Amy Winehouse--Dead at 27
Every generation comes along--and I'm not excluding my own--thinking that they have discovered new truths that somehow escaped every generation that went before. And then they run into the brick wall of reality. Amy Winehouse was an exceptionally talented girl who decided that drugs were wonderful and until now they gave her a way to avoid reality. Unfortunately, the history of drug use was something that was ignored in her education. Had it not been, she would have seen, and hopefully heeded, the warning signs left by Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Elvis Presley and Kurt Cobain, to name just a few of the famous ones. One wag, I forget who, said, “Cocaine was just God’s way of telling you that you had too much money;” but that just makes a poor joke of a deadly situation.Amy had been in and out of treatment for years but her enablers kept her supplied with the drugs her body craved and which eventually wore it out until it just stopped. And now she’s dead. I’m sure that she wasn’t ready to die--at least there has been no announcement of a suicide note--so she’s probably wondering WTF (and that’s not ‘Win the Future’ here, folks) happened? Keep her--and Jimi, Jim, Janis, Elvis and Kurt--in mind next time someone tells you drugs are cool and it’s just “the man” that keeps them from the people and that they should be legalized as a libertarian principle. Keep them in mind when you hear pundits and politicians talk about the “failure of the War on Drugs” and how we should just give up and legalize them. Keep them in mind when you hear that, ask yourself, “Should we just give up fighting something thats bad just because we’ve not done a perfect job of defeating it already? Or should we realize the reality that drugs aren’t bad because they are illegal but that they were made illegal because they were bad?”
That’s just my rant for the day as I hate to see young people die needlessly whether they are talented as Amy was, or just some kid who never had a chance because he was poor, from a broken family and lived in a city suffering from decades of liberal political policies.
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8 comments:
I don't give a rat's rear about Winehouse - she was a trainwreck, by choice. I do care about someone using her death as an argument against drugs legalization. Papa Bill asks should we give up a good fight against something bad because the results haven't been perfect. That's standing it on its head - what we should be asking is should we continue a bad fight because the resulting peace won't be perfect. Legalizing drugs - all drugs - solves more problems than it creates. The two biggest problems - lethal violence by competing distributors, and the horrific waste of resources squandered in an obviously futile effort at prohibition - both disappear overnight if drugs are legalized. Those are two huge wins for civil society. The downside of legalization - the possible increase in use and abuse - is small potatoes by comparison. People are allowed to wreck their lives in all sorts of ways; no valid rationale exists for saving people from themselves where drugs are concerned.
Lot of aggression there, Lou. Aren't druggies supposed to be all laid back and stuff? Better have a couple of more hits and then go refill your prescription for medical marijuana so you can think of more sterling reasons why society should allow people to destroy themselves, and others, in an era when the government is trying to make the people who pay the taxes pay for the medical care of those who don't.
Nice little ad hominem you got going there; too bad it falls flat. I don't do drugs, and my position isn't based on trying to make it easier for me. I smoked a little weed 30 years ago, but gave it up in the same way most people give it up.
You ought to look in the mirror re "aggression" - I made a calm and coherent case for the legalization of drugs, and you went berserk. The two main benefits I stated from legalization - the disappearance of distribution-related violence, and the tremendous saving from stopping the futile war on drugs - are both undeniable and immediate. Your concern about an increased social cost from greater drug abuse is entirely aleatory, and even if it occurs, the cost of addressing it is less than what we're spending now in the failed war on drugs.
Society permits people to wreck their lives in plenty of other ways besides drugs. Permission is not encouragement. It is not the job of society to prevent people from wrecking their lives.
There is a reasonable estimate by economists that full legalization with taxation would put $80 billion per year into the economy: $44 billion in the form of law enforcement saving, and the rest from tax revenue. You can buy one heck of a lot of drug abuse rehab for $80 billion.
The prohibition should end. It isn't the state's business what people consume; prohibition doesn't work; it wastes billions; the policy creates massive corruption and violence; it has given us an unstable narco-state on our border.
Go ahead and call me some more names - it proves you don't have a defensible position. You might want to reconsider this blogger career choice - I don't think you have a thick enough skin for it.
Talk about thin skins! Go look in the mirror, Lou or unknown or whatever your name is. My problem with your post starts out with your first sentence, "I don't give a rat's rear about Winehouse...". In that you amply demonstrate a total disregard for the lives of other human beings who don't fit your personal vision of what a human being should be. Amy Winehouse was not a favorite singer of mine but was a human being and she did have a lot of fans who will miss her as well as a family that grieves regardless of the path she took. My point is that drugs are basically bad right along with other bad decisions that humans can make that are not only bad for them but for society as a whole. Sorry, Charlie, your attempt to come back as all seriously contemplative over the drug situation quoting some statistics you pulled out of NORML or High Times is what falls flat. But have a nice day anyway!
Wow, Lou, your ability to put many words together and think you have made a point, is well, pointless. Amy Winehouse died. Why? Drugs. Look into her eyes, can't you see the despair. I'm in the so called liberal media in case you wondered.
No need to wonder - people who wring their hands in anguish over the passing of an inconsequential flash-in-the-pan showbiz druggie invariably are some kind of dreamy, dopey leftists.
>About Me
>PAPA BILL
>After 31 years of government >service, most of that in Law >Enforcement and the rest in the >military, it goes without saying >that I'm a bit conservative.
How does working for gov't, especially in occupations where you are taught that you are only as strong as your weakest link make one a self centered conservative?
>I believe that the Constitution >needs no improvement
And yet nowhere in the Constitution does it give gov't the power to determine the types of plants I grow, possess, or ingest.
I don't think you've thought your positions out too well Papa...
Dear Anonymous,
I'm sorry your education was so limited that you have rely on such trite generalities. Had you done your homework you would know that you've managed tried to compare not just apples and oranges, but apples and vegetables.
First, the basics of teamwork have nothing to do with political philosophy. That is such a non-sequitur that I suspect that you wrote after you ingested or inhaled. Next time be sober or straight.
As for being "self-centered" that is also a false assumption. Self-centered easily describes those who absolutely demand to be able to grow, posses or ingest certain types of vegetable matter regardless of the problems it can cause in society or the laws that society has passed. It--"self-centered"--is less a trait of a conservative than it is of a liberal and as you attempt to put forth an argument from Liberalism 101, I must assume that you are a liberal and probably and most stupidly support any and all liberal causes without thinking.
As for the Constitution protecting your right to possess, grow and/or ingest plants of your choice, you'd best go back and read the document. It is a framework of governance that provides society a way to enact laws and to enforce those laws once they are enacted. The Constitution doesn't provide for speed limits, safety standards on cars, protection against fraud or even a prohibition against bank robbery but it does provide a framework for all those laws to be passed with the consent of the governed, i.e., society. Unfortunately Liberals and Libertarians alike tend to think that society has to bow to their individual wishes (THAT'S being self-centered, "Anonymous) just because the document doesn't state that marijuana is prohibited. That being said, here's what I recommend you do:
Go study some history--I have the feeling that you were stoned in history class or that the teacher was an inept, tenured, union-supported hack--and actually read about what really happened in the world and particularly here in the U.S. over the last 4 or 5 centuries, rather than what your liberal leaders would like you to believe. Then maybe, with knowledge and a decade or two of solid world experience, you won't be so totally unarmed when you try to enter into a battle of wits.
God Bless,
Papa Bill
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