American Hypocrisy 101: Olympic Gold and Acapulco Gold
Surely, it will be the fodder of talk shows, editorial pages, sports columns, and water cooler and lunch room chit chat at the office all week, but damnit, the Michael Phelps situation IS NO BIG DEAL!!!
I feel sorry for his mom who has the unfortunate job of being a middle school principal in Baltimore County with its insane “zero tolerance” policy which runs kids out of school for a little reefer as if they were carry a loaded gun or selling heroin or crack cocaine. Of course, this zero tolerance extends to aspirin or Tylenol too and will probably extend to Coke and Pepsi once the nutrition Nazis rule that caffeine and sugar is a dangerous drug too.
Mrs. Phelps sure must have a lot of explaining to do when kids being kids will ask the typical "emperor's new clothes" kind of questions on the subject.
That being said, the hypocrisy of America is on display, BIG TIME!
Be honest, how many people younger than sixty five have not at least tried marijuana and probably smoked it at least socially if they went to college in the late 60’s into the 1980’s and probably since then.
How many people have never taken the wheel of an automobile after consuming too much alcohol?
How many people have not driven at least fifteen miles over the speed limit? Yeah, it was a wide open country road and the speed limit was 30 mph. We hear yah.
How many people have purchased something in Delaware or some other state that doesn’t charge sales tax and not declared it when returning to their high tax states like Maryland and Pennsylvania?
How many people have neglected to do something necessary in servicing their cars or tweaked a little something to avoid pollution controls?
How many people have disposed of something that’s not supposed to be put in the garbage? What did you do with that old CRT monitor when you got a flat screen panel for instance?
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. It’s unfortunate we live in a culture that is governed more with the ethos of “Don’t get caught” than “Do the right thing” but let’s face it, laws come from our fellow man. They are not the divine orders of a supreme being. Some laws should never be broken, period. Others, well, it’s a personal decision and weighing the consequences of one’s behavior knowing that one’s reputation will be on the line for any illegal digressions.
Face it, most people have certain laws they chose to ignore and have all kinds of rationalizations for breaking the law.
Be clear on something, breaking the law does not mean someone is doing something wrong, just something illegal. But let’s be real, many laws that folks casually disregard are ones that simply are hard to justify being on the books. From 1974 until common sense set in, the national speed limit was 55 mph. People voted for revocation of that law with their right foot on the accelerator. Yes, we should be law-abiding citizens, but our country was founded on articulating the citizen’s duty to deal with government that becomes too intrusive.
Were marijuana legal, no one would be forced to smoke pot. It would probably be subject to the same smoking bans as cigarette smoking. Likewise, driving under the influence would be essentially the same as consuming alcohol. There would be company policies forbidding pot smoking by employees whose jobs involve public or personal safety likewise drug testing would be in place to ensure compliance.
Parents could probably discuss drug use a lot more intelligently removing the hypocritical barrier imposed by drug laws.
How to handle more dangerous drugs is a much tougher issue because there is no question that drugs like cocaine, LSD, and heroin can be extremely dangerous, but suppose marijuana were legal and enforcement efforts were devoted to the less popular but more dangerous drugs, could those efforts eradicate those scourges to society?
This writer has no idea, but thinks it would help some.
In the meantime, Michael Phelps’ stupid decision to party in the midst of folks he didn’t know and trust is causing a silly debate where the answer is clear.
Finally, recognize that this campaign that we have been supporting since “Right Minded Fellow’s” inception is from a voice that is essentially conservative on most issues. First, for us, conservative is an outlook not a dogma. Ultimately, what policies, values, and procedures are most beneficial to mankind should prevail regardless of whether they are liberal, conservative, Christian, or secular. We’ll be quick to concede, it’s mighty hard to argue with the wisdom of the Bible or the U.S. Constitution.
Our conservatism has a strong libertarian slant to it. While the libertarian philosophy is appealing on the surface, many of its assumptions crumble when realizing we live in a society of millions of individuals and simple pragmatism shows pure libertarianism would result in anarchy. That being said, conservatives need to heed more toward their libertarian impulses than holier-than-thou, flag waving, chest-pounding, lock ‘em up dogma, and realize that the legalization of marijuana is also a sensible belief for conservatives too.
Do conservatives not believe in less government intrusion, individual responsibility and freedom? Do conservatives not hate the concept of a “nanny” state? Do we not criticize the government over reaching its boundaries?
If you are conservative and believe the correct answer to those questions is “yes” then legalizing marijuana is also an issue conservatives can and must embrace.
It’s 2009 folks, not 1966. It might have been shocking when the world found out the Rolling Stones and Beatles smoked pot. By the end of the decade, the spicy aroma of marijuana filled college dorms and rock concert arenas around the world.
Michael Phelps is just who he is, and for this writer, this marijuana episode just makes him a little more human. That’s fine with me.
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