It looks like I may have to spend half my day reading and writing on opinion pieces in today’s Seattle Times, where Danny Westneat once again pisses me off, while Ron Sims and Greg Nickels prepare to piss on each other. But first, I’d likely to briefly comment on medical marijuana, an issue on which HA and Times editorial columnist Bruce Ramsey appear to be in total, if rare agreement.
Ramsey tells of the suffering of medical marijuana patients, both physically and legally, at the hands of our criminal justice system, before laying out a simple thesis in defense of their plight:
I relate Hiatt’s story partly because I believe in letting these folks alone, but partly also because I had an aunt who was in sharp pain from a pinched nerve. Her doctor prescribed an opiate, which handled the pain but messed up her mind and her gut.
My aunt was the most un-stoned person I ever knew, but she told me she would have taken marijuana, or anything else, if it had killed the pain, and to hell with the government. I would be no different.
Personally, I find libertarianism a simplistic, naive and unworkable political prescription when pursued in an ideologically rigid and overly broad manner, but I respect those like Ramsey who apply its philosophy consistently. If I can grow a plant in my backyard that eases the pain of a chronic illness, at no cost to society or impact on my neighbors, then like Ramsey I say to hell with a government that would interfere with my right to seek the medical treatment that works best for me.
Those on the right who claim to embrace individual freedom, yet continue to blindly support our tragic war on drugs beyond all reason, well… you’re all a bunch of goddamn hypocrites. And those on the left who quietly acknowledge the abject failure of our nation’s drug policies, yet refuse to stake any political capital on changing them, well… you’re all a bunch of cowards. As for those of you in the middle, who are conflicted on this issue, who fear (or know first hand) the often tragic impact of drug addiction on your own family, I urge you to put all the fear mongering and drug bust bravado aside, and start to think about this as the public health issue it really is… a context in which one neighbor’s medical marijuana use has about as much impact on your own well being as another neighbor’s gay marriage.
So kudos to Ramsey for speaking out on this issue. If only he could drag his colleagues on the ed board to pursue this issue with the same sort of vigor they reserve for things like repealing the estate tax, perhaps we might make some progress.
Why would you be pissed at Westneat? Because he tells it like it is on Seattle’s endless thirst for more taxation?
re 1: My God! In the name of Sweet Bleeding Jesus, you are a most tiresome twit!
Hey Goldy, where is the part about it being in the Times that the NEA and the WEA both endorsed Reichert over Darcy “the” Burner?
Your Darling Darcy is the only D in Washington State congressional races who did not get their endorsement.
Dumbass Darcy is anti education. Defenend your girl Goldy, you stalking son of a bitch.
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Here’s some recent video footage of a drunken Bush.
@3:
Why are you bragging about this? I thought Republicans wanted to abolish teachers’ unions and public education.
@3 You shouldn’t get too excited about the endorsement. The WEA and the NEA know very well that to maintain any influence within the Democratic party, endorsing a Repulican keeps the Democratic feet to the fire. This is a stratigic move to throw an endorsement behind someone they dont intend in voting for ( I’m a teacher and my collegues and I think he is an idiot, and that includes teachers in Reichert’s district) that keeps the Dems on their toes.
Reichert has a bad voting record on education. He has, among other things, voted to gut Head Start and lots and lots of scholarship money, as well as voting down the line with Republicans to gut Federal spending on education. If you think that teachers blindly follow what their unions’ suggest, you are mistaken. And, for those of us who are unhappy with the union decision, maybe EFF will rush to our defense, ya think?
Meanwhile, “anti-education” Darcy is FOR Head Start, lower class sizes and higher teacher pay.
@3…unless you mean that voucher-private school thing the voters keep turning down….
I read the Westneat column. I’m quite the lefty but I sure do feel as if I get the crap taxed out of me here. I know that HA namesake Timmy had something to do with it but how much blood can you really get…ya know. I would happily be taxed for healthcare if I could get the 500 per month that my employer pays to cover that cost…
Its becoming harder and harder for me to choose my battles..
My property tax bill goes up and up…
GOP = government regulation of things that don’t hurt anybody and no regulation of things that hurt everyone
Republicans are too busy busting cancer patients who take marijuana pills to pay any attention to big drug companies whose pills kill people.
However, Republicans do have time to agitate for legislation that would keep the relatives of people killed by defective drugs from suing the drug companies that killed them.
