s tough.

        Worse, though, is legal confusion. We are ‘naturalized’ to think in Common Law – which is often exactly backwards to the legal thinking of Civil Law.

        Contracts, for example. Common Law, we put in ‘exclusions’ – what is left out is ‘allowed’.

        Civil Law, they put in ‘inclusions’ – what is left out is not allowed.

        Such a reversal of mindset could land you into severe civil legal problems.

        So, Belize fixes two of my biggest constraints… but that’s just me.

        I hear Bolivia is nice. $350 a month, and you can live in a 5-star hotel room indefinitely.

        But, failing the uprooting and relocation….

        …what, here, could be a plan?

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        1. Very interesting … part of the appeal of Costa Rica is universal health care -insurance is draining us up here. But we are getting close to Social Security – odds are we’ll never do a Revolutionary Road. And part too depends on kids and grand kids – want to be around them.

          I studied just enough law in college be dangerous.

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  2. I get that often – what woudl you do to change things? It’s as if, failing to have the power of a movement on my own, I have to internalize our system and like it. No thank you.

    In the Myers Briggs scale, I am intuitive/feeling, so that I have tremendous energy towards idealistic endeavors, but little ability in nuts and bolts organizing. So I sound off, an get my kicks taking on the bloviators and haze-heads. I have found from blogging that the heaviest fog is among liberals, so much so that I am averse to them.

    Anyway, our hope is a coalition outside the parties of well-intended people of differing ideologies. I am intrigued by honest and sincere libertarians like Paul, conservatives like Norquist, as well as hard-nosed progressives like Nader. (He recently wrote an Atlas-Shrugged-like Utopian vision book called “Only the Super-Rich can Save us”.) That movement appears to have some small wiggling feet under it right now, as some Democrats are ridiculing the idea, which means they find it threatening.

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  4. Wishing you all great beginnings in the approaching decade. I’m all hope and change now that the fog is lifting.

    To all you lefties, righties, centrists, authoritarians, libertarians, socialists, fascists, capitalists, communists, and any other inappropriately-named tribe inadvertently not mentioned, Cheers!

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    1. To all lefties, righties, centrists, authoritarians, libertarians, socialists, fascists, capitalists, communists, and any other inappropriately-named tribe inadvertently not mentioned, Cheers!

      I am none of those things. I am a Unitarian.
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  7. Legislatures in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico met in 2009, leading to the enactment of 40,697 laws, many of which take effect January 1.

    And remember that ignorance of the law is no excuse.

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