In These Times

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• • 22 Dec 05
  • 4:44 pm

  I agree. Carter has gotten a terrifically bad and unfair rap. He had the only rational energy policy this country has ever pursued, dedicating (as I recall) $10 billion a year to alternative sources. The Repugs are bought and sold by Big Oil, and the price of oil is hardly benefited by alternative energy. (Nuclear is a special case which I won't go into here.) Carter was the victim of his own inability to project the machismo Americans seem to crave. He came across very poorly on TV. The mainstream press really killed him in the hostage crisis, which like 9-11 …

  Posted to The Georgia Preach

• • 31 Oct 05
  • 4:08 pm

  I think you're wise to give up on Jay. The real problem as I see it is that Americans are always bouncing back and forth between a hopeful view of the world and a fearful one. Right now we're deeply into a fear phase. This dominates all the thinking of the day. (And it can be handily exploited by the real powers in our society, so they're doing their damnedest to keep us terrified.) Do Americans love "freedom?" Hell no -- but we have been propagandized into fearing our basic institutions of government, and wanting to be "free" of their coercive …

  Posted to Liberalisms Brain on Drugs

• • 31 Oct 05
  • 4:17 pm

  It seems fairly evident that you hold an utterly incoherent view of the world and that arguing you would be entirely futile, but perhaps someone else will come along to take up the challenge.

  Posted to Liberalisms Brain on Drugs

• • 01 Nov 05
  • 12:46 pm

  If you want to isolate the Puritan element in drug prohibition, it's pretty easy to do. One approach is to compare our treatment of "dangerous drugs" with our responses to other undeniably dangerous recreational activities -- skydiving, high school football, car racing, mountain climbing, etc. Nobody suggests that those things should be prohibited, even though each of them exacts a significant toll in death and disability every year. So I throw the question open to the assembly, or at least, those who are sincerely interested in understanding our attitudes on these subjects: Why the difference? Why is it okay to risk …

  Posted to Liberalisms Brain on Drugs

• • 01 Nov 05
  • 3:32 pm

  It doesn't answer my question above to say that recreational drug use has harmful effects on third parties. The same is true of a skydiver who leaves an indigent family behind when his chute doesn't open. And look at the nature and degree of the punishment. Who is more dangerous, a buy on a streetcorner under the influence of heroin, or a completely sober driver going 70 on the freeway while yelling at his wife into a cellphone? If the driver gets busted, he might be tagged for a misdemeanor, but more probably for an infraction. The guy with the heroin …

  Posted to Liberalisms Brain on Drugs