Yup!
But, I’d be careful about only laying blame on the right.
Goldy,
1. Libertarians are not consistent. The very assumptions of their so-called ‘philosophy’ prevents that.
2. Ramsey vehemently denies being a ‘libertarian’. I find this amusing.
Take it for what it’s worth.
Why does a Republican, in this case Ramsey, always have to be hit over the head by a personal tragedy, his aunt, in order to see the light of reason?
Because Republicans, as usual, have theories, but when they are tested by personal tragedy, the theories come up short.
Ramsey would be another right wing bloviating idiot on this issue if his aunt had not suffered.
Maybe if Jeb Bush had lost his legs in Vietnam, old Georgie boy wouldn’t have stepped so easily into the quagmire of Iraq.
Nah, on second thought, GW would have used Jeb and his stumps to get into Iraq more quickly.
BusDriver @ 14: Lots of junior officers in Vietnam were determined to make sure it didn’t happen again. They were especially worried that with an all-volunteer army, it would be easy for the politicians to make careless commitments of the troops overseas, because there would be no political consequences at home. So when they re-organized the armed forces, particularly the army, they made sure that the support & logistics that would be needed for an extended overseas committment would be almost entirely dependent upon national guard and researve troops. Their reasoning was that dislocating large numbers of troops from their jobs and families and sending them overseas for months at a time couldn’t be done without a very good reason, and a broad-based mandate of support within the U.S. This was discussed in some detail in the biography of Colin Powell which was written about ten years ago (I forget the name of the book now). Anyway, this was the military which was built by the likes of Colin Powell, Swartkopff (company commander in Vietnam), Franks (who lost one or two legs in Vietnam but stayed in the military and commanded the armored flanking maneuver in Gulf War I), and even Webb (former Secty of Navy under Reagan, now Sen. from Virginia).
But they weren’t counting on the Bush administration’s unfettered willingness to decieve, their complete lack of scruples in selling the war to the Congress and the American people, and their lack of conscience over the cost of the war to the soldiers and their families who had volunteered to serve their country.
So Bush & co. go us into Iraq even though the military was set up to avoid such an unwise committment, ignoring (or firing) generals who warned them that there weren’t enough troops to do it right, and then trying to fix the problem afterwards by switching N.G. and reserve units into combat troops because they don’t have enough men to kick down the doors, and then five years later finally begin to put in more troops (that we still don’t have) in a so-called “surge” that can’t be maintained, but calling it a “victory”.
Funny, I remember the early 1970’s pretty well. I was in Jr. High/High School during that time, and had lots of friends who ended up in the military, some in Vietnam. I graduated in 1975, after the war was over. It was pretty hard to get into the reserves or national guard at the time, because by doing so the volunteer avoided service in Vietnam. The Army researve commanders I knew were old WWII & Korea vets who were pretty right-wing, and were determined to keep out those who they suspected were joining just to stay out of Vietnam. So you ended up with lots of guys in the researve & national guard who were the most vocal supporters of the war in Vietnam, even while they were keeping safely away from it. These were the guys who bragged about what they would do to “commie peace demonstrators” if they had a chance, how we could have easily won the Vietnam war in a month or two if only “the politicians would have let us”, and so forth.
I’m sure there were some good guys in the reserves & N.G. out there, but in terms of numbers & visibility, the comparison was striking. Just about every Vietnam veteran I knew who returned home alive came home very cynical and determined not to allow our country to blunder into such a mistake again. But among the reserves & N.G. troops, you had a lot more of those with the the “chickenhawk” mentality – willing to take advantage of their family connections which kept them safe from Vietnam, but more than willing to go through the same mental process which got us into that mess in the first place.
Of course, Bush & Co. are firmly in the chickenhawk camp. Bush’s father slipped him into the Texas Air Nat. Guard. Cheney managed to avoid service entirely with a series of deferments. Limbaugh turned a pimple on his rear end into an excuse not to serve. Rove’s political connections the the College Republicans, and his willingness to do the dirty work for the Republican Party as a student of Seggretti (convicted Watergate plumber), managed to get him student deferments while he was only a part-time student who quit attending classes entirely, and eventually go him classified “ineligble for service” without further explanation while he worked for the Republican Party full time.
Gee, with a leadership structure like that, is it no wonder Rossi’s trying to avoid using the name “Republican”?