Against all odds: How marijuana was legalized in Denver

If your quest were to convince the people of your city to legalize a highly demonized drug which was entirely safe, how would you run your campaign? At the recently concluded True Spin Conference in Denver, I had the opportunity to listen to an animated yet highly focused Mason Tvert describing for the audience how he and his small and not-well-funded organization (“SAFER”) convinced the people of Denver to legalize marijuana in 2005, with 51% of the people voting in favor. He also spearheaded a 2006 campaign to legalize marijuana throughout Colorado. Although that latter measure failed, an astounding 41% of the people of Colorado voted in favor. In case you’re thinking that I’m promoting the use of marijuana, I am not, but neither would I attempt to prohibit any other adult from using it. I’ve never used marijuana (even though I once worked as a musician and the opportunities were ubiquitous. Millions of gainfully employed and otherwise law abiding people do like to use marijuana, but they are paying dearly for their attempts to feel good and seek stress relief. I am for the legalization of marijuana because that our country arrests more than 750,000 people each year for possessing or using an extremely safe drug that successfully makes people feel good. This destructive and expensive waste of government law enforcement is absolutely shameful. The number of people arrested each year is more than the entire population of South Dakota. and these users include many people you know and respect. There is rank hypocrisy in the air, given that marijuana inexpensively offers the harmless escape that most of us seek much of the time (in one way or another), without any serious side effects and without the expense of many other methods of escape. If there were no such thing as marijuana, when it was finally invented by a pharmaceutical company, we would hail it as a miracle drug (Big Pharma wouldn’t need to lie about its efficacy or safety, as it does for many other drugs). Governments would allow it to be sold at drugs stores and they would happily tax it.

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Corporations as persons? Pigs get fat; hogs get slaughtered. Or do they?

Today, five members of the United States Supreme Court had their fun pretending that their hands were tied and that they were forced by objective reasoning to rule that corporations have the same right to participate in the political process as natural persons. I strenuously disagree. Today's ruling of Citizen's United v. Federal Election Commission is extremely dangerous to our democracy. Many commentators are burning up the Internet with their written thoughts. I had previously posted on this case, citing to comments by the lawyers representing the two sides. I'll make some more comments today, based upon the written opinion. I have not read the entire opinion, but I have read enough to understand the basic contours of the ruling. What is the basis for today's ruling in Citizen's United? The majority argues that media corporations already had the practical power to say whatever they wanted, so it wouldn't be fair to deny this same power to other types of corporations. Time to throw upon the doors! The majority argues that corporations would get around campaign laws anyway, so why keep trying? The majority naively argues that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.

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More Lessons from National Geographic

I do love National Geographic. If you don't read it each month, you should! The January 2010 edition of National Geographic is loaded with articles that will transport you all over the world. You can learn about a sublime Scottish island, you can learn of the bionic limbs in cochlear implants, and you can learn how the clown fish is imperiled in the wake of the movie "Nemo." I'd like to report on two other articles today. The first one is about the island nation of Singapore, which achieved independence from the British in 1963. How did Singapore become modern-day Singapore, where the per capita income for its 3.7 million citizens is better than that of many Western countries? it's an exceedingly clean city where 90% of households own their own home. Its unemployment rate is only 3%. All of this was the plan long ago. Lee Kuan Yew, who has been officially or unofficially in charge of the country for more than 40 years. He was educated in London, and then came back home to make English the official language of Singapore--he also had a business plan and it paid off well. He is a hardliner in many ways, including cracking down on governmental corruption "until it disappeared." Now that sounds like a good idea. Consider, also, that anyone dropping even a cigarette butt or a candy wrapper in Singapore can be fined $200. If you are caught a second time, you will be sentenced to walk around picking up other people's trash. Now there's another good idea. Why do we tolerate people who dump their trash in public areas in America? Tthe Government of Singapore works very hard to make sure that its own citizens live outstanding moral lives. There is a new casino going up in Singapore, and the casino will roll out the red rug for foreign visitors (so that Singapore will make money off of them), but the casino charges a $70 fee to people from Singapore to discourage them from gambling. The National Geographic indicates that Singapore's population control program is "overly successful." Despite bonuses being offered by the government for having babies, the Singapore birth rate is at less than replacement value. It seems that they are too busy working. "Singapore's have less intercourse than almost any other country on earth" An influx of immigrants keep the population from shrinking, allowing the plant to continue: "giddy financial growth fueling never ending construction and consumerism." -- A separate article called "restless spirits" explores the beliefs many Chinese people have with regard to an afterlife. There is a lot of good information here. I found it interesting that among the valuables (such as a bottle of alcohol or a pack of cigarettes) some Chinese people have included "paper grave money for use in the afterlife, the bills bearing a watermark that said,'The Bank of Heaven Co., Ltd..'" I also learned that many Chinese believe that their their ancestors took on bureaucratic duties. They keep the dead busy in Chinese heaven! Back in the Shang dynasty (more than 1000 years ago), the Chinese sacrificed human victims to placate the ancestors. More than 1,200 sacrificial pits have been found, most of these containing human remains. Some of the inscriptions found in the graves indicate that the Chinese were asking their dead ancestors to make offerings of their own to even higher order powers. This article is full of interesting insights about Chinese police regarding the afterlife. I placed the NG links for the above articles. Beware, though, that the online versions of the articles are abridged versions of the print versions.

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Judicial Temperment

Judges are supposed to stay above the emotional fray. They are supposed to apply the law even-handedly. The attached court Order (which I recently found in some of my old paperwork) is a strikingly honest admission by one judge that he would have been unable to maintain judicial composure in a particular case.  It's an Order recusing himself from the case of a man that had been accused and convicted of murdering a police officer as that officer slept. This is not a case I handled, but it was a case of which I was aware.  I once met this judge (back in the 1980's), and he was a generally pleasant man. A clerk from the Phelps County, Missouri Court verified for me that this case was actually handled in that Court. I'm posting this Order signed by Judge John Brackman of Franklin County, Missouri, because I find it to be a stark reminder that most judges maintain their composure, despite what they might be feeling inside.  This Order is one of those glimpses inside one judge's psyche, reminding us that judges are capable feeling strong emotions, which reminds me of this earlier post on emotions and decision-making. brackman-order-1

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Hope 2.0

In light of recent political events, including the fact that "we stand on the verge of passing a giant boon to health insurance companies and calling it 'reform,'" Arianna Huffington is advocating for an empathy-driven system shattering Hope 2.0, inspired by the civil rights movement of the 1960's:

One year ago, Hope was about crossing our fingers and electing leaders that we thought would enact real change. Hope 2.0 is about using the lessons of Dr. King to create the conditions that give them no other choice.

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