Drugs are bad....mmmkay

America's failed War on Drugs has been a gateway to a police state resulting in a total loss of privacy, unconstitutional asset forfeiture laws, no knock raids and jails stuffed with poor souls convicted of victimless crimes. Isn't our parasitic and murderous military/industrial complex sufficient cause for national shame? Must we add to it a rapidly metastasizing prison/ industrial complex that is equally parasitic and murderous?

Forget about legalization of marijuana. Let's move on to decriminalization. And while we're at it, let's decriminalize all the other substances that are now banned. Why did the people of a supposedly free country ever allow the State to dictate what they may or may not put in their bodies? Who owns our bodies, we or the State? America's drug laws are only about a century old and of a racist impulse. Their origin is in the early anti-opium laws intended to harass Chinese immigrants. Prior to then, Americans were pretty much free to do with their bodies as they pleased. Drug addiction was no worse than today, and society was free of the violence and corruption caused by hysterical drug prohibition.

Tobacco and alcohol are a far greater health hazard, yet both are tolerated, if not celebrated. We needn't search far to find wildly popular substances that have created a national health calamity. Sugar, Aspartame, high fructose corn syrup, MSG and hydrogenated fats, all found in the most common processed "foods" are a leading cause of disease and death in America. Yet children are willfully exposed to these poisons and no one is serving jail time for doing so. Our meat is pumped full of dangerous hormones and antibiotics and our crops are raised using toxic, nutrient depleting, artificial fertilizers and pesticides. Our drinking water is now laced with prescription drugs peddled to a gullible public desperate for a quick fix to disease caused by their unhealthy eating habits. Yet our "public servants" are annually wasting tens of billions of taxpayers' money jailing people for what they smoke, snort and shoot into their veins. This is institutional hypocrisy and national madness on an epic scale.

Today we are appalled that our ancestors tortured and burned people at the stake for being "witches." Years from now enlightened people will shake their heads in disbelief that Americans gutted their precious Bill of Rights so that busybodies could punish millions of people for what they put in their bodies.

Rancid soup for the soul

Today, at the grocery store, I unloaded my basket at the checkout, and placed it at the foot of the counter, as all shoppers do. The thin, beady-eyed young girl (for reference purposes, henceforth known as troll) behind the register started a conversation with me, and it went like this:

Troll: "Put it back".
Chris: "Excuse me?"
Troll: "Put it back. The basket. Put it back where you found it".
Chris: "Oh, you mean take this basket back to the door with all my groceries? No, it can stay right there".
Troll: "This job is hard enough without having to clean up after the messes people make".
Chris: "Isnt that part of your job? Stacking the baskets at the door when shoppers leave them at the checkout?"
Troll: "Umm, Ive been here since 1 and I'm really tired."
Chris: "I hate my job too, but I've never heard of other grocery stores asking shoppers to bring their baskets back to the door."
Troll: "Well, Im sure that in other grocery stores it pisses the workers off just as much, but they just dont say anything."
Chris: "Awwww, are you having a rough day? Do you hate your job? My day was no picnic either, and thanks to your crappy attitude, you've just made both our days a little bit worse."

*****Awkward silence*******

When I become der Fuhrer, the first load of people stuffed into the gas chambers will be the ones with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement, followed closely by those with chip-laden shoulders